“The only government ruling all shaauri Clans is that assembled by the A’Aho-Kei’hon-vekki.”
“But he knew about your mission. He should also be very interested to learn that Constano is active among the supposed shaauri Kinsmen.”
“Indeed.” He got to his feet and looked down at Cynara: the luxurious fall of red hair, the supple body, the clever mind behind a face humans called beautiful. If that mind contained motives she refused to admit, he dared not look for them. Not yet.
“Shaauri are coming,” he said. “I will give them word of this Constano—just enough to rouse their interest and to suggest that I may be of benefit to Aarys as well as Kalevi.”
“And once we get to your world… the Kinsmen may already be waiting.”
“Let us hope that we reach Aitu before them.”
“That’s a very good plan.” She tilted her head back and smiled, stopping the breath behind his teeth. “I have faith in you, Ronan. In your intelligence, your strength, and your courage.”
He turned his face from her. “Let us hope it is enough.”
The spaceport on Aitu was hardly more than a field cleared of brush and a cluster of small stone and wooden buildings, just sufficient to permit the landing of a midsized ship. If Ronan hadn’t told Cynara that the Kalevi disliked space travel, the conditions here would have suggested that precise state of affairs.
It was also obvious that the Kinsmen hadn’t arrived yet. Ronan visibly relaxed, though “relaxed” was very much a relative term. Cynara had to fight the desire to give and receive comfort, here on this alien world where two humans stood against thousands of shaauri. But Ronan was holding back, hardening himself for the inevitable confrontation. The best support she could give him was her vigilance.
As Ronan and Cynara left the Aarys ship, surrounded by hair-trigger ve’laik’i with constantly twitching ears, Ronan quickly summarized what they would encounter in the Aitu settlements.
Aitu was a fairly recent colonization effort by several Lines belonging to the Moikko Clan. Three Houses of Kalevi, and three each of their allied Lines Darja, Keisho, and Soraan, occupied the coastal and inland areas of one of Aitu’s continents, comprising a population of less than ten thousand individuals. Shaauri, Ronan emphasized, did not like to be crowded. Clans, and sometimes individual Lines, searched constantly for habitable worlds on which new colonies could be established.
The one characteristic common to most of Moikko’s Lines was that they were rabidly antihuman and committed to what they regarded as the ancient shaauri way of life. Aitu was a world little changed since its first colonists had arrived. They maintained sufficient technology to assure survival of the majority, and regarded any greater dependence as weakness.
Militant, human-hating separatists, Cynara thought as the shuttle’s hatch opened to Aitu’s biting air. These are the people who raised Ronan. The people he has to convince.
Convince them that he carried information of sufficient value to make his and her own continued existence worthwhile. And that perhaps the shaauri Kinsman allies were not such loyal allies after all.
Cynara had felt the excitement in the Aarys warriors ever since she and Ronan had been released from their cell. The name “Constano VelRauthi” had worked its magic, and Ronan had at least one Line very interested in any conspiracies he might expose.
An armed ve’laik’in grunted to Ronan, who took Cynara’s arm and started down the ramp. The young female Tala Aarys followed. She addressed Ronan at length, and after a pause he answered. With a disdainful flick of her side whiskers, the shaaurin marched back up the ramp.
“I assured her,” Ronan said, “that I will see that the Aho’Ah’Aarys—the First of First House of Aarys—is informed if I learn anything of Constano VelRauthi.”
“They aren’t staying to meet your family?”
Family. The word felt wrong to her, but she used it for Ronan’s sake. He needed complete support and no hint of doubt.
“Shaauri of different Lines do not intrude upon one another without good reason,” he said. “By such custom is conflict avoided.”
There would be conflict enough in store for both of them. Cynara looked toward the few one-story buildings that comprised the spaceport facilities. “No welcoming party?”