Kinsman's Oath

by Susan Krinard

  "I am not Kinsman," he said. "Because of my birth, I was deemed best suited by A'Aho-Kei'hon-vekki to seek word of new human technology that threatens shaauri-ja. Now I have returned, and I ask in the name of Kei Moikko that you deliver me to Ain'Kalevi."

  "Humans lie," Tala Aarys said.

  "But Ronan VelKalevi is no ordinary human." The ship's First stepped from behind her guardian ve'laik'i and flicked her ears to signal that Tala Aarys should retreat. The youngster did so with barely concealed resentment.

  "I have heard of you," the First addressed Ronan, neglecting even the most neutral honorific but considerably more courteous than her Third had been. "Aarys was asked to watch for your return, but we were also given word to transport you to the Kinsman holding on Luhta." Her teeth flashed. "It is to Ain'Kalevi, and not to these Kinsmen, that you wish to be delivered?"

  A trap lay within the simple question. Ronan did not mistake the First's easy manner for friendliness. Whatever the orders she had received from the A'Aho-Kei'hon-vekki regarding Ronan's disposition, his immediate fate rested with her alone.

  "I am not Kinsman," he repeated, meeting her gaze. "I was raised in Ain'Kalevi."

  "You have no Path except among other humans."

  "Better ne'lin than First of Kinsmen."

  She absorbed this in silence, the eloquent shaauri silence Ronan had missed among humans with their constant noise and chatter. Cynara released a long, slow breath. He knew her fear as his own, but he could not risk a moment's inattention to address it. Every blink or shiver held significance to shaauri and could betray him.

  "We have heard the words of A'Aho-Kei'hon-vekki," the First said at last. "We have heard your words." She glanced at each of her subordinates in turn. "It is my judgment that this human will be taken to Ain'Kalevi, who may collect this intelligence and deal with Ronan VelKalevi's hostage—and Kinsmen—as they choose."

  Ears twitched and whiskers vibrated in argument. When the First faced him again, Ronan knew the others had agreed with her decision.

  "Ronan VelKalevi, you will go with this female to secure quarters."

  Ronan bowed to the precise degree necessary, offering honor and thanks but yielding nothing of his neutrality. It was good that the Aarysi didn't know what to make of him; they would proceed with caution because his place in shaauri society was not in accord with any they knew. Ne'lin he appeared, but no ne'lin was granted such responsibility and adoption into a shaauri House.

  So he remained an enigma. He had trusted that very confusion, along with unprecedented boldness, to protect him and Cynara. His assumption had proved accurate… for the time being.

  The First and her subordinate va'laik'i left the bay escorted by six warriors, and four other ve'laik'i fell in around Ronan and Cynara. They took the humans at a brisk pace up a companionway to another deck and what Ronan presumed to be one of the ship's holding cells. What the cabin lacked in comforts it made up for in privacy, and Ronan was grateful when the door was shut and locked behind them.

  Cynara slumped against the bulkhead and slid down to the deck. "Poseidon," she whispered. "I wasn't sure we'd survive that encounter."

  "Nor was I." Ronan brushed her hair with his fingertips and sat against the opposite bulkhead, focused on bringing his heartbeat to a reasonable pace. His palms were sweaty, and his hair stuck to the nape of his neck. The shaauri would have smelled his perspiration, but they had chosen to overlook it. Perhaps they had not been sure exactly what he felt.

  "You did very well, Cynara," he said, willing her to feel the depth of his pride in her. "They did not sense your fear."

  She smiled, one corner of her mouth turned down. "I was terrified."

  "Is that not the essence of courage—to act in spite of fear?"

  The wry humor left her face. "Courage wouldn't have been enough. You were magnificent, Ronan."

  Her admiration was quite real, and harrowing. Now that he could allow himself to consider the things she had revealed on the yacht, he was close to being overwhelmed.

  Her withdrawal from him, that first night on Dharma, had been devastating. He had only begun to test his abilities against Cynara's. But the time had come when he was grateful that she did not share his thoughts, or he hers.

