Beyond that Ronan dared not press. He sensed shields within their minds like those Cynara had spoken of possessing, and it was not yet time to test them.
He nodded to the guards and retraced his steps to crew quarters and his own small cabin. At the last minute he altered course for the captain’s rooms.
Her door was unlocked. Not a matter of carelessness, not on this ship, but a deliberate gesture of trust. She would hardly keep material pertaining to the Pegasus’s secrets in her personal lodgings.
The door slid open at the lightest touch of Ronan’s palm. Cynara’s scent, and one other he didn’t recognize, swept over him.
Though twice as large as his own, her quarters were nearly as spare. Yet the chamber was not entirely without personal decoration. The bunk’s coverlet was woven in bright patterns of greens and blues, sea-tones, designed to look like waves. On the bedtable stood a holo, depicting five humans on a sandy beach: an older female, her upper face obscured by a weighted cloth; a mature male in colorful attire; two younger men; and a girl.
The girl was Cynara. Her bright hair escaped the scarf laid haphazardly upon it, and she looked ready to burst into a run. The ankle-length, slit skirt over her close-fitting trousers would not have impeded her for long. Only the adults behind her held her in check.
One of the young men bore a strong resemblance to Cynara: kin, perhaps a genetic brother. The other young man was also similar in appearance, though his hair was gold rather than red.
Ronan found additional objects that he guessed were from other human worlds: a dagger similar to the one Kord kept tucked in his shipsuit; a black, pitted rock; an elaborately coiled shell. Ronan remembered a trick Sihvaaro had taught him the one time they had gone to the sea. He picked up the shell and held its mouth to his ear. The ocean was contained inside it—an ocean within the ocean of space.
Someone spoke. Ronan jumped, unable to locate the intruder until a motion near the deck caught his attention.
The creature was not at all like a shaaurin on four legs, though Ronan had heard it said that humans sometimes regarded shaauri as large bipedal cats. This beast was very small, compact, dark-furred, and flat-skulled. It possessed a long, sleek tail. Its fingers were too short to grasp or manipulate.
Even so, there was enough of a resemblance that Ronan stood very still and let it approach. It was not afraid, though it lifted its head and smelled the air in the manner of any reasonable being.
The cat took another step and abruptly sat on its hindquarters to lick its forepaw. This was, indeed, a sort of Reckoning, a test of Ronan’s intentions and an announcement of its own lack of fear.
Ronan crouched closer to its level and displayed his fists palms-up. “Good hunting, sh’eivalin,” he said.
The beast yawned wide, showing sharp Carnivore’s teeth. Once shaauri had been strict carnivores and hunters, before they learned the Way of Paths and began to till the soil. Now the most traditional shaauri sought to restore the ancestral features by filing their teeth to sharp points. This creature had no need of such artifice.
“You are Cynara’s… pet,” he said, tasting the human word. Shaauri rarely kept animals in captivity for companionship or amusement. The cat responded by strolling up to his hands and nudging its muzzle against his fingers.
“Ah. You wish to be groomed.” Ronan raked his fingers through the animal’s fur, taking liberties he had dared with only a few shaauri. The cat rolled over on its back and squirmed its forequarters from side to side.
Ronan examined its belly. There were rows of teats for suckling, but no pouch. It, like humans, must expose its young immediately after birth.
“Are you alone on this ship, Little Sharp-Teeth? Do you miss others of your kind?”
“Cats don’t speak,” a voice said from the doorway. “At least not in the way we understand it.”
He sprang to his feet, prepared for her rightful anger at his intrusion. She cocked her head with a look more puzzled than hostile.