And if that was the case Chihin wasn't going to come back for another rejection, if she felt rebuffed. He could have hurt her feelings… if he even had a hope of understanding somebody like her. He was lost.
He was just lost.
The sensors read what was going in as untainted and completely proper. And to Hilfy's small surprise, the station paid for the datadump like a civilized port, a relatively fair price, fifty-fifty with Tiraskhti's competing arrival; and deducted it from the fuel bill, which likewise wasn't exorbitant for a place like Kefk, which didn't have overmuch surplus.
No trouble on the bank certificates: the kif sent a representative to the airlock to accept the certificates; and sent again at each major fraction of the load— which was more cooperation than you might get at Urtur. Tarras, delivering the certificates, was armed; the kif was clearly armed: Hilfy watched the entire exchange from the lower deck ops station on vid, with a pistol beside her hand, quite ready to shut the lock from there and trap a kif bent on mischief of any kind.
Not a hint of trouble.
And of Pyanfar's purified mail, here, among kif, the religious cases were completely absent, the entrepreneurs were nonexistent — there were numerous individuals offering the assassination of whatever enemies she might designate, some on speculation. There were numerous individuals listing their credentials, which might read like a police report in another society; but murder was not a prosecutable offense under kifish law. There were no prosecutable offenses between individuals under kifish law, only offenses against necessary collective institutions. It was, for instance, against the law for a kif or a group of kif to attack the bank and rob it; or to take independent action against a foreign government or against the kifish government, or to attack a space station in contravention of the dignity of the mekt-hakkikt.
Pyanfar had probably dictated that one herself — since there was no kifish legislature, as such, merely a general consent to follow a given hakkikt so far as it looked advantageous, and what the hakkikt said was law so far as the hakkikt's influence went. Violate it and find oneself delivered to the offended hakkikt, who might demonstrate his or her sfik above that of the offender by having the offender for dinner. Literally.
And of all the ranks aunt Pyanfar held, that she leaned the most heavily on her authority among the kif — might simply be that she had to exert it, constantly, to stay mekt-hakkikt, without which — all her laws were null and void; and that without her in that post, there would be no peace.
But it occasioned no few shakes of the head among hani on Anuurn, who were only disturbed that kif were constantly about Pyanfar Chanur. Of the realities inside kifish space, no one came here to learn.
Except Pyanfar Chanur.
Did she ever take any of these offers, Hilfy found herself wondering uneasily. If you were offered universal peace, and someone was in the way of that peace, grievously in the way of it, and you had this many offers, from a species that truly, earnestly didn't mind murder, either of its own kind or someone else— would one begin to weigh relative evils?
Oh, gods, aunt, what a daily set of choices, what a difficult No, to say time after time — or is it always No, with the peace at stake… when the potential violator might be kif?
What a narrow ledge to walk, aunt. Why ever did you take it?
Except no one else could have, in that day, at that time…
Pyanfar,one message said, got talk you. Got wife no sense. A.J.
A.J? Who went by A.J? Why no header? No date. She didn't know any—
AJ? Aja Jin?
Jik?
That was a Personage among the mahendo'sat. And Aja Jin was a hunter ship. Wife no sense? Woman no sense? It was ambiguous in mahendi.
Jik wasn't married, last she knew. Jik… with more turns than a tc'a… was still, if he had held loyal, one of aunt Py's number one agents, and Aja Jin was one of those ships that didn't file its course with any trade office, or carry cargo. Aja Jin, like The Pride, just showed up here, and showed up there, and how far it could go at a jump and where it refueled was something aunt Py probably knew, but probably nobody else did.
Not even the bother to code it. And left here, at Kefk, across a border only fools crossed?
What in a mahen hell was this she'd let herself be maneuvered into? Aunt Py's private mailbox? A place… if one thought about it… where a ship like Aja Jin could kite in on the sudden, drop a message in plain mahen Trade, not even troubling to code it, beyond the necessity to know who A.J. was… because kif had no motive to go to anybody but another kif with the news: kif high up enough to use it were either loyal to aunt Py or outright plotting against her, but in no case would they deliver what they knew to empower any random outsider. It was just not in their interest to do so.
And make a move against the mekt-hakkikt, where she picked up her mail? Consider all those messages of hopeful underlings, desperate for some credit with the highest authority in kifish space.
But Vikktakkht wanted Hilfy Chanur here?
Necessary to tread very, very carefully. You flatter me, Vikktakkht had said when she addressed him as hakkikt at Kshshti — but here his message before docking had used the title: The hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, no quibble about it.
The hakkikt said here they would find Atli-lyen-tlas, and here he would assist them, and here was where everything had to be, in what if an absolutely wild guess was right, was a place Pyanfar came, and a place presently/w// of hunter ships, and nothing else; and a place it was going to be very difficult for the Legacy to leave against this hakkikt's will.
On the one hand, it was possible a mahen lunatic with domestic problems had left Pyanfar an inane appeal for assistance.
But there were 248 messages already in Pyanfar's message stack, and more were backed up waiting for the computer's version of bomb detection. This was not a place that had low expectations of seeing Pyanfar Chanur. No few of said messages had points of origin like Mkks, and Akkti, and distant Mimakkt, all in kifish space — messages sent to Kefk.
On the one hand this could be Pyanfar's kifish base of operations.
On the other hand — it might not be. And that 'might not be' held the most dire possibilities.
The screen flashed blue: the computer spat up a message with a keyword.
Thehakkikt Vikktakkht to captain Hilfy Chanur, at dock at Kefk: Contact me.
The message before dock was halfway cordial. This, after dock, was terse, guarded against insult, a simple and moderate demand which a mere captain would be extremely ambitious to refuse.