Kinsman's Oath

by Susan Krinard

  "I will accompany you," Ronan said.

  For a few vital moments she had actually forgotten him. She stood toe to toe with Ronan and felt again the leashed energy of his carriage, the arousal he provoked with his simple presence. Her voice went mute.

  "I am trained in the warrior's way," he said, holding her gaze. "I can protect you."

  "Out of the question," Janek snapped. "Captain, you should remain on the Pegasus. There are others you can send."

  She could have embraced Janek for his fortuitous interruption. "Are you volunteering?" she asked. "If not—" She shrugged him off and glanced at Ronan. "Your assistance has been appreciated, but you will be confined to quarters until this situation is resolved."

  "Your ve'laik'in's situation exists because of my presence on your ship."

  She shook her head. "I am sorry, Ronan. Toussaint, escort Ser Ronan to his cabin and set a guard." She shouldered past him, Lizbet at her heels.

  "What is he like, Captain?" Lizbet asked when they were safely in the lift. The young Dharman's eyes held a familiar gleam of hero-worship, but for once it was not aimed at Cynara. "He seems dangerous."

  "He is." She folded her hands behind her back as if the topic were only of the most casual interest. "We don't know enough about him, and until we do, he must be treated as a potential enemy."

  "Yet he aided us against the shaauri," Lizbet said softly, daring contradiction. "There is a kind of… stillness about him. I wish that I—" She flushed and stared at the deck. "I understand, Captain."

  Curse Dharma for the harsh lessons it taught girls like Lizbet from the time they were old enough to walk. "Your insights are valuable," Cynara said gently. "Never doubt it. And now I need your skills to get Kord home."

  Lizbet flushed again, this time with excitement. All she needed were a few chances to prove herself, to learn that she was the equal of any man. God grant she found her calling in an easier way than Cynara had done.

  God grant that Lizbet wouldn't live in loneliness, futilely seeking a man disposed to call her his equal.

  Ronan's face came to Cynara in all its stubborn tenacity. He had paid his debt to the Pegasus. He owed her nothing. Yet she felt that something bound him to her as she was bound to Tyr and to Kord, each in a different way, each loyal unto death.

  God grant she was mistaken.

  The surface at Ronan's back was wrong, and that wrongness brought him awake in an instant.

  He was not in his cabin, where Toussaint had left him sealed and guarded. He stood in the doorway of a cockpit just large enough for two seats and a bank of lighted consoles, screens, and monitors tucked beneath a transparent canopy looking out on a field of stars.

  A ship. A ship in space. For an instant he thought he was still on the darter, and that everything else had been a dream.

  But Cynara was at the center of his imperfect memory. He had been on the Pegasus. He had come to the bridge with no recollection of how he had done so, breaking his word to the captain. He had made some reparation by helping the Pegasus escape the shaauri, but it had not been enough.

  Because of him, Cynara had lost one of her crewmen. She had been prepared to depart for an uninhabited world to save the warrior Kord. Ronan had seen her driven by an inner fire that almost blinded him, and in her body he had read her fear for her ve'laik'in.

  But it was Ronan's own fear that had bound him to speak. The fact that Cynara had rebuffed him in his cabin made no difference. He had long since stepped over the rightful boundaries of his position here, as he had done among shaauri every day of his life.

  But Cynara had denied his request to accompany her in the rescue attempt. He had not fought Toussaint and Janek when they took him to his cabin. His one thought was that Cynara was about to go into danger, accompanied only by a healer and a female an'laik'in, a fragile technician with no skill to protect her First.

  And here he was, in the cockpit of a vessel bound for some unknown destination.

  The shuttle. He was on the shuttle Thalassa. He crossed to the console and scanned the configuration of the controls. They were locked on autopilot, but he could assume command with no difficulty.

  "Poseidon!"

  He spun to face the voice. The young female Lizbet Montague crouched in the doorway, clinging to its frame as if hard vacuum waited on the other side.

  "An Montague," he said, raising his hands. "I mean no harm."

