Miklos smiled. “You’ll discover that very soon.” He picked up his pace, choosing the steep stairway rather than the private lift. He, Ronan, and the guards entered by a back entrance to the palace. A series of concealed doorways and narrow corridors led to a more familiar section of the complex, and into a wide hall Ronan had not seen before.
The grandness of it reminded Ronan of the Council building on Dharma, and he knew it was a place of ceremony. The servants and guards wore livery and were openly armed.
A new alertness gripped Ronan, anticipation out of proportion to the circumstances. He half expected a trap of human devising. Miklos strolled along the hall at his ease, and his ve’laik’i maintained their positions well behind.
The doors at the end of the hall were greater than all the others Ronan had seen, pale stone embossed with scenes of naked human figures, stylized planets, and sleek starships. They swung open as Miklos approached. The chamber beyond was broad, walls lined with hundreds of chairs, and at its end was a dais and a massive throne carved much like the doors.
This must be the public receiving room of Persephone’s ruler, the Archon. But the throne was empty. Miklos strode halfway down the room and then turned to a small, unobtrusive door set in the wall. Two uniformed attendants within moved quickly to admit the visitors.
A tall, thin man rose from a chair beside a simple stone hearth and held out his hands. “Miklos,” he said. “I am glad you could come.”
Miklos bowed his head briefly. “My Lord Archon, I present to you Ronan VelKalevi, brought to us by Captain Cynara D’Accorso of the Pegasus.”
The Archon. The Archon himself, a pleasant gentleman in his sixth decade who might have been a common an’laik’in save for the intelligence in his eyes and the grace of his bearing—an unremarkable human with white hair and a long face drawn with care and old sorrow. All Ronan’s nerves sharpened to needle points, stabbing his body in a thousand places at once.
The Archon. The man you were sent to find.
Hector Challinor turned to Ronan and stared, directly and without apology, like a First to one of lowest rank. “I believe you are right, Miklos,” he murmured. “It is quite remarkable.”
Ronan hardly heard him. He shielded himself from the stare and struggled to make sense of the bizarre thoughts and images in his mind. They did not come from the Archon, or Miklos, or any of the men who watched their masters from the room’s perimeter. All the minds here were shielded from interference by anyone of telepathic ability, and none were telepaths themselves.
But something, someone was driving him to a kind of madness he could not control, robbing him of will, demanding instant obedience.
“Welcome to Persephone, young man,” the Archon said. “I am very glad you have come to us.”
Ronan tried to speak. The Archon smiled in understanding. “My brother has told me what you have endured,” he said gently. “I hardly expect eloquence under the circumstances. My name is Hector Challinor, and I hope…”
His voice faded to a murmur behind the clamor in Ronan’s head. It was said that at the moment of Selection, a shaauri youth felt perfect unity with all matter, total comprehension of her place in the order of things.
What Ronan experienced was far more terrible. He had felt so once before, when he had recalled his purpose in requesting sanctuary from the humans, when he knew what he was meant to achieve for the sake of his people.
Only the message had changed.
Kill the Archon. It was as simple, as unspeakable, as that. Kill the Archon, and destroy the unity of the humans.
Vision blurred. Muscles locked. This was the true reason he had been sent to human space. The quest for new human technology had been only the cover, a secondary objective if he did not reach the Archon. But his masters had done everything within their power to send him here, to this moment, to this fatal decision that was no decision at all.
The room. The tiny room where they had kept him during the training, as they called it, honing his mind to hold layer upon layer of deception. The darkness and solitude, no voices save those of his trainers; the men and women, Kinsmen, who had reminded him again and again of his chance to win an honorable place among shaauri with courage and sacrifice. Kinsmen, who had invented and imposed a false past of hatred for the aliens, hatred that would propel him on the right course until the time came to remember.