The Kinsman
Susan Krinard

Berkley/Jove
August 2001
ISBN: 0-515-13109-1

1

Jonas Kane VelArhan strode toward Persephone Station's docking bay with little thought to the people who moved quickly out of his way, or the glances they cast after him, full of hostility and fear.

He was a Kinsman. Kinsmen had been objects of envy and resentment in human space for nearly a century, ever since explorer and telepath Eeva Kane initiated a lasting peace between humanity and the alien shaauri.

Kinsman. For Jonas the name was a source of pride. He and those like him, Eeva's descendants and recruits, were the adopted kin of the shaauri—the only humans allowed to enter and cross the alien space that separated the two clusters of human worlds. They were a breed apart.

A Kinsman telepath on a human trade ship guaranteed its safe passage. Even those Kinsmen born without the telepathic gift held vital roles in the maintenance and administration of Kinsman stations and ships. Kinsmen held control of most interstellar commerce within the Concordat. They alone kept the fragile peace. They were privileged, rich ... and sometimes hated.

Jonas was accustomed to the distrust of ordinary humans. But he hadn't expected the obstacles his own people had thrown up in his face when he made the simple request to return to Persephone, the world to which this station belonged. After seven years among the shaauri, he'd expected a warmer welcome.

Oh, the obstacles weren't obvious, never broached directly. It seemed the Directors at Kinsman Prime wished to "debrief him before he returned to duty. That in itself wasn't surprising. But he kept remembering the behavior of the non-telepathic bureaucrats in the Station's Kinsman precinct office, the way they'd avoided his gaze. As if they had something to hide.

Or was it him? Were his perceptions so changed?

His steps slowed, and he paused beside a viewport looking out on Persephone, a jeweled sphere far below, streaked with emerald and purple. It had been so long since he'd followed in his father's footsteps as Kinsman liaison for the ruling Challinor family on Persephone. So long since the accident that had killed his wife and taken the lives of Calypso and Georg Challinor, leaving him the sole survivor.

He'd been within his rights to resign his duties temporarily and concentrate on healing from his injuries. Within his rights to return when he felt ready. But he'd spent more time with his adopted shaauri family than any other adult Kinsman in the past century, and naturally the Directors would wish to know what he had learned.

He had learned how to do without reliable use of the telepathic powers he'd been born with. He had learned to understand the complex shaauri language by immersing himself in the alien culture instead of depending upon his mind to read the subtle nuances that most humans missed. He was familiar with the slightest shifts in their body language. He had given himself up to the ministrations of shaauri doctors, who had adapted his ears to hear the high pitches and sub-vocal sounds that shaauri made, and who had altered his vocal cords to produce those same sounds.

Now he was almost as mentally blind as the non-telepathic Kinsmen who never dealt with the shaauri. Perhaps this sense of wrongness was simply the vast gulf he felt between him and his people. Paranoia. Looking for something that wasn't there, just because he had come to suspect that the accident had not been an accident at all.

But he did suspect. He had to learn the truth. On Persephone he could request an audience with Thetis Challinor, the ruler, or "Archon," of the planet. She hated the shaauri, but it was a place to start. If she had similar suspicions about the mission that had ended in the death of her son and heir . . .

"I beg your pardon."

He emerged from his reverie at the sound of the young woman's voice and the touch of her fingers on his sleeve. His first reaction was to shake her off and be on his way, but a glance at her face made him pause.

She was a stranger to him. Small, compact, with a shapely figure and a piquant face framed by straight blond hair. Pretty, under the garish face decorations that Persephoneans favored, and dressed in knee-length tunic and pants that fit more snugly than had been the fashion when he had left human space.

"What do you want?" he asked.

She dropped her gaze. Her eyes were pale, matching the hair. "I am sorry ... sir. I recognized you by your uniform. I need the help of a Kinsman ..." She trailed off, losing her nerve under his stare.

Of course — just another worldbound human who knew nothing of Kinsmen but legends and was ignorant of the proprieties. She clearly didn't realize that one who wished to hire a Kinsman didn't accost him in a public corridor but made formal application at the nearest Kinsman precinct office. What would such a girl—no trader or corporate employee or wealthy traveler, by his educated guess—want with a Kinsman in any case?

She looked up, and he saw the determination in her eyes. He let his gaze stray to her small, straight nose, the pointed chin, the surprisingly full lips.

Lush lips. He had not been with a human woman, Kinsman or otherwise, in nearly seven years. The last woman had been his wife. He'd been celibate since the accident. The shaauri were not fond of celibacy, but he had been alone among them.

His groin tightened into instant arousal. To lie with one of his own again ...

But she wasn't his own. He moved to walk away. "If you wish to hire a Kinsman, go to the office in sector nine."

Her feet tapped out a firm rhythm behind him. "I've been there," she said. "They won't even listen. Please—I need your help."

He came to a stop. Something flickered in his mind—a spark where a flame had dwelled, alerting him into utter stillness. He could almost, almost shape it, nurse it along to the old brightness. He tried, and failed. All it gave him was the hint of warning, of depths untapped, of secrets.

All hidden in this woman.

He turned to her again and flowed into the receptive state that he had taught himself during his alien pilgrimage. His senses focused on the woman, noting every tiny change in her posture, every twitch of her skin, every shift of her gaze. Humans were not nearly so difficult to read as shaauri.

Yes, she was hiding something. But she was also telling the truth. She needed help, and badly. He thought that she felt particularly alone.

As he did.

"Who are you?" he asked.

A smile crossed her lips, and faded. "My name is Tea. Galatea Dianthe, of Eldoris Province on Persephone. My brother was a member of the crew of the Royal trade ship Eurydice. It left on a trade run to the Nine Worlds three weeks ago. It never returned, and I know that the only people who could look for it are—"

He held up his hand. "I know nothing of this Eurydice, or of lost ships. I've been out of human space for seven years."

"Mr.—"

"Kane VelArhan."

Her eyes widened. "The last part of the name, VelArhan— it comes from your shaauri family, the one that adopted you?"

"If you know that much about Kinsmen, you know we do not take assignments directly from the client. I will direct you to—"

"Kane VelArhan," she said breathlessly, heedless of the discourtesy of interrupting him. "Kane was the human surname of the Kinsman who worked for our royal family many years ago. Even in the provinces, we knew of him."

"My father," he said. And I, for too brief a time.

"Then you are exactly who I need. The other Kinsmen won't even see me. But your family served the Challinors.

You would care what became of them—" She clasped her hands at her waist. "You would care if the second heir to the throne had disappeared in shaauri space. Wouldn't you?"

His attention was caught by a single sentence: "You would care if the second heir to the throne had disappeared."

The second heir. Lord Hector Challinor was heir apparent, first grandson of Thetis Challinor. Unless much had changed during his self-imposed exile, the next in line was Miklos Challinor, a young man Jonas remembered as something of a likable hothead. He had a sister as well, who'd been serving in the Concordat's Navy during Jonas's brief tenure at the palace.

Hector, Miklos, and Kori, Thetis's grandchildren, left orphaned by the accident. Tea was right. He did care what became of them, because he had been pilot of the ship in which their parents lost their lives.

He held Tea still with his gaze. "This lost ship Eurydice carried a Persephonean heir?"

"Yes." Her eyes grew bright, all naive courage. "My brother was a member of the crew. It was a new ship, very fast, and my brother was so proud to serve—" She swallowed. "It hasn't come back, and it never reached the Nine Worlds."

Jonas had no doubt that she was telling the truth. All he need do was check the latest Persephonean newscasts. But why would such a disaster be ignored by Kinsmen, especially those on this station? If a ship was lost, so was the Kinsman or Kinsmen on board. No stone would be left unturned to find them.

And Persephone would be in an uproar.

He thought back to the faces of his fellow Kinsmen. They'd been tense, too void of expression. Perhaps they thought he already knew. But they hadn't wanted him down on Persephone.

"A ship can't simply disappear in shaauri space, not with a Kinsman on board—"

"There was no Kinsman on board."

Shaauri did not laugh, not as humans did. The sound Jonas made was more of a snarl. "You said the ship went into the shaauri zone."

"Yes."

"No human ship enters shaauri territory without a Kinsman."

"This one did." She lifted her chin to meet his stare. "It hasn't been announced on the newscasts. The royal family must know, but they're keeping it secret. My brother—Acteon—told me before he left and swore me to silence. He promised to send me word when they reached the Nine Worlds. I know something's gone wrong."

Jonas caught her by the arm and pulled her after him toward the observation deck. He sat her down on a bench overlooking the rows of small ships in their berths, his sleek shaauri craft among them.

"I have been away for seven years," he said, "but seven years doesn't change the nature of the universe." Even though he stood over her, menacing and grim, she showed no sign of fear. After a long moment he sat beside her. "Start from the beginning. Tell me how a human ship dared to enter shaauri space without a Kinsman, and how it has gone unnoticed."

A frown settled between her brows. "Lord Miklos—the heir presumptive—captains the Royal trade flagship, Eurydice. Acteon told me that he decided to cross space without a Kinsman. He picked a special crew of volunteers. Acteon considered it a great challenge."

"A challenge." Suicide. "Why?"

"I don't entirely understand. Something about... problems with other Persephonean ships. Problems with—I'm sorry—with Kinsmen delaying important trade to the Nine Worlds, upsetting schedules. Rumors. We'd all heard them. But my brother knew more. He said that Lord Miklos was angry and planned to make a stand—to prove that humans were ready to deal directly with shaauri instead of relying on Kinsmen. Acteon believed that Lord Miklos could get them across." She twisted her fingers in her lap. "People don't know Lord Miklos is missing. He's supposed to be on a diplomatic trade mission to Hanuman. But I'm afraid something happened to the ship. The shaauri—" She broke off, her eyes pleading. "The other Kinsmen won't help. They act like they don't know, but they have to, don't they? Could a ship cross shaauri space without Kinsmen learning of it?"

She reached out, almost touched him. "I need to know if my brother is dead or alive."

Jonas felt an upwelling of nausea tighten his chest. The implications of Tea's words would have been stunning ... if not for what had happened seven years ago.

Kinsmen delaying trade. Why? Persephone was one of their major clients, with the highest percentage of trade ships crossing to and from the Nine Worlds. Persephone, like other worlds in the Concordat, relied on the raw materials of the frontier to feed their populations and to provide fuel, and the Nine required the Concordat's expertise and advanced technology. Their dependence upon each other was the reason that Kinsmen were necessary.

Miklos Challinor was a high-spirited young man, but it would take some great provocation to make him attempt something so flagrantly dangerous. Defying a century of custom, tradition, the very rules that made human-alien peace possible. Would Thetis Challinor have known of this, and approved, even at the risk of provoking the shaauri into a second war?

And why wasn't the Kinsman grapevine ringing with news of this outrage? Kinsmen had to know about it, had to have caught the transgressors at one of the many stations scattered at every wormhole that led into shaauri territory. Shaauri wouldn't have been left to deal with the intruders.

But if Kinsmen had caught the ship, and no one else knew ...

Either his people had lost the Eurydice, or something else had happened. And Kinsmen didn't want that something else known.

"I recognize," Tea said into his silence, "that what my brother did was foolhardy. Wrong, by our treaty with the shaauri."

His attention snapped back to her. "Do you know why my people must accompany every human ship that makes use of shaauri wormholes?"

"Because of the war. Because you are telepaths."

"Because my ancestors were the first to understand the shaauri. Humans were freely crossing shaauri space when the shaauri reclaimed it after a long absence. Shaauri territorial instincts are powerful. Warnings were exchanged. Ordinary humans misinterpreted shaauri communications, because they were incapable of hearing a third of the shaauri vocalizations, or of understanding their complex body language. The humans who encountered shaauri in their space managed to insult the shaauri beyond mending."

"And that led to war," Tea said softly.

"Yes. It lasted for years, until Eeva Kane used her telepathy to 'read' the shaauri and established the first real communications with them. One of the leading shaauri Lines adopted her as one of their own—Line Arhan. My Line. And they did the same with her family and a few others in her party. They became shaauri in all but blood and were given permission to cross the shaauri zone unmolested."

