Cynara absorbed the information with amazement. Magnus Larsen was one of the few native Dharman telepaths who had been Kinsman-trained before the Second War. In those days the Kinsmen had actively recruited telepaths throughout the Concordat, and he had been among their most promising students. But though he had been offered a high place among them, he had preferred to remain on his homeworld.
There was no more powerful telepath on Dharma, and few in the Alliance now that most Kinsmen had gone to the shaauri. Larsen was the man to whom Elsinore’s aristocrats sent their young men for basic training in mental control.
Damn you, Janek. Damn you to the deepest Anubian hell.
“I don’t understand the ways of mindwalkers, Little Mother,” Kord said, “but even I know that a man’s brain can be destroyed by that kind of examination.”
As Jesper knew. The procedure was all but forbidden on Persephone. No one on Elsinore had resorted to it for many years. Even if Ronan cooperated fully, the chances were great that he would suffer permanent damage. If he resisted, even by instinct, he could be stripped to the mental level of a fishflea.
That was why Jesper had undermined the Council and offered this clandestine warning, leaving the rest up to Cynara’s judgment.
Her decision. Her choice whether to take the risk that Ronan was everything she assumed, or let him undergo the probe on the chance that he wasn’t. Preserve one life, or preserve a secret that might save hundreds of thousands.
One life that had become dearer to her than her own.
The shock of that realization staggered her. Kord caught her arm.
“Cynara?”
“I’m all right. Thank you for getting this to me.”
“What will you do?”
No matter what she decided, Kord would accept. But Ronan was his blood-brother. If she refused to save him, Kord would probably make the attempt, torn in two by conflicting loyalties.
She was captain of the Pegasus. There should be no conflict for her. The decision should be as simple as that of choosing between fighting the shaauri or surrendering without a single weapon fired.
Either way a betrayal. Either choice with potential consequences too terrible to imagine.
Head and heart. Man and woman, as Dharman belief would have it—logic the male principle, chaotic emotion the female. She knew exactly what Tyr would do.
She met Kord’s gaze. ‘The Thalassa’s waiting?”
“Basterra told me he wouldn’t be ready to lift for several more hours.”
“If Ronan is what Janek obviously believes, we may be handing the Pegasus to the shaauri.”
“If he were what Janek believes, I would take his life myself.”
Nothing more needed to be said. Kord found concealment behind a potted plant in the hall, and Cynara returned to the waiting room. She gave Ronan a single significant glance.
“Officer,” she said, addressing the senior guard, “I have a message for the Council that cannot wait. Can you deliver it for me?”
“Captain, our orders—”
“This information will impact the debriefing. I can’t understate its importance.”
The guard hesitated and gestured to his partner. “Brion, take the captain’s message and return immediately.”
Cynara pulled a pad and stylus out of her pocket and dashed off a note with convincing gravity. She folded the paper and presented it to Brion.
“See that this gets to Magnus Jesper Siannas without delay.”
Brion set off and his senior resumed his post near the door, very much on the alert. Soon afterward there was the sound of something heavy falling in the hall, and then resounding silence.
It was enough to pull the guard’s attention away for a few precious seconds. Cynara dived for his gun. Ronan moved at almost the same instant. Cynara kicked the guard’s weapon from his hands and flung herself after it, while Ronan leaped like a cat and downed the guard with a chopping motion of his arm.
Cynara rolled to her feet with the gun in hand. The guard was sprawled on the marble floor, apparently unconscious but showing no outward signs of injury.
“Is he all right?” she asked Ronan.
“He will be.” Ronan cocked his head at her, a new brightness in his gaze. “Kord has taken the other?”