"C. J. Cherryh - Chanur 03 - The Kif Strike Back" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

"Oh, no. I'm going to stand here. We're all going to stand here like this, and no one moves, until my friends get here."

"Your friends."

"Couple of hunter-ships. Just to keep the odds even while we trade."

The kif lowered his hand very slowly. He was utter shadow as he moved before the orange glaring lamp. The hands spread themselves, light streaming past the sleeves. A dry sniffing reached her ears. Kifish laughter. "So that was your request for an open berth. Good, hani. Very good." He gestured toward his prisoners. "Do you want to take them now?

Pyanfar did not look, refusing the distraction. She kept the gun aimed at the hakkikt's chest. "We can have a real good bloodbath, hakkikt. Let me put it in kifish terms: we've got a sfik item here. It's my ego in question. So we'll just stand here. Hours maybe. We're patient. You want to send a message? Head my friends off from docks? Fine. Or come at us. It's all over in here, then."

The kif gave a flourish of his hands and sat down in his insect-legged chair, a black lump amid the black pillars of his folk, beside the solitary wisp of white and color that was the prize. In the tail of her eye she saw a shifting there among the prisoners, and heard a sharp, hurt gasp.

"I'd stop that back there," Pyanfar said, "hakkikt. One my people over there yells, might distract me, huh?"

Sikkukkut lifted a hand. "Hunter Pyanfar, you should have been a kif. I tell you, I will deal with you."

They could die, they could all die, of this kif s embarrassment. Of failing him. Or of trusting him. But it was an offer. She drew a long, even breath.

"Fine. Let's wait on my friends."

"There truly are such?"

"Truly, there are."

"You have a fast ship, hunter Pyanfar."

A kif-gave points away and halfway admitted to surprise. It was, gods help them, conciliatory. Or mockery. Or some obscurely kifish thing.

"What do you want?" she asked. It had to be the right question. Or there might none of them leave the room alive. "You wanted me here. Why? What trade?"

There was long silence. "Skokitk," the kif said. Cease. "Skokitk!"

The pale figure hit the floor, a thudding tumble to its knees. The red-brown moved and crouched low beside it. Pyanfar never turned her head.

"Hilfy," Haral said. "Very carefully. Get up and get him over here." -

"No," said Sikkukkut. "This would not be wise."

"Then we'll wait," said Pyanfar. "He all right, Hilfy?"

"So far," Hilfy said, a hard, thin voice. She heard the spasms of breathing, saw the paler figure rise again, assisted to his feet. "So far."

"Let us," said Sikkukkut, leaning an elbow on the high arch of a chair leg, and resting his long jaw on his hand, "-let us settle this matter. Let us dismiss this inconsequence and talk like allies."

"Allies in a mahen hell."

"Mkks is neutral ground. Let us welcome your friends when they come."

"We'll wait."