"Aye, captain."
"Gods-be right, 'Aye, captain.' Follow orders."
Chapter Seventeen
The docks at Kefk had only sodium glare in the overheads, were all gray paint — kif didn't see color, at least not the way hani did; didn't see the yellow of warning signs, just the dark-light pattern; and on Kefk, it was only pattern that identified the conduits, and pattern that said walk here and not there. In all this gray and black universe, oddly tinted by the glare of apricot light, there arrived the color of hani, bronzed: Hilfy's trousers went a peculiar muted red; the spacer blues went a grayed blue; and rifle barrels and gunbelt metal on their five man escort acquired apricot highlights, while the matte graphite gray of kifish hands and kifish snouts, all that showed from beneath the robes, actually took on a livelier shade.
Do the kids credit, Hilfy thought, they didn't balk at their escort, they didn't sightsee or wrinkle their noses in disgust at the ammonia tang in the breath-frosting air; they paid attention to their surroundings, and Hilfy watched everything that passed in front of her and in the periphery of her vision, where neon signs lit a spacer's row no different than any services zone on any station trying to attract customers, except the words were kifish, and never ask what delicacies those establishments offered, and what entertainments they advertised. The neon signs were white, or the sickly color of kifish daylight; or they were neon red: ask what kifish vision responded to.
While all down the dockside, black-robed, weapons-bristling bystanders clustered in small groups and watched, talking behind their hands, talking with the turn of a shoulder.
Look at the fools, they might be saying.
They passed two berths where not a thing was going on; the ships might be in count, or, Hilfy thought, might be primed and ready to pull out on a second's notice; passed a third berth, where canisters were going in, but they were all the ship's-supply sort, with accesses for hoses and dispenser attachments; and just pulling up on a transport truck, cages of live animals, that squealed a thousand irate protests when a loader jolted them, and swarmed like a flow of ink up the sides of the fine mesh cage.
Akkhtish life, a kif had once said: as voracious and fast-breeding and nasty as a species had to be to have stayed alive on the kifish homeworld — the only species in the universe, in her opinion, that deserved the kif for predators.
"This way," the kif officer said, with a flourish of a hand from within the sleeve, and directed them to an access gate beside which a board burned with the kifish letters Tiraskhti.
Here we go, Hilfy thought, and climbed up the ramp in the lead, taking two kids into what could be a very, very bad situation. The kids would be the pressure point, if something went wrong. The kif understood the use of hostages, in some convolute way that had nothing to do with sentiment and maybe a lot to do with taking a valuable item and diminishing the sfik of the opposition by withholding it.
The airlock opened ahead, dimly lit. The ammonia stink inside was far stronger. But not improbably kif smelled hani presence just as strongly: as for the lighting, they hated the light of yellow suns, and disliked the noon even of their own. So the theorists held.
They occupied the lock, a tight, uneasy company, less the two that took up guard at the outside of the airlock; the lock cycled them through to a corridor, and more crew and personnel than a hani ship needed-met them there.
"Kkkkt," they said, that odd sound that betokened interest. Or a preface to attack — calm, she wished herself, thinking if she could get the youngsters through this corridor without incident they would be safer in wider spaces, out of the convenient, curious reach of a kifish claw. "Kkkt," ran like a wave beside their presence, as their escort shoved a way through the crowd, ahead of and beside them on their way through to the hall where a kifish dignitary entertained, and held court, and whatever other business the hakkikt had in mind.
That was where they came, through a door into a wide space ringed about with armed kif — she knew this place, or its exact likeness; and suffered a confusion of time, as if no years had intervened. There was the kifish prince, in silver-edged black; there was the same low table, with two chairs, there was the inevitable ring of witnesses about them, in light so dim a hani eye could not pick out the edges of shapes.
"You don't sit," she muttered to Fala and na Hallan, and walked as far as the table, seeing here, not the flashbacks on another ship, another place: no place to act spooked, she told herself, no place to get spooked: she had two kids to get out of here alive. The hakkikt had to score points, had to, now that she'd called his bluff all the way to this table, but he couldn't get everything without her cooperation, or he wouldn't have called her here.
She pulled a chair back, sat down across the round table from Vikktakkht, with Fala and Hallan behind her, and settled back in deliberate casualness.
Vikktakkht sat with one thin arm over the low back of his chair, his face shadowed within the silver-edged hood, except the snout — except the fine modeling of vein and muscle in what one could imagine was a very handsome, very fearsome type of his species.
"Kkkt. Captain. And Meras. Meras may sit with us."
"NaHallan," she said without looking, and the boy carefully lowered his huge frame into the remaining empty chair.
"Meras," Vikktakkht said. "Ask your next question."
"Sir," Hallan said, in a quiet, respectful voice, and hesitated.
For the gods' sake, boy, Hilfy thought, remember the question.
"What do you know," Hallan asked, "about Atli-lyen-tlas?"
Kkkt, the murmur ran around the room. And Hallan, to his credit, didn't flinch.
"A broad question." The hakkikt's arm lifted. A silver bracelet showed on a bare dark wrist, as he made a gesture about him. "I defer that answer for a moment — and offer another question."
Don't improvise, Hilfy thought. Boy. Don't try.
"May I ask a favor of you, sir?"
She hadn't expected that turn. She translated it frantically into kif, looked for ambiguities. The room murmured with startlement, seemed to hold its breath, and a few muttered, "K-k-k-kkkt," in a surly tone: they would not have dared that; and her heart was beating doubletime, her brain trying to figure what she could say.
But Vikktakkht made a casual motion of his hand. "Audacious. Make a request of me. If you amuse me, I may do it."
Hilfy stopped breathing, thinking, Careful, na Hallan. Think, boy.
Kif edged closer to them, listening, hissing at each other for room and silence. She felt Fala's presence closer at the back of her chair — dared not caution her, hoped the kid didn't shove back.
"I'd like you to understand, sir, I don't belong to Chanur. They weren't even at Meetpoint when I was arrested. They tried to get me back to my crew, that's all. So nothing I've done is their fault."
"Kkkt,"broke out from a hundred throats, and died in hisses. Hilfy translated that one into kifish, running it down path after path of logic. "Offended" had too many ramifications to track.
"Kkkt," Vikktakkht said softly. "So, Meras? Is that your request? My understanding?"