Tea regarded him earnestly. "And all Eeva's descendants, and those of the telepaths she recruited, had the same privileges. I heard that as children, Kinsmen even live with their shaauri families."

"Yes." He thought of Lashii, and Hraan, and the other members of his Line-bond. They were more family to him now than any human could be, and yet he was alone. "Because we are as shaauri, we grant a temporary Line adoption to the crew of human trade ships, which protects them as we are protected. Any ship that attempts to cross without one of us is out-Line, alien. And the shaauri are not merciful with intruders."

Staring out at the ranked ships, Tea shuddered.

Inexplicably, he was moved to comfort her. She was very near, and the warmth of her body felt completely different from that of the shaauri with their glossy red fur. Again he was reminded that she was a woman. A human woman. Lovely, and in need.

But there were things he could not tell her, things that wouldn't give her peace even if he did. Persephone had been in secret negotiations with a faction of progressive shaauri for years, long before that fateful explosion that had killed the original Challinor heir.

Jonas's father had been Kinsman-Challinor liaison when the catalyst for those negotiations came about. Thorfinn Kane VelArhan was the only Kinsman involved, though he would have informed the Kinsman Directors of his work and progress.

It was likely that other Kinsmen learned of the negotiations. Had those negotiations succeeded, trade might be carried out independently of the Kinsmen and their monopoly.

Some—many—Kinsmen wouldn't wish to see that happen. But Jonas would never have believed that any Kinsman would stoop to outright treachery and assaults against the royal family—if not for the "accident."

And now this.

Were those secret and threatening negotiations behind the loss of two ships seven years apart? If so, the negotiations must have continued. They must be close to succeeding. Which made Lord Miklos's provocative act rash indeed.

If he could speak with Thetis Challinor, he might know more. But if he approached her now, he would call attention to himself and the things he needed to learn. The things he must learn.

The alternative could be death, war, destruction. The dissolution of the alliances that humans like the Challinors had worked so hard to build from the ashes of the original colonies.

And he, Jonas Kane VelArhan, perhaps least human of all Kinsmen, was the one who had to find answers.

A light touch settled on the back of his hand. Fingertips. Slightly calloused, as with manual labor, but gentle. Unafraid.

"You will help me," she said, as if he'd already agreed.

He met her clear gaze. "What do you want of me?"

"To take me into shaauri space. To discover what happened. To find out if my brother is still alive."

She didn't know what she asked. She treated him as if he were a free agent, able to do as he liked. He hadn't yet reported for his debriefing, but he was still of the Kinsmen. Loyal to his people. As she was loyal to hers.

Such a woman would be a burden to him. Except that he knew she told the truth about her brother and the Eurydice, he had no reason to trust her. No reason to do more than collect all the information she had and then dismiss her.

His touch-starved body gave him reason enough.

"I know you doubt me," she said. Her hand tightened over his, surprisingly strong. "I do have something to give you in exchange for your help."

His imagination conjured up an image of the two of them on his ship, in his bed, entangled on the min-silk sheets. Her slender legs curled round him, pulling him inside her. She gasped and cried out as he entered, thrust, remembered what it was to be human.

Such bargains could be made. But he had not yet sunk so low.

"There is nothing you can give me," he said roughly, pulling free.

"You're wrong. Among your people, telepaths are only a little more common than they are among ordinary humans. No one has ever found a way to genetically manipulate humans to produce the trait, or even test for it before puberty. But you need more telepaths. They are the ones who guide human ships. You need to find all the telepaths you can from all over the Concordat and recruit them, so that you can have telepathic children."

His mouth went dry at her words. She was not so ignorant as she pretended. He and Jennara... might have had such children, if she'd survived. Every telepathic Kinsman was expected to produce children until one was born with the talent.

"What are you saying?" he whispered.

"I am a telepath," she said calmly, as if such a pronouncement was as unimportant as a casual jest. "I can give you children. And I will, if you help me find my brother."

2

The shock was plain on his face, though he was quick to smooth his expression. Kori Galatea Challinor breathed a prayer of gratitude that he hadn't recognized her for what she was from the first moment of their meeting.

He would hardly have reason to remember the child she'd been—a child he had met rarely, only when his father had attended formal functions at the palace. Her disguise was carefully assembled, but there was always the risk that his telepathic skills would uncover her true identity in spite of her mental shields.

Obviously there were still a few things she had to learn about Kinsmen. This one in particular.

Jonas Kane VelArhan. Kinsman, adopted of the shaauri Arhan Line. He wore the deep red uniform of his people— the same red as shaauri fur—barred with telepath black at the shoulders. At his back he carried the curved shaauri knife, presented to each Kinsman child upon his or her formal adoption into a shaauri Line. His hair was dark, his body tall and well formed, his features handsome, like his father's.

Jonas Kane VelArhan. He was the very one she'd waited so long to find. The one her operatives in Royal Intelligence had finally located after so many years, the one who might know what lay behind the "accident" that had killed her parents. Who might be willing to help her.

Help not the third heir in line for the Persephonean throne, Thetis Challinor's granddaughter, but the sister of a simple crewman serving on the Eurydice. And a telepath, possessing the one bargaining chip no Kinsman could pass up.

She felt the full weight of his stare. It was enough to intimidate any ordinary human, quite without the addition of his telepathic powers. As a girl, she'd been fascinated by Kinsmen and their alien ways, dreamed young-girl dreams of roaming the space lanes as one of them.

But that was before her parents died, and she became an officer of Royal Intelligence. Before she came to believe that Kinsmen could betray their own species. Before she learned how lonely it could be as a telepath among non-telepaths, unable to share her gift, further set apart from her fellow Persephoneans by her rank and her profession.

Maybe that was why she was all too aware of Jonas as a man as well as a Kinsman. A man who was attracted to the woman she pretended to be. She didn't need her training or telepathy to recognize that much. Or the way he was trying to hide it.

"You claim to be a telepath?" he said, his deep voice skeptical.

Let him underestimate her; she would need every advantage she could get if he proved to be enemy rather than ally. "Can't one telepath recognize another?" she countered. He didn't answer. His gray eyes were shielded—would his mind be shielded as well?

Her thoughts flashed to a possible future, one in which she was his contracted mate. Sharing his bed, lying beneath him, feeling him move inside her. She was no virgin, but... a Kinsman for a lover—this man, with his alien ways and arrogance and ability to share her thoughts? Unexpectedly, it excited her and woke a powerful yearning she finally recognized for what it was. The need to belong. To be wanted. To be loved.

She forced the yearnings from her mind. There would be no need to share his bed. Persephonean technology could easily enable her to donate eggs from her body to be nurtured in artificial wombs. Not that she had any intention of going so far. She had no compunction about deceiving one Kinsman in order to save Persephone, perhaps humanity itself.

"There are many such temporary contracts on Persephone," she said. "I would sign one to give you children. Is that useful to you?"

With a smooth, supple motion he got to his feet and paced away. "Do you know what you're offering?"

"Yes. My brother is all the family I have left."

His back was a field of black-barred maroon, turned firmly against her. He didn't quite believe her. Was afraid to believe her.

"You need more proof," she said. She gathered herself, closed her eyes, and reached into his mind. There was resistance, but not on the surface. That was easy enough to skim.

What startled her was the profound sense of isolation that surrounded him. Isolation not only from ordinary humanity but from his own people as well. Isolation even from the shaauri among whom he had lived. It was as if he was neither human, nor alien, nor Kinsman.

And beyond that... a barrier so strong she couldn't hope to penetrate it.

"You've been living among the shaauri for the past seven years," she said, sifting through what she'd discovered. "You have a shaauri friend named Hra... Hraan." She pronounced the alien name as he did in his mind, with a roll on the r and a slight break between the two vowels. "Your ship is a shaauri vessel, a gift from your alien family. You care about what happens to the Challinors. Your first name is Jonas. And you want what I offer."

She hardly had time to brace herself before he spun around and all but leaped at her, his fingers curled centimeters from her shoulders. It was not the reaction of a human.

"Never," he said harshly, "never enter another telepath's mind without permission."

Kori was not the type who flinched at danger; in her line of work, you didn't let others see your weaknesses or lose your nerve easily. Jonas Kane VelArhan almost made her slip.

"I'm sorry. I... haven't been around many telepaths." That, at least, was the truth.

He straightened and looked at her through half-lidded eyes. "Among Kinsman, no man or woman reads a fellow Kinsman's thoughts unless invited. It is an unthinkable breach of conduct."

That, then, might explain why he hadn't known who and what she was. Still didn't know. Honor among Kinsmen.

"You read shaauri thoughts," she said.

"Shaauri are not true telepaths, but they form bonds that are not dissimilar. We touch only the thoughts connected with the words they speak, to help us interpret."

"And non-Kinsman humans?" she said, suddenly rebellious. "Do you grant them the same courtesy?"

He let out a slow breath, well in hand again. "Three-quarters of my people are not telepaths," he said. "We do not invade the thoughts of others. It's the worst kind of violation, a rape of the mind. And we value truth, as the shaauri do. They don't lie in the way of humans. We follow their example."

Kori was careful not to let her eyes reveal the slightest skepticism. You're wrong, Jonas. You're lying right now— to yourself. If I'm right, your people are more than capable of deception.

"I am not lying," she said. "Surely you can see that much?"

His stare took on an eerie distance, as if he had retreated into some alien persona. "You offer yourself—your children—to the Kinsmen."

"To you."

"You would sign a contract to give me at least one telepathic child. It might take years—"

"I know."

He backed away and walked to the wide viewport that overlooked the docks. His hands clenched on the smooth metal railing.

If he didn't agree, if she could find no other way to win his cooperation, she would lose the best means she had to uncover a potentially deadly Kinsman plot.

She rose and went to stand behind him. Carefully she laid her palm against his back. The alien cloth was warm and smooth under her skin. His breathing caught and released.

Abdera's moons. Touching him like this was almost like reading his mind. He needed a human touch. He needed her, and she couldn't afford to give herself.

But he wouldn't come out of this unrewarded.

"Please," she whispered. "I wouldn't regret... such a bargain."

Muscles tensed and shifted beneath her palm. She thought he was about to fling her off, refuse. He didn't so much as turn his head.

"Very well," he said. "In exchange for my help in locating the Eurydice, you give me one telepathic child and surrender all parental rights to him or her. We can negotiate about any other children produced before. The contract will continue until the birth of the telepathic child, or for five years, on the condition that you are prepared to produce one child a year."

It was cold, so cold. "That will be no difficulty," she said stiffly, withdrawing her hand. "It's not as if I'll be bearing the children myself. I will donate one ovum a year, and give you guardianship of any telepathic child. But the non-telepathic children must be mine, to raise as I wish."

He turned to face her, a strange light in his eyes. "You labor under a misapprehension," he said. "Kinsmen do not use artificial-birth technology. To shaauri, family is life. No shaauri female would consider letting her children be taken from her body. If you sign the contract, you will return to Kinsman Prime as my mate, and the children we make together will be carried in your womb."

This time it was her turn to hide her shock. None of her carefully gathered intelligence had revealed this little facet of Kinsman life. Now it was clear why he had reacted so strongly to her offer.

He expected her to sacrifice five years of her life, to live among strangers, bear as many as five children, and possibly give at least one of them up forever.

Of course it would never happen. She was third in line to the throne, a member of the royal family. There were others who could assume the throne if she and both her brothers died—Persephone was no longer an absolute monarchy—but tradition would not allow such an unorthodox union.

She had to make Jonas believe that Tea Dianthe would. The fate of all humans and shaauri might depend upon him.

That, and the life of her brother and his ship's crew. If they were not already lost.

Heat surged back into her face. "I... see."

His smile held a bitter edge. "Have you changed your mind?"

"No." All her tension and anger flowed into her hands. She clenched them and let them relax. "I haven't changed my mind. For my brother's sake."

"Then we will sign a personal contract aboard my ship, and register it when we return."

"We'll leave right away?"

