Tully’s pupils dilated and contracted and dilated again. He tried to speak and his voice failed him. “He say-say he know my friends die, he tell me-tell me # # # they #. Say I talk to him, what be human deal with mahendo’sat. What deal with you. Lot time ask. He want know route. Same you. He know human come. Not know where. # # #.”
“Lost that.”
Tully’s lips trembled. “Lot time. Lot time. Hurt me. # #. You make deal # this kif?”
“I’m not his friend, Tully.” ,
“I know this kif.”
“Know him.” Pyanfar looked from him to a sudden shift of Hilfy’s stance.
“Sikkukkut said-” Hilfy’s voice was quiet, subdued. “Said he knew Tully from before.”
“On Akkukkak’s ship.”
Tully nodded. Emphatic. His eyes focussed elsewhere, on something ugly. Came back to them. “He be Akkukkak # # #. Long time he ask me, my friend question.”
“Gods. Akkukkak’s interrogator. Is that what? Is that where you know him from?”
“He kill my friend,” Tully said. “He kill my friend, Py-anfar. With his hands.”
“O good gods.” She sat down against the counter edge, hands on knees. “Tully-”
“Tully asked me when we got back,” Hilfy said, “just how close you’re friends with Sikkukkut. Now I know why.”
“Gods,” Pyanfar said. “I’m not, Tully. I’m trying to save our lives, you understand me? Did you tell him anything, did you give him anything?”
Tully shook his head. It was not the naive look, not the clear blue stare he generally had. It was a different Tully. Tully-inside, calm and cold and thinking. She knew it when she saw it, long as it had been. “I say nothing, don’t look at him. I go far away. I wait. I not be. You say you come to get me. So I wait for you.”
Pyanfar let go a long, long breath. The silence stayed there a moment. “Politics,” she said. “All politics. You understand politics, Tully? Kif aren’t anyone’s friends. Not mine. Not anyone’s. But there’s kif and there’s worse kif. You know why I’m dealing with him? You understand? Can you understand?”
“Politics,” Tully said. Not naive, no. “I know you come take me from kif. That be your politics.”
“I’m not any friend of Sikkukkut’s. Believe that.”
“Bad thing happen. I don’t understand. You lot scare. Where we go? What we fight? We got enemy be friend, hani and stssts-”
“Stsho.”
“-be enemy. You don’t trust Goldtooth, don’t trust Jik. Don’t trust hani. Don’t trust kif.”
“Goldtooth and Jik are friends. We just can’t trust them much. Not where it crosses mahendo’sat interests.”
“Where be hani?”
Pyanfar glanced Hilfy’s way, felt Tirun’s stare at her side. She slouched against the console. “Good question.”
“What I do?” Tully asked. “What I do, Py-anfar?”
“What did you do? What are you going to do? I wish I had an answer for either one. Friend, Tully. That’s all I can tell you. Same’s Goldtooth’s my friend; and yours. Gods know what it counts for. Wish I had an answer for you. Wish you had one for me.”
“I fight,” he said. “I crewman on The Pride. You want fight #, hani, kif, I don’t # to die with #.”
“Gods rot that translator. Do you understand me at all? Have we got it fouled up again?”
Anything hani-like? Where was family, clan, House? What was he?
He.
Male. Houseless. Sisterless. Wifeless. Renegade. Nau hauruun.
But not hani. There was no analogy in Tully to that kind of destructive orphan, who killed and stalked at random. Nau hauruun.
Not Tully their friend. Tully no-name. Tully from distant Earth, of the ships and the strangers.
“Captain,” Tirun said quietly. “Captain-Ehrran’s on. ‘fraid they’ve been on hold a while. They’re getting pretty hot.”
“Good,” Pyanfar said flatly; and went and flung herself into her well-worn chair and powered it about to the boards.
Mind on business, Pyanfar Chanur; Wake up. Smell the wind and watch the branches overhead. “I’ll take it.-You got any movement out of Harukk on the Tahar business?”
“Not a thing,” Tirun said. “I keep calling; keep getting the same answer. Sikkukkut’s still not available. Business, they say.”