“We’ve never been sure how the Second War started,” she said abruptly, “except that some shaauri were never able to tolerate humans. Many Kinsmen chose defection, which left humanity even more vulnerable.” She lifted her hand and let it fall again. “You could be of great value to us, Ronan. You could teach us to understand the shaauri even better than Eeva Kane, so that we can work toward a permanent end to hostilities.”
“I can show how to better evade their ships and patrols.”
“Perhaps. Does that bother you?”
Ronan held up his hand, displaying the healing slash in his palm. “This is human blood,” he said. “The same blood shaauri have spilled again and again.”
‘They treated you very badly.”
He turned his face aside, feeling the unwelcome weight of her sympathy. “It is long in the past.”
“Because your shaauri mentor taught you to defend yourself.” When he remained silent, she set Archie down and folded her arms across her knees. “He taught you very well, Ronan. He must have cared about you, as you cared for him.”
“Sihvaaro was my teacher.”
“You don’t hate all shaauri.”
He looked at her, weighing how much of this question was meant in friendship and how much to discover his truest feelings. “Some were kind. But I was never one of them.”
Cynara paced the length of the cabin. “I know what it is to feel… different. My life was nothing like yours, but—” She stared at the holo on the bedtable. “You may think all humans hate shaauri, but this war can’t last forever. Something will bring it to an end.”
“Like this ship.”
“Like you.”
Archie bumped his nose against Ronan’s ankle, demanding attention. Ronan let the feel of fur under his hand soothe away his sudden and inexplicable fear.
“You saw what happened to the Bifrost colony because it couldn’t get enough supplies through the shaauri blockade,” Cynara said. “It’s not the only world that’s suffered. Dharma relied heavily on trained personnel and technicians from the Concordat, especially Persephone, to help us rebuild our world after the Long Silence. All the progress we made before the Second War—in medicine, in the exploration and utilization of our own system’s resources, in making life better for the people—has virtually come to a halt.”
“Yet you have this ship.”
“It’s little enough. Other worlds have also suffered. Even the Concordat has need of raw materials found only among the Nine Worlds. Lives have been lost because these materials and personnel could not be transported through the Shaauriat.”
Now was not the time to ask more about the Pegasus and the part it played in circumventing the blockade.
Show human cunning. Keep her trust.
“I am sorry,” he said, trying to drive from his mind the images of young humans suffering or elders dying because of his kin.
Remember who you are. It is humans who began this war, humans who would destroy or enslave every last shaaurin if they could.
“No one blames you, Ronan. You did not choose where you were born.”
He rubbed his chin across Archie’s supple back. “You grew up on Dharma,” he said, guiding her away from unprofitable subjects. “Those in the holo are your kin?”
“Yes. My father, mother, brother, and cousin.”
“Your mother wears a facial covering. Does she hide a deformity?”
“It’s the custom on Dharma for adult women to wear the veil.”
“Does it not restrict vision?”
“I seldom wore one.”
“Do your people not regard you as adult?”
The question seemed to startle her, though she recovered quickly. “Oh, yes. I passed that threshold at the appointed time. But certain… events prevented me from taking up a ‘proper’ Dharman woman’s role.”
Ronan had learned that such a tone of voice was a kind of mockery Cynara often employed, sometimes at her own expense. All the nuances a shaaurin might have expressed in pitch or with tiny gestures of ears or whiskers were contained in mere words. And words were not enough.
Cautiously he opened his mind to receive her surface thoughts, watching for any sign of awareness on her part. “You were different from other females on Dharma.”
“Distressingly different, as far as my family was concerned. Women simply do not… do the things I’ve done.”