The Kif Strike Back by CJ Cherryh

There was stress in its voice. Maybe it was scared, alone on a hani ship. Maybe it was trying to bargain.

Maybe it would starve, helpless and unattended in that washroom. Or break its bones in maneuver.

It was, gods knew, as trapped in its fortunes as they were-their good luck talisman; or their personal jinx.

“Jump plus ninety,” Haral said. “Fixed on Kefk.”

“Get it in your heads,” Pyanfar said, because the other side of jump, things fuzzed and habits took over. “Jik might not make it. If he doesn’t, we’ve got to move fast: get position first. Locate Harukk next. Remember that, hear? We’re going in with G. We’ll make it that easy on ourselves. If it goes real sour we’ve got a few options. The second we come out, we lock reference on Tt’a’va’o; we run for Meetpoint if we have to. That’s not Jik’s plan; it’s mine. We’ve got those three guardstations to keep track of at Kefk. We’ve got heavy debris in that system, it’s a close binary stirring that stuff up, and kif made our map. Even if Jik gets us one. Remember that. Remember it, all the time.”

“We got those numbers,” Tirun said, “I got ’em up. Gods send Jik’s anywhere along his entry line and we’ll track him.”

“Nasty place,” Chur said. “Real nasty.”

“Set systems,” Haral said in calm, cold tones, and switch-flicking went on apace, systems-check, line-up. Pyanfar coordinated with her, shed the anxieties and called up the computer prompt program, comparing plan against tc’a-problems and Jik’s intentions. Shifted a priority in the prompts. Re-ran it. Fed it in with the press of a key. Other stations were doing similar things. Haral was running master-check, making sure all jobs were sequenced.

There was most need of locating themselves on the passive-scan; getting absolute position to start with.

Then find Jik, find Harukk and Vigilance and ride down their trail to Kefk’s heart.

“Sure one lunatic way to run a starsystem,” Tirun said.

“We can try telling them that.”

The numbers ticked away.

“There goes the tc’a,” Geran said.

“Gods help us,” Haral said.

“Tully?” Pyanfar asked.

“He’s under,” Chur said.

“Minus five,” Haral said.

Gods, a tc’a loose in their pattern.

And Jik had been out of pocket before undock. Talking about methane-breathers and visiting spies-

Could Jik bribe a tc’a? Was that what he had been up to, in his furtive sortie onto Mkks station docks just before they left?

Navigation help? Precision?

Was that what Jik had been after-a way to cut it fine enough to keep Harukk on his tail-using tc’a computers and tc’a charts to get one critical spacetime calculation-

-on a kifish system?-against Harukk’s wishes and beyond what Harukk wanted to provide them? My gods-

“Minus one.”

They were gone.

-there again. -falling-

-material and solid. Lights were blinking, the dopplered instruments gathering input and reading it-

“Kefk,” Haral said. “Spectrum-match.”

“Mark, where’s our mark?”

“Searching,” Geran said. “It’s-gods rot-That’s-in tolerance.”

“Unnnh.” The mind wanted to wander off at tangents and seek its former nowhere. The lights danced, hypnotic, led the eye in patterns: there was the sunlight on the hills-

-home.

“Aunt Pyanfar,” the little girl cried, running breakneck down the hill, ears laid back and small limbs pumping with all their might, “aunt Pyanfar! you’re home!”

Wide eyes and all ears, was Hilfy Chanur, her father’s darling daughter, her aunt’s surrogate for her own faithless Tahy-

-Chanur’s yard at night: “Aunt Pyanfar, name me that star-”

“-That’s Kjohi; it’s a white, much, much too far and too hot anyway. We don’t go there.-See that little one below? That’s a yellow. That’s Tt’a’va’o.”

“Have you been there?”

“No hani has, yet. That’s a tc’a star. Tc’a have a whole hand of brains; they sing when they talk; they have seven voices all at once. I knew one once. Its name was So’o’ai’-na’a’o.”

Hilfy laughed. “Say that again-”

-“Where’s that gods-be tc’a? Geran! Chur! where’s our own schema, we got any position on anybody?”

“Negative, negative, I got the other map integrated almost- got it, got it, got it-It’s coming through. …”

The image turned up on Pyanfar’s board. Kefk-system schematic, adjusted to their entry-point. Sikkukkut’s best current map-at least of things like major rocks that could be long-term mapped and tracked in their chaotic orbits through Kefk system.

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