“All right to talk?” Hilfy asked.
Pyanfar nodded without comment.
“Where?” Hilfy asked. “If we’re running — where? Meet-point again?”
“No. I considered that, to be sure, throwing the kif off by that. But figuring it and refiguring — we came close enough not making it when we came in with all Urtur’s mass to fix on; and there’s not a prayer of doing it in reverse with only Meetpoint’s little mass to bring us up. I’ve worked possible courses over and over again, and there’s nothing for it — twojump, to Kirdu. It’s a big station; and there’s help possible there.”
“The kif,” said Geran, “will have it figured too. They’ll intercept us at Kita.”
“So we string the jumps,” Pyanfar said, taking a sip of gfi. “No other way, Geran, absolutely no other.”
“Gods,” Chur muttered undiplomatically. Hilfy’s expression was troubled, quick darts of the eyes toward the others, who were more experienced. Tully had stopped eating again and looked up too, catching something of the conversation.
“Consecutive jump,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy. “No delay for recovery time, no velocity dump in the interval and gods know, a hazard where we’re going: we’re bound to boost some of this debris through with us. But the risk is still better than sitting here while the kif population increases. There’s one jump point we have to make: Kita. Past Kita Point, the kif have to take three guesses where we went — Kura, Kirdu, Maing Tol. They might guess right after all, but they still might disperse some ships to cover other possibilities.”
“We’re going home,” Hilfy surmised.
“Who said going home? We’re going to sort this out, that’s what. We’re going to shake a few of them. Get ourselves a place where we can find some allies. That’s what we’re doing.”
“Then the Faha — we could warn them.”
“What, spill where we’re bound? They’ll figure too… the best hope’s Kirdu. They’ll likely go there.”
“We could warn them. Here. Give them a chance to get out.”
“They can take care of themselves.”
“After we brought the trouble here—”
“My decision,” Pyanfar said.
“I’m not saying that; I’m saying—”
“We can’t help them by springing in their direction. Or how do you plan to get word to them? We’ll make it worse for them, we can only make it worse. You hear me?”
“I hear.” The ears went back, pricked up with a little effort. There was a silence at table, except for the knnn, who wailed on alone, rapt in whatever impulse moved knnn to sing.
And stopped. “Gods,” Haral muttered irritably, shot a worried look the length of the table. Pyanfar returned it, past Hilfy, past the Outsider.
“Pyanfar.” Tully spoke, sat holding his cup as if he had forgotten it, something obviously welling up in him which wanted saying, with a look close to panic. “I talk?” he asked. And when Pyanfar nodded: “What move make this ship?”
“Going closer to home territory, to hani space. We’re going where kif won’t follow us so easily, and where there’s too much hani and mahendo’sat traffic to make it easy for them to move against us. Better place, you understand. Safer.”
He set down the cup, made a vague gesture of a flat nailed long-fingered hand. “Two jump.”
“Yes.”
“#. Need #, captain. #.”
He was sorely, urgently upset. Pyanfar drew in a breath, made a calming gesture. “Again, Tully. Say again. New way.”
“Sleep. Need sleep in jump.”
“Ah. Like the stsho. They have to, yes. I understand; you’ll have your drugs, then, make you sleep, never fear.”
He had started shaking. Of a sudden moisture broke from his eyes. He bowed his head and wiped at it, and was quiet for the moment. Everyone was, recognizing a profound distress. Perhaps he realized: he stirred in the silence and clumsily picked up his knife and jabbed at a bit of meat in his plate, carried it to his mouth and chewed, all without looking up.
“You need drugs to sleep,” Pyanfar said, “and the kif took you through jump without them. That’s what they did, was it?”
He looked up at her.
“Were you alone when you started, Tully? Were there others with you?”
“Dead,” he said around the mouthful, and swallowed it with difficulty. “Dead.”
“You know for sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Did you talk to the kif? Did you tell them what they asked you?”
A shake of his head.
“No?”
“No,” Tully said, looked down again and up under his pale brows. “We give wrong # to their translator.”
“What, the wrong words?”
He still had the knife in his hand. It stayed there with its next morsel, the food forgotten.
“He fouled their translator,” Tirun exclaimed in delight. “Gods!”
“And not ours?” Pyanfar observed.
Tully’s eyes sought toward her.
“I thought you ran that board too quickly,” Pyanfar said. “Clever Outsider. We, you said. Then there were more of you in the kif s hands at the start.”
“The kif take four of us. They take us through jump with no medicine, awake, you understand; they give us no good food, not much water, make us work this translator keyboard same you have. We know what they want from us. We make slow work, make we don’t understand the keyboard, don’t understand the symbols, work all slow. They stand small time. They hit us, bad, push us, bad — make us work this machine, make quick. We work this machine all wrong, make many wrong words, this word for that word, long, long tape — some right, most wrong. One day, two, three — all wrong.” His face contorted. “They work the tape and we make mistake more. They understand what we do, they take one of us, kill her. Hit us all, much. They give us again same work, make a tape they want. We make number two tape wrong, different mistake. The kif kill second one my friends. I — man name Dick James — we two on the ship come to station. They make us know this Akukkakk; he come aboard ship see us. He—” Again a contortion of the face, a gesture. “He — take my friend arm, break it, break many time two arms, leg — I make fight him, do no good; he hit me — walk outside. And my friend — he ask — I kill him, you understand. I do it; I kill my friend, # kif no more hurt him.”
The silence about the table was mortal. Pyanfar cleared her throat. Others’ ears were back, eyes dilated.
“They come,” Tully went on quietly. “Find my friend dead. They # angry, hit me, bring me out toward this second ship. Outside. Docks. I run. Run — long time. I come to your ship.” He ducked his head, looked up again with a wan, mahendo’sat smile. “I make the keyboard right for you.”
“That kif wants killing,” Haral said.
“Tully,” Pyanfar said. “I understand why you’re careful about questions about where you come from. But I’ll lay odds your space is near the kif — you just listen to me. I think your ship got among kif, and now they know there’s a spacefaring species near their territories, either one they can take from — or one they’re desperately afraid is a danger to them. I don’t know which you are. But that’s what the kif wanted with you, I’m betting — to know more about you. And you know that. And you’re reluctant to talk to us either.”
Tully sat unmoving for a moment. “My species is human.” She caught the word from his own speech.
“Human.”
“Yes, they try ask me. I don’t say; make don’t understand.”
“Your ship — had no weapons. You don’t carry them?”
No answer,
“You didn’t know there was danger?”
“Don’t know this space, no. Jump long. Two jump. # we hear transmission.”
“Kif?”
He shook his head, his manner of no. “I hear—” He pointed to the com, which remained silent. “That. Make that sound.”