"When I've learned all I can at this station, and you've told me everything you know about the Eurydice and its captain's intentions. They should have filed a flight plan here, if they left from Persephone. But if they went without a Kinsman—"

"My brother gave me their flight plan," she said. "You're going to ask the other Kinsmen here what they know about the Eurydice?”

"I may have more success than you did." His voice grew rough. "Did you attempt to enter their minds?"

"I couldn't sense anything concrete."

He frowned. "All Kinsmen can block, but they seldom feel the need." His gaze turned inward. "While I'm gone, you're to wait at my ship. I'll take you there now."

So quickly, then. She'd met him a mere half hour ago and already she was committed. Just not quite in the way Jonas Kane VelArhan assumed.

He led her from the observation deck and into one of the piers strung with docked starships, some like pretty silver jewels, others gaudy with paint and decoration.

His ship was the strangest of all. It wasn't so much that the shaauri vessel appeared vastly different from a human ship, but there was a certain alienness to it that couldn't be ignored. Kinsmen used some shaauri technology, but she guessed that this one was unique.

"Afraid?" he said behind her as she hesitated at the end of the ramp. The airlock hatch slid open.

In answer she stepped into the ship. The main cabin was utilitarian but not uncomfortable, with room enough for six passengers. Jonas ducked into the cockpit and the air circulators hummed to life, releasing a faint, unusual scent. Shaauri, perhaps. Only Kinsmen ever got close enough to smell them.

"Make yourself comfortable," Jonas said. "I'll be back within a few hours. There are provisions in the galley, aft. It's not luxurious, but it should suffice."

She nodded her thanks. He paused at the hatch to stare at her, dark brows drawn, as if he would say something more personal. As if he might actually speak to her as his future mate and mother of his children.

With a slight shake of his head, he stepped out of the ship.

Kori settled into one of the seats nearest the cockpit and rested her chin on steepled fingers. It was too risky to contact her operatives on the station or Persephone; she had no idea what sorts of sensors or alarms this ship carried. From now on, she was on her own.

And she had plenty of thinking to do.

He returned, as promised, after a few hours. Kori had paced from one end of the ship to the other, studying it carefully, debating all the while how much she ought to reveal to her uncertain ally. At least she needn't fear that he would violate her thoughts; he'd been clear on that score, almost to the point of irrationality.

"You were right about the Kinsmen on this station," he said, leaning on the inner hatch of the airlock. Kori noticed that casual grace, hinting at ease and yet promising instant readiness for action. She forced her gaze away from his lean, muscular thighs, his narrow waist and broad chest, focusing on his face.

"They wouldn't talk to you?" she asked.

"They were ... less than forthcoming." His expression seemed to say that he wondered the same of her. She looked back with innocent concern. "Most of them are low-level clerks and bureaucrats, and probably don't know much more than we do. If they know anything at all."

Cautiously she brushed the outer layer of his thoughts. He was discouraged—more than discouraged—by the behavior of his people. He was beginning to think he couldn't quite trust them, and that possibility cut him deeply. Better to make excuses for them than admit that Kinsman honor was no longer sacrosanct.

But he was just as committed to learning the truth as she.

"What do we do next?" she asked.

He shook off his melancholy. "You said you know the Eurydice's flight plan. It wasn't registered here at Persephone station, so we'll have to rely on the information your brother gave you and hope it's correct." He moved to a console on the port side of the ship, opposite the seats, and called up star charts from the ship's computer. "Can you show me, here?"

The charts were no different than those used by Royal Intelligence. With the slight hesitation befitting one who didn't have such easy access to starflight technology, she marked out Miklos's route.

"He departed into shaauri space from the most underutilized wormhole in the Concordat," Jonas said. "The Vishnu system is too out of the way for most traders to bother with. Lord Miklos chose as wisely as he could, for a man behaving like a crazed hylpup."

"Hylpup?"

"That's the closest most humans can come to pronouncing the actual shaauri word. It's a beast of the shaauri home world. They were so easy to hunt that the shaauri nearly wiped them out, and put the remaining few thousand of them under protection. They are singularly stupid animals."

Kori swallowed her annoyance. "But you said the shaauri don't hunt them anymore. Maybe they aren't so stupid after all."

He gave her a narrow sideways glance. "You'll sit with me in the cockpit and tell me whatever else you know while we travel. We'll set out for Vishnu immediately. I've already cleared my flight plan with Persephone Station Control." He took her arm and steered her through the cockpit hatch. "I registered my route through shaauri space with the Kinsman office. It's necessary, to regulate traffic and keep it flowing smoothly."

"And to make sure everyone obeys the rules," Kori muttered.

"There are always some who do not." He settled in his seat and began to run a systems check.

"They don't know we're looking for the Eurydice?”

His jaw set. "I told them that I'd recruited a telepathic female for our people and was taking her back to Kinsman Prime for evaluation. That supersedes my debriefing." Station Control gave him clearance to depart, and he disengaged the docking clamps. "They have no reason to question me, even though I'm taking a very indirect route."

That was something to be grateful for. Maybe the Kinsmen on this station really didn't know much about the lost ship. But others were sure to—in shaauri territory.

As for Jonas ... he had not quite lied to his fellow Kinsman, but he had deceived them. Even without so much as brushing his thoughts, she felt his agitation and shame. He wouldn't last two days in Royal Intelligence.

She almost found herself wondering if there was something admirable in that.

The ship, which Jonas called A'amia—named for a sort of predatory bird on the shaauri home world—slipped free of station traffic and began the hours-long flight to the Concordat wormhole that would take them to Vishnu. After the autopilot was engaged, there was little for Jonas to do, and less for Kori.

She didn't intend to let the time go to waste.

"There's so much I don't know about the Kinsmen," she said, when Jonas leaned back in his seat. "It would help me to understand what I'm ... getting into."

His gray eyes flickered with interest and what might have been amusement. "Second thoughts, Mes Dianthe?"

"Tea," she said. "There isn't much point in being formal, if we're going to—" She broke off, feigning embarrassment. "Is it all right if I call you Jonas?"

"It's acceptable," he said. "You're not yet family, but you will be."

Did she imagine that entirely different glint in his eyes? She shifted in her seat and pretended a sudden fascination with the ship's console. "Could we go somewhere more comfortable to talk?"

"Are these quarters too close for you, Tea? You'll have to get used to them."

"I'm sure you don't do everything in this little space."

"No. Not everything." He rose and left the cockpit, not looking back to see if she followed. He led her past the main cabin and into the small galley in the stern of the ship, rigged with a table and two seats.

"Would you like kaffe?” he offered, stopping at the food station, "or do you prefer to begin learning more about the shaauri?"

"Does that mean shaauri don't drink kaffe?"

"The shaauri sense of taste is a thousand times more sensitive than a human's, as is their hearing," he said. "Kinsmen prefer a shaauri beverage." His fingers moved deftly over the galley console, and in a few moments he held a steaming cup of golden liquid in his hands. "It's an acquired taste. Do you care to try?"

It was a dare, as if he were testing her commitment to this venture by such simple means. She reached for the cup, and he placed it in her hands.

The smell was slightly spicy and altogether alien. She took a seat at the table, gingerly lifting the cup to her lips.

Her first sip of the beverage was startling. It was unlike anything she'd had before. Deliberately she took another taste.

"Do you find it strange, Tea?" Jonas asked.

"No. I like it."

He settled opposite her and drank from his own cup with obvious pleasure. "Don't lie. You're not very good at it."

How little he knew. "Neither are Kinsmen, according to what you said. Or they shouldn't be."

He went on alert, his brief cordiality fading. "You said you wanted to learn about my people," he said. "But I'm sure you already share the opinions of most World bound." Before she could respond, he stopped her with a gesture. "You never told me your theory about the Eurydice's disappearance."

She curled her fingers around the cup to savor the heat, though she hardly needed it in the climate-controlled ship. "I don't have a theory. I don't know much about anything, really. My brother was the ambitious one. I stayed at home in Eldoris Province on the family farm ... until I came to the station."

"And what was home like?"

"Nothing that would interest a Kinsman. I was just your typical World bound, after all."

"Then this is your first trip off-planet?"

"Yes."

"I admire your courage. You've tackled a great deal for your maiden voyage."

She listened for mockery in his words and heard none. "Thank you."

"And you know more about Kinsmen than I thought most Worldbound did." He caught her gaze and held it. "Enough to think that Kinsmen have something to do with the Eurydice’s disappearance?"

He wasn't reading her mind, and she was fairly certain she hadn't said anything so blunt. "I... was thinking more about the shaauri," she said. "Wouldn't they be the real danger?"

"If their territory is invaded, yes."

As if she'd lost her taste for the alien drink, Kori pushed her cup away. "It's said that they look like giant cats."

"A great oversimplification, because humans don't have a better frame of reference." He took her cup and put it into the recycler. "They are bipedal, furbearing, highly intelligent beings. I can show you holovids, if you feel up to it."

"I want to be prepared, in case we meet any."

"Very well." He left the galley for the computer console and called up a holovid of a single shaaurin. In spite of Kori's pretended ignorance, she knew very well what the aliens looked like. The image was still startling.

This one, she guessed, was male, with dark red, black-barred fur covering his body. He wore a loose, pocketed vest and trousers, and his feet and hands were bare. To call him a cat on two legs was, indeed, a gross oversimplification. The face was full of alert intelligence, bewhiskered and mobile, with pointed ears set slightly to the sides of his head. The whiskers ran in two curved parallel rows in an arch from the cheekbones to the middle of his forehead, like parentheses.

"It isn't only their appearance and language that make them different from humans," he said, leaning close to her. She could smell the masculine scent of him, clean and just slightly exotic, like the ship. "Shaauri, for instance, don't lie ... not as we use the word. They have their own subtle forms of deception, but lying as we know it is alien to their thinking."

"And that's why Kinsmen aren't supposed to lie, either."

"We have acquired many shaauri tastes and customs."

"Which is one reason people don't trust you. Why they're afraid."

"Humans always fear what's different."

"You're still human, Jonas." She looked up at him, daring him to move away. "I'm not afraid of you."

Unexpectedly he cupped her chin in his hand. There was no doubt at all, she thought, that he was human. Her mouth went dry.

"I wouldn't want you to be afraid," he said with surprising gentleness. "I want you to ..." He stopped, let her go, and returned to the original subject. "Humans resent us because we control the shipping lanes through the shaauri zone, and we ask payment for our services. Therefore, their trade profits are reduced."

She was grateful for the chance to be honestly annoyed. "Some say you ask too much. Persephoneans were the first in the Concordat to rediscover starflight. If it weren't for our scientists, all the colonies would be gone by now, and not even Kinsmen would be in space." She took in a deep breath. "People still remember the war. And they believe you prefer shaauri to your own kind. Do you?"

It came out as a challenge. His mouth curled in a genuine smile. "Not always."

The brush of his lips on hers was as ephemeral and sweet as a waterfall in the Cerberan desert.

3

All at once the ship seemed to lose its gravity. Kori floated a few centimeters off the deck and touched down again only when he drew back and let her go.

He walked away, giving her a chance to collect herself. This wasn't supposed to happen. She was on assignment, one that might prove to be very dangerous. She had to keep her head—and her feet firmly planted on solid ground.

This ... reaction ... was only because he was different, a telepath like her. And because sometimes she let herself remember how lonely she was.

Jonas leaned casually against one of the passenger seats as if he had felt nothing. Let him see, then, how little she was disturbed.

'Tell me about shaauri mating customs," she said.

He lifted a brow. "A complicated question." He strode back to the computer and called up another image, this one a two-dimensional chart of alien names. “To understand that, you have to understand that shaauri clans are made up of families, Lines, with very complex relationships among themselves. A clan is like a human nation, but the Line is everything. A shaaurin's first loyalty is to his Line, and then his clan."

"Or hers?"

"Or hers. Shaauri males and females are equals." 

"You said that shaauri females bear their own young." 