  "How did you get here?" she whispered. "The captain said—" The skin of her throat quivered. "You escaped from detention."

  He tried to smile. "I am not armed. Bring the captain, sh'eivalin-an. I will remain here."

  Montague scuttled backward, more shock than fear in her posture. Bootheels rang on the deck beyond the door.

  Cynara stepped through with her sidearm at the ready, brows arched high.

  "I should be surprised," she said, "but for some strange reason I'm not. Put your hands on top of your head, Ser Ronan."

  He obeyed while Montague reappeared at Cynara's flank and Healer Zheng loomed behind them, her bulk filling the doorway. Cynara strode up to Ronan and patted his shipsuit with one hand. All the insignificant hairs on his body stood erect.

  "I am not armed," he repeated.

  She stepped back. "I doubt that would make much difference in your case. How the hell did you get on my shuttle?"

  "I do not know."

  "You just 'appeared' here, the same way you did on the bridge?" Her expression hardened. "How did you escape the guard? What did you do to him?"

  His ears twitched in negation before he remembered to shake his head. "I do not remember. The last I knew I was in my cabin."

  It was evident from her stance that she did not believe him. "Every one of my crew had better be in good health when we return." She gestured him away from the pilot's seat. "Lizbet, hail the Pegasus."

  The young female slid into the seat with a swift glance at Ronan. Adumbe's voice answered the hail.

  "Taye, has there been any kind of disturbance on the Pegasus that you failed to mention?"

  "Disturbance, Captain?"

  "We have a stowaway on the Thalassa. He seems to have escaped a locked cabin and eluded his guard. Perhaps you have an explanation?"

  Silence, and the hum of distant voices. "Captain, I have no explanation. Toussaint has just located Bhruic, who appears to have been sleeping on the cabin bunk. He has no recollection of how he came to be there, or how the prisoner escaped."

  "I see. Get Bhruic to the infirmary and have Ardith check him out thoroughly. I want a full report."

  "Acknowledged, Captain. Will you be returning?"

  "Negative. Carry on."

  Montague broke the connection. If Cynara had been shaauri, Ronan would have prepared for imminent attack. He had begun to learn better.

  "I'd turn back for the Pegasus and toss you in the brig if we hadn't come so far," she said. "But your good fortune is temporary, my friend. When we get to Dharma…"

  "I came to help you retrieve your ve'laik'in," he said. "What you do with me afterward is of no concern."

  She paused, pushing a loose strand of russet hair from her forehead. "What do you make of him, Zheng? I suspect that he combines the worst of human and shaauri."

  Ronan turned up the corners of his mouth, making another attempt at human levity. "So shaauri and Kinsmen have told me."

  "I am inclined to believe him, Captain," the healer said. "He seems to feel he owes you some personal allegiance."

  "Scylla's teeth." Cynara moved very close and stared into Ronan's eyes. "Is that what you want to do—swear allegiance? You broke your word to me on the ship, when you came to the bridge and again when you escaped—"

  "I am not your enemy, Aho'Va."

  She measured him so thoroughly that he felt her gaze as a touch up and down his body, arousing him as before. "Perhaps not," she said, "but please don't make any more promises. You maintain this claim that you don't remember how you got here?"

  "Yes."

&
nbsp; "When we get back to the ship, Zheng, do another full brain scan on our guest. If he's telling the truth, there must be some reason for these blackouts. Zheng, Montague, carry on. I'll take Ronan into the galley." She glanced at her wrist. "One hour to planetfall. Inform me when you're ready to begin final descent."

  "Yes, Captain."

  Cynara holstered the sidearm and waved Ronan through the door. He preceded her into the galley, furnished with two small tables and three times as many seats.

  "Sit," she ordered. "We didn't get the chance to finish our previous conversation, and that was a mistake. I've made the possibly hazardous assumption that you really are human."

  Ronan laid his hands on the table. "I am."

  "Outwardly, yes. But I think, no matter how much you reject it, you are still part shaauri."

