There were arguments possible with mahendo’sat. None with this. A quality called sfik was life and death. And sfik in this case meant swaggering out of here on equal terms.
“At Kefk,” she said, that being the only choice. She turned abruptly and walked out, praying to the gods her crew did the same, and that na Hallan, good heart that he was, didn’t linger to push a point.
All the way the kif were estimating them, testing them with soft clicking sounds, the threat of their presence, and cleared their path only at the last moment. They lived as far as the door, and as far as outside, and no one had said anything and no weapons were out. They crossed the traffic pattern of the docks quickly now, toward the cover of the gantries and the shadows beneath the structural shapes.
“Was it all right?” Hallan asked. Now she could hear the nervousness in his voice.
“Good job,” she said. “Good job, Meras.” Because it had been. It still was. They were out of there.
But in the shadows, in those places where the girders and the double lights overhead made eye-tricking shadows, it was too easy to imagine black, robed figures.
“Kefk,” Tiar panted distressedly.
Kefk was across the border, kifish territory. If they were anxious here, doubly so there. Hani were theoretically free to use that port, theoretically safe there, the way kif were theoretically safe at Anuurn, but neither hani nor kif had tested the treaty in regular trade.
Ally of Pyanfar’s, was he? Kif could lie. Kif were quite good at it.
“I tell you what,” Chihin said. “We sell our stsho to the kif.”
“I could be tempted,” Hilfy muttered. Chihin didn’t say the contract had been the stupidest deal they had ever gotten into. Chihin was being polite.
But it was true. And there was no way out of it, at this point. To cut and run wasn’t even a remote option, that she could see, not if they hoped to have a reputation left, not if they hoped to have their trading license, not if they hoped the whole gods-be Compact would hang together. Threads were unraveling. Two, now three, mahen stations had lost their whole stsho population to violence.
And they were in it up to their—
Something popped, with that nasty sound of exploding tissue. Chihin stumbled against her, and she yelled, “Cover!” on a half a breath, trying to hold on to Chihin and drag her out of fire if she could figure where it had come from. She saw the red dot on a girder, knew it was from across the dockside, and flung herself behind a pump housing, Chihin actively trying to tuck her legs into shadow and to get up on an elbow.
“How bad?” Hilfy panted.
“Don’t know,” Chihin said. “Arm. Feels like I was punched; but it works. Sort of.” The shock was setting in, and Chihin’s supporting arm began shaking, her breathing to shorten. Hilfy had her pocket com out, made a breathless call to the Legacy:
“Tarras! Sniper fire! Get to cover.”
She was shaking now, light tremors, which was no good. She put a hand on Chihin, and risked a look out where they had been, where none of her party still was, which was good news. Everyone had made cover of some kind.
“Tarras!”
“Aye! I hear,”the welcome voice came back. “I’m calling the police.””
Police, for the gods’ sake! “Tiar, Tiar, do you read?”
“I’m here,”a breathless voice said, thin and distorted by interference.
“Don’t give position!” she said, and caught a breath of her own. “How are you doing?” she asked Chihin.
“All right,” Chihin said thinly, “Give me a minute. We can run for it.”
“That’s a sniper. Laser targeted. Light arms, but they can cut us up piecemeal. —Tarras, I think the p.o. is the business frontage. Hang on …”
She leaned to get her gun from her belt, plain projectile weapon, with a vid display, and she drew a bead on the suspicious alley … couldn’t get vid resolution. Couldn’t go firing blindly down there: she could hit some poor mahen shopkeeper. But she sighted the structural supports where the laser spot had showed, and calculated the angle of fire across the dock. It had to be coming from that alley, that narrow nook between two freight company offices.