His hands were steady as he activated the subroutine he had programmed after his escape. The shaauri might catch him, but they would not take satisfaction in their victory. If he was lucky, he would take the striker with him.
The countdown began, ticking out the last minutes of his life. So little time to be free. Twenty-three human years he had lived among aliens; twenty-three years he had been a captive, despised, outcast, struggling to make a place for himself among those who would never accept him. Ankine'karo, they'd taunted him, "body-without-fur," and ne'lin, "wraith," because he had no hope of finding his Path.
They were wrong. This was the Walkabout so long denied him. In these final moments, he was one of them at last.
The darter's sensors keened in warning. Ronan opened his eyes, expecting to see the striker, but the image on the monitor was that of a foreign ship dead ahead.
Ronan's comfortable detachment abandoned him. He leaned forward and trained all the darter's instruments on the bizarre construct.
The vessel had simply appeared as if it had emerged from a wormhole, but none existed at those coordinates. Nor would any shaauri shipwright design such a monstrosity. Ronan recalled the ancient myth of the kio'n'uri, a creature cobbled together of leftover parts and pieces rejected by the true beasts at the End of Void.
It was big enough for a modest freighter, with few visible gunports. But there was not the slightest elegance in its lines. Its midsection bristled with projections and flanges and blisters of no apparent function. Bow and stern were cleaner, built to strictly utilitarian standards. One gone mad might have conceived it in a relka-blind stupor.
It could only be a human vessel.
That was impossible. The blockade had held firm for over two decades, as humans reckoned the years, and any ship that slipped past shaauri defense survived by chance and extraordinary prudence. This one might as well have sung challenge to any and all shaauri patrols within a hundred million kilometers.
Ronan weighed his chances. If he had detected the human ship, it certainly knew about him. His shaauri pursuers would not hesitate to destroy it without mercy, yet the ugly contraption held its position with blithe unconcern.
Pathless as children. But they were human, as he was, and so he would perform one last act of defiance. He set the corn-link for tightbeam communication and assembled the words he'd thought he might never speak again.
"Human ship," he said, contorting his mouth around the harsh sounds of his native tongue. "This is Ronan, called VelKalevi. I am a human fugitive from a shaauri warship. My ship is set for self-destruct in approximately five of your minutes. A striker warship is in close pursuit. Depart immediately if you wish to survive."
He waited while the darter hurtled toward the intruder, prepared to alter course if its captain were foolish enough to disregard his warning. But a voice filled the darter's tiny cockpit. Human… and female.
"Unidentified shaauri vessel," the voice said. "Repeat. Do you claim to be human?"
Ronan's ears twitched as if they might lie flat like any shaauri's. "I am human, but my pursuers are not," he said. "You are intruding in shaauri territory. This is your last chance to escape destruction."
There was a long moment of silence, broken by the crackle of static. "Shaauri vessel, we offer assistance," the female voice said. "Abort self-destruct and reduce velocity. We will take you in tow."
Ronan hissed in laughter. "You can be of no assistance if you are dead."
"The Pegasus can outrun any shaauri vessel. Will you comply?"
The woman's claim was so outrageous, so confidently stated, that Ronan almost accepted her word as truth before he remembered that humans frequently deceived even their closest kin. Yet why should this female lie, when her own survival was at stake?
He was considering how to respond when the proximity alarm alerted him to the imminent approach of his shaauri hunters. The human vessel Pegasus made no attempt to run, but he could buy them a little more time.
He spun the darter to face his pursuers. The self-destruct chimed its final warning. He composed himself for death, repeating the simple, calming chant Sihvaaro had taught him in boyhood.
The discipline worked so well that he was hardly disturbed by the sensors' impossible message: A ship was almost on top of him, its configuration identical to that of the human vessel. It was the Pegasus. The darter lay in its shadow like a small bird in the talons of a hovering a'amia.
"Abandon ship," the comlink spat in the human female's voice. "We will retrieve you. You have thirty seconds to comply."
Was human honor such that they would risk many lives for that of a stranger? If he did not obey instantly, the human vessel would be severely damaged when the darter detonated. The shaauri would have whatever scraps remained—as well as any survivors.
