Chanur's Homecoming by C. J. Cherryh

the face with the same unflappable sense of self-preservation that would make him go for his own leader's throat the moment that leader looked vulnerable, at the very moment a reasonable hani might stand by her leader most loyally. Pyanfar had puzzled this out. In a total wrench of logic she could even understand that kif being dead as they were to any altruistic impulse, had to move to completely different tides, and the most urgent of those tides seemed to be the drive to inch their way up in status at every breath if they could get away with it.
    It was a good question whether Sikkukkut understood hani half that well, despite his fluency; and upon that thought a logical gulf opened before her, whether a kif could ever truly understand the pride of the lowliest hani hill woman, who would spend the last drop of blood she had settling accounts both of debt and bloodfeud with anyone at all, headwoman or beggar; the kif had not the internal reflexes to feel what a hani felt; and how, good gods, could a hani know the compulsion that drove a kif, lacking whatever-it-was which was as natural to kif as breathing.
    Gods help us, if I had enough credit with him to get Jik loose-if anyone did-if I could crack that gods-be code of Jik's, over there in comp, if I knew what Jik was holding out against Sikkukkut, what kind of craziness he passed me at Mkks-is it his will and testament? Something for his Personage? Some gods-cursed plan of attack?
    Goldtooth's plan of action?
    What do the kif want down there, why come in person, why not use the com?
    While the kif arrived in their fire-scarred airlock and prepared to deal with her niece and her cousin, both of whom had gotten scars before this at kifish hands.
    Don't foul it, Hilfy, don't give way-Gods, I should have called her up and sent-
    -Geran? With Chur shot and Geran in the mood she's in?
    -not Haral, I need her.
    Not a place for the menfolk down there either. Hilfy's all right, she's stable, she'll carry it off all right- she knows the kif, knows them well as anyone-knows how to hold herself-
    O gods, why'd I ever let her and Chur go off the ship at Kshshti? It was my fault, my fault and she'll never be the same-
    -isn't the same, no one's ever the same; I'm not, the ship isn't, Chur isn't, none of us are, and I brought us here, every gods-be step along the way-
    Haral cycled the lock and two unescorted kif walked into The Pride's, lowerdeck; while Geran powered the airlock camera about, tracking them, and Khym and Tully hovered over separate monitors. Haral kept cycling her own checks, keeping an eye to the whole godsforsaken dockside, screen after screen at Haral's station shifting images so that they were never blinder than they had to be.
    No way they were going to be caught in distraction, even if, gods forbid, the kif tossed a grenade through the lock.
    "Record," Pyanfar said. "Aye," Geran said, and flicked a switch, beginning to log the whole business into The Pride's records. Then:
    "Those are rifles," Geran muttered.
    The kif carried heavy weapons, besides the sidearms. The dim light and poor camera pickup had obscured those black weapons against the black, unornamented robes. But the rifles were slung at the shoulder, not carried in the hand. That much was encouraging. "Polite," Pyanfar said through her teeth, while below, from the spy-eye:
    "Hunter Pyanfar," one kif said as he met The Pride's welcoming committee.
    ''Tirun Araun.''   Tirun identified herself-scarred old spacer with gray dusting her nose and streaking her red-gold mane. She had a way of holding herself that seemed both diffident about the gun she held (surely civilized beings ought not to hold guns on each other) and very likely to use it in the next twitch (there was not the least compunction or doubt in her eyes). "/ trust you've come from the hakkikt," Tirun said. ''Praise to him''-without the least flicker, kifish courtesy.
    ''Praise to him,'' the kif said. ''A message to your captain.'' It took a