But not on a kifish ship.
And: “Tully,” she said. “Be careful of that. Hakkikt, I don’t know if he can drink.”
“Kkkt. Indeed. Can you, na Tully?”
“Yes,” Tully said in perfect hani. And answered the hakkikt face to face, after all his evasions and his stratagems. He sipped a bit from his cup, and what went on behind those strange, shyly down-glancing eyes was anyone’s guess.
So with Jik, who drank his own cup, carefully. And if there was raw hate inside him, if there was shock and a still-raw wound, it did not surface. Kesurinan sat beside him, at this different, jointed table with the hollow center, in which a kifish servant squatted ungainly with a serving-flask and waited for someone’s cup to empty. Harun and Tauran, Vrossaru and Pauran and Shaurnurn, Faha and Kesurinan and Jik and scar-faced Dur Tahar; Tully and Skkukuk side by side; and the captain of Ikkhoitr, if she had not lost track of the kif in the shuffle, sitting by his (her?) prince’s elbow.
Gods save them all from the Ikkhoitr captain’s talebearing. The long-snouted bastard had indeed been whispering and clicking away, nose to Sikkukkut’s hooded ear.
“Kkkkt,” Sikkukkut said then, and looked at his senior captain with-it might be-curiosity. “Indeed.” He turned then and extended a thin tongue briefly into the metal-studded cup which rested like a silver ball in his black hand. “Is there unanimity among you?”
“Enough,” Pyanfar said; and in coldest blood: “Hani methods, hakkikt. Hani will always dispute. Even when they agree. A sfik-thing. Mine and theirs. It’s satisfied and they’re here. In fact they’re glad to see you.”
“Kkkkt. Are they?”
“We weren’t fond of Akkhtimakt,” Harun said in a low voice, before Pyanfar could mull it over.
Gods, be careful. Speak for yourself and you become a Power, Harun. He may ask what you don’t know how to answer. Watch it, for godssakes watch it, you don’t know what that sounds like in kifish.
“Hani understatement,” Pyanfar said. “Akkhtimakt, a curse on his name, moved in here and dealt with the stsho. That was one thing. He disturbed hani interests. That was another.”
“There were, of course, the mahendo’sat. And this other group of ships. Humans? Were those humans?”
“Yes,” Harun said.
“Interesting.” Another sip at the cup, a glance Tully’s way and back again. “Close but not close enough. The mahendo’sat have pulled off, doubtless to try again. Hence my watchers about the system. A fool would linger on these docks. We might have another Kefk here. In an emergency. There might even be sabotage, kkkt? Did the mahendo’sat touch here?”
“No,” Harun said.
“Who is this captain?”
“Harun of Harun’s Industry,” Pyanfar said.
“Ah. Your cousin.”
Cold went through her nerves. “Distant,” Pyanfar said. “Our clans have a distant tie.” O gods, I hope he doesn’t have our kinships in library. “Ceremonial.” The lie wove itself wider and wider. “Hani place sfik on kinships. And blood-debts. Harun has ties to some of these. I have ties to Harun and Faha, there. It’s really quite simple. And blood-debt to Jik and Kesurinan.” Not to forget that business. Add it in. Secure Jik much as I can. “We can have that even to non-hani.” Change the subject. Hold out possibilities to the bastard. “There’s sfik-value on that too.”
And if hani around the table did not know now that every other word she said to the kif was a lie, they were deaf and blind.
“Has he talked to you?”
“Somewhat.” She took a chance, reached and took a sip of parini. “I’m going to keep him on my ship as advisor. I’m sure Kesurinan understands, ummn? But he misses the smokes, hakkikt. He truly does.”
“The smokes,” Sikkukkut repeated in a flat tone, as if she had gone quite mad. “Do we still have such a thing?”
The skku in the center of the tables searched anxiously among its robes. Efficient, by the gods. Foresight covering all sorts of hospitality. It brought out the little sack, eyes aglitter with triumph.
“Your skku is amazing,” Pyanfar murmured, making a low-status kif very happy in its neurotic zeal; and took another minuscule sip of parini.