“More than your own? Don’t tell me that!” Her knees felt weak. The face looming over her was alien, the eyes as unreadable as Tully at his most obscure.
“We be neighbor to hani more than kif, a? That be backside whole mahen space, I don’t doublecross you.”
“Gods be, we’re reasoning like the kif. Self-interest!”
“Politic all time reason like kif. Damn mess. I best pilot you got, hani. You want lock me up? Or you want trust?”
“When did it ever work?” Panic rushed over her. “No, gods rot it, I don’t want to trust you.”
“Work in there number one good. You get me out, got me smokes, a?”
“Same time we got Sikkukkut going to come in behind us! You know he is! He’s appointed me to do his work for him, you think he’s not going to follow up on it?”
“Damn sure. You be no fool, Pyanfar.” He waved a hand toward Aja Jin’s berth. “Number one fine ship in whole Compact, you got. Got number one fine pilot. Me. We go keep promise, a?”
“Get! Go! Give your orders! And get your rotted carcass back aboard my ship and give me that data before we undock. I want it, Jik, I want it in plain language and plain charts!”
“You beautiful.” A touch at her face. She flinched and spat; and he gave one of his maddening humor-grins, then turned and sprinted for his own access-ramp, Kesurinan running with him stride for stride.
For their own ship. Their own choice. Gods knew if he would come back. The docks were dangerous. Kif might intercept him even on that short a crossing between ships. Sikkukkut might discover something in his questioning of stsho to change his mind. Stle stles stlen might have secreted damning records, being a trader through and through.
She looked at Dur Tahar. And had no doubt at all of the pirate, of her enemy, of a hani she had been willing to kill.
“That may have been a mistake,” Pyanfar said.
“Could be.”
“Tahar, if we get through this, anything between us. . . .”
Tahar’s face went hard, her ears flat. “Yeah. I know.”
“You don’t know, gods rot it! There is no bloodfeud, between you and Chanur. You’ve paid it.”
The ears came up. “Paid it on your side too,” Tahar said with Tahar’s own surly arrogance. And stood there a breath longer before she turned abruptly and headed for Moon Rising’s ramp.
It left her Tully and Skkukuk. A bewildered and nonplussed Skkukuk, Tully close at her side and the kif standing there as if his orderly world were all disarranged.
The great captain let his enemy lay hands on her. The great captain believes she has these for subordinate. The captain is wrong. Can the great captain be such a fool? Beware these hani. They are not subordinate either.
She lifted her chin. Come-hither. And Skkukuk came, all anxious, not without a suspicious glance toward the vanishing mahendo’sat. “Hakt’, that is dangerous.”
“Friend,” she said. And in perversity reached out and laid a hand on Skkukuk’s hard arm, from which touch he flinched out of reach.
“Kkkt!” As if she had attacked him. Very like her own gut reaction with Jik. And she had not perceived Jik’s touch as lifethreatening.
“I teach you a thing, Skkukuk. You’re traveling with hani. You’ll hear things that may disturb you.” A second time she reached, and this time caught him. The arm was thin, hard as metal. She felt a tremor there. “Scare you, skku of mine? Power among hani is a different matter. Power among hani is a handful of clans that just decided to go along with me because I handed them the only way out of here they’re ever going to get. And because as long as there’ve been clans on Anuurn, there’s been Chanur, and our roots go deep and our connections are complicated, and we’re calling in debts they have to pay for sfik reasons and self-protection. We’re connected to Faha; Faha’s got ties of its own. Gods know I’d have to look up library to see where the others run. That’s the way we are. Clan is one entity. You’re skku to Chanur. Do you see? You behave yourself with these strangers aboard. And they won’t gain a bit on you. Their relation is all with Chanur as a clan, do you follow that?”