The Kif Strike Back by CJ Cherryh

“You going to quote us another regulation?” Khym asked in his deep rumble. “I’ll quote you laws. Like criminal negligence, malpractice, and kin-right.”

“Get him out of here.”

“Huh,” Pyanfar said, and leaned on the doorframe and turned with it at her back until she was in the hall.

“Captain,” the voice came from com. “Medic down with Skkukuk says he’s fit enough. Says we got a diet problem with him, they want to send some stuff over.”

“Live?”

“They say-well, the things are real dumb and they breed fast.”

Pyanfar grimaced. The skin between her shoulders drew tight. “Vermin, huh? What’s it eat?”

A moment of silence. “I’II ask.”

She rolled back around the corner and looked into the room. Looked askance again when the lift door opened down the corridor and let in another band of mahendo’sat. For one moment the grim look of them sent Pyanfar’s hand instinctively to the gunbutt.

Then recognition took over, and she flung herself from the doorframe and strode down the dead middle of the corridor.

“Goldtooth!” she spat.

“Ha, Pyanfar-” He was a black mahendo’sat, and he came in the somber black of his companions, not a flash of gold except when he smiled wide and glittery. He towered there in that dark company on whom the only metal was the black sheen of AP guns and belts and buckles. And the grin died a fast death. “Say Chur she all right, huh?”

“No thanks to you, you rag-eared bastard!” She jerked the com-plug from her ear and looked up at his black, worried face. “I got my tail wrecked at Urtur, got my crew shot up at Kshshti-”

“Message go.”

“Yes, rot you, your gods-be message went. Banny Ayhar and Prosperity took it on, if she got through alive.” She recalled the open door and the Ehrran medic, snagged Goldtooth by a lanky, powerful arm and dragged .him toward her own cabin. “Stay out!” she snapped at his gun-bearing escort as she opened the door and pulled Goldtooth inside.

She closed it in the faces of his guards and turned and glared at him in the privacy and soundproofing of her own quarters. “So no more merchant. No more play-acting. This is your real face, huh, hunter-captain? Leave us a message at Urtur- head us at Jik and never tell us. You play games, you earless bastard, and we do the bleeding, all over Kshshti docks. You good-humor me right now and I’ll break your gods-be neck. Where have you been?”

Goldtooth’s small ears were back. He had a different look than he was wont, no humor at all. “You want list?” His voice was hoarse and quiet, unlike himself. “Jik number one fool, Pyanfar, he fool listen to this kif.”

A cold feeling settled into her, worse than before. “He’s your friend, gods rot it! You sent him after me at Kshshti. Didn’t you?”

“I send. He friend. He same time number one fool. -Maybe work, this thing. Maybe I fool, same.” Goldtooth sought a place to sit down and sank down on her rumpled bed, leaning back on one arm to look at her. “We got trouble, Pyanfar. Fool Jik talk tc’a. Knnn take tc’a. We got lot human ship, come Tt’a’va’o ’bout now. We got human come in, got knnn disturb, got stsho disturb, got kif make fight-Jik know this Sikkukkut. He say-got beat Akkhtimakt. Sikkukkut do. Jik say this kif he be poor pro-vin-cial, going make big lousy mess deal with homeworld, lot longtime trouble. I think Jik wrong. I think he big wrong. This kif not small problem. Got number one hakkikt want be real friendly with mahendo’sat, with you-You watch, you watch, Pyanfar. Sikkukkut be no dumb kif.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“Fool. Big fool, Jik.”

“So what are you doing here?”

Goldtooth’s ears went up and back again. “Maybe try make kif lot busy. I come, go, hit here, there. I close kif route to Meetpoint. They lot upset.” A flash of gilded teeth. “Keep Akkhtimakt lot busy, a? That kif want my heart number one urgent, three time try.”

“What’s Sikkukkut going to do now you’re here? Answer me that, huh?”

“He got no grudge on me. I bring him lot sfik. Same you, hani. Same Jik. Same Vigilance. We give that kif so damn much sfik he eat whole Compact.”

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