“Just what do you think my other reasons are?”
“I do not know,” he said. You are concealing something important, he thought, and quickly silenced it. “You have heard me speak into your mind, as I have heard you,” he said.
“Very clearly.”
“Did you understand what happened when I spoke to the shaauri?”
“Only a little. I… haven’t got the knack for interpreting alien thoughts.” She hugged her knees up to her chest. “Tell me, Ronan. I need to know everything if I’m to help.”
“I will try,” he said. In simple, terse sentences he translated the conversations between him and Tala Aarys, conveying some sense of the emotions that had accompanied the shaaurin’s words. “Aarys, among other starfaring Lines, was instructed to watch for me, but their original orders were to deliver me to the Kinsmen.”
“Then the Kinsmen did expect you to return from the assignment.”
“Or perhaps by some unknown means they heard that I had failed.”
“You mean via shaauri Kinsmen agents on Persephone? Security is almost impenetrable in Eos.”
“Lord Miklos must be aware of such a possibility.” A strange thought darted through his mind like a vil-nymph, too swift to catch. “Aarys would not be pleased to carry out any order remotely beneficial to humans, Kinsmen above all.
Therefore, I bespoke the common Clan Aarys and Kalevi share—Moikko—and requested that they transport us directly to Ain’Kalevi on Aitu. I claimed you as my hostage.”
“I assumed as much. This Tala Aarys intended to take me away from you?”
“She attempted it. You must understand that it is shaauri habit to constantly test for weakness in any meeting between kin of certain Paths, strangers, or enemies. Had I been of obvious Path, her reaction would have been much more predictable. Because I acted as an equal, one of Will or Blood from an allied Line meeting another of similar Path, she did not know how to treat me. She assumed my inferiority as a human and tested my resolve. I had to counter her assumption.”
“You stood face to face with huge aliens armed to the teeth and never flinched.”
“Among shaauri, sheer… what you would call ‘bravado’… can go far to counteract other disadvantages, if one is prepared to risk one’s life. I had the disadvantages of no Path, no Linekin beside me, my human form, and the fact that I stood in Aarys territory. I had to behave as if none of that troubled me.”
“It worked.” She smiled crookedly. “What did they decide to do with us?”
“Shaauri are not like human military, nor are they bound to obey even a War-Leader’s dictates without question. Each Line is to some extent autonomous, and first loyalty is always to House and Line. Had the ship’s First determined I was a threat, she might have killed us both.”
“Did they know what you’d done on Persephone?”
Memory of the near-assassination thickened his words. “They showed no sign of such knowledge. I told them only that I had acquired information I must deliver to my Line.”
“What information?”
He could tell her now. It would be best for her to know the truth and be prepared.
“On Dharma,” he began slowly, “you began to fear that I might take vital intelligence about the Pegasus from your mind. I swore to you afterward that I would not, but—”
“But I have no knowledge worth stealing,” she said. “Lord Miklos and Mes Carter VelShaan saw to that.”
He suffered a moment of shock. “They knew you would come with me?”
“They didn’t know, but I wasn’t willing to make any promises. I submitted to a process by which VelShaan… wiped my memory of all technical knowledge that could be used against the Concordat.” She smiled, as if the procedure were as simple as a tooth cleaning. “I know it must seem as if I don’t trust you, but Lord Miklos wouldn’t let me go without the guarantee—”
“That I would not take such information from you,” Ronan finished. Cynara had sacrificed much in order to accompany him into danger. She believed she had eliminated any obstruction to such an action, any risk of betraying her own people.