“That’s volatiles down the dock,” Haral yelled back over the sudden thunder of fire, pointing at the cans down the way, cans with the deadly yellow combustibles sticker. “If we run that way we can draw fire on that and get fried real good, captain!”
“We sit here we got our choices too! How long’s that sister of yours going to wait, huh?”
“I’m expecting Jik,” Haral yelled.
“Well, he’s late! And we got a fool lot of crew’s going to be out here on this dock after us if they don’t get assurance out of Sikkukkut, and I don’t think he’s in any position to give them any! We got to move, cousin, cans or no cans.” She turned a look on Gilan Tahar, on a woman undone with blood loss. Gilan had gotten a bandage tied on the wound in her shoulder, but it was soaked. Haury Savuun was still conscious, by what force of will the gods only knew. “Gilan-we got a long sprint ahead. We don’t want to do any shooting- don’t want to attract any attention near those cans.” She fished in her pocket and drew out the light pistol, handed it to Gilan. “In case. But you by the gods stay with us.”
“We’re with you,” Gilan said, and the overhead erupted and another length of hose and a length of pipe hit the deck and bounced erratically the other way-as easily into the midst of them.
“Come on!” Pyanfar yelled, and headed for the next berth in a roiling of laser-riddled smoke so thick it obscured the next support girders. She sprinted for the cans with the yellow circles, remembering then that kif were at least partially color-blind.
Vermin scampered pell-mell as they charged up to the airlock, as the hatches shot open, inner and outer, as Tirun turned to hit the lock-close in the dim orange passage. Hilfy ran, skipped aside from the collapsed cage and the can-
Explosives-Hilfy surmised in horror, explosives, if the kif were willing to decompress the dock. “Go!” she yelled, bristled all over, and Skkukuk darted past with kifish speed, Khym and Geran gaining. Tirun banged into the collapsed cage and cursed; and Hilfy clutched her gun and pelted after Khym around the bend of the passage with Tully and Dur Tahar hard after her. “Tirun!” she yelled, half-turning there; but: “Go!” Tirun yelled back, running hard enough at the outset of their course-Tirun would do the best she could, lame in any run, and bring up their rear and cover their backs even if she commanded. “Get down there, get clear!”
Hilfy ran, passing Tully and Tahar, coming up behind Khym as they reached the pressure gates at the bottom of the ramp. There was a gentle, distant popping of fire.
A shot went off the inner wall. Skkukuk skipped and dodged, and dived for cover. “You get, get!” a mahe cried, rising from concealment near their ramp, waving a frantic arm. There were mahendo’sat holding positions over near the cargo-console, Jik’s people or Goldtooth’s. Hilfy sought cover immediately behind the gantry control console and the sheltering metalwork of the gantry itself, leaned there with her heart pounding in terror and glanced back to see Tirun and Tahar and Tully pelting off the hazard of that ramp. O gods, gods, get us through this-I can’t, I can’t-She flung a look the other way, thinking Khym had gone to cover in a stack of cargo-cannisters ahead.
He had not. “Na Khym!” she yelled in dismay, huddled in the solidity of her shelter, for Skkukuk dashed on, and Khym followed. “Gods be! Khym! Uncle! Stop! Wait!”
Then it all seemed clear, the direction of the kifish enemy and the direction of the fire where Pyanfar and Haral had gone, and she shook fear away to some far cold place and gave up on either survival or mortality.
Go on, Hilfy Chanur, go on, is a man crazy who knows he’s overdue to die or a kif on his way to switch sides again-Go, fool, Haral’s out there, and Pyanfar-Run till the shots come your way and then you cover and shoot till they stop. It’s all real simple, kid.