With a soft curse, Ronan gave the darter its final command. At once his seat contracted around him, binding him into a chrysalis of safety like a ba'laik'i in its nurturer's pouch. Clear shielding extruded from the deck to either side, forming an impervious bubble. Oxygen flowed in from the life support unit built into the seat.
Then the bottom dropped out from under him, and he was hurled free of the darter. The chrysalis tumbled several times and began to drift, giving him a clear view of the human ship.
Go, he willed it. But it swung away from the darter and maneuvered toward him with surprising grace. A moment later a cable shot out from a broad bay in its starboard flank. Ronan observed the cable's rapid approach and braced himself. The clamps closed with hardly a bump. The cable pulled him into the gaping mouth like the tentacles of a hungry cephalopod.
Just as the ship swallowed him up, he caught sight of the striker, slowing to approach the darter. But its prize was denied it. The darter exploded in a glorious plasma burst of light and fire. The human ship's bay doors closed on the hurtling debris of twisted metal.
The clamp released the chrysalis and the cable withdrew to its source. Gravity pressed Ronan into his seat. Through the shielding he could see at least two other vessels docked in the bay, both larger than his darter. He judged them to be shuttles designed to carry freight or passengers from ship to planet.
The presence of breathable atmosphere began to dissolve the chrysalis. A faint smell of lubricants filled the bay. Ronan stepped cautiously from the chrysalis and listened for movement.
Silence. He located a porthole in the bulkhead near the bay doors and ran to it, keeping his body low. The view of space it accorded gave no sign of the darter's remains, but Ronan could clearly see the striker closing fast.
Almost instantly the scene altered. In a span of seconds the striker turned from ominous threat to a mere speck in the distance, and then vanished entirely. The human ship was obviously moving—moving extremely fast—just as the captain had boasted. But Ronan had not felt the crushing pressure of rapid acceleration.
Somehow this vessel had escaped the striker, left it far behind. The humans were safe. So, it appeared, was he.
Shaauri did not believe in miracles. Ronan had thought himself prepared, as a student of the Eightfold Way, to endure even the most sudden reversals of fortune. It was to his shame that he felt a vast and overwhelming relief simply because he was alive.
Alive, and free. Free of his long captivity and on a human ship. A ship that belied every one of his rash and overhasty judgments. Ugly it might be, but it was fast enough to outpace a shaauri warship with astonishing ease.
And that meant the humans had developed technology that might allow them to evade the patrols and robotic sentinels that prevented their access to shaauri wormholes.
Ronan's eyes twitched in a shaauri smile. He should be glad. These were his people. It was from them he had been stolen as a child.
The humans of this ship would be coming for him at any moment—the first non-Kinsmen he had seen in over twenty years.
They will not want me. I can never be one of them.
He made a blank slate of his mind and drew the Oc
tagon upon it, contemplating each point as he whispered the ancient chant: ba'ne, vali, vekki, kivi, riama, linei, anki, neva. The human tongue only approximated the words' definitions: void, will, blood, reason, spirit, heart, body, nothingness.
Such was the Eightfold Way. Such were the elements of shaauri being, and of all sapient life, even humans. Upon the Eightfold Way, and only there, was he whole unto himself.
The bay's interior doors slid open. Three humans entered, wariness in the set of their stiff, unreadable bodies. The two males were clad in one-piece, belted shipsuits and carried heavy guns. After a moment of uncertainty, Ronan assumed that the shorter figure behind them must be female. Her wide body was as much metal as flesh, both her arms studded with interface jacks and instrumentation. Her dark, tilted eyes regarded Ronan with detached curiosity.
"I am Doctor Zheng, chief medic of the Alliance ship Pegasus."
Chief medic. She was the ship's healer, and thus of the li'laik'i, but her cool demeanor was much more that of Reason. The fact that she had been sent to greet Ronan must mean that she had some status among the crew, yet she was not the one who had spoken to him before.
"I am Ronan," he said, bowing in neutral courtesy.
