Free Chanur's Homecoming by C. J. Cherryh Page A

Do not hold this courier or risk disclosure. Events compel me to clarify actions which Number One has taken--
    "Haral," she said, and felt a shiver all over as she added another suggestion to comp.
    . . . since {ghost?} is not holding to agreements support will go {to?} opposition all efforts supporting candidacy-
    "We got some stuff here," Tirun muttered. "Jik's talking doublecross of somebody."
    "Who's Ghost?" Hilfy said. "Goldtooth?"
    "Akkhtimakt?" Tirun wondered in her turn.
    "Ehrran?" Geran wondered, which possibility of double-dealing sent a chill down Hilfy's back.
    "Maybe some human," Haral said, and the hair bristled all the way down.
    O gods, Pyanfar needs to know this.
    And may never know it.
    If they lay a hand on her; if we blow this place; gods know what we're taking out-if we have to. If they make us do that.
    Good gods, we're talking about conspiracy all the way to Maing Tol or wherever-Candidacy, who in creation has a candidacy anyone out here worries about-
    -except the hakkikt.
     
    The corridors of Harukk would haunt her dreams-ammonia-smelling and dim, with none of The Pride's smooth pale paneling: conduits were in plain view, and bore bands of knots on their surfaces that, Pyanfar suddenly realized in a random flash, must be the kifish version of color-coding. The codings added alien shadows to the machinery, shadows cast in the ubiquitous and horrid orange of sodium-light and the occasional yellow-green of a coldglow. Tall robed shadows stalked ahead of them and others walked behind, as a door opened and let her and Kesurinan and Skkukuk into the hakkikt's meeting-room.
    Sikkukkut waited for them, in a room ringed with black kifish shadows. Two incense-globes on tall poles gave off curls of sickly spicy smoke that curled visibly in front of the sodium-lights mounted to the side of the room, while another light from overhead fell wanly on Sikkukkut's floor-hugging table, himself and his chair, the legs of which arched up about him like the legs of a crouching insect. Sikkukkut sat where the body of the insect would be, robed in black edged with silver that took the orange light, with the light falling on his long, virtually hairless snout and the glitter of his black eyes as he lifted his head.
    "Hunter Pyanfar," he said. "Kkkt. Sit. And is it Kesurinan of Aja Jin?'
    "Same, hakkikt," Kesurinan said. And did not say: where is my captain? which was doubtless the burning question in her mind.
    Pyanfar settled easily into another of the insect chairs and tucked her feet up kif-style as one of the skkukun brought her a cup, one of the ball-shaped, studded cups the kif favored, and another poured parini into it. Kesurinan had hesitated to sit: "You too," Sikkukkut said, and as Kesurinan took another of the chairs, next Pyanfar, he looked in Skkukuk's direction. "Kkkkt. Sokktoktki nakt, skku-Chanuru."
    A moment's hesitation. It was courtesy; it was invitation to a kifish slave to sit at table with the hakkikt and his captain. "Huh," Pyanfar said, sensing Skkukuk's crisis; and her flesh shrank at the sudden purposeful grace with which Skkukuk came around that table and assumed the chair beside her-he slithered, on two feet: was, she suddenly recognized those moves, not skulking, not slinking-but moving with that fluidity very dangerous kif could use; very powerful kif; kif whose moves she instinctively kept an eye to when she saw them dockside and met them in bars. This was a fighter, among a species who were born fighting. And all hers, for the moment.
    She sipped her parini. Sikkukkut sipped whatever he was drinking while a skku served the others in turn.
    "Tahar," Sikkukkut said, "is on her way in. And your ship is live, hunter Pyanfar. Have you noticed this?"
    "I've noticed," she said, and kept all her moves easy.
    Sikkukkut's long tongue exited the v-form gap of his teeth and extended into the cup, withdrew again. "So have I. Your crew claims they're following orders. Is this so?"
    "Yes."
    "Kkkt." Silence a