and there remained only the whisper of the dust. Urtur system everywhere had grown very still.
The translator still carried white sound, Haral's voice or Hilfy's. The Outsider was saying nothing in being taken back to his quarters. She was marginally uneasy about having him out of sight. Perhaps he was mad after all. Perhaps he would suicide and leave them with nothing to show for the encounter but a feud with the kif. Up to a point she could not prevent him killing himself, except by taking measures which would not encourage his good will.
But revenge was something of purpose, something to make life worthwhile. She had offered him that.
She thought of his face close at hand, lively, crazed eyes, a hand as cold as something an hour dead-a creature, she reminded herself, who had been fighting alone an enemy which would have turned a stsho to jelly.
She grinned somewhat, a drawing back of the lips and wrinkling of the nose, and stared thoughtfully toward the telescope image.
No disengagement possible. Not with this kif prince, this hakkikt Akukkakk, whose personal survival rode on this Outsider business. His own sycophants would turn on him if he lost face in this matter. He had lost this Outsider personally . . . likely by some small carelessness, the old kif game of tormenting victims with promises and threats and shreddings of the will. An old game . . . one which hani understood; irresistible to a kif who thrived on fear in his victims.
Akukkakk had to make up that embarrassment at Meet-point. He would have been obliged to revenge if it were so much as a bauble stolen from him at dockside. But this Outsider Tully was far more than that. A communicative, spacefaring species, hitherto unknown, in a position to have come into kif hands without passing through more civilized regions. The kif had new neighbors.
Possible danger to them.
Possible expansion of kif hunting grounds ... in directions which had nothing to do with hani and mahendo'sat. Those were high stakes, impossibly high stakes to be riding on one poor fugitive.
Urtur would swarm with kif, before all was said and done.
She delved into the com storage and started hunting components for a transmitter of some power, roused out Chur and sent her hunting through the darker areas of The Pride's circumference for other supplies.
V
It was a monster, like Tully, this thing that they constructed in the spotlit, chill bowels of The Pride's far rim. It had started out hani-shaped, a patched and hazardous EVA-pod which they had stripped for parts and never succeeded in foisting off on another hani ship. Its limbs had just grown longer, sectioned off and spliced with tubing, and it was rigged with a wheezing lifesupport system.
"Get Tully," Pyanfar said applying herself to the last of the welding which should get the system in order. "Rouse him out." And Chur went, bedraggled as herself with the dust and the grime of The Pride's salvage storage.
Pyanfar worked, spliced and cursed when the system blew in another frustrating curl of smoke, unhitched that component and rummaged for a new one, sealed that in and congratulated herself when it worked, a vibration and a flicker of green lights on the belt and inside the helmet. She grinned, wiped her hands on the blue work breeches she had put on for this grimy task ... a long time since she had practiced such things, a long time since she had worn blue roughspun and gotten blisters on her hands. In her youth, under another of The Pride's captains, she had done such things, but only Haral and Tirun could recall those days. She licked a burn on her finger and squatted on the deck, content with the operation of the unit. Let it run a while, she decided: see if it would go on working. The suit stared back, stiff and gangling on its huge feet, reflecting her in distant miniature off its curved faceplate. It stood like some mahendo'sat demon, two limbs shy of that description, but ghastly enough in its exposed hoses and
The translator still carried white sound, Haral's voice or Hilfy's. The Outsider was saying nothing in being taken back to his quarters. She was marginally uneasy about having him out of sight. Perhaps he was mad after all. Perhaps he would suicide and leave them with nothing to show for the encounter but a feud with the kif. Up to a point she could not prevent him killing himself, except by taking measures which would not encourage his good will.
But revenge was something of purpose, something to make life worthwhile. She had offered him that.
She thought of his face close at hand, lively, crazed eyes, a hand as cold as something an hour dead-a creature, she reminded herself, who had been fighting alone an enemy which would have turned a stsho to jelly.
She grinned somewhat, a drawing back of the lips and wrinkling of the nose, and stared thoughtfully toward the telescope image.
No disengagement possible. Not with this kif prince, this hakkikt Akukkakk, whose personal survival rode on this Outsider business. His own sycophants would turn on him if he lost face in this matter. He had lost this Outsider personally . . . likely by some small carelessness, the old kif game of tormenting victims with promises and threats and shreddings of the will. An old game . . . one which hani understood; irresistible to a kif who thrived on fear in his victims.
Akukkakk had to make up that embarrassment at Meet-point. He would have been obliged to revenge if it were so much as a bauble stolen from him at dockside. But this Outsider Tully was far more than that. A communicative, spacefaring species, hitherto unknown, in a position to have come into kif hands without passing through more civilized regions. The kif had new neighbors.
Possible danger to them.
Possible expansion of kif hunting grounds ... in directions which had nothing to do with hani and mahendo'sat. Those were high stakes, impossibly high stakes to be riding on one poor fugitive.
Urtur would swarm with kif, before all was said and done.
She delved into the com storage and started hunting components for a transmitter of some power, roused out Chur and sent her hunting through the darker areas of The Pride's circumference for other supplies.
V
It was a monster, like Tully, this thing that they constructed in the spotlit, chill bowels of The Pride's far rim. It had started out hani-shaped, a patched and hazardous EVA-pod which they had stripped for parts and never succeeded in foisting off on another hani ship. Its limbs had just grown longer, sectioned off and spliced with tubing, and it was rigged with a wheezing lifesupport system.
"Get Tully," Pyanfar said applying herself to the last of the welding which should get the system in order. "Rouse him out." And Chur went, bedraggled as herself with the dust and the grime of The Pride's salvage storage.
Pyanfar worked, spliced and cursed when the system blew in another frustrating curl of smoke, unhitched that component and rummaged for a new one, sealed that in and congratulated herself when it worked, a vibration and a flicker of green lights on the belt and inside the helmet. She grinned, wiped her hands on the blue work breeches she had put on for this grimy task ... a long time since she had practiced such things, a long time since she had worn blue roughspun and gotten blisters on her hands. In her youth, under another of The Pride's captains, she had done such things, but only Haral and Tirun could recall those days. She licked a burn on her finger and squatted on the deck, content with the operation of the unit. Let it run a while, she decided: see if it would go on working. The suit stared back, stiff and gangling on its huge feet, reflecting her in distant miniature off its curved faceplate. It stood like some mahendo'sat demon, two limbs shy of that description, but ghastly enough in its exposed hoses and
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