"Yes. But both shaauri males and females are encouraged to leave home upon first reaching adulthood, even though any shaaurin is vulnerable outside the Line-bond. Shaauri Lines are very close-knit; only young shaauri can tolerate being alone for any length of time. The nearest human equivalent for their period of wandering would be our word 'walkabout.' It's the risk they take to win higher status in the Line, and perhaps mate to bring in new blood." His lashes dropped to shade his eyes. "Shaauri youths are expected to experiment sexually, but shaauri females are fertile only four times a year. If a female becomes pregnant and has not established a new Line of her own, she returns to her original Line to give birth. The child belongs to that Line, and its genetic history is carefully recorded." 

"What about the father?"

"He has nothing to do with the child unless he becomes the female's lifemate, or the two of them attract enough affiliates to form their own Line."

Kori sat down in the nearest chair. "Lifemate?" 

"Lifemating has great significance to shaauri. It is the foundation of every Line, and it cannot be broken by anything but death. Many shaauri never find a lifemate. Once there was only one lifemated couple per Line. Now there can be more, but it is still a sacred, unbreakable trust between two shaauri. The children of such matings are considered particularly blessed."

"But if it's so uncommon, how does a shaaurin find a lifemate?"

"I told you that shaauri are not true telepaths, but they possess abilities not unlike telepathy. A female shaaurin drawn to a male for the purpose of lifemating must convince her chosen one to give up every other female for her. Often the female takes the initiative, but males are by nature... reluctant to surrender their sexual freedom. In the opposite case, a male also must convince the female to accept him as father of all her children. Ritualized personal combat is not uncommon in such instances. There's also kidnap-for-mating, when a shaaurin needs more leverage to win his or her chosen one—though it can be risky, since the Line is entitled to kill the kidnapper if they catch him or her. That's a kind of courageous deception that shaauri admire—being able to enter a rival's territory and escape alive."

"It sounds barbaric."

"No more barbaric than the human willingness to change mates even after sacred oaths are taken, or their propensity to make war among themselves. The shaauri gave that up long ago; conflict even between Lines or clans is almost always resolved through personal challenge. Line concerns are dealt with on Line level and are not allowed to spread beyond. Shaauri do not condone mass slaughter."

Kori jerked up in her seat. "Neither do we. The Concordat is at peace—"

"Not so long ago, the colony worlds of the Concordat were little more than barbaric enclaves fighting for supremacy."

"Until my great—" She stopped herself. She'd been about to reveal her identity by telling him that her own great-great-grandfather had been the one to establish lasting peace among human worlds. "Until Priam Challinor created the Concordat."

"Yes. He had great charisma. But even he couldn't stop war with the shaauri. And that's why you need us."

You. Us. Ordinary humans and Kinsmen. Did he mean to remind her of the gulf between them? Put her in her place?

"My Line, Arhan, specializes in dealing with humans," he said. "They have a powerful curiosity about us. When I lived among them, I was treated almost exactly as a shaaurin. But..." He looked down at the top of the seat and ran his finger along the upholstery. "I learned that it is not possible for a human to become a shaaurin."

The sadness in his voice startled her. He went from arrogant to vulnerable in an instant, and she didn't know which was the real Jonas. Or why he should choose to let her see anything of his inner heart.

"Did you want to be?" she asked gently.

"When my wife was killed, I thought I did."

It was necessary to feign surprise, but she found that she had no need to pretend sympathy. She reached up to cover his hand with her own.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize—"

He gazed at her hand. "Our ship was damaged in space. An explosion due to engine malfunction. I survived."

The accident. Would he let slip what had happened, what he must believe Tea Dianthe ignorant of... that he 'd been the Kinsman pilot on the ship bearing the Challinor heir on a supposedly secret diplomatic mission to shaauri space?

But that much he wasn't prepared to share. "It was a long time ago."

"Seven years?" she said, making it sound like a guess. "That's why you went to live among the shaauri. All that time away from humans . . ."

He turned his hand to clasp hers. "The shaauri love life. They taught me to want to live."

Once again she was surprised and almost moved by his desire to confide in her. The woman he must think she was.

Because he thought she was his woman. He wasn't speaking now of cold contracts and parental rights. His thumb stroked over her knuckles so lightly that the touch sent shivers sweeping up her arm.

"Your wife was a telepath, too?" she asked.

"She was."

"That must have given you... a special bond. Like the shaauri lifemates."

His fingers stilled. She could feel a wall slam down between them, stronger than any mere mental block. Then, without warning, he caught her shoulders in his hands and took her mouth.

This kiss was anything but gentle. It wasn't quite violent, not quite angry, but she knew he was trying to make a point: that he didn't have to have any kind of bond with a woman to enjoy her. And perhaps that she shouldn't expect anything to develop between them just because she was a telepath.

She didn't care. She returned his kiss with equal fervor, losing herself in the moment. Her hands kneaded the hard muscle of his waist while his tongue explored her lips and mouth. Let him see that she could give as good as she took. Let him see just what a non-Kinsman could do.

Jonas made a movement with his knee, and the seat on which she was half-kneeling began to recline. He eased her down, until she found herself lying on her back, and he knelt beside her seat-turned-couch.

Her thoughts were becoming dangerously clouded, but it wasn't because of anything Jonas did with his mind. His hands ran lightly over the shape of her body, surprisingly expert for a man who hadn't been among humans for such a long time. He kissed the angle of her jaw, the soft skin beneath, the pulse at the base of her neck. He cupped her breasts in his palms, teasing her nipples into peaks through the curve-hugging fabric of her tunic.

It occurred to her that he was well on his way to consummating the contract between them here and now, and she wasn't going to stop him. Abdera's moons . . . she wanted him. And he would only trust her more if she let him make love to her. The act was completely justifiable in the context of her mission.

But she had to stay in control. She had to know what was going on in his mind. He would never be more off his guard than when his body needed so urgently.

As she'd learned to do long ago, she separated her consciousness, letting one part of herself respond to his caresses and guiding the other to probe his thoughts. Carefully, so carefully, testing that barrier he'd put between them.

Hunger was all she felt at first. His wanting. Physical, yes, but also the powerful yearning to join with another human being. He would feel the same about any woman.

No, not any. She was what he desired. Not merely the outward trappings of her altered hair and eyes and provincial cosmetics, but what he had touched of her mind and heart.

She felt a yielding in his mind, almost an embrace. The wall shuddered. Behind it she glimpsed a vision, like the blinding light of a supernova—a vision of unity with another soul such as she'd never known, far beyond any mere joining of two bodies.

Was this what two telepaths could feel when they shared everything? Could humans, like shaauri, lifemate for all eternity? The light pulled at her, seductive, demanding ...

Too much. This wasn't what she'd bargained for. Her body tensed against him; her mind became clumsy in its exploration. Behind the light was a vast gulf of darkness, a wasted region of nothingness lodged in his mind, a blackened wound.

His defenses closed up, thrusting her out. She felt as though she'd been hurled across the room.

The ship's computer chimed a warning.

Jonas pulled himself off her and stumbled back, uncharacteristically awkward. He wiped his hand across his mouth. His gray eyes were glazed, more with shock than passion. Abruptly he turned on his heel and strode to the cockpit.

Kori lay still, remembering to breathe. The sensation of violent rejection was mental only; her body ached, but not from any wound. She pushed herself up on her elbows and shook her head to clear it.

Following Jonas into the cockpit did not seem like a very good idea. One thing was for certain ... she'd better be ready to handle him more professionally next time.

If there was a next time.

Jonas concentrated on guiding the A'amia through the Vishnu system to the mouth of the outbound wormhole, ignoring the searing pain in his head and the shock of nearly losing himself in Tea Dianthe.

Losing himself not only in her body but in her mind.

He leaned back in his seat and rubbed his temples. The mere fact that he had shared a mental link with Tea was something of a miracle. The telepathic centers of his brain had been injured in the explosion, and flickered to life only rarely, like the burned-out drive of a derelict ship.

Tea didn't know that. She thought he was a fully functional telepath. She'd tried to read his mind again and triggered a chain reaction that set his brain alight.

He had come close to such an experience, once, with Jennara. Even they hadn't been able to forge a complete link, when both were in the prime of their telepathic powers. Such a link was rarer for Kinsmen than lifemates were among the shaauri.

It had almost happened with a stranger, and not merely because he wanted her. Wanting wasn't enough.

A mere few hours had passed since they'd left Persephone Station, moving at one-tenth the speed of light. It felt like eons. The trip through the Concordat wormhole to Vishnu had been brief as the blink of an eye—and now they were nearly at the mouth of the wormhole into shaauri space.

After that, their search for the Eurydice would begin in earnest. No more time for dalliance. He couldn't guess the extent or nature of the danger they were facing.

Apart from that posed by Tea Dianthe. He wasn't even sure what he feared. Caring for her? Finding that he wanted more from her than a contract mate and a telepathic child? Daring to trust enough to admit how damaged and uncertain he was?

The computer prompted him to pay attention. The signal buoy at the mouth of the wormhole transmitted clearance, and he piloted the ship in. The familiar curving, flickering walls closed about him. A journey of a hundred light-years took only a handful of hours.

Tea didn't appear at the cockpit hatch until the A'amia exited the wormhole and was in shaauri space.

He was hypersensitive to the sound of her breathing, her scent, her slightest shift in posture behind him. He wanted very badly to know what she was thinking. Feeling.

"Where are we?" she asked, her voice slightly strained.

"Approaching KS13, the Kinsman border station in this precinct of shaauri space."

"Shaauri space," she repeated. She sat down beside him, gazing out the canopy.

"Yes. If the Eurydice came this way, the station will have records. The ship couldn't have passed undetected."

"Nothing ever gets past a Kinsman."

The words were dry but not hostile. He chose to ignore any double meanings. "Patrolling the shaauri wormholes is part of our function."

"Then why didn't the Kinsmen here catch the Eurydice? Why didn't anyone at Persephone Station know about it?"

"That's what we're here to find out."

He pushed his awareness of her to the back of his thoughts and transmitted his approach to the station. They would know he was coming, of course, from his filed flight plan. They wouldn't know why he was here.

How would they react when they learned?

The Kinsman station was of standard design, its docks nearly empty save for a few smallish trade vessels that used this less-traveled route to the Nine Worlds. The station transmitted docking instructions to his ship's computer, and he finished the maneuver manually, slipping into his assigned berth.

"This shouldn't take too long," he said, rising from the console. "I have full access to all station records."

"Why don't you just retrieve them from the ship?"

"It's better if I go in person. I have nothing to hide, do I? I'll speak to the Station Administrator and take any other steps that seem necessary. In the meantime, I suggest you get some sleep."

She stood up to block his path. "You're not going alone."

"Don't be foolish. This is a Kinsman station, and you'll only get in the way."

"But you told your fellow Kinsmen that I was your recruit. Wouldn't it be natural for me to get a sense of my new home?"

As little as he wanted her near him, she had a valid point. Her presence wouldn't be questioned under the circumstances.

"Very well. But let me do the talking. Being Worldbound, you'll undoubtedly find plenty to hold your interest without interfering."

She dipped a curtsy. "Shall I stand and gape openmouthed in awe at Kinsman splendor, and breathe a few prayers of gratitude for my good fortune?"

He looked at her sharply. Her attitude seemed less and less like that of the young provincial who had first approached him at Persephone Station. Her body language was too challenging, too confident. Again he was struck with the knowledge that she was keeping secrets.

And he didn't have the means to read her thoughts, even if he would.

"They'll expect you to be intimidated," he said. "This is Kinsman territory."

The corridors of the Kinsman station were nearly empty compared to the bustling crowds at Persephone's. The few people Jonas and Tea passed wore Kinsman maroon, very few barred with black. Most were clerks and supervisory personnel, non-telepaths involved in the day-to-day operation of the station. They nodded to Jonas in recognition of his status and dismissed Tea with a glance.

"Persephoneans think Kinsmen live in luxury," Tea commented. "You are wealthy, but it doesn't show here."

'This is a working station," he said. "We, like the shaauri, save our luxuries for our private lives."

She accepted this without comment, hurrying to match his long strides. Reluctantly he slowed down to accommodate her.

"We're almost to the records office. It should take no more than a few minutes to search the station's database for any mention of the Eurydice or other unauthorized vessels passing this way. You'll have to wait outside; non-Kinsmen aren't permitted."

