There were kif about the door — not unnaturally. And it said something strange, that these kif showed less surprise at them than the mahendo'sat had done… these kif simply made soft clicking sounds of attention and backed away to allow them the door. There had been a time when kif didn't share information, when one kif knowing a fact didn't guarantee that other kif did.
Was that a change Pyanfar had wrought, the mekt-hakkikt, the leader of leaders, the power over powers, that had unified the kif for the first time in their existence?
Maybe they were all Vikktakkht's. Those were the kind of kif to watch out for, the ones that came in large, strongly-led groups.
The doors opened. They walked into dim sodium light, into ammonia stink that stung the nose, and Hallan did sneeze, loudly in the silence. Black-robed kif kept nothing like a mahen office. It might have been a bar, a restaurant. There were tables, and one was in among them, and at the end of the room a kif with a silver-bordered robe beckoned to them.
That was Vikktakkht. She would lay money on it. As she would lay money there were guns beneath no few of these black robes.
They walked that far. "Good day," the kif prince said. "So pleased you could come."
"Admirable fluency on your side too."
"I even have a little hani. Not much. But enough to resolve differences."
It was disturbing to hear her own native tongue slurred over with kifish clicks and hisses. And one who learned your language might not be doing so for peaceful reasons.
"This is—" she said, "Chihin Anify. And HaIIan Meras you know.''
"Delighted. Kkkkt. Na Hallan."
"Sir."
"You've done as I hoped — served as my introduction. My character witness, I believe your term is. I behaved well toward you, did I not? You've no cause to complain of me?"
"Not of any kif, sir."
"Not of any kif." A soft snuffling that set Hilfy's nape-hairs up. Kifish laughter. Kifish mockery. They knew no other humor, that she had found. "You're such a soft-spoken hani. Yet they do insist you're quite aggressive."
"No, sir, not by choice."
"Don't try him," Hilfy said sharply. "You don't understand us that well. Between species, one can make fatal assumptions. What do you want?"
There was a soft clicking, a stir of cloth, all about them. The orange light glistened wetly on an analytical kifish eye, black as space and as deep in secrets.
"I said that you would want to ask me a question," Vikktakkht said quietly. "Kkkt. Do you have one, na Hallan?"
"Yes, sir," Hallan said. "What are kif doing, transporting the stsho ambassador?"
Hallan's question. Her wording. Don't give the bastard a question he could answer with yes or no.
And Vikktakkht made a soft hiss and wrinkles chained up the leathery snout.
"Following gtst request," the kif said. "And I will be more informative. I will answer a second question.
— From na Hallan."
Gods rot the creature. It was his territory, his terms. And if he spoke hani he likely knew what he was doing, insulting Meras, insulting Chanur.
Hallan stayed silent two, maybe three breaths, and she opened her mouth to say they were leaving; but Hallan said,
"What do you gain by doing that?"
Gods, good question, Meras.
"The good will of the stsho ambassador. Next question?"
Another small pause on Hallan's part. Hallan might have exhausted the permutations of the question she had suggested. And she was curious what he would ask.
"Is that — all you want?"
"Kkkt. It would be very valuable."
"But," Hallan repeated quietly, respectfully, "is
"No," the kif said. What else could a kif say?
But then Vikktakkht added: "The ambassador is at Kefk. Next question."
It was beyond bizarre. In honor, she ought to object and pull na Hallan out of this game. But Hallan did not seem to need rescue.
"Are you a friend of the mekt-hakkikt?"
Gods, that was a mistake. Kif had no word for friend.
"My alignment, you mean? With the mekt-hakkikt. Next question."
"What are you asking my captain to do?"
"To go to Kefk, where / have allies. There, I will have custody of the ambassador. There, you may ask me one more question."
Hallan flicked an ear in her direction. It was not a time to dispute the matter. There was silence all around them. This is a dangerous kif, she thought.
"Yes, sir," Hallan said.
"Chanur."
"Hakkikt?" Hilfy asked, sure that was what she was dealing with.
"You flatter me."
"I doubt it."
"Kkkt. You're free to go. At Kefk, Chanur."
There were arguments possible with mahendo'sat. None with this. A quality called sfik was life and death. And sfik in this case meant swaggering out of here on equal terms.
"At Kefk," she said, that being the only choice. She turned abruptly and walked out, praying to the gods her crew did the same, and that na Hallan, good heart that he was, didn't linger to push a point.
All the way the kif were estimating them, testing them with soft clicking sounds, the threat of their presence, and cleared their path only at the last moment. They lived as far as the door, and as far as outside, and no one had said anything and no weapons were out. They crossed the traffic pattern of the docks quickly now, toward the cover of the gantries and the shadows beneath the structural shapes.
"Was it all right?" Hallan asked. Now she could hear the nervousness in his voice.
"Good job," she said. "Good job, Meras." Because it had been. It still was. They were out of there.
But in the shadows, in those places where the girders and the double lights overhead made eye-tricking shadows, it was too easy to imagine black, robed figures.
"Kefk," Tiar panted distressedly.
Kefk was across the border, kifish territory. If they were anxious here, doubly so there. Hani were theoretically free to use that port, theoretically safe there, the way kif were theoretically safe at Anuurn, but neither hani nor kif had tested the treaty in regular trade.
Ally of Pyanfar's, was he? Kif could lie. Kif were quite good at it.
"I tell you what," Chihin said. "We sell our stsho to the kif."
"I could be tempted," Hilfy muttered. Chihin didn't say the contract had been the stupidest deal they had ever gotten into. Chihin was being polite.
But it was true. And there was no way out of it, at this point. To cut and run wasn't even a remote option, that she could see, not if they hoped to have a reputation left, not if they hoped to have their trading license, not if they hoped the whole gods-be Compact would hang together. Threads were unraveling. Two, now three, mahen stations had lost their whole stsho population to violence.
And they were in it up to their—
Something popped, with that nasty sound of exploding tissue. Chihin stumbled against her, and she yelled, "Cover!" on a half a breath, trying to hold on to Chihin and drag her out of fire if she could figure where it had come from. She saw the red dot on a girder, knew it was from across the dockside, and flung herself behind a pump housing, Chihin actively trying to tuck her legs into shadow and to get up on an elbow.
"How bad?" Hilfy panted.
"Don't know," Chihin said. "Arm. Feels like I was punched; but it works. Sort of." The shock was setting in, and Chihin's supporting arm began shaking, her breathing to shorten. Hilfy had her pocket com out, made a breathless call to the Legacy:
"Tarras! Sniper fire! Get to cover."