The Pride of Chanur

“Uruus,” Chur said wickedly, crooking a claw onto his arm to catch his attention, gestured at the steaks. “Same thing, this, the animal we give the kif.”

Tully looked momentarily uncertain, poked at the steak with his knife and looked up again at Chur’s grin. “Same, this?”

“Same,” Chur confirmed. Tully took on an odd look, then started eating, laughed to himself after a moment in a crazed fashion, shoulders bowed and attention turned wholly to the food, darting only occasional glances to their hands, trying to handle the utensils hani-style.

“Good?” Pyanfar broke the general silence. Tully looked up at once, darted looks at them in general, helpless to know who had spoken. The translator speaking into his ear had no personality.

“I, Pyanfar. All right, Tully? This food’s all right for you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m hungry.” Hungry, the translator said into her ear, dispassionately; but the look on his face for a moment put a great deal more into it. The bruises showed starkly clear in the commonroom’s white light; the angularity of bones reached the surface on his shoulders and about his ribs.

“Says he’s cold most of the time,” Chur said. “He doesn’t have our natural covering, after all. I tried a jacket on him, but he’s too big. He still wants it, asks to cut it. Maybe better to start with something of Haral’s in the first place.”

“Still too small for those arms,” Haral judged. “But I’ll see what I can find.”

“Cold,” Tully said, in his limited understanding of the discussion.

“We’re trying, Tully,” Chur said. “I ask Haral, understand. Maybe find you something.”

Tully nodded. “#” he said forlornly, and then with a bright expression and a gesture at the meal: “Good. Good.”

“Not complaining, are you?” Pyanfar commented. “Don’t — Gods.”

The com broke in, a k

“That’s nothing,” Pyanfar said. “K

There was a moment’s silence.

“All right to talk?” Hilfy asked.

Pyanfar nodded without comment.

“Where?” Hilfy asked. “If we’re ru

“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 k

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.”