This time she didn't argue. He left her just outside the office, pausing at the entrance to have his DNA scanned. The clerk in charge glanced up from his desk with obvious curiosity, undoubtedly aware from Jonas's profile that he'd been living among the shaauri.

"Welcome back, sir," he said. "The station is at your disposal."

Jonas gave him a nod and moved to the nearest terminal.

Fifteen minutes later, he had what he wanted. The data were inexplicably buried in deactivated buffers, and anyone running a cursory search might not have found their formation at all.

An unauthorized ship, unusually fast, had passed through this system three weeks ago without acknowledging Kinsman hails or docking for inspection. A Kinsman vessel was sent in pursuit, following the unauthorized ship into the wormhole leading deeper into the shaauri zone, while a coded warning was sent ahead to the Kinsman station at the other end.

There were no further records. No indication as to whether or not the ship had been caught, or what happened on the other side. Such an open-ended report was far from normal, especially in the case of a flagrant challenge to Kinsman authority. The ship could not possibly have disappeared.

But the Eurydice had come this way. Someone knew more about the situation than he or she was willing to commit to the records.

Jonas ended his inquiry and left the terminal. Tea was right to be concerned about her brother. And he was right to wonder exactly what was going on.

"Did you find what you needed, sir?" the clerk asked with a pleasant smile.

"In part." He braced his hands on the clerk's desk. "I'll need to speak to the Administrator."

"That can be arranged, of course. I can page her personal assistant and request an appointment." He consulted his screen. "I'm certain that the Administrator will be able to see you tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow. Today."

The clerk shifted uneasily and glanced at Jonas's bars of rank. "I'll see what I can do. May I tell her assistant the nature of your appointment?"

"It's of a private nature."

"Of course." There was a delay of several minutes while he contacted the assistant and explained his request, and then he turned back to Jonas.

"It's done, sir. The Administrator will see you immediately, if it is convenient." He called up station schematics on his screen, indicating the location of the Administrator's office. "Would you like a download?"

"I'll find it." He remembered to smile. "Thank you for your help."

He nearly tripped over Tea as he walked out the door.

"Well?" she said. "Did you learn anything?"

"Enough to know that your brother's ship did come this way. There are no records as to its ultimate fate."

"Where are we going now?"

"To the Administrator's office. She's the final authority on this station. She'll know what isn't in the official records."

"Then they are hiding something."

They. She meant Kinsmen. And he was afraid she was right.

"I'll have to ask you to stay outside once more," he said. "This could be a delicate interview."

"You don't think I'm up to it?"

"I think you don't know my people nearly well enough," he said. The Tea who had recently emerged—defiant, cocky, confident as any star voyager—was very likely to do something rash.

Her jaw set stubbornly, but she agreed to wait in the lounge outside the Administrator's office. Jonas left her absorbed in an entertainment holovid, one she wasn't apt to find in non-Kinsman space.

The Administrator was waiting for him in her large, utilitarian office, her stiff posture outlined against the viewport with its framed panorama of a nearby world. She wore Kinsman red, bearing insignia of rank rather than the black bars of a telepath.

"Jonas Kane VelArhan," she said, inclining her head. "It's an honor to welcome you to our station, especially after your long absence."

"Thank you."

"I am Ardath Faust KeVelRasi. Please, sit down."

Jonas sat in one of the comfortable chairs facing her desk. "I don't wish to take up any more of your time than necessary," he said. "I'm inquiring into the whereabouts of a certain Persephonean trade vessel, the Eurydice, which apparently failed to return to home space some weeks ago. Station records are not complete. I was hoping that you might have further information."

KeVelRasi was not surprised by his question. She consulted her desk screen and tapped her chin.

"Ah, yes. Such a vessel did pass through our jurisdiction ... an unauthorized ship with no Kinsman on board. She refused to answer our hails. We pursued and sent an alert to the next inbound station."

"So I gathered from your records. But there doesn't seem to be anything further about this ship after it left your jurisdiction. Surely it would have been detained somewhere along its route."

The administrator pursed her lips and gazed at him. "Yes. I see. May I ask why this interests you?"

"Before I went on leave, I was liaison for Persephone. I hope to be reassigned to that office. Naturally I must know everything of importance that has occurred in Persephonean trade and Kinsman relations during my absence."

"And how did you happen to learn of this ship?"

Her posture broadcast extreme unease, and a tic pulsed at the corner of her mouth. She was stalling, trying to think of some way of deflecting his questions.

Stalling, because she knew more than she was willing to tell.

"A relative of one of her crew members approached me on Persephone station," he said with absolute truthfulness. "Oddly enough, the ship's disappearance is not common knowledge on Persephone, though the entire situation is unprecedented since the end of the war."

Her gaze slid away from his. "Yes. I... may be able to obtain some additional information for you by tomorrow. I'd be happy to make our finest guest accommodations available tonight."

So that she would have time to find a safe answer for him.

He could press the issue; he outranked her, and the longer he waited the more likely that she—and whoever else wanted to keep this matter quiet—would be able to elude his questions. But he had no real excuse for appearing to be anxious, not without putting her even more on her guard.

"Very well," he said, rising. "I trust that more information will be forthcoming."

"I'll do what I—" KeVelRasi cast a glance behind him, frowning. "This is a private meeting. If you wish to make an appointment—"

"Jonas?"

He turned. Tea stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, face wary. "I thought that I..." She trailed off as if in confusion.

She was anything but confused. Jonas strode to her, caught her arm and pulled her forward to face the Administrator.

"Your pardon, Cousin. This is Tea Dianthe, a Persephonean telepath I'm taking to Kinsman Prime for testing."

The Administrator looked Tea up and down with barely concealed contempt. "I presume you haven't had time, Cousin Kane VelArhan, to teach her telepathic protocols. She just attempted to enter my mind."

Jonas tightened his grip on Tea's arm. "She has much to learn. She also has considerable ability. If the Directors find her acceptable, her talent will qualify her for high rank among us." He smiled. "She may be mother to children who will keep our people strong."

He stared pointedly at KeVelRasi's insignia of rank, trusting that she understood his message. The Administrator might feel contempt for Tea now, but not when she became his contracted mate and bore him a telepathic child. Let KeVelRasi not forget to whom she spoke.

She chose not to provoke him further. "I'll arrange guest quarters for you and your recruit immediately, Cousin Kane VelArhan. Please wait for my assistant. You may place a meal order on the room's computer, and it will be brought to you at your convenience."

"Your words have a pleasant sound," he said in formal Shaaurii. She blinked, inclined her head, and returned to her screen.

Jonas led Tea from the room.

"I asked you to remain outside," he said.

"The woman was lying. I thought that—"

"I wouldn't realize it? Is that why you came in uninvited? To scan her thoughts?"

"I knew you wouldn't. And she wasn't expecting me."

That was true enough. He glanced around for listeners. It had come to this, that he trusted a Worldbound outsider more than his own people. "You could have made things much worse," he said. "Fortunately, I had an excuse for your behavior. But even Kinsmen non-telepaths are trained to block mental intrusions, and to recognize when they occur." He drew her to a corner of the lounge. "What did you learn?"

"That she's afraid, and she knows more than she would ever admit to you."

"Then you took an unnecessary risk. I'd already ascertained that much."

Their conversation was cut short by the Administrator's assistant, who offered to escort them to the guest quarters.

They were, as promised, quite sumptuous. There was a single large bed, covered with a shaauri tapestry worth many thousands of Concordat credits. Other weavings hung on the wall. Scattered about the room were human and shaauri objects d'art. The colors were the earth tones favored by shaauri, dominated by reds and yellows.

Jonas made a quick inspection of the room, not sure what he was looking for. Shaauri didn't plant listening devices in the quarters of their rivals or enemies, and neither did Kinsmen. Until now, no Kinsman had enemies among his own.

There was a first time for everything.

Tea sat on the edge of the bed, regarding him watchfully. He drew cups of kaffe and arao from the galley's dispenser and handed her the human beverage.

"Thank you," she said. She didn't drink. "Something really is going on, isn't it? Whatever happened to the Eurydice, it wasn't ordinary."

Nothing about this is ordinary, Jonas thought. He found himself staring at Tea, noticing too keenly the expanse of bed behind her, and thinking how easy it would be to join her on it. How much he wanted to lose himself in her very human embrace.

She noticed his look and returned it boldly. "Tell me what you're thinking."

He wrenched his thoughts back to business. "I believe," he said, "that the Administrator wishes to delay us at this station." He shook his head, amazed at his acceptance of what would have been unthinkable to him seven years ago. "If she's worried, then she must be feeling pressure from someone of higher rank and authority. She holds the highest non-telepath rank among us. And that means that what happened to the Eurydice is more complicated than we guessed."

"Because Kinsman telepaths are involved?"

He considered how much to tell her. She didn't know about the secret Persephonean negotiations with the shaauri, and how their success could threaten Kinsman dominance of the shaauri trade routes. Until he had more proof, he wasn't prepared to brand any of his people as traitors and murderers.

Better to give her the other possibility, grim as it was. "I don't know. If this were routine, either the Eurydice would have been caught and slapped with severe fines and penalties for flouting Kinsman authority, or there'd be some indication—" He hesitated and knelt before Tea. "If Kinsmen didn't catch the Eurydice and it never reached the Nine Worlds, it may have fallen into shaauri hands."

"I was always afraid. .." She waged a short battle for composure. "What would that mean?"

"It would mean that Kinsmen didn't do what the shaauri expect them to—keep other humans under control." If the Directors knew that the Eurydice had fallen to shaauri, they wouldn't broadcast it. They might even go to great lengths to hide it. Kinsmen are supposed to be infallible. "A non-Kinsman human ship entering shaauri space would be a shame upon Kinsmen, but a direct violation to shaauri. A threat."

"Would ... they be killed?"

He didn't try to evade her pleading gaze. "It is possible. It would depend on which Line or clan caught the ship. If they chose to deal with the intrusion personally, or—since it involved humans—take the matter to the triennial clan assembly."

"Kinsmen wouldn't try to save them? They're supposed to be the go-betweens, aren't they?"

But they might choose not to jeopardize our alliance by challenging the shaauri over an incident that casts us in such a bad light.

"I don't know," he said honestly.

"We can go farther into shaauri territory and find out."

"Not until we're sure that we can't get the information within Kinsman jurisdiction." And if shaauri aren't involved, we don't want to bring them into it.

Tea closed her eyes and looked more shaken than she had at any time since they'd been together. "I always knew my brother might be dead, killed by shaauri. But realizing that it might be true ..."

"There's no reason to give hope up yet."

She sighed deeply and opened her eyes. They glittered with moisture. "There's something else, Jonas. No matter what we discover, you may have to decide ... whether to keep helping me, or stand against your own people."

She wasn't so ignorant that she couldn't see all the repercussions of the situation. He set his cooling arao down on the bedside table, untasted. "I know," he said. "I'll keep my side of our bargain."

She touched his cheek. Her fingers were warm and soft. "Thank you," she said. Slowly she leaned forward, bringing her mouth level with his. "I also know how to keep my bargains."

And she kissed him. Full on the mouth, with deliberate purpose. Jonas needed no telepathy to understand her unspoken message.

She gripped his shoulders to pull him up, and they tumbled onto the bed. The shaauri tapestry was as sensuous as it was beautiful. Jonas had little thought for it, however, and eyes only for the woman beneath him.

Whatever hesitation she'd had in the past was gone. She wanted him. The body didn't lie, no more than one's deepest inner thoughts. Jonas didn't know if her ardor was the age-old need for closeness in the face of adversity, or simple desire. Either way, it was real.

Last time he'd been the one to pull away, because he was afraid. He'd felt her come close to touching his mind as few had ever done—his burned-out, crippled mind—and reaching his very soul. Hadn't he rejected her as forcefully as one telepath could reject another? Hadn't he vowed to hold himself apart until their bargain must be sealed?

Yet she offered herself again, gladly. And he found he could not refuse.

