He obeyed, perched on the edge of the bunk with his feet planted for swift movement. He appeared as ready to fight as he had been with Zheng, and her mind called up the image of those terrible wounds over his body. Perhaps he expected constant abuse, even from humans.
“I want you to understand one thing, Ronan,” she said. “You are safe aboard the Pegasus. No one will hurt you or force you to do anything you don’t wish, as long as your intentions are peaceful.”
“I understand.”
Poseidon. Was that clear-eyed gravity the only emotion he was capable of? Even when he had threatened Janek and fought Zheng, his expression had hardly changed. What would make him react?
“I think you understand a remarkable amount for someone who has been a prisoner most of his life,” she said, muting her smile. “How did that come about?”
She had not expected to achieve such swift results, but his vulnerability was so strong that it touched her mind without even the smallest effort on her part. “I have no memory of the time before my sixth year,” he said. “I was raised in a shaauri House, and some of my adopted kin spoke your language. There were occasions… when other humans came to the House.”
Humans. Kinsmen. Cynara discovered a tightness in her chest and knew that it was not merely sympathy for what he must have suffered. It came from Ronan, emotional leakage her shields were not designed to filter.
Loneliness. That was at the core of it, the pain that underlay his solemnity. So few men or women had the power to make her feel, unbidden, what they felt. He did.
No memory. Of parents, of human warmth. He might be lying, of course—everything he said might be a lie—but this had the ring of truth that echoed in her bones.
She sat on the bunk, keeping her distance. “You said something to the effect that Kinsmen had stripped your mind of any telepathic ability. How well did you know these people?”
“I know their history. They chose shaauri over their own blood.”
There. That was anger, contempt, invisible to anyone who hadn’t the skill to look for it. “But you did not choose, did you?”
“No.”
“What do you think of such men and women, Ronan?”
“N’akai Ne’li,” he said, the words spat between his teeth like acid. It was a curse and also a name. Cynara tapped her wristcom and linked the Voishaaur-Standard dictionary to her earpatch audiofeed.
“Ne’li, noun, plural of ne’lin,” a flat female voice pronounced.
“Ne’lin, noun, singular. Definition one: shaaurin who returns from Walkabout unselected and exists on the fringes of shaauri society. Definition two: wraith or ghost. Definition three: outcast. Usage: Ne’lin is frequently used as a derogatory term of contempt.”
The only definition that seemed to apply in this case was the last; Kinsmen certainly had a place in shaauri society. So Ronan had no love for the only fellow humans he had seen during his captivity. Or so he wished her to believe.
“This is a very important question,” she said. “Some of my officers are afraid mat you may be Kinsman and a shaauri agent, sent to us in the guise of a fugitive.”
His head jerked up in very convincing shock, and a stream of alien words, half growls and whistles, poured out of his mouth. The single term Cynara recognized was ne. No. Emphatically no.
“Then I must ask why, as a prisoner, you were of such value to the shaauri that they sent a striker after you.”
She couldn’t misinterpret the confusion in his eyes. “I… know things,” he said.
“About the shaauri? Things that might hurt them if humans knew?”
“I listened. I learned what I could. They feared what I could tell.”
“And now that you’ve come to us, you’re prepared to share what you know for the benefit of humanity?”
His gaze cleared. “Yes.”
Cynara leaned back against the bulkhead. “Kinsmen have been sent by shaauri to penetrate Concordat defenses. None of them have succeeded, but the danger is always there. That’s why I must be sure of your loyalties and your background.”