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

Neither back nor right, Pyanfar thought, with profile view of that young face as the lift went up: ears back, mouth tight on silences. Gods rot it, niece, I got everything I could.

The lift let them out on bridge level. They trudged out in no particular order. Khym stayed with them, past his cabin and baths and all such allurements. They were filthy, cold from the docks, and stank of kif. They brought that smell onto The Pride along with them.

Chur powered the co-pilot's chair about when they came in, inexorable move of machinery cradling a bandaged hani who lay shrunken and feeble against the cushions. But her ears came up and she lifted her head.

"Good to see you, kid."

Hilfy crossed the bridge and bent down to clasp Chur's arm. "Good to see you," Hilfy said hoarsely. "I thought they'd got you. Gods, I thought you were dead."

"Huh. No." Chur laid her head back as they gathered around her. She shut her eyes and opened them refocused on Pyanfar. "Captain. I sent the confirm-message. Not a rotted

bit of help from the mahendo'sat on-station. 'Cept traffic control. Central's staying real quiet. They've

been real upset ever since our friends dropped into system. Scared. Not saying a thing but necessities."

"Huh." Pyanfar laid her hand on the chairback. "Best you get to bed, right now."

"Food," Chur said. "Lousy c-stuff. Want a cup of gfi."

"I'll get it," Khym said, and set the rifle down (gods, on the counter, loose) and headed off.

"Secure that!" Pyanfar snapped. He jerked to a stop and looked about, looking for what he had done. But Tirun took the gun along with Chur's.

"Got it, captain. He gave it to me."

Pyanfar nodded and collapsed onto her rump on the console edge as Khym headed off. She gave him no mercy. None. Crew covered for him; and they did it not because he was male, or hers, but because he had just earned it out there if he had the sense to know it. That warmed some of the cold at her gut. Some. That beaten weariness in the slump of Hilfy's shoulders, that bleak, all-business stare-that was out of reach.

"How close are our friends to final dump?" she asked Chur, and handed her rifle on to Haral. "We got anything trustable out of Central?"

"I marked the first alarm," Chur said, gestured loosely toward comp, a ticking chronometer on the number two monitor. "Figure-figure our ships'll be dumping down about now, but Jik may freehand it. Don't trust the kif to tell us huh?"

Understatement. Complicated comp operations from a crewwoman doing well to be sitting upright. "You're going off-duty. Shift's Haral and Tirun. Rest of us clean up, then turn about. Move it. We've got company coming."

There were minute delays, a quick dart of Haral's eyes.

Questioning. What do we do? Sit here?-because sitting here at dock was not altogether sane. Think there's a chance of pulling the rest of this off?

"Send," Pyanfar said. "Us to both those ships. Tell them we're back aboard. Tell them we've talked to the kif and we've got half the job done. Kif wants to go on talking."

"Tully's left there," Hilfy said, of a sudden turning about and leaning toward her on the counter edge. Hilfy's voice cracked and spat. "Four days, aunt-four days they worked on him. ..."

"Then we made good time," Pyanfar said, cold, very cold, because Hilfy wanted heat. "I'd have figured five. We'll get him out."

"They're taking him apart." Hilfy stood up and back. "That bastard kif has got time to do it in."

"We got what we could."

Hilfy drew one long breath. "Yes," she said, and was ail quiet, all the way through.