Joy such as he hadn't known in many years caught him unaware. He kissed Tea soundly. Her hands searched for the seals on his uniform, slipped into the opening at his neck and stroked down his chest. The seals of her tunic yielded at his touch, and the fabric peeled from her body like a second skin.

He gazed in wonder at what lay revealed. Perhaps she was not so extraordinary among women: she was neither tall nor full-breasted nor remarkable in any way. But she was beautiful to him. He thought he would have felt the same even had she not been the first woman he'd lain with in seven years.

Tea. He brushed her nipple with his fingertip. She arched her back and gave a soft cry. He stroked the palms of his hands over her arms, breasts, and ribs. With the wonder of rediscovering something nearly forgotten, he explored what she offered.

Her breasts were sweet to his tongue, her little gasps like the most exquisite shaauria melody. But she didn't merely lie passively beneath him. She pushed him away long enough to strip the upper part of his uniform from his shoulders and chest, removing his adoption-knife from its sheath at his waist. She paused when she found the scars across his torso.

"These scars," she murmured. "The accident—"

"Yes," he said.

"You could have had them erased." Her gaze met his, soft and gentle. "But you wanted to remember her. Your wife." She traced the scars first with her finger and then with her tongue, a healing caress filled with unconditional acceptance.

He shuddered. She skimmed her hand down to his belly. With one accord they removed the remainder of their clothing and lay side by side.

Flesh on flesh. Jonas breathed in the human, female scent of her body. He acquainted himself with the curves and angles that belonged uniquely to Tea Dianthe. He kissed her belly and her thighs. He tasted the moisture pooled between them. He parted her legs, and she stroked him intimately as she guided him home.

He plunged inside. She moaned. The rhythm came back to him easily, sweetly. Each time he left her, he couldn't wait to bury himself in her body once more.

Tea. He couldn't tell if he spoke the word aloud, or in his mind. Her legs locked about his hips. Her hands ran unceasingly up and down his back. The sounds she made told him that she was coming very close to completion. And he ...

He stood at the very edge of some new galaxy, ablaze with a million stars to explore, a billion worlds untouched by man or shaauri. He could reach out and hold them in his hands.

They danced about him, whirling faster and faster. One of them filled his vision, became as vivid as a human soul. Tea. And then, just as he tumbled free into the vastness of space, it happened again.

She exploded into his mind. Their minds locked, linked. His body and hers convulsed in perfect synchronicity.

The galaxy shrank down to the size of a room, a bed, and two people. Tea sat up, her eyes glazed. Jonas rolled away and stumbled out of the bed. His mind had been seared from the inside out, but one thing he could see with utter clarity.

"You aren't Tea Dianthe," he whispered hoarsely. "Who are you?"

5

Kori had known this moment would arrive sooner or later. But she'd never expected it to come like this.

Her body throbbed, but her thoughts spun like a neutron star. She had shared Jonas's mind. Totally, miraculously, wonderfully. It had lasted just an instant, long enough for every one of her barriers to be shattered. For him to realize she had deceived him.

And for her to realize that, before the sharing, he hadn't been able to read her mind.

She calmed the trembling in her hands. That mental union, even incomplete, had seemed too much to bear in the ship. She had borne it this time, but everything had changed. A part of Jonas was inside her. And she was in Jonas.

She knew what it was like to be so close to another person that you forgot where you ended and he began. God help her.

"Who are you?" he repeated, his face as hard as Thoran granite.

She drew the coverlet up to her shoulders. It hurt to see him like this, regarding her as he would an enemy. It hurt to have to hurt him.

Unprofessional. Hopelessly unprofessional.

"My name is Kori Galatea Challinor," she said.

He snatched up his uniform and pulled it on with sharp jerks. "Challinor," he said. "Daughter of Calypso and Georg. The sister of—"

"Miklos Challinor. Who disappeared aboard the Eurydice, just as I told you."

He shook his head and went to stand as far away from her as the room would allow. "You lied to me."

He said "lied" in the way another man might speak of murder, with loathing and something like horror.

Kori found herself looking at the coverlet between her fingers rather than his angry eyes.

"Yes," she said. "But I never knew for sure that you wouldn't recognize me immediately. I couldn't trust your Kinsman scruples about reading non-Kinsman minds, or that you ..." She hesitated, preparing herself for more of his anger. "I didn't realize that you had lost the ability to do so."

If his physical reaction was anything to go on, that wasn't something he would ever have admitted—certainly not to her.

"I... assume that happened in the accident," she continued. "You can't fully use your telepathy. That part of your mind is damaged somehow."

"Yes. By shrapnel from the explosion."

"I'm sorry." She imagined herself in his position, and shuddered. To lose such a gift... "It must be very difficult."

"I've learned to live with it."

Had he? She wanted to go to him, put her arms around his rigid body. Instead she got out of bed and dressed quickly. "And I owe you an explanation. I work in Royal Intelligence. I knew who you were when I came to find you at Persephone Station. I thought it was expedient under the circumstances to conceal my identity—until I knew whose side you were really on."

"Expedient."

"I've learned caution, especially where Kinsmen are concerned. I had my people watching for your return from shaauri space. You were Kinsman liaison for my world for a brief time. You were also the pilot of the ship on which my parents, and your wife, lost their lives. An accident I have come to believe ... was no accident. I think that you believe the same."

"Did you get that from my thoughts?"

"Only partly. You've been troubled by what little we've learned of the Eurydice's disappearance. You're afraid that your own people are somehow involved, that they're hiding something. Deceiving not only the Concordat but other Kinsmen. When I came to you with my story about the Eurydice, you knew it might be tied in. As I did."

"But you didn't trust me enough to tell me this from the beginning."

"What if you'd been in on the conspiracy that took the life of my parents? What if your escape from the accident wasn't just luck?"

He balled his fists. "You think I'd be a part of murdering my own wife?"

"I couldn't be sure. I've ... long since come to know that wouldn't be possible."

"My thanks, Lady Kori." He executed a bitterly mocking bow. "So now I know that all this"—he waved a hand at the bed—"is merely political."

"I still want to find my brother. But there's more at stake— the peace we've held for a nearly a century." She sighed. "Seven years ago, you were taking my parents to a secret negotiation with certain influential shaauri. It was unprecedented in shaauri-human relations. You must know how it started . . ."

"Your father, Lord Georg Challinor, saved a small band of young and reckless shaauri who entered human space illegally, at a time when anti-shaauri feelings ran high in the Concordat. They would have been murdered if your father hadn't interceded."

"Yes. It helped that my father was a telepath—a weak one, but able to communicate with shaauri better than most humans. And when those young shaauri grew to adulthood and earned places of prominence in their society, they were willing to open trade negotiations with my family, apart from the Kinsman." She rose and paced away from the bed, keeping her distance from Jonas. "If they'd succeeded, it would have meant an end to Kinsman control of the wormholes. And even though my parents were killed, my grandmother has honored my father's memory and continued those negotiations . . . until recently. Until the Eurydice disappeared."

Jonas was silent for a time, flexing his fists. He struck the back of a chair with restrained violence.

"Why?" he demanded. "Why would your brother risk everything by taking an unescorted human ship into the shaauri zone at such a critical juncture?"

"Miklos didn't know about the negotiations, unlike me and my elder brother. I learned what he'd done only after the Eurydice left human space." She turned and forced herself to meet Jonas's accusing gaze. "I know that there are Kinsmen who'd do anything to stop negotiations that would limit their power in any way. I've already gathered evidence that Kinsmen high in your ranks, possibly Directors, are deliberately impeding trade from Persephone to the Nine Worlds, slowing things down to the point that it's beginning to hurt our economy and raise questions. It's their way of punishing us for the negotiations, warning us to stop, without openly admitting that they oppose them."

Jonas shook his head. "I knew nothing of this—"

"How could you? I kept that information secret from everyone but my grandmother, my elder brother, and Intelligence. Somehow Miklos found out. I decrypted his private log, in which he said that he was tired of playing games with the shaauri—that he was going to force the issue once and for all by challenging the Kinsman monopoly. If Kinsmen tried to stop him, he would create an incident no one could ignore. And if shaauri caught him ... he would do what our father had done and communicate with them directly. He was willing to bet his life on that one possibility."

"He was a fool," Jonas said. "He doesn't know the shaauri or what they're capable of—"

"That was—is—like Miklos, to act rashly. That's why I kept things from him. But I didn't completely succeed. And now he's vanished, and I don't know who has him. I still need your help." She took a step forward and held out her hand. "You and I have to learn if Kinsmen were responsible for the deaths of my parents and your wife, and my brother's disappearance. We must expose whoever did it."

"You trust me?"

"Yes. After what happened—"

"You think you know me."

"I know enough. And..." She balanced between pride, cool sense, and irrational emotion. "I care about you, Jonas. This has hurt you, too."

If she'd expected a similar declaration from him, she was to be disappointed. The muscles in his jaw tightened and released. Though she made no attempt to read his thoughts, she felt the renewed barrier he had wedged in place between them.

"I have just as much a stake in this as you do," he admitted. "How can you help me?"

"I'm not without experience. I've done off-world work before, and I've studied Kinsmen. There's also the small fact that I have a way to help us locate my brother's ship if we pass anywhere near her."

"If the Eurydice still exists."

She swallowed. He was right... it could be destroyed, blown into atoms by whoever captured it, no proof left behind. But she had to hope otherwise.

"My grandmother rules Persephone, and she's always hated the shaauri. She remembers the war, and blames them for her son's death. And now my brother ... if she believes that they've killed him, she'll use her influence in the Concordat to break off all relations with Kinsmen and shaauri. She gave me a deadline to get to the bottom of this. If I don't, and soon, we may be facing another war. Do you think the shaauri want that?"

"They have no love for war such as we wage it. I can speak for them—but not for my own people. They're insane if they think a return to war will help them keep power."

Her heart went out to him, to his obvious pain and despair. Keeping professional distance, and control, was simply no longer possible. "Whoever is behind this must have some plan. Maybe all they wanted to do was disrupt the negotiations by making Thetis Challinor withdraw from them. If they thought it would be that simple, they were very much mistaken."

"Kinsman arrogance," Jonas said. "Stupid pride." He looked up at her, all fierce alien intensity. "Not all Kinsmen would believe as they do. Some of us cherish peace—"

"I know. You're proof enough of that."

His shoulders relaxed, and a little of his guard dropped with them. "Kori Challinor," he said, looking at her as if for the first time. "I saw you as a child, before you went into the Persephonean Academy. You've changed. You had dark hair, eyes."

She fingered her hair. "This is temporary. I'll keep it for now—to throw potential enemies off guard." She smiled. "I remember seeing you at the palace many times, with your father. But I was away when you became liaison. I never got to know you."

"And what does the granddaughter of the ruler of Persephone think of Jonas Kane VelArhan?" he asked. "Do you regret..."

"No. I wish it had happened under better circumstances. But for now—" She held out her hand again. He hesitated, then took it in a warm, firm grip.

"For now," he finished, "we have hunting to do."

She was just on the point of losing herself in his touch and his gaze when she was distracted by a light flashing in the corner of her vision. Jonas followed her glance to the comm unit on the wall.

"A message," he said, activating the comm. "From the Administrator."

The message began to play out in the Administrator's steady contralto, devoid of visual accompaniment.

"Jonas Kane VelArhan. I hope that you find your quarters satisfactory. 1 regret to tell you that urgent business has called me away from the station, and I will be unable to pursue your inquiry for several days. 1 hope you 'II make yourself comfortable in the meantime; the station is at your disposal.

"I can share one additional piece of information. The unauthorized ship fired upon our vessels when we pursued. This was naturally unexpected, and accounts for our failure to detain the ship. I hope to have more data upon my return."

The message ended. Jonas leaned back in his chair, frowning. Kori slammed her palm on the console.

"She's lying. My brother wouldn't have fired on anyone. I doubt the ship was even armed, though I know it was modified for maximum speed and maneuverability."

"It's obvious that the Administrator is avoiding us. We won't learn anything more here."

"Then we go on to follow my brother's route." 

He looked up at her. "Yes. Until we reach the end."