  "I had to become like them in order to survive."

  "I understand." She kept her hands out of sight under the table, as if she was afraid to let him see them. "But I find it very hard to believe that they taught you how to pilot their ships."

  It was a question he had expected, and yet he still had no answer, no explanation to make her trust him. "I was not shut out from all learning—the Kalevi House that took me in accepted me under their protection. It was other Houses on Aitu that wished me gone."

  "Gone?"

  "Dead."

  "They would have killed you, even as a child?"

  "It was necessary for me to learn to defend myself and discover how not to provoke attack. When I was very young, Ain'Kalevi protected me. But when I reached the age of Selection, they could not."

  "Because you should have been entering adulthood, and they forbade you what you needed to achieve it."

  "They feared the tales I might carry to humans, if I were allowed to run free as be'laik'in."

  "Then why didn't they kill you? Who brought you to Aitu, and where did you come from? Why did the shaauri take you in?"

  As he had done so many times in the past, he tried to remember the days of his childhood before he had first come to be among the shaauri. One morning he had awakened in a shaauri dwelling on a shaauri world, understanding almost nothing of what went on around him, or of these great beings who were to be his guardians. Even when he learned to speak the tongue as fluently as any human could, the Kalevii had refused to tell him what he had lost.

  So he had learned to stop asking. He had learned, very quickly, how to watch and listen. He had discovered that three Houses of Line Kalevi lived on Aitu, along with several Houses of allied Lines.

  At first most shaauri of Ain'Kalevi had treated him with casual indifference, even indulgence, as they did their own young. But when he had ventured away from the settlement, he had learned how much shaauri hated humans.

  "You haven't answered my question, Ronan."

  "I do not know the answer. It is not the shaauri way to murder children."

  "Defending the people who did that to you?"

  He followed her fierce stare to the back of his hand. Discipline alone kept him from withdrawing it, and he remembered with shame how he had made a display of himself to win her sympathy and trust.

  "Shaauri believe," he said slowly, "that all humans are uncivilized barbarians. Humans never return from Walkabout, and so remain unselected and without place or purpose all their lives. Shaauri regard this as a form of insanity, and humans as purveyors of madness. They breed much faster then shaauri, since all may mate where and when they choose. There is much fear… that the shaauri way will be infected and devoured by the human."

  Cynara sighed and closed her eyes. "Then they are wrong, Ronan. Not all humans are alike. On Scholar-Commander Adumbe's world, learning for its own sake is the great achievement, and all rank comes from academic testing throughout life. Zheng's world, Anvil, is high-gravity, and her people have adapted by altering their bodies both genetically and technologically to cope with the environment. On Sirocco, women hold all property and men gladly cede leadership to them."

  "And your world?"

  Her pulse increased by increments, and he smelled the faint tang of perspiration. "On Dharma, men rule and women are permitted few liberties. A female goes from her father's house to her husband's and her life is separate from that of males."

  With a flash of insight he realized that she was ashamed, and that it had taken her much courage to speak of this to him—to admit a weakness among humans and among her own people.

  "This difference in gender does not exist among shaauri," he said. "Most Paths share equally." He leaned closer to her over the table. "Human females do not lead, yet you are First of this ship."

  She gave a soft laugh. "That, my friend, is a long and complicated tale. There are many who would like to see me fall from this position."

  Toussaint and Janek. Both men had challenged her authority, subtly or openly. "They use my presence to work against you."

  "They need very little encouragement. But rest assured—they wouldn't be on this ship if I thought they would undermine our—" She caught herself, brows drawn. "If humans were selected like shaauri—" An almost imperceptible tint of warm color crept up under the clear skin of her face.

  "Aho'Va," he said with respect, "you are va'laik'in, of Will. You are First among these of your…" He could not say House or Line, for such things did not exist among humans. "You are First of your crew. The one you call Adumbe, he is Second, and should be va'laik'in as well. But you called him scholar. That is kivi, Reason."

  "Can shaauri select for more than one Path?"