  On Persephone, they had joined in his apartment without so much as a single mental touch. It had not been so in the lifepod. Something remarkable had occurred. A new passage had opened up between them, and if she had not been guarding her mind, he would know her every thought, her every emotion as if it were his own.

  She must be just as aware of the difference as he was, yet during their joining she had managed to conceal the small matter of her intent to remain on the lifepod while her mind gave up far more vital information.

  There seemed to be no pattern or sense in this change. Cynara was not prepared to embrace it, and neither was he. Their minds walked an uneasy border, neither daring to take a step over the line lest it provoke a most terrible Reckoning.

  Still she believed she loved him. That was impossible to doubt. And he did not understand.

  "Why did you come?" he asked.

  She glanced at the overhead. Do shaauri keep surveillance on prisoners?

  "Our status is not yet determined," he said aloud. "And shaauri—" Do not spy. But that was not the entire truth, for both the War-Leader and the Kalevi had agreed to send him to the Concordat for just such a purpose.

  He was human, and so could not suffer dishonor.

  "No one will hear us," he said. "Answer, Cynara."

  "I told you." She hugged herself. "Do I have to say it again?"

  He recognized how difficult the admission of love had been for her—as difficult as it would be for him. Hers was indeed the greater courage.

  "That was not your only reason," he said, more gently.

  "Just what do you think my other reasons are?"

  "I do not know," he said. You are concealing something important, he thought, and quickly silenced it. "You have heard me speak into your mind, as I have heard you," he said.

  "Very clearly."

  "Did you understand what happened when I spoke to the shaauri?"

  "Only a little. I… haven't got the knack for interpreting alien thoughts." She hugged her knees up to her chest. "Tell me, Ronan. I need to know everything if I'm to help."

  "I will try," he said. In simple, terse sentences he translated the conversations between him and Tala Aarys, conveying some sense of the emotions that had accompanied the shaaurin's words. "Aarys, among other starfaring Lines, was instructed to watch for me, but their original orders were to deliver me to the Kinsmen."

  "Then the Kinsmen did expect you to return from the assignment."

  "Or perhaps by some unknown means they heard that I had failed."

  "You mean via shaauri Kinsmen agents on Persephone? Security is almost impenetrable in Eos."

  "Lord Miklos must be aware of such a possibility." A strange thought darted through his mind like a vil-nymph, too swift to catch. "Aarys would not be pleased to carry out any order remotely beneficial to humans, Kinsmen above all.

  Therefore, I bespoke the common Clan Aarys and Kalevi share—Moikko—and requested that they transport us directly to Ain'Kalevi on Aitu. I claimed you as my hostage."

  "I assumed as much. This Tala Aarys intended to take me away from you?"

  "She attempted it. You must understand that it is shaauri habit to constantly test for weakness in any meeting between kin of certain Paths, strangers, or enemies. Had I been of obvious Path, her reaction would have been much more predictable. Because I acted as an equal, one of Will or Blood from an allied Line meeting another of similar Path, she did not know how to treat me. She assumed my inferiority as a human and tested my resolve. I had to counter her assumption."

  "You stood face to face with huge aliens armed to the teeth and never flinched."

  "Among shaauri, sheer… what you would call 'bravado'… can go far to counteract other disadvantages, if one is prepare
d to risk one's life. I had the disadvantages of no Path, no Linekin beside me, my human form, and the fact that I stood in Aarys territory. I had to behave as if none of that troubled me."

  "It worked." She smiled crookedly. "What did they decide to do with us?"

  "Shaauri are not like human military, nor are they bound to obey even a War-Leader's dictates without question. Each Line is to some extent autonomous, and first loyalty is always to House and Line. Had the ship's First determined I was a threat, she might have killed us both."

  "Did they know what you'd done on Persephone?"

  Memory of the near-assassination thickened his words. "They showed no sign of such knowledge. I told them only that I had acquired information I must deliver to my Line."

  "What information?"

  He could tell her now. It would be best for her to know the truth and be prepared.