They found the Royal Persephonean ship Eurydice far more easily than Jonas had had any right to hope.

A hour after receiving the Administrator's message, Jonas and Lady Kori—Jonas was more than willing to make use of that formality—were back on the A'amia and tracking the Eurydice's route deeper into shaauri space. The way led through another wormhole, one of three in the proximity of the station, and exited near a Kinsman station on the outskirts of a double-star system.

But this time they acknowledged the station's routine hails without stopping. As soon as they reentered normal space, Lady Kori produced a data card bearing an encrypted signal. The signal was disguised to blend in with the radio static of space and would trigger a response from the Eurydice, should she be anywhere in the vicinity. With Jonas's assistance, Kori patched the signal through the A'amia's comm for wide dispersal throughout the star system.

The chance of receiving a response was slim; the Eurydice might be far from this region of space. But Lady Kori went at it with her now familiar tenacity, and when no return signal was received, they moved on to another wormhole and another system to try again. Kori located her brother's ship on the third attempt.

The Eurydice lay derelict in the midst of an asteroid belt, one more bit of flotsam orbiting the nearby sun. The signal she sent back to the A'amia was her only sign of life.

Kori gazed into the main monitor, her posture too rigid for the composure she pretended.

"It is the Eurydice," she said. "I never expected to find her so quickly."

Jonas rubbed his jaw and studied the ship. At a kilometer away from the ship, the A'amia's sensors told him that it was abandoned, or at least unmanned. And it had suffered considerable damage.

The big questions were how, and why.

"It doesn't make sense," Kori said. "The Kinsmen must have known about this. And if they did—"

"The Administrator of KS13 was indeed lying to us."

They looked at each other. Jonas hid the turmoil that had gripped him ever since her revelation.

No, before that. Since their lovemaking, when she'd burst into his mind like a solar flare, exposing him, laying him bare, and ...

Changing him. For the first time in seven years he felt a flicker of real life in the part of his brain that had died. A sense that, if he tried, he could enter her mind and see exactly what she was thinking and feeling.

Was such healing possible? He was afraid to hope. He had almost become adjusted, resigned to being forever crippled among his own people.

Oh, he was still a Kinsman, and useful because of his affinity with the shaauri. But he was stripped of an ability he'd taken for granted as much as sight and hearing, one that no non-telepath could comprehend. And he knew he wasn't worthy of the high status accorded Kinsman telepaths. When he told them of his loss, they would regard him as no longer truly one of them.

Now . .. now that fate was in question. But if the awakening in his mind proved to be merely a phantom perception, all hope was indeed lost. Just as he'd lost the brief comfort of intimacy with a woman who didn't exist.

Lady Kori Galatea Challinor had lied to him, and he had been blind enough—crippled enough—to fall for her deception. She'd twisted him around her finger and penetrated his deepest defenses. She had even claimed to care for him.

By the shaauri gods, he still wanted her. That hadn't changed. But he'd shielded himself and his mind against her. And no matter what identity she chose to go by, royal family or not, she'd made a bargain, and he intended to hold her to her word.

As he would keep his.

Kori shifted and looked away. "Someone took a great deal of trouble to hide the Eurydice. Who, why, and what did they do with my brother and his crew?"

"If Kinsmen are behind this, it must be a renegade group. Such actions would never be sanctioned by the Directors."

"Wouldn't they?"

He resisted the urge to counter with a biting comment about Worldbound prejudice. She wasn't ordinary Worldbound by any stretch of the imagination.

"If there are traitors," he said tightly, "they're working against all Kinsmen and shaauri as well as your people. We will stop them."

"Just the two of us?"

"Yes. If it comes to that."

She fell silent and stepped back to lean against the bulkhead, her body supple and deceptively slight in a plain gray shipsuit. He found it all too easy to become distracted by her beauty, and the natural courage and spirit that she wore in any guise. Distraction was the last thing he could allow himself.

"They ... whoever they are ... could very well know that we're looking for the Eurydice," she said.

That thought had occurred to him as well. Despite what he'd said to Kori, there was no telling how far this conspiracy, if conspiracy it was, had spread among the Kinsmen. There'd been no whisper of it in shaauri territory.

Let it be only a few warped individuals. Let some honor remain in being a Kinsman.

"That's a risk we'll have to take," he said, "unless you prefer to give up now."

She pushed away from the bulkhead. "Not for all the moons of Croesus."

"Then we'll need to board the ship and look around."

"Yes. And if I know my brother, he's left a private log for any Persephonean who finds the ship—in a place his enemies wouldn't look for it. Maybe we'll get our answers there."

As she turned toward the hatch to the main cabin, he touched her arm. The spark of her innermost essence filled his mind. Confusion, anger, fear for her brother, all the emotions she was so adept at hiding—including an attraction to him that was very real.

His mind was healing, and she was the cause. He snapped his mental shields back into place.

"You know what we might find."

"Yes. They may all be dead on that ship."

"You won't be alone, Lady Kori," he said. It was scant comfort, but she smiled, and his heart clenched at her quiet gratitude.

"Kori," she said. "It's Kori." She caught his hand, squeezed it, and left the cockpit.

He let her go ahead to don one of the ship's two space suits while he maneuvered the ship through the asteroid belt, close to the Eurydice. From this vantage the damage was even more apparent.

Jonas set the A'atnia's computer to warn him if another vessel approached their position. He took additional precautions, hoping they wouldn't prove necessary.

Hoping that he and Kori would find the right answers.

The Eurydice was as dead and silent within as it appeared from outside, every system off-line and not a living soul on board.

Protected by streamlined shaauri space suits adapted to human form, Jonas and Kori moved between the two ships with small handheld thrusters and entered an airlock nearest the flight deck. Life support and gravity were disabled, every trace of atmosphere had been blown out, and the interior was space-cold.

Jonas saw at once that the Eurydice was no ordinary vessel. She was designed to hold a crew of perhaps twenty, with ample cargo space. But her shape was that of a cruiser rather than a cargo ship. The command deck had a number of innovations he hadn't seen on standard Persephonean vessels, and he suspected that the engines were also enhanced. Kori had hinted as much.

Kori immediately began to search for her brother's secret log while Jonas inspected the damage that penetrated the outer hull. It resembled the results of a shaauri attack, but everything looked too neat. Staged. And the Eurydice wasn't armed, in spite of the Administrator's claims.

Jonas made his way to engineering, gliding weightless down the companionways to the heart of the ship. His practiced eye told him that the ship could be made spaceworthy again with a few days of hard work. In fact, she was of substantial value, not a piece of junk to be abandoned.

Her crew had been either spaced or captured, unless this had truly been an accident. Jonas no more believed that than he believed his own accident was a simple matter of bad luck or engine failure.

"Jonas?"

He flipped on the comm link in his helmet. "Here."

"I located my brother's log. You'd better come up."

He found Kori anchored to the command chair by a rigid grip, her face set and pale. "It's partially damaged, but there's enough here to make everything clear." She held up a thumb-size capsule. "Listen."

A man's baritone voice sounded from the capsule. "This is Miklos Challinor, commander of the Eurydice. To whoever finds this message: please see that it reaches Persephonean Royal Intelligence or Lady Kori Challinor.

"If you are Kinsmen. I beg you to consider the good of all humankind and prevent the likelihood of renewed conflict and war between human and shaauri.

"On 2.15.150, the Eurydice, attempting to cross shaauri space without benefit of Kinsman escort, was pursued and attacked by a Kinsman vessel. The Eurydice was forced to surrender. It immediately became obvious that these Kinsmen were not interested in holding and fining the Eurydice; the crew has been taken prisoner and is to be transported to some unknown location.

"These Kinsmen intend to use me and my crew for some political purpose of their own, one they are keeping hidden from the rest of their people. They have damaged the Eurydice to simulate an attack by shaauri to cover the effect of their weapons. They may intend to hold us hostage, or use our disappearance or deaths to generate suspicion and hostility between human and shaauri. I can only speculate.

"I do not know if shaauri are involved, but I am convinced that these Kinsmen will go to any lengths to maintain their status and prevent any easing of shaauri-human relations.

"Get word to Lady Kori Challinor. These renegade Kinsmen must be stopped, for the sake of us all. "

Kori stopped the recording. Jonas could see the bleakness of her eyes through the visor of her helmet.

"It's what we feared," she said. "There is a conspiracy, and Kinsmen are out to stop the negotiations by any means possible."

"Some Kinsmen," Jonas said. His stomach was clenched in misery, knowing what his people had done. How low they'd fallen. "This can't be widely known—"

"It obviously involved the Administrator on KS13, possibly even the staff on Persephone Station. Why else did they make it so hard for you to get information on the Eurydice?"

"I don't know. But we're going to find out."

"There are only two ways to do that. We either confront your leaders directly and force them to admit that a conspiracy exists or we go on as we have been—penetrate the enemy's defenses, find my brother, and expose them ourselves." She slipped the capsule into her suit pocket. "Which do you think is less risky?"

"It's no longer your problem. I'm taking you back to Persephone. These are my people, and I'll deal with them."

She let go of the command chair and floated toward him. "Out of the question. This involves my world and the entire Concordat—"

"These traitors already have a member of your royal family. I don't know what they think they have to gain by any of this, but they're obviously desperate enough to act rashly, even lethally. If they get you as well, there's no telling what they'll do. I won't allow it."

"You won't—"

An alarm sounded in his helmet comm link. He listened to the A'amia's message and cursed himself for an idiot.

"No more time," he said. "My ship has just informed me that another vessel is approaching at high speed. We have to get back to the A'amia."

Kori was no fool. She followed him back to the airlock and to his ship, concentrating on moving quickly and efficiently. Jonas ran to the cockpit while she stripped out of her suit.

The approaching ship was a Kinsman vessel, a cruiser of unfamiliar design. It was also armed to the teeth. It hailed the A'amia with none of the usual courteous preliminaries.

"Attention. Your vessel has been found in violation of Treaty regulation five-oh-six. Prepare to be boarded."

Jonas knew that regulation. It was the same one they would have used on the Eurydice—if they'd been interested in legalities—but it didn't apply to him.

"This is Jonas Kane VelArhan of the shaauri-registered vessel A'amia. Identify yourself."

The Kinsman ship didn't respond. Instead, her gunports opened and made a very adequate display of her weaponry.

Kori joined him in the cockpit. "These must be our enemies."

Jonas nodded. "We can't outrun them. We'll have to let ourselves be boarded, and play innocent."

"You know that won't work. And I'm not sure you'll be much good at lying."

He smiled grimly. "I'm inclined to agree—but you have great skill at lying, even to telepaths. A rare ability."

She ignored his sarcasm. "They took hostages; we can do the same thing. It'll give us some leverage. You do have weapons aboard this ship?"

"A few."

"I've devised a telepathic technique that's been useful in my work for Intelligence. Under certain circumstances, I can ... disappear."

Jonas guessed her meaning. "You mean that you can cloud the minds of others, so that you appear not to be there. They don't see you."

"That's right." One corner of her mouth tilted up. "Not something you'd have tried, given your dislike for deception. But it works. Back on the station, I managed to stay invisible to the Administrator—and you—for a good five minutes while I listened to your conversation from the doorway."

"She wasn't a telepath."

"But you are, and it worked on you. It's the best chance we've got. I'll arm myself and stay as far out of the way as possible, absolutely still. You pretend to surrender. Keep them occupied any way you can, but distract them. When the time is right, I'll grab as many of our friends as I—"

"I'm no longer a telepath, as you discovered on KS13," he said harshly. "I get occasional flashes of the old ability, but for the most part, I'm mentally blind. Or was, until—" He broke off. "It wouldn't have been difficult to deceive me."

She paced a tight circle and stopped directly in front of him. "I don't believe it's all gone. For one thing, you knew I was a fraud after we were ... together."

So he had. And soon he would have to test his mental abilities once more. But he couldn't risk Kori.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "What you propose is extremely dangerous and would take tremendous skill and power. Your chances of success—"

"—may not be great, but you don't have a better plan." She touched his arm. "You're still too tied up in being a Kinsman, facing Kinsmen who aren't behaving the way they're supposed to. Trust me. I'm better at this than you are."

