“Look out!” Hilfy cried. The cage went flying up into Khym’s way, clanged and hit the floor in a multiple squealing as Khym smashed it underfoot. Khym swung a fistful of robes and a live kif into the airlock wall as the rest surged forward. “Khym, get out of the way!”
Khym just lifted another kif onehanded and threw him at the corner, and grabbed a third. Hilfy uptilted the pistol and used the butt on a kifish snout. Escaping vermin squealed and screamed underfoot. She trod on something tough that threw her off-balance as the kif grappled for her gun. Suddenly her attacker vanished backward as Khym got it by the scruff and flung it for the hatch-not a true throw. The kif hit the wall and sprawled out, fell on a second cage on the accessway floor and drew squeals and panic from the contents as it collapsed.
A kif down the accessway leveled a gun.
“Khym!” Hilfy howled. “Gun!”
He froze in the lock dead center.
And the hatch shut as fire hit it from both sides.
Hilfy wilted against the inner wall, and Khym still stood there. –
“You all right?” Tirun asked them over com. “Hilfy, Khym, you all right?”
“Good gods,” Hilfy breathed. Tirun had heard-the veteran spacer had hit the hatch control from the main board. Khym still stood there with his ears flat. He turned with an appalled look on his face.
“It’s a trap,” Hilfy said hoarsely to Khym and Tirun both. “They meant to take the ship. The captain and Haral are over there in Harukk and they’re trying to take The Pride.”
The kif glared and moved to the barred door, reaching inside its black robes to find a small key-tab. “You,” it said to the Tahar crew, “file out. You go into this hani’s custody. If there should be difficulty-I will shoot one of you. I’ll choose at random.” It inserted the key. The door went back.
“Chanur’s taking you out,” Pyanfar said.
“Captain’s here,” Gilan said hoarsely, the other side of the open door.
“She’s on my ship. Come on, Tahar.”
Gilan Tahar blinked dully, laid one hand on the doorframe and walked out, the wounded arm dangling, her step unsteady. Her crewmates followed: Naun and Vihan Tahar; Nif Angfylas; Canfy Maurn and Tav and Haury Savuun; Haury looking as if she were doing well to walk at all, holding her ribs and limping on a bloodstained leg. Ears were torn; skin had been gashed. Haury wobbled against the bars and Tav steadied her, keeping her own body between her sister and the kif.
“Come on,” Pyanfar said, low and harsh-Fast, move it- don’t hold us up and don’t try anything fancy, Gilan Tahar. She gestured toward the door that led out; and a sense of overwhelming oppression closed about her. Haral was out of sight, beyond the door. The metal bars, the cruelty of the place afflicted her to the soul, infectious and bewildering. Kill occurred to her and hunt, and her claws flexed out on reflex. It was the fear-smell, everywhere about the ship, endemic among the kif.
The guide-guard turned and walked to the door, silently directing her, out of this place with the prize she had gained. A handful of hani lives,. A promise-a kifish promise.
“The hakkikt will get my report,” she said, not to let the chance pass. “He’ll ask, kif.” She walked out, relieved to find Haral still there, hand on gunbutt, at a standoff with the kifish guards. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
Hilfy came panting onto the bridge and leaned on Tirun’s chair back as Khym arrived, as Geran and Tully turned at their places. “We lose any of that accessway?” she asked Tirun.
“It’s still sound,” Tirun said. “Pressure checks up. We’re in contact with Jik and Goldtooth on open channels-captain’d skin us if we used that code-”
“What do they say?”
“They’re not happy. Jik says he’s getting some people out onto that dock-”
“Gods rot it, Tirun, Pyanfar’s with the kif-we’ve got to get in there-”
“Hilfy-” Tirun turned around, flat-eared and dark-eyed. “For godssake you’re talking about the gods-be hakkikt! What do you want, raid Harukk? They’ve pushed, we got ’em. What more do you want us to do? Go in shooting and get ’em both killed?”