  "I knew only one such shaaurin. He was of riama, Spirit, and vekki, Blood—a warrior and philosopher. He believed that all Paths are One."

  "As humans do… or should." Cynara leaned forward as he had, so close that their foreheads almost touched. "Perhaps we are not so different."

  Ronan breathed in her breath and felt his heart drum within the walls of his chest. "So he taught. So he believed."

  "I would like nothing better than to believe in you," she said, with an intimacy reserved for closest kin or mates. Ignorant, he was now certain. Ignorant of what she signaled with scent, voice, and gesture.

  "How do I win this belief?" he asked.

  "You said that once you had the gift of telepathy, like Kinsmen. Some on Dharma—the ruling families—carry this same trait."

  "You are a telepath."

  "Yes. Does that disturb you?"

  "Do not humans fear those who listen to the thoughts of others?"

  "On some worlds, yes. Kinsmen were often held in suspicion even before so many defected to the shaauri."

  "You are not Kinsman."

  "No. But the first Kinsman—a woman—came from Dharma."

  "Then you can enter my mind, and see if I speak truth."

  The deep blue of her eyes swallowed up the black pupil. She was afraid—not of him, but of something far less tangible. Not merely afraid, but terrified. She did not wish to use this ability she claimed.

  "Yes," she said, "if you'll let me. It is… not an easy thing, to have a stranger come into your deepest self. I wouldn't ask it, except—"

  "You would not be First if you did not make sure of your enemies."

  Her gaze came back to his. "Your mind was tampered with. Only Kinsmen would have the ability to suppress natural telepathic abilities—Kinsmen or equally strong telepaths." She hesitated. "Concordat Kinsmen construct mental shields for agents who may be vulnerable to telepathic intrusion from enemy operatives. I have one myself, and so does Janek."

  "I do not think I have such a shield."

  "But you may suffer more from any new intrusions, even if you don't remember what was done to you."

  "You give me the choice, unlike those others."

  "Yes."

  "Then I accept."

  Cynara shivered and leaned back in her seat. "I promise that I will not go any deeper than absolutely necessary to confirm your intentions." She brought her hands up onto the desk and clasped them. "My mind is not as powerful as tha
t of many Kinsmen, or even some of my kin on Dharma. It will be necessary to touch you."

  All the discipline in the universe could not have kept him from exulting in that moment. Only the expression on her face, pinched and grim, held him still.

  She was afraid, as he was. He feared that this female he desired would discover his shame and inadequacy. That she would realize that her rejection of him had been not only correct, but necessary.

  "I accept," he repeated, burying his fear and elation. "What must I do?"

  Cynara had fought her own inner battle, and her eyes were clear once more. "Open your mind. Think of it as… as space itself, boundless, expanding to infinity. I'll touch your hands. I don't know what you'll feel, but if it becomes painful—"

  "Continue until it is finished, Aho'Va."

  "I asked you to call me Cynara."

  His soul danced. "Cynara. Does it have a meaning?"

  "It is a name from an ancient human language—taken from a flower called a thistle."

  "And is this flower very beautiful?"

  "How would I know what you consider beautiful?"

  "Perhaps you will learn."

  She looked aside. "We have little time before planetfall. If you're ready—"

  He nodded human-wise, and she reached across the table to lay her hands upon his. Heat raced up the nerves of his arms. Cynara's fingers trembled. She almost withdrew them, but all at once her grip became firm and sure.

  "Open your mind," she said. "I won't harm you."

  Behind his closed eyelids lay the black of space reaching to eternity, and he was only a flicker of light unseen by any but the one who touched him. He felt her enter, illuminating the darkness.

  Searing beams plunged like knives, and with them came memory of the other time, when men had held him down and torn at his thoughts until they were stripped bones scattered by scavengers. He embraced the pain and let himself fall.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

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  Pain. Such terrible, unendurable pain. It came upon Cynara like a killing storm, beating wave upon wave. At first all she caught were blurred images like stones under ice. She was afraid, and fear made her too much at one with her subject.