The Kif Strike Back by CJ Cherryh

And: “Aye,” Tully said with never a flinching on his part and only an unreadable look from Khym as he got out of his chair and headed galley ward.

Pyanfar came pattering out of her quarters still damp, still putting on her bracelets as she headed down the main corridor bridgeward. Tully was coming out of Chur’s cabin, having brought food in, she supposed. “She all right?” Pyanfar asked.

Tully laid a hand on his side. “Hurt,” he said in hani, and by his look had more to say he did not trust the translator for. He blocked her path. Gestured at the door. “See. Go see, captain.”

“Huh.” She lowered her ears. Tully tended to anxieties deaf to most that went on, he got the wrong of most crises. There was no time at present for them or him. But the worry was quiet this time, anguished; and Chur-“Get,” she said. “Go bathe.” He was the worst of them save the kif. “I’ll see about Chur. Go.”

“Chur-” He refused to be moved. “Bad hurt.”

“Get!” She waved a half-hearted blow to be rid of him, turned and punched the door control.

Geran turned from Chur’s bedside as the door hissed back, quick and quick about getting her ears up and her face composed. Chur lay there with one arm on the covers. Indeed things were not right-not right, Chur’s listlessness. Not right, the tray sitting on the table, untouched by a spacer just out of jump.

“How’s she doing?” Pyanfar asked and let the door shut.

“She’s pretty tired,” Geran said.

“Fine,” Chur said,

“Sure. Sure, you are. You’re not working next jump.” Pyanfar caught Geran’s eyes with a glance. I’ll talk to you later. And to herself: Gods, gods, gods. “You get food down her. Huh? I don’t care if she doesn’t want it.”

“Right,” Chur said, and stirred in bed. She propped herself up on her arms. “My side’s doing a lot better. I’m a lot better, swear I am.”

Pyanfar walked up to her bedside and swiped a hand across Chur’s shoulder. Dead fur came away. Too much of it.

“I’ll see to her,” Geran said. “Captain, she’s all right. She’s doing all right. Just a little drained.”

Pyanfar laid her ears back and wiped the hand on her trousers. “Take care of her,” she said. “Chur, you stay put, hear me?”

“I’ll be fine, captain.”

Pyanfar stood there a moment. It was a conspiracy of silence. Chur and Geran-Chur always the busier one of the sisters, the cheerfullest, quickest wit.

-the ancient hall in the house of Chanur, in the days of na Dothon Chanur. The day the cousins had come down from their mountain home to apply to Chanur for domicile-

-Chur answering always, laughing, dissembling a rage at fate and the fall of Anify to its new lord. Geran dour and grim; and letting Chur do the talking, letting Chur make light of the awful decision to desert their own new lord to his folly. “Lord Chanur, that man’s a fool,” Chur had said. “And worse, he’s boring.” While Geran sat silent as a grave-wraith and tongue-tied in her wrath.

-Geran looking to Chur when Pyanfar spoke to her now; brief answer and a reflexive glance Chur’s way-Cover for me, sister, talk for me, deal with them-

Geran had come out of her reticence once she took to space and freedom: she had found her own competence, learned to laugh, learned to deal with strangers, swaggered with rings in her ear and a spacer’s easy grace.

But suddenly it was Chanur’s hall again. Two sisters arrived homeless and self-exiled from the far hills; Chur doing the thinking and Geran with the knife. Conspiracy. And it was clear again who in that pair ran it all.

“Huh,” Pyanfar said. “Huh.” Chur beckoned for the tray on the table. Her ears were up. Geran moved the tray to Chur’s lap.

“She’s all right,” Geran said.

Pyanfar walked out and closed the door. She punched the pocket com. “Hilfy-are we still all right up there?”

“We’re all right,” Hilfy’s voice came back from the bridge, even while Pyanfar walked. “We got a call from Jik, just told us take it easy, he’s handling what needs be; Goldtooth’s on a leisurely approach and he’s in no great hurry to make dock as long as things are the least bit unsettled. No one’s doing much right now, they’ve got a little set-to in the methane side-got a couple of tc’aIchi locals in some kind of upset and the chi are running wild over there. The kif aren’t talking about it. At least there aren’t any more knnn in port, and things are getting calmed down over there on methane-side, it sounds as if. Gods hope.”

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