"Captain D'Accorso extends her welcome, Ser VelKalevi," she said. "She has asked me to evaluate your condition and escort you to the bridge. Are you injured in any way?"
"I am well, Li—I have suffered no injuries, Healer Zheng."
Zheng nodded in the human manner and touched a lighted panel embedded in the flesh of her forearm. Ronan's ears detected a faint hum, and as Zheng extended her hand, he jumped out of her reach.
Two weapons swung toward him. The taller of the guards moved with skillful grace, and Ronan quickly assessed the potential threat. The man was clearly of the Blood Path, ve'laik'in, a true warrior. His skin was weathered with much time spent in the sun, and he held the gun with easy confidence. Adult in age, but young enough to be reckless.
Formidable, perhaps, but not invulnerable. Humans seldom trained fighters as shaauri ve'laik'i did their own. The other guard Ronan dismissed as an'laik'in, Body, and so of little consequence. He allowed himself to relax.
"It's all right, Kord," Zheng said, waving at the males to lower their weapons. "Ser VelKalevi, I am attempting to scan for any injuries of which you may not be aware. I assure you that my instruments cannot harm you." Her dark eyes took Ronan apart piece by piece. "You have never seen a cyborg. Is there no enhancement among the shaauri?"
Irrational anger tightened his jaw. "The people of Aur do not mutilate their bodies with artificial components."
"Ah. In that case, they are little different from many human societies." She touched her arm again, and the interface hummed for several seconds. Zheng frowned. "You appear to be in excellent health. If, however, you feel the need to recover more fully, your meeting with the captain can be delayed."
"I am recovered," Ronan said. "I will meet with your First."
"First." Zheng tapped her fingers rapidly on her arm panel. "I believe that is a Voishaaur term for a leader of primary rank, is it not?"
"He should be confined to the brig until we know who and what he is, Mother Zheng," the warrior said, staring at Ronan from beneath his dark brows.
"I hardly think that he can do any damage under your watchful eye, O'Deira." Zheng entered a few notations and made a sound of satisfaction. "I will be most interested in discussing shaauri language and dialect with you at your convenience, Ser VelKalevi. But now Captain D'Accorso is waiting."
The young warrior shook his head, but he and the other guard stepped apart and positioned themselves on either side of Ronan. Zheng turned and the doors opened before her. She led the way through a hold stocked with containers of every size and shape.
The Pegasus, whatever the name might mean, was clearly not an ordinary cargo vessel. She carried human goods through interdicted space and evaded the most advanced shaauri striker as if it were a ceremonial barge.
Ronan had never been on such a vessel before. He studied every detail of the hold and the design of the doors as they passed into a narrow corridor. The bulkheads and hatches were clean and utilitarian, lacking the bold color of Line banners or even the subtler murals painted by ri'laik'i artisans to simulate worlds left behind. He noted the armed guards who stood before a wide door marked with bars of red and yellow, and he guessed that it must lead into the very heart of the ship and the unfamiliar drive that propelled the Pegasus at such extraordinary velocities.
Armed warriors protected secrets. Human secrets. But did the captain guard those secrets from an OutLine stranger, or from her own crew?
"Keep moving," the young warrior said, prodding Ronan with the muzzle of his weapon. Ronan stopped and assumed the stance of Serene Preparation.
"It is not courteous to threaten one of undetermined Path," he said, testing the human's knowledge. "Do human ve'laik'i not learn such things before Selection?"
"Ve'lai is the warrior's way, isn't it?" Zheng asked, inserting herself between Ronan and the young guard. "What Path do you follow, Ser VelKalevi?"
"I will speak to your First, Healer Zheng. What she asks I will answer."
Zheng looked away, though she showed no indication of fear or offense. Ronan felt the young warrior's eyes burning into his back as they resumed their progress through the ship. The corridor widened and branched. A pair of crew members, male and female dressed in shipsuits much like those of the guards, stopped abruptly as Ronan approached. The male took a step back. The female's nostrils flared in alarm. Both humans' mingled fear and hostility set Ronan's hair on end.