  "On Dharma," he began slowly, "you began to fear that I might take vital intelligence about the Pegasus from your mind. I swore to you afterward that I would not, but—"

  "But I have no knowledge worth stealing," she said. "Lord Miklos and Mes Carter VelShaan saw to that."

  He suffered a moment of shock. "They knew you would come with me?"

  "They didn't know, but I wasn't willing to make any promises. I submitted to a process by which VelShaan… wiped my memory of all technical knowledge that could be used against the Concordat." She smiled, as if the procedure were as simple as a tooth cleaning. "I know it must seem as if I don't trust you, but Lord Miklos wouldn't let me go without the guarantee—"

  "That I would not take such information from you," Ronan finished. Cynara had sacrificed much in order to accompany him into danger. She believed she had eliminated any obstruction to such an action, any risk of betraying her own people.

  Something had gone very wrong.

  "We found no evidence that you took anything when you broke into engineering using Charis's passcard," Cynara said, catching his gaze. "Did you?"

  "I did not."

  "Then what you know must be very general. It can't be enough to satisfy your Kalevi."

  The vil-nymph thought intruded again, buzzing between his ears. He had broken the promise given to her on the Pegasus. He had unwittingly uncovered important information in her mind during their mating in the lifepod, though it was not what he'd expected. In many ways it was even more valuable—and dangerous.

  How could she claim such information had been erased? If she had not felt him take it from her and denied possessing it, VelShaan's procedure, undoubtedly similar to the one he had undergone on Aitu, had failed in some vital respect.

  Just as the shaauri Kinsmen's programming had failed.

  He pressed his temples, drawn into a nauseating spiral of speculation. If he were to question Cynara further on the procedure, he would only arouse her suspicions and destroy the trust he must keep if he were to save her life.

  How he had learned to hate these games of deception.

  Cynara was sketching invisible runes on the deck with her finger, tension evident in her posture. "When you spoke to the shaauri," she said, "did you mention the people who trained you?"

  He gladly pursued her change of subject. "Aarys is aware that Kinsmen were involved in my mission."

  "And they hate the Kinsmen. Did you know any of the men and women who worked with you on Aitu?"

  "I did not know their names. Their shields were very strong. They trained me with the War-Leader's approval, and Kalevi agreed."

  "One of those Kinsmen was Artur Constano VelRauthi. Do you know the name?"

  Ronan searched his memory. "It is not unknown to me. Rauthi is not at present a powerful Line."

  "But Constano VelRauthi was important to both shaauri and humans thirty-two years ago, when he led the Kinsman rebellion prior to the Second War."

  "I do remember. He became Aarys's enemy."

  "Constano had some human-hating shaauri convinced that the Kinsman rebellion would lead to the eventual expulsion of all humans from shaauri space. But he betrayed his shaauri allies when he saw an advantage in doing so. Your parents were instrumental in stopping the rebellion and capturing Constano VelRauthi. He was returned to the Concordat, but he managed to escape and was presumed dead… until his face turned up in your mind."

  "If he was known to be living among shaauri Kinsmen, Aarys would hunt him down."

  "Then they must not know he's alive and working incognito. Why would your War-Leader and your Line permit a treacherous bastard like Constano to conduct intelligence operations?"

  Ronan bared his teeth in a smile. "They would not. This Is information Aarys would wish to obtain."

  "The desire for vengeance is something humans and shaauri have in common." She returned his smile and moved closer, brushing his temple with the softness of her hair.

  He put his arm around her, sinking into the forbidden warmth of contentment, the rightness of her firm and supple body close to his.

  "You want to know," she murmured, "if these Kinsmen have their own agenda, and why they sent you to kill the Archon."

  "And you desire the same thing."

  "Among others." She nuzzled his neck. "It benefits your people and mine. Peace is what we all want."

  "You do not know how much many shaauri hate humans."

  "I think I do." She glanced at his hand flat on the deck, and he became aware of the netting of old scars. He clenched his fist.

  "Line Kalevi… and my own House, Ain'Kalevi… tolerated Kinsman presence on Aitu only because of me."

