"Your friend has left you in a precarious position. Or you've elected to stay and lie to me."
"A. No lie. Got know truth to make lie. I not know. He not talk to me."
"Meaning nothing can extract this truth from you."
"Not got. What want? I say give you Kefk. I give."
"Kefk is in ruins, Keia. It seems a dubious gift."
"You got lot sfik. You step on Kefk, go 'way, take lot more prize, a? Akkhtimakt no got. You be rich, you fix, easy."
"Ah. But you still suppose Ismehanan-min is going to support us at Meetpoint."
"He no like Akkhtimakt."
"I take that for granted. You yourself serve your Personage and not me. As he does. Doesn't this mean some agreement of action?"
Jik drew another large breath of smoke and sought a place for the ash afterward. There was none. He tapped it and let it fall to the floor. "I serve Personage. I tell you plain I got reason want see you be hakkikt. I think this be good for all. So I serve Personage. Serve you. Balance, hakkikt. You be Personage we recognize. You got lot sfik with mahendo'sat. These be crazy times. Better kif got good smart Personage, a?"
"Flattery, base flattery, Keia. Diversion again. I tell you I am not persuaded it was kif who began that fight on the docks. And this—"
—in a blink Sikkukkut's arm shot out, and guards pounced on Skkukuk, hauling him upright.
"Kkkt!" Skkukuk's protest was throat-deep and anguished.
"He's mine," Pyanfar said tautly. Never back up, never back down, never let a kif get away with any property. "A present from you, hakkikt."
Dangerous. O gods, dangerous. So was flinching when that long-jawed face turned her way.
"It remains yours," Sikkukkut said.
"It gained a little sfik," said Pyanfar. "In our service out there. I'd like to keep it."
"Kothogot ktktak tkto fik nak fakakkt?"
The question went to Skkukuk; and Skkukuk drew his head back as if he wanted to be far from Sikkukkut's sight.
"Nak gothtak hani, hakkikta."
"Nakt soghot puk mahendo'satkun?"
"Hukkta. Hukktaki soghotk. Hani gothok nak uman Taharkta makkt oktktaikki, hakkikta."
—No. Desperately. / saw no collusion. The hani argued over possession of the human and Tahar and left, hakkikt.
A wave of Sikkukkut's hand. The guards let Skkukuk go and he collapsed back into a head-down chittering heap beside the table.
"So he attests your behavior," Sikkukkut said. "Your sfik still powerfully attracts his service. I wonder is it hope of you or dread of me so impels him."
"He's useful."
"And as we speak, Vigilance and Ismehanan-min hasten, to betray us at Meetpoint. What attraction can they find there, I wonder, that impels Ismehanan-min to abandon Keia here to my pleasure—Do I not correctly recall a mahen proverb, Keia my friend, that green leaves fall in storms and the strongest friendships in politics?"
"Long time friend, Ana Ismehanan-min."
"But he would let you die."
"Like you say, politic. Also—" Jik pinched out the smoke and dropped the butt into his pouch. "Also Ana lot mad with me." Jik's eyes came up, liquid and vulnerable and without the least doubt. "He know I work with tc'a. Fool, he say; Jik, you be damn fool involve methane-folk. Ana, I say, I not much worry, I long time talk tc'a. Got lot tc'a know me, long time. I want tc'a come here to Kefk—fine. Dangerous, maybe. I think now maybe knnn got interest. Maybe good, maybe bad—"
O, deft, Jik. The methane-breather connection. That's one thing Sikkukkut has to be afraid of. For godssakes don't overdo it.
Jik shrugged. "So, Ana be lot upset. Lot knnn interest this human thing. Lot interest."
Profound silence. Pyanfar found herself holding her breath and daring not get rid of it. She kept the ears still; and even that betrayed the tension every posture in the room already betrayed, kif and hani alike. Tully's eyes darted to Jik, to her, to the kif, the solitary, sapphire-glittering motion in a gray and black world.
"Yes," Sikkukkut said. "There would be interest on their part. And it has also occurred to me that we have a source of information here among us. At this table. Tully—you do understand me, Tully."
O gods—She saw Hilfy's minute flinching; the tension of muscles in her, in Tully, in Haral—Look this way, Tully—
"I understand," Tully said at his clearest, looking straight at Sikkukkut with never a look or a pause for advice. "I not know, hakkikt. I not know route. I not know time. I know humans come quick."
A long moment Sikkukkut gazed at him as she glanced between them. A visible shiver began in Tully's arms, his hands upon his knees. "You and I have met before on this matter," Sikkukkut said. "But how fluent you've become."
"I be crewman, hakkikt, on The Pride. I belong captain Pyanfar. She say talk, I talk."
Gods help us, be careful, Tully.
"Where will they likely come?"
Now Tully looked her way, one calmly desperate look.
"Do you know?" Pyanfar asked, pretense, not-pretense. He continually baffled her. "Tully, gods rot it, talk."
He looked back toward Sikkukkut. "I not know. I think humanity come Meetpoint. I think Goldtooth know."
"Kkkkt. Yes. I think so too. So does Akkhtimakt, who stripped that knowledge from your shipmates. Who has what that courier carried, information that—doubtless—has sped to points in mahen space. Truth, finally, arrives from the least likely source. You amuse me—Tully. You endlessly amuse me. What shall I do with Keia?"
"Friend," Tully said quietly, evenly. His best word. Almost his first word. His fall-back word when he was lost.
"But whose?"
There was silence. Long silence.
"I think that Keia will be my guest a while. Go back to your ships. I shall release your crew, Keia—in time. I wouldn't impair your ship's operation. And I'm sure your first officer is quite competent."
Jik reached for another smokestick. No one interfered. He slid a look Pyanfar's way. Go.
"Right," Pyanfar said in a low voice. "I take it we're dismissed, hakkikt?"
"Take all I have given you. You'll board by lighter. The dock access is not useable."
"Understood." She rose from the insect-chair, in the murk and the orange glare; and signed to her crew and to Tahar. Jik sat there lighting his second smoke and looking as if that were the most ordinary of companies to be left in.
O gods, Jik. What else can I do?
"The hakkikt promised all," Pyanfar said to the guard, her ears flattened and her nose rumpled. "I want the wounded hani. Savuun. Haury Savuun. You'll know where she is. You'll bring her."
It pushed—about as far as they could push. "Yes," the kif in charge said, stiff—all over stiff. The hostility was palpable. Not hate. There was no hate in question. It was assessment—what the foreigners' credit was with the hakkikt. When to kill. When to advance and when retreat in the hakkikt's name. A kif did not make two mistakes.