“Good to see you, kid.”
Hilfy crossed the bridge and bent down to clasp Chur’s arm. “Good to see you,” Hilfy said hoarsely. “I thought they’d got you. Gods, I thought you were dead.”
“Huh. No.” Chur laid her head back as they gathered around her. She shut her eyes and opened them refocused on Pyanfar. “Captain. I sent the confirm-message. Not a rotted
bit of help from the mahendo’sat on-station. ‘Cept traffic control. Central’s staying real quiet. They’ve
been real upset ever since our friends dropped into system. Scared. Not saying a thing but necessities.”
“Huh.” Pyanfar laid her hand on the chairback. “Best you get to bed, right now.”
“Food,” Chur said. “Lousy c-stuff. Want a cup of gfi.”
“I’ll get it,” Khym said, and set the rifle down (gods, on the counter, loose) and headed off.
“Secure that!” Pyanfar snapped. He jerked to a stop and looked about, looking for what he had done. But Tirun took the gun along with Chur’s.
“Got it, captain. He gave it to me.”
Pyanfar nodded and collapsed onto her rump on the console edge as Khym headed off. She gave him no mercy. None. Crew covered for him; and they did it not because he was male, or hers, but because he had just earned it out there if he had the sense to know it. That warmed some of the cold at her gut. Some. That beaten weariness in the slump of Hilfy’s shoulders, that bleak, all-business stare-that was out of reach.
“How close are our friends to final dump?” she asked Chur, and handed her rifle on to Haral. “We got anything trustable out of Central?”
“I marked the first alarm,” Chur said, gestured loosely toward comp, a ticking chronometer on the number two monitor. “Figure-figure our ships’ll be dumping down about now, but Jik may freehand it. Don’t trust the kif to tell us huh?”
Understatement. Complicated comp operations from a crewwoman doing well to be sitting upright. “You’re going off-duty. Shift’s Haral and Tirun. Rest of us clean up, then turn about. Move it. We’ve got company coming.”
There were minute delays, a quick dart of Haral’s eyes.
Questioning. What do we do? Sit here?-because sitting here at dock was not altogether sane. Think there’s a chance of pulling the rest of this off?
“Send,” Pyanfar said. “Us to both those ships. Tell them we’re back aboard. Tell them we’ve talked to the kif and we’ve got half the job done. Kif wants to go on talking.”
“Tully’s left there,” Hilfy said, of a sudden turning about and leaning toward her on the counter edge. Hilfy’s voice cracked and spat. “Four days, aunt-four days they worked on him. …”
“Then we made good time,” Pyanfar said, cold, very cold, because Hilfy wanted heat. “I’d have figured five. We’ll get him out.”
“They’re taking him apart.” Hilfy stood up and back. “That bastard kif has got time to do it in.”
“We got what we could.”
Hilfy drew one long breath. “Yes,” she said, and was ail quiet, all the way through.
“Send that message,” Pyanfar said to Tirun, and unbuckled her AP and passed it to Haral to put in the locker with the rest. She turned back to Hilfy. “Go wash up. We’re not through yet, niece.”
“Aye,” Hilfy said, and turned and walked off.
“You too,” she said to Chur. “Geran, get her out of here.”
“Want the gfi,” Chur protested.
“Fine. It’ll come back there where you are, just fine.” She stood there while Geran helped her sister up from Haral’s chair and supported her toward the door. “Stay to Khym’s cabin, huh? I want to keep you near controls. Might need you to sit watch.”
“Aye,” Geran said on Chur’s behalf, a departing glance.
The situation was not what they had feared, in all: hostages murdered, Mkks with major damage-That was what could have happened even before they made dock. It was little short of a miracle they had worked, getting in and getting Hilfy free.
But it was not good enough.
Haral slid into the chair that Chur had left, powered it about again and got to work in Haral’s own unflappable fashion, mind going instantly from dockside to those boards with no glitch-ups likely. Pyanfar tested the weapons-locker door and heard the electric tick of the resisting latch. “That access camera and the motion-sensor better stay on. We don’t control those gates down there.”