Chanur’s Homecoming by CJ Cherryh

“But,” Sikkukkut said, “we have other sources to question. The stsho will not hold back information. They bend to any wind. And I have sufficient of them to gain an excellent picture of what happened here-they will lie to a mahendo’sat, they will lie to a hani, but they will not lie to a kif. And they have very large eyes. Two of my least skkukun are on the station at this moment; and so are three hundred thousand stsho.” Again Sikkukkut lifted the cup and drank, a quick dart of his dark tongue. “They are apprised of the possibility that I will decide to remove this station. And that they will not be allowed to leave-”

My gods.

“I have told my skkukun the same. They will find information. They will cause the stsho to find it. We have already identified responsible individuals. My enemy destroyed the station datafiles. After doubtless sucking them into his own records. So there is nothing to learn there: I expected as much. But we have direct resources. Ksksi kakt.”

A servant moved. Fast. Hani shifted anxiously as an inner door opened, as kif rearranged themselves, a rustle like leaves in a midnight forest.

“Sit still,” Pyanfar said again. In case any of them forgot. Her ears were flat, her muscles had a chill like fever in them that was going to start her shivering. She reached, ears flat and scowling, and picked up her cup and drank.

The parini went down like fire. And held her caught in that minor, eye-watering misery when a gibbering outcry rang out from the opened door.

A gleam of white showed in the doorway, where kif parted, where dark-robed kif shoved stsho forward, through the shadowed rows of their own kind. Stsho white, stained with sodium-light, marked with darker smears, their pitiful, spindly limbs all bruised from kifish handling.

So fragile. A breath could break such limbs.

Jik turned his face in that direction, slowly. The smoke curled up from the stick in his hand. He did not move, himself, beyond that; the other captains turned in their chairs; and Tully-on her other side-she had no way to observe. She guessed.

“Now,” said Sikkukkut, “let us ask some questions.”

“Translator’s not making sense of it,” Hilfy murmured, gnawing her mustaches and monitoring kifish transmissions. Harukk was talking to its minions off-station. Talking a great deal. “I don’t like it, gods, I don’t like this.”

“Takes a decision somewhere,” Geran said, “to get that ship that talkative. You’d think Sikkukkut’d be busy. You’d hope he’d be.”

“Calling more of them in?” Khym said.

“They got a worry about something,” Geran said. “No. They won’t pull ships in while there’s a chance of something coming in and catching them nose to station. That’s some kind of bulletin. Instruction. Gods know what.”

“Still talking,” Hilfy muttered. And remembered Harukk’s dark bowels. The transmission went on at some length.

Likely Haral remembered Harukk, too. She had seen it, when they pulled the Tahar crew out of there.

“Hostages,” Hilfy said. “That’s what he’s got Gods-foe, Haral, I could make a routine query over there, take the temperature.”

“Just sit still,” Haral said. “Captain’s got enough trouble. Let it be.”

They flung the larger of the two stsho at the table, between Pyanfar’s chair and Haroury Pauran’s. Gtst collapsed all in a nodding huddle of white, delicate limbs, of swirling pearlescent draperies at the table edge. Gtst shuddered and shivered and bubbled.

While Pyanfar looked at the designs of pastel paints on gtst brow and her heart thudded in shock.

It was Stle stles stlen. Or it had been. Gods knew what personality the wretch had fragmented to when the second wave of kif invaded gtst station.

“You recognize this creature?” Sikkukkut asked. “Or do they still look alike to you?”

“I know gtst.”

Gtst-or gstisi: it might well be Phasing-wrung gtst hands und wailed something about noble kif and noble hani. Moonstone eyes looked her way, liquid with pleading, and Pyanfar’s stomach turned over. Gtst stank of oil and perfume and

something indefinable, doubled when the kif flung the other stsho down beside it.

“Talk,” Sikkukkut said to the stsho. “Or we begin to hurt something, perhaps one of these others; perhaps your translator. And then if you don’t, we will hurt you. Do you understand, creature?”

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