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

"What business?" Sikkukkut asked; and Hilfy pressed close to Tully's side, hearing the shifting of bodies about them beyond the smoke and the lights. "What did it arrange with the mahe? Kkkt. Ask it. Get an answer, young Chanur."

"-He's asking about deals," Hilfy said, and shifted again, for a kif moved up on that side of Tully. She looked at Sikkukkut. "He doesn't understand. He can't understand, gods rot it. He uses a translator on our ship. He can't speak, he can't shape our words even if he knew what I was saying to him."

Sikkukkut gathered up a silver cup from the table, a ball-like thing studded with thumbsized, flat-ended projections. He extended a dark tongue, dipped his snout into it and drank-gods knew what. He lifted his face. A thin tongue flicked about his muzzle. He still held the cup, his fingers caressing the flat-studded surface. "Choose better words: They will harm him, young Chanur, my skkukun; they will. Persuade him. Break this silence of his. If there are mechanical translators needed, we will supply them. Only make him speak."

"I'm trying." She shifted again, bringing herself between Tully and the circling kif. "Back off!-Tully, Tully, tell him something. Anything. I think you'd better."

-Lie, she wished him; play the game, I'll help you-She felt the chill of his body against her side. She tried to look up at him, but he looked only to the kif, perhaps without the wit left to lie at all.

"Perhaps," said Sikkukkut-A door opened, admitting sullen light: another kif came in, silhouette like all the rest.-"We should consider another private interview with him. Kkkk-t?"

The kif hastened past the others. Sikkukkut turned his head.

"Ksstit," it hissed. "Kkotkot ktun."

Message. Hilfy drew a breath and felt Tully shiver against her. The interloper bent its hooded head near its captain's and whispered shortly. Sikkukkut rested with his hands upon his knees. His shoulders moved with a long, long breath and his jaw lifted.

"Kkkt! Kktkhi ukkik skutti fikkti knkkuri. Ktikkikt!"

All about them the room rustled with kif. Take them from here. Hilfy knew that much kifish. But not the inflections. Not why, or what had happened, or what happened next.

Kif closed about them: Tully let out an unaccustomed sound as they tore him from her side.

"Claws in," she yelled at the kif, "you stupid clot!"-She raked a kifish shin with a bare-clawed foot. A returned blow jolted her teeth and claws bit into her shoulders. There was nothing, with her hands tied, that she could do. They were enough to carry her. They seized her about both knees and did that at the end, despite her twisting and turning.

"Bastard!" she yelled past kifish bodies. She saw Sikkukkut still sitting there like some graven image in the dark, flanked by other kif.

"They are here," Sikkukkut said.



The door came between and closed.

Mkks station was a wall in front of them as The Pride homed in: the berth Mkks had assigned her glowed with the comeaheads on the number two screen while the closing numbers ticked off.

-"Please you wait," mahen authority had protested via com during the last part of their approach, a much, much more conciliatory tone. "Got already advise Harukk, same want conference, repeat, want conference. Request reply^-"

And closer still, in their silence: "We make request you delay dock, Pride of Chanur, you got problem, please, we negotiate-"

Because there was no way a station like Mkks had to stop any ship from coming in. And worse, there were fifteen vulnerable kifish ships dead-vee at dock, attached to Mkks' very vulnerable side. Mkks would have sounded alarms by now and thrown the section-seals on its docks, fearing projectiles launched, fearing kif; and riot.

-"Please," the protest went on from Mkks authority: "You stop this make negotiate the kif: We forbid you carry quarrel here."

But they had the berth they demanded, a clear spot with

nothing directly next them on either side. There were kif at hand. Harukk was in the sixth berth down, within the section. Two mahen traders were docked far over on the other side of Mkks' torus. Kif ships lined the adjacent section's docks. There were more mahen ships beyond. The solitary stsho. And tc'a and chi on methane-side.