“Kkkt.” This time it was laughter, laughter that shook Vikktakkht’s stillness, and rippled around the room. “Nakkti skskiti. That is Kshshti. A banner for all winds.”
“I’m not. And I’m not such a fool I think kif think like hani. Or that a hakkikt of your stature, who wished to contact us, would make two attempts designed to scare us without killing us.”
“Kkkt.” A motion of Vikktakkht’s hand. “You think we have no subtlety?”
“Blowing out a docking port on Kshshti?”
More laughter, that clicked and hissed all around the room.
“Salutation,” Vikktakkht said, “from the mekt-hakkikt. Who assured me you would not be diverted by her rival.”
By Paehisna-ma-to, he meant; and meant that Pyanfar leaned to the kif, to kifish support, which would always be loyal, while they feared the subordinates that feared her…
She felt queasy at the stomach, having reasoned her way to that truth, having looked at it from all sides, and having decided that this was a place Pyanfar expected her mail delivered—however dark the paths Pyanfar traveled these days.
Maybe Paehisna-ma-to had reason, the thought came fluttering to the surface.
And drowned. Whoever had shot Chihin was not her friend. Whoever had killed innocent stsho and mahen security personnel was not her friend.
“And No’shto-shti-stlen?” she asked.
“An ally with enemies in Llyene. Hence gtst moved to form an alliance with the ambassador to Urtur, of a nature which you doubtless know and Ana-kehnandian does not.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve not seen the object.”
Caution held her tongue. Even with this so-named ally of Pyanfar’s. “What would that tell me if I could?”
“The nature of the alliance. No’shto-shti-stlen’s position within it, which of three.”
“You mean sex?”
“An emblem of proposed gender.”
She hoped she kept her mouth closed. Kif, fortunately, had no embarrassment in such matters.
“You have come here to present this to Atli-lyen-tlas. Is this not so?”
“Yes, hakkikt,”
“We have provided the ambassador such comforts as we found possible. But I think the ambassador would be far more comfortable on your ship.”
“Possibly so, hakkikt.”
“ Sagikkt aku gtst!”
Bring the stsho! the hakkikt said, and with no delay whatsoever a door opened, admitting the blinding spectrum of a paler sun. There was a moderate commotion in that quarter. Hilfy turned her head cautiously and saw, past Hallan’s shoulder, kif moving within that light. A waft of perfume came out, and kif made soft sounds of disgust.
Then came the spindly outline of a stsho body, gtst gossamer robes backlit against the glare in her watering eyes. She was blind, as the stsho seemed to be, hesitatingly as gtst moved; so likewise the kif. Perhaps, she thought, it was eloquent of the condition within the Compact itself.
But the creature did not seem to get gtst equilibrium in the dark, and had to be guided by gtst kifish attendants. Something’s wrong, Hilfy thought, rising from her chair. Something’s vastly wrong with this stsho.
“Perhaps,” Vikktakkht said, “your care will restore gtst. The practice of medicine is not a priority among our species. One argues for it. But medicine is still a secretive matter, practiced upon oneself. There is not, on this entire station, a medical facility, only a few supplies.”
“I would first suggest,” she said, she thought politely, “that gtst not be required to walk.”
Not in time. Gtst collapsed. Fala made an instinctive move to assist and safeties went off guns all around the room. Fala froze. Hallan lurched for his feet.
“Hakkt!”Vikktakkht said sharply, that untranslatable word that meant something like Off guard, and safeties went back on, a more random clicking.
“And if you would tell your crew to go back on station power,” Vikktakkht said, “station central control would be far more easy in its dealings.”
“They’re coming back,” Tiar breathed, and only then realized the degree to which her nerves were wound, when she heard the advisement from Tiraskhti com, on aural-only.
“/’// trust it when they gel into the airlock, “ Chihin said in her ear, on ops com; and Tarras: “They’re saying they’ve got gtst excellency!”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Tiar said. And made up her mind she would start believing it when she heard from the captain’s own pocket com, and when there didn’t come any of the codewords for coercion that were in the Manual. She sat gnawing her mustaches to ragged ruin, and then got that thin, static-fractured advisement: