Cynara felt ill, half afraid that the room’s walls would close in and crush her. The door opened, and a black-haired woman entered the office. She stopped, nodded to Damon and Miklos, and turned toward Cynara.
“Lord Miklos,” she said. “Lord Damon.”
“Mes Brit Carter VelShaan, I present to you Captain Cynara D’Accorso of the Pegasus. Captain D’Accorso, Mes Carter VelShaan.”
The Kinswoman offered her hand, and Cynara took it without reciting the usual empty words of greeting. Carter VelShaan seemed to understand.
“You wished to see me, Lord Miklos,” she said.
“You spoke to Ronan?” he asked.
“I did.”
“Were you able to glean anything at all from his thoughts?”
“Yes.” She hesitated, and Miklos offered her a seat. One by one each of them took the nearest chair, though the tension was palpable.
“He has very powerful shields, as we already realized,” she said, “and it would be impossible, short of a true deep-probe, to discern everything he may be hiding. He is, without doubt, loyal to his adopted shaauri kin. But I was able to detect some vivid images which I am sure he did not intend to share.”
Damon looked ready to interrupt, but Miklos silenced him. “And what were these images, Mes Carter VelShaan?”
“Faces,” she said. “Faces all around him, voices giving commands—Kinsmen, in fact, in the process of doing something to his mind. They were definitely not our people. I suspect that his mind was manipulated, and the effect was devastating for Ronan.”
“Scylla’s teeth,” Cynara swore.
“Manipulated,” Miklos said. “As in given hidden compulsions? Fraudulent memories?”
“It’s very possible. The Kinsmen who went over to the shaauri included many who were not so eager to follow the rules we set for ourselves long ago. They might force their wills on a vulnerable mind.”
“Ronan said at the beginning that his telepathy had been suppressed,” Cynara said.
“Perhaps it was. Unraveling what really occurred may take a great deal of time and patience.”
‘Time we don’t have,” Damon said. “You said he was loyal to the shaauri. Even if his mind was manipulated, there is no evidence that he didn’t agree to it.”
“None thus far. But I sensed that he resisted the compulsion to kill the Archon, and his feelings about the “Kinsmen are unequivocally negative. However he came to be a shaauri agent, I’m certain he didn’t expect to suffer what was done to him. He’s no hardened assassin.”
“Just how strong is Ronan’s mind?” Miklos asked.
“I can say with certainty that its power is considerable. This means that whoever tampered with him had to be a very strong telepath as well, and ruthless enough to cut through Ronan’s natural defenses. He doesn’t grasp the range of his own abilities.”
“This could be yet another ploy—” Damon began.
“Unlikely. Emotion is not so easily feigned as thought. Ronan is far too disturbed to have anticipated recent events. Even a disciplined mind cannot control everything.”
“He was sent by our enemies to act against the Concordat and humanity.”
“But his willing, conscious participation in those actions remains to be determined.”
“It will be.”
“Only if I and my people consent to do a deep-probe, Lord Damon, and that is by no means assured.”
“Does he know who he really is?” Miklos asked.
“No. His captors must have known, but they kept it from him.” She looked directly at Cynara. “I would swear on my name that Ronan has been suffering from artificially imposed amnesia and is not wholly responsible for his actions. He is lost, Lord Miklos.”
“He’s dangerous,” Damon said. ‘Too dangerous to leave alone.”
“Perhaps he is not the primary danger,” VelShaan said. “I told you that I’d seen certain faces among those who manipulated Ronan’s mind. One of them was very clear, and I recognized it instantly. Artur Constano VelRauthi.”
The name sounded familiar to Cynara, and she could see the others knew it as well. Damon paced across the room, and Miklos ran his hand through his white hair.
“Constano,” Miklos said. “We’d heard he was dead—”
“We also heard that about my parents and brother,” Damon said. Unexpectedly, he turned to Cynara. “Constano was the leader behind the first Kinsman conspiracy, which my parents helped to put down. He and his coconspirators were taken prisoner, but some later escaped, and that proved a devastating event for the Concordat. We’ve believed for some time that he had a large part in the troubles that led to the defection of two-thirds of our Kinsmen to the shaauri, and the subsequent conflict, war, and blockade. But we had been told he was killed in a skirmish near the border some years ago.”
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176