  She took his hand and deliberately opened each one of his fingers until his palm lay flat against hers. "Would they be able to distinguish one human from another easily?"

  "Unless the circumstances were extraordinary, they would not pay attention to individual markings and features." Her hand, so small in his, seemed infinitely precious. "All humans appear alike to them."

  "Then they might not recognize any given Kinsman. The Constano I've heard of wouldn't be foolish enough to risk his life carelessly. He may harbor the same ambitions he did during the rebellion, and he has a faction of shaauri-allied Kinsmen on his side. He might have been involved in your programming without shaauri knowledge, hiding among the Kinsmen who are accepted by the shaauri government."

  "The only government ruling all shaauri Clans is that assembled by the A'Aho-Kei'hon-vekki."

  "But he knew about your mission. He should also be very interested to learn that Constano is active among the supposed shaauri Kinsmen."

  "Indeed." He got to his feet and looked down at Cynara: the luxurious fall of red hair, the supple body, the clever mind behind a face humans called beautiful. If that mind contained motives she refused to admit, he dared not look for them. Not yet.

  "Shaauri are coming," he said. "I will give them word of this Constano—just enough to rouse their interest and to suggest that I may be of benefit to Aarys as well as Kalevi."

  "And once we get to your world… the Kinsmen may already be waiting."

  "Let us hope that we reach Aitu before them."

  "That's a very good plan." She tilted her head back and smiled, stopping the breath behind his teeth. "I have faith in you, Ronan. In your intelligence, your strength, and your courage."

  He turned his face from her. "Let us hope it is enough."

  The spaceport on Aitu was hardly more than a field cleared of brush and a cluster of small stone and wooden buildings, just sufficient to permit the landing of a midsized ship. If Ronan hadn't told Cynara that the Kalevi disliked space travel, the conditions here would have suggested that precise state of affairs.

  It was also obvious that the Kinsmen hadn't arrived yet. Ronan visibly relaxed, though "relaxed" was very much a relative term. Cynara had to fight the desire to give and receive comfort, here on this alien world where two humans stood against thousands of shaauri. But Ronan was holding back, hardening himself for the inevitable confrontation. The best support she could give him was her vigilance.

>   As Ronan and Cynara left the Aarys ship, surrounded by hair-trigger ve'laik'i with constantly twitching ears, Ronan quickly summarized what they would encounter in the Aitu settlements.

  Aitu was a fairly recent colonization effort by several Lines belonging to the Moikko Clan. Three Houses of Kalevi, and three each of their allied Lines Darja, Keisho, and Soraan, occupied the coastal and inland areas of one of Aitu's continents, comprising a population of less than ten thousand individuals. Shaauri, Ronan emphasized, did not like to be crowded. Clans, and sometimes individual Lines, searched constantly for habitable worlds on which new colonies could be established.

  The one characteristic common to most of Moikko's Lines was that they were rabidly antihuman and committed to what they regarded as the ancient shaauri way of life. Aitu was a world little changed since its first colonists had arrived. They maintained sufficient technology to assure survival of the majority, and regarded any greater dependence as weakness.

  Militant, human-hating separatists, Cynara thought as the shuttle's hatch opened to Aitu's biting air. These are the people who raised Ronan. The people he has to convince.

  Convince them that he carried information of sufficient value to make his and her own continued existence worthwhile. And that perhaps the shaauri Kinsman allies were not such loyal allies after all.

  Cynara had felt the excitement in the Aarys warriors ever since she and Ronan had been released from their cell. The name "Constano VelRauthi" had worked its magic, and Ronan had at least one Line very interested in any conspiracies he might expose.

  An armed ve'laik'in grunted to Ronan, who took Cynara's arm and started down the ramp. The young female Tala Aarys followed. She addressed Ronan at length, and after a pause he answered. With a disdainful flick of her side whiskers, the shaaurin marched back up the ramp.

  "I assured her," Ronan said, "that I will see that the Aho'Ah'Aarys—the First of First House of Aarys—is informed if I learn anything of Constano VelRauthi."

  "They aren't staying to meet your family?"