Pyanfar expelled one breath, sucked in a new one and strode out into the accessway in pursuit of the departing kif. “Captain!” Haral called after her; but Pyanfar went only as far as the bend, where she had view of the down-bound knot of kif on the ramp. “Skku-hakkiktu!” she yelled after the collective shadow. “I want the rest of the hani! Hear?”
The kif came to a leisurely halt, and gazed up at her as his band halted around him.
“Tell the hakkikt,” Pyanfar called down the icy chute til the ramp, “I appreciate his gift. Tell the hakkikt I want the rest of the hani. I set importance on that. Tell him so!”
“Kkt. Chanur-hakto. Akktut okkukkun nakth hakti-hak-kikta.”
Something about passing the message on. Modes eluded her, the subtleties of when or how fast, woven into the words kif used with each other like fine-edged knives.
“See to it!” she yelled back.
The kif bowed like a slide of oil, turned and walked on down the ramp with his companions around him. Pyanfar scowled, snicked the safety onto the pistol, then turned and hastened back into the airlock.
“Shut it, Geran!” Pyanfar yelled up at com. “And lock her up good!”
The door hissed behind her, and the electronic seals clashed and thumped.
“Where are your crew?” Pyanfar asked Tahar.
“Station Central. Last I knew.” Tahar staggered as Haral took her by one bound arm and pulled her through into the warm corridor outside. As she passed, Tahar looked from Hilfy at her left to Tirun at her right; and with Hilfy whose mother was Faha-clan there was a feud as grievous as Chanur’s own. But Dur Tahar showed not a spark of defiance, only weary acquiescence as Pyanfar pushed her over to stand against the corridor wall.
“Get them out!” Tahar said hoarsely. “Chanur, anything you want, just get them out. Fast.”
“Tirun, you got a knife?”
“I got it.” Tirun drew her folding-knife from her pocket, turned Tahar’s face to the wall and sawed through the binding cords that held her hands, turned her about again and cut the one that circled her throat-stuffed the cut cord into her pocket, spacer’s neatness, while Dur Tahar leaned against the wall, rubbing the blood back into her hands, her eyes glassy with shock.
“I sure didn’t fancy to meet you under these circumstances,” Pyanfar said.
“We were off our ship when you came in. They held us in the offices-Gods, I don’t care what you do to me, just get them away from the kif.”
“I’m going to try. I sent Sikkukkut a message out there in the accessway. I’m not sure I’ve got enough credit the hakkikt’s going to listen, but I think I’ve got enough it’ll get to him.”
Dur Tahar pushed away from the wall. “You can do better than that, Chanur!”
“Listen, you make me trouble, Tahar, you’ll die earless. Hear me?”
“I hear. Just get on it. Talk to them. You know what they’ll do-”
“I know. But that message has to get there before I can do anything. You should know that well as any. I’m going to call Harukk on com. Suppose you tell me what you’re doing in port; where Akkhtimakt is. Maybe you can give me some coin to bargain with, huh?”
Tahar’s mouth tightened. She gestured vaguely outward, elsewhere, anywhere, with a lifting of her eyes. “There. Out there. Kshshti, likeliest.” It was the ghost of a voice. “You want our word, you have it from me. Anything. Just for the Gods’ sakes don’t let them die like that.”
Pyanfar stood staring at her. Old-fashioned words meant something on Anuurn; like our word, like clan and law and other things alien to the far dark place they had gotten to, in the modern age of Vigilance and stsho connivance. “It’s a long way from home. A long way, Tahar.”
Dur Tahar leaned her head back against the wall and shut her eyes. “They’ll turn on you. Mahendo’sat same as kif. They will. Take my example-get out of here. Shed all of them and run, Chanur.”
“You know a place to run to?”
Dur Tahar opened her eyes and looked at her, such a look as ached with exhaustion and terror and months and years of running. “No. Not ultimately. Not if you’re like me. And you’re getting there real fast, aren’t you, Chanur?”