They could see he was like them, but they did not trust him any more than did the young warrior.
He did not feel one of them. Like a wraith, he circled the outer gates of House and Hearth, taking whatever scraps they saw fit to leave for him. He was too proud to beg.
"Pride," Sihvaaro had said, "is your downfall, and it is nothing. There is no pride or shame. The Eightfold Way teaches that all Paths are One, as all Sentience is One. "
Pride had won him nothing but pain among the shaauri, yet he could not abandon it even when he walked with those of his own species.
They reached another door and a lift that passed between decks. Four decks, to judge by the symbols on the lift's controls. The upper decks would contain crew quarters, life support, and the bridge. It was to the uppermost deck that the lift carried them.
The two guards pressed in on Ronan, and Zheng took the lead as the lift opened onto another short corridor. It ended in double-wide doors marked with the first decoration Ronan had seen on the ship, scrolls and spirals reaching from top to bottom.
Zheng touched a panel hidden among the spirals, tapping out a code with her surprisingly nimble fingers. The doors retracted. Beyond lay an expanse crammed with consoles, where a number of humans moved from one post to another with measured proficiency. A wide viewport framed by screens looked out on the starless void of a wormhole, represented as an opalescent sphere. There was no sign of shaauri presence.
In the center of the bridge a single seat overlooked the rest, and beside the seat stood a tall female. She wore a ship-suit as austere as that of her crew, fitting close to her slender body. Her only ornamentation was a set of golden rings on her long fingers, but her carriage was all Will from her booted feet to the mane of red hair at her crown.
Red. Among humans, even Kinsmen, the color of body hair was random, unmarked by bars of Path or rank. Even without such identifying signs, Ronan knew instantly that this female was the one who had spoken to him aboard the darter with such impatient authority. She was First and master of the Pegasus.
The woman studied him as he did her, one brow raised. He knew the gesture as a sign of inquiry or puzzlement, as he had observed during the annual Kinsman visits that were his sole previous contacts with humankind. Those occasions had provided him an imperfect mirror, for Kinsmen strove to suppress all that was not shaauri.
Yet
he had grasped hungrily at each opportunity. He knew that this aho'va of Pegasus was attractive as humans reckoned such qualities. Her form was fit and muscular, her hips and breasts prominent, indications of female fertility and considered highly desirable among human males. Her facial features were even, lips full even by human standards, nose straight, eyes the vivid blue of a harvest sky over Ain'Kalevi-ja.
And her scent… it was unique and tantalizing, the natural odors of clean skin, pheromones, and elements beyond his ability to define.
"So," she said, her voice throaty and resolute and much more musical than it had been over the comlink. "You are human after all."
He 'i, he was human. Why else would his body choose this moment to remember that it was male, and unselected—always ready for mating and very much aware that human females were receptive every day of the year?
He reined his hunger back under control. It wasn't as if he had never been with a female of his species. Aho'Ain'Kalevi had granted that he, too, had such needs, and there were Kinswomen willing to lie with him on their annual visits. No children came of such matings, of course; he was not Kinsman. .
"I am human," he said carefully. "Ronan."
"I'm Captain Cynara D'Accorso, of Dharma and the Alliance ship Pegasus. You said you were a prisoner of the shaauri?"
"The only humans with shaauri are Kinsmen," the tall ve'laik'i guard said. "Be cautious, Little Mother."
D'Accorso cut the air with her hand. "Easy, Kord. He isn't armed, and he did try to warn us about his pursuers. We agreed to grant him our hospitality."
"For which I owe you thanks," Ronan said formally. "The shaauri would not have allowed me to live."
"And yet you said your name was VelKalevi," the captain said, cocking her head to one side. "Isn't that a Kinsman designation?"
"It is, Captain," said a dark-skinned man of medium height who stood just behind her. "I thought that 'Vel' was the Voishaaur prefix for 'adopted.'"
"I am not Kinsman," Ronan said. "I have been a prisoner of the Kalevi since the age of six human years."
"Yet you know Standard," the man remarked. "Surely you—"
Kinsman's Oath Page 2
