Free Kif Strike Back by C. J. Cherryh

back and pricked up with a twitching effort. She lifted a hand, one carefully controlled foreclaw crooked. "Practice your cockeyed social theories on your own ship; that's your business. But when you plan to bring him into a sensitive negotiation and hand him a rifle into the bargain-"
     
    Rot it, speak up, she wished Khym. But he would not. His ears were down in outrage. It was all dammed up in him: and the temper it deserved if it came from him-would only confirm all the old prejudices Rhif Ehrran served. Unstable males. Hysteria. Berserker rages. He just kept his head down and threw the safety on again. And looked her way.
     
    He was a lousy shot. But kif were afraid of anything his size. Justifiably, if he got into it hand to hand.
     
    "I'd rather have him at my back," Pyanfar said studiedly, "than some." She slung the rifle into carry, deliberately looking elsewhere, finding it convenient to throw a glance in Hilfy's direction. "Stay topside, will you?"
     
    Because, o gods, they had a kifish guest below; and the last thing she wanted on her mind was worry over Hilfy and Chur with a kif loose on the ship.
     
    "Get him out," Hilfy said.
     
    "I'll do that."
     
    "Chanur," Rhif Ehrran said, "for the record, his presence and your insistence is going in the report."
     
    "Fine. Maybe you'll be able to deliver it to the han in person. Or maybe none of us will ever have to worry about it, huh?" She waved her left hand. "Out!"
     
    "You don't give the orders on this."
     
    "We go," Jik said, bestirring himself from his cabinet-edge.
     
    "That quarter-hour's getting short," Pyanfar said- She lagged behind, seeing Ehrran's blackbreeched lot out the door, and Jik, and her own crew. She paused for a backward look, then strode through the others to overtake Jik halfway down the hall.
     
    "Got few my crew wait outside," Jik said as she came even with him. "They watch the ship."
     
    "Maybe," Pyanfar said reluctantly, "Chanur and Ehrran ought to go in there solo and let you and yours hold the dockside. Kif know you, Jik. Know you real well. You stay here, back me and Ehrran up; that's all we need."
     
    Jik rubbed his nose. "Long time I hunt kif. Sure thing they want me. Same want you, Pyanfar. Want bad. Maybe even want han deputy, a? But kif mind, that be crazy thing: we kill kif, no matter: that give us lot sfik with them. We not got sfik, they eat our heart number one sure. We got sfik, they want eat our heart-but same time think maybe they get sfik off us 'nother way. Like deal with us. Like they hope maybe we make more trouble on their rivals, a, than we make on them? We all go talk to Sikkukkut. We lose sfik else."
     
    "You know what you're doing," Pyanfar said.
     
    "Sure," Jik said cheerfully. "Number one sure."
     
    It gave her no reassurance. Neither that nor that washroom door they passed in the lower corridor on their way to the lock: she glanced that direction, and the hair bristled on her nape.
     
    Kill it, instinct said. Kill the kif hostage outright, let it vanish without a trace. Keep Sikkukkut guessing.
     
    But where was the sfik in that, and what was she supposed to do with such a gift?
     
    Be a fool and let it loose?
     
    One stsho merchant was already loose and running, bolting dock. If one shot went off on that dock and panicked the traders, more ships might break loose from Mkks dock. ships lacking the stsho's obsessively pacifist tendencies. There were the methane-breathers, for one large instance.
     
    It was a trap, of course. They had suddenly lost the rhythm of things and kept the kif's schedule, for a prize the kif still held.
     
    No kif ever yielded anything without gain.
     
     
     
     
     
    IV
     
    An eerie quiet persisted on the docks. A few blackbreeched Ehrran clan personnel were visible in vantage points, armed with rifles; .doubtless a few such were not visible at all; and there were two more Ehrran crewwomen stationed up inside the ramp, guarding The Pride's airlock and accessway. Less