“. . . . 3, 2-Priority.”
Scan image came up. The knnn was moving into pattern with the tc’a. Was matching V with it-that quickly, that easily. Dead stop to course-reverse: metal could never stand it. Bodies would flatten.
Tully muttered to himself. It sounded like oaths, a steady drone of them. The tc’a and knnn began to accelerate together, the joint blip moving faster and faster away from the station vicinity.
“Gods,” Geran muttered, “they’re going, they’re going. Plus 0, 25-Look at that!”
The other way. The knnn was heading outsystem, nadir with the tc’a either grappled or close in pattern. Colors shifted on the scope, incredible acceleration.
“Ah!” Tully said.
“It’s jumped!”
“Kkkt. Kkkkt.”
“Minds on business!” Pyanfar snapped. Nothing had stopped, least of all The Pride hurtling inbound to station and the chrono flicking numbers down. It was over. The tc’a was gone. Lost. And Nav-comp was flashing red lines on second monitor. “Off the mark, off the mark, gods rot it, Haral-I want that flyby. Get that equipment up, get it, hear?”
“Aye, aye, up and coming.”
“We are observed,” Skkukuk said faintly. “Kkkkt. The methane folk, I warned you. Pull us out of here. Kkkt. Fools.”
“Shut up,” Tirun said.
“There is no profit to this!”
“Skkukuk,” Pyanfar snarled, “shut it up.”
Silence then. The beep and click from instruments went on. Kif ships talked to each other. “-honor to the hakkikt,” the station took up the refrain again, “there is no damage. We are secure. Continue in pattern. Please acknowledge.”
And from Mahijiru, incoming, silence, while the knnn business unfolded on Goldtooth’s timeline.
“Stand by,” Pyanfar said, “Tirun, I want that approach calc. Take stats and set me up again.”
“Got it, got it, I’m working.”
And a little later, when station handed revised schedules down the line: “Bastards! I just had that!”
“They’re not going to bump us down-schedule,” Haral said. “They’re going to revise the whole list of ships behind us. They want us in before the kif just real bad, don’t they?”
No one answered.
“Run that schedule,” Pyanfar said. “Can we do it? Are they going to route us blind to that ship again?”
“We got it, we got it,” Tirun said after a moment, and a course plot came up.
Closer then and closer. Vid clarified. One full revolution of Kefk station. Two.
“Come on, Haral, I want that ship,” Pyanfar muttered. “Digital-record. If we miss it on sight we’ll try that.”
The station revolved slowly past The Pride’s dome cameras. No need of amplification. The serial numbers showed plain on the next station revolution, on a bright vane column.
Hani ship. 656 YAAV.
“Moon Rising,” Haral muttered. “That’s Moon Rising. Tahar!” Oaths went through com all over the bridge.
Pyanfar sat silent. Not surprised, no. It fit. It fit very well. So how large does this party get? How did Goldtooth know to meet us here? Gods, what have I got us into?
It was the red trousers, a dash of perfume enough to mask the sweating she was likely to do in hours ahead-Pyanfar took time for that, with The Pride only tentatively in dock. Shielded com line and personnel accessway connections were still all that any of their ships took from station, and station dockers made weak protest about safety and undue strain on the grapples, but they swallowed it. Sikkukkut’s ships stayed ready to move; and so did they.
It was not vanity, this scrub-down: one of them ought to look and smell presentable to kifish hosts, and she made feverish haste about it. Three of them were off-shift at the moment. She had gotten Chur to rest, over protests she should go on sitting duty while her captain took showers; “Up,” Pyanfar had said, and Chur disengaged herself and headed down the corridor from the bridge to Khym’s cabin, wobbling as she walked. The wrapped bandage about Chur’s side had gone looser, her drawstringed trousers tending perilously low on the hips. “Get her bedded down and fed,”
Pyanfar ordered Geran, laying a hand on Geran’s chair-back. “See she’s all right, huh?-Khym-” She paused for more assignments, reviewing what useable crew she had: the personnel-combination worked out wrong, but she took what there was. “Khym, you get the galley up, Tully, you help him, hear?”