He had no choice but to trust her. "Very well." He strode to the weapons locker beside the hatch and pulled out a heavy-duty disruptor. "This is the best I have."

She weighed the gun in her hand. "It'll do."

The ship rang with the sound of grappling hooks from the Kinsman ship locking on to the A'amia.

"This is it," Kori said. She stepped out into the main cabin and took up a position slightly behind a projecting bulkhead. She went very still. Jonas paused to slip a smaller weapon into his shipsuit pocket and waited for the boarding party.

The airlock cycled and the first of the boarders stepped out into the cabin. He wore Kinsman red, his shoulders single-barred for the lowest telepath rank, and carried a disruptor. He was followed by a woman, also a telepath, and two non-telepaths, all armed like the first.

"Jonas Kane VelArhan," the first man said, standing at his ease.

Jonas recognized him at once, and concealed his dismay. "Artur Constano VelRauthi," he said. "I didn't expect to meet you again under these circumstances."

"It has been a long time, hasn't it, brother-in-law?" He nodded to his compatriots, who spread out to either side of him, all seeming as relaxed as he was. Not one of them looked toward Kori. "I won't do you the disservice of assuming you don't know why we're here."

"I have an idea. You had the Eurydice bugged to warn you if anyone approached her."

"We didn't expect the ship to be found." Constano smiled faintly. "It seems you've shown an inordinate curiosity about the Eurydice's fate. Our ally on KS13 says that you've asked a lot of questions."

"Reasonable ones, considering the lack of information," Jonas said. "The ship's disappearance isn't yet known on Persephone. Given the rank of her commander, you didn't expect the Eurydice's fate to remain unexamined for long—"

"No. We were assuming it wouldn't. You just moved up the timetable. Presently I'll ask you why you became involved in this the minute you got back from shaauri space, and what you've learned." He glanced around the cabin. "I understand you had a passenger, a female candidate from Persephone. Does she have something to do with your presence here?"

"She ... suggested certain things to me, and I chose to investigate."

"Interesting. Where is she?"

"I left her on the Eurydice when I was alerted of your approach."

"Indeed." Constano arched a brow. "I doubt it. I have a suspicion that she may be of more importance than you pretend." He advanced farther into the cabin, sweeping it with his gaze. His first exploration took him toward the cockpit, away from Kori, but abruptly he turned and started in her direction. He hadn't seen her, not yet. But it was only a matter of time.

Jonas drew his disruptor from his pocket. Four weapons trained on him. He ignored them.

"You're right," he said. "She is rather remarkable." And he aimed his gun directly at Lady Kori Challinor.

Jonas had betrayed her.

The shock was sufficient that Kori simply stood and stared at him as Constano VelRauthi's henchwoman approached her and snatched the disruptor from her hand.

"Remarkable, indeed," Constano said. He looked her over with a sardonic half-smile. "A very gifted telepath to be able to hide in plain sight." His expression grew more intense, and Kori felt as if someone were prying open her skull. She slammed down her defenses.

"Ah," Constano said. "I thought you bore some resemblance to your brother ... Lady Kori Challinor."

"She's my gift to you, Artur," Jonas said. "The third in line to the throne of Persephone."

Kori stared at Jonas and reached instinctively for his thoughts. He, too, was blocking any intrusion. There was no reassurance from him that this was not the betrayal it seemed.

How could it be? He'd been capable of hiding his mental handicap from her until their intimacy. But this kind of falsehood wasn't in him.

Constano glanced at Jonas. "Yes, we have Miklos Challinor and his crew. Now I understand how you came to know about the Eurydice's disappearance when Thetis Challinor was keeping it so quiet. Lady Kori is an officer in Royal Intelligence ... though her position is supposed to be more honorary than real."

"What have you done with Lord Miklos?" Kori demanded.

"In good time, my lady." He gestured to one of his men, who stepped into the cockpit. "It's very generous," he said to Jonas, "for you to offer the lady to us. But I must wonder why you've suddenly decided to support our cause."

"You never bothered to ask me if I was interested."

"You weren't around to ask. But it didn't occur to us that you would take our side, given your loyalty to the Challinors."

"My loyalty," Jonas said, "is to Kinsmen, and whatever will preserve our way of life."

Constano's nonchalant attitude vanished. "And our cause," he said, "is to do exactly that—"

"By making sure that the Challinors don't succeed in their independent negotiations with the shaauri."

Constano showed no surprise. He held out his hand, and Jonas passed him the small disruptor. Constano gave it to one of his men. "You do seem to be very well informed. As I assume Lady Kori is, or she wouldn't be here. Did she hire you, or did you take this upon yourself?" He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. But given your dogged pursuit of the Eurydice since leaving Persephone Station—yes, we have people there, as well as on every Kinsman station in the shaauri zone—I'm forced to wonder why you chose this moment to surrender the lady and yourself."

Jonas met Constano's gaze steadily. "She approached me shortly after I returned to human space, because my father and I both served as liaisons to Persephone. But I'd already learned that a faction of Kinsmen was operating independently, and clandestinely, to sabotage the Challinor negotiations and any chance of more open human-shaauri interaction. You haven't been as careful as you should have been in choosing whom to involve in your conspiracies." He tapped his temple. "It wasn't difficult to learn the essence of your plans."

He was clearly implying that he had read other Kinsman minds to gather such information. Kori knew that shouldn't be possible.

Either he was trying some desperate new plan to gain an advantage for both of them, or all her carefully trained judgment was worthless. Her judgment... and her emotions.

"The Jonas I knew," Constano said, "would never have entered another mind without permission. He stood by every Kinsman law with absolute dedication." He tilted his head. "When did you learn of this, Jonas—before or after the 'accident' that killed my sister and Lady Kori's parents?" He shook his head. "Of course it wasn't an accident. We had to stop Georg Challinor."

Jonas didn't show Constano any change of expression. "I learned about the plan to eliminate the heir and his wife after Jennara and I had piloted the diplomatic courier ship far into shaauri territory. My wife was part of your conspiracy, and had kept it from me very successfully until then." He smiled coldly. "She was surprisingly good at hiding her plans, even from me. She told me that she was supposed to trigger the bomb that would kill the Challinors, and get us both off the ship safely. She also convinced me, quite eloquently, of the Tightness of your cause. But at the last minute she had a change of heart. She planned to betray you."

"Yes. We were always watching her. I'd hoped she would remain loyal to me, and our purpose." He shrugged. "A pity she had to die. You, however, escaped—and fled to the shaauri."

"I was injured. I had much to consider after the incident, to decide where my loyalties lay."

"And now you decide they lie with us?" He gave a disbelieving snort. "You know that we were responsible for Jennara's death. You and your father lived and worked with the Challinors. Why should you help us now? Why not go to the authorities?"

"Jennara and I... ceased being close long before the accident. She must have told you that much. During my years of living among the shaauri, I came to realize that her death, and my injury, were unfortunate but tolerable by-products of a necessary action to preserve our way of life. Ordinary humans cannot be trusted with the alliances we've worked so hard and long to build. They are inferior, incapable of understanding."

"And so you would join us—lie, even kill—to stop Thetis Challinor and all others like her?"

"Yes."

Kori swallowed, battered by the resonance of truth in his voice. His thoughts were still closed to her. But she found that the deepest part of her being—the part he had touched when they'd made love—believed in his loyalty. Believed in him. It wasn't a matter of rationally weighing the possibilities, as she had done throughout her career in Intelligence. Her certainty came out of something more powerful.

Love.

If not for years of discipline, that blinding revelation might have undone her completely. Instead, she filed it away for future examination. Later she would feel what it meant. Later, when she and Jonas were free again.

She was going to make damned sure they both had that chance.

"We will give you an opportunity to prove your sincerity," Constano said. It took Kori a moment to realize he was speaking to Jonas, not to her. "My subordinates here will escort you and Lady Kori to our station, while I and the rest of my people remain to finish repairing the Eurydice. We have important plans for the ship."

Jonas glanced at Kori with lifeless eyes. "What do you intend to do with her and the other hostages?"

"Let's just say that it's fortunate you have no personal affection for the lady." He gestured to his followers, who closed in on Kori and Jonas and herded them toward the airlock. As if by accident, Jonas brushed Kori's arm. The contact set waves of sensation spiraling through her body. And it told her everything she needed to know.

Something had happened to Jonas's mind. It was alive and awake again. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Whatever happened from now on, she wouldn't be alone.

The conspirators' base was a day's journey by wormhole and sublight speed into a part of shaauri space even less traveled than the route Miklos had chosen for the Eurydice. A small space station, formerly abandoned, circled the dead planet of a white dwarf. Revived for the unlawful purposes of the rebels, the station bristled with Kinsman vessels, several of them armed, as well as a shaauri ship.

Now the A'amia joined them.

The station's brig lay at the Stratton's most protected heart, well guarded by Kinsman security. Hard faces watched Constano's lieutenants march Jonas and Kori down corridor after featureless corridor; Kori didn't dare open her mind enough to search for her brother's presence, but she knew he was here. He, and all his crew.

She had little hope of being reunited with Miklos immediately, and Constano's people didn't surprise her. They sent Jonas away in the custody of two guards, and without ceremony or explanation pushed her through the door of a high-security cell.

She spent the next two days in the cell with no outside contact other than the guard who brought her meals. Any mind that passed within her reach remained inaccessible. She quieted her worry over her brother and Jonas by practicing breathing and meditation exercises, preparing herself for the next challenge.

On the third day, the guards came for her again and took her to another cell, identical to the first...

Except that it was already occupied.

Two young men and a woman surged up from the low bench built into the wall of the cell, their expressions caught in wary surprise. The man in the middle was Miklos. His appearance was haggard, but healthy enough under the circumstances. He stared at Kori, and his face blanched in distress.

"Kori?" he said hoarsely. "No. You can't be here."

"I'm afraid I am." She stepped forward to embrace him, feeling his violently mixed emotions. Typical of Miklos. He didn't do anything by half measures. That was why the people of Persephone loved him—and why both of them were in this dangerous situation.

"Are they listening?" she whispered into his ear.

"Don't know," he answered in the same low tones. "But some of them are telepaths. Better assume they are."

She pulled free of his hold and gripped his shoulders. "I wish I could say I'm glad to see you," she said. "At least you're alive."

"And you came after me, didn't you? Kori, Kori—"

"What did you expect? It's my business to know anything that affects Royal security. You couldn't expect to go running off on this kind of harebrained scheme without my learning of it. I knew there was something wrong when you didn't return in a reasonable time, given what you were trying to do. So did Grandmother. I came out to find your ship."

"You found us." His shoulders slumped for a moment, and then he straightened again. "I'm sorry, Kori. I wanted to prove that we—non-Kinsmen—were ready to cross shaauri space and deal with the shaauri ourselves. But I never guessed that there was a real conspiracy against us, against Persephone, by the Kinsmen—"

"Some Kinsmen, in any case," Kori said. She nodded to Miklos's crew members and sat down on the bench. "How do you think I found you? A Kinsman helped me locate the Eurydice. I thought he was trustworthy—until he turned me over to Constano." She allowed bitterness to show on her face. "You knew that Kinsmen were impeding Persephonean trade with the Nine Worlds, but you didn't know why. Have they told you why they attacked you and took you prisoner?"

"Why should they bother to hide it? We can't escape. We've tried." He sat down beside her, his normally mobile face taut with anger and frustration. "Negotiations between Persephone and certain influential shaauri, which I didn't even know about." He laughed. "I've condemned my own crew—"

Kori shook him gently. "Where are the rest?"

"In other cells. After the first escape attempt, they were careful to separate us."

"Then you must have made them worry." She squeezed his arm. "If Grandmother and I had confided in you about the negotiations, you never would have done this. You would have waited. It's as much my fault as anyone's."

"No. You had reason not to trust my judgment. You're not taking this off my shoulders." He gave her a wry smile. "You were always the responsible one, Kori, even more than Hector. The one with the real brains, like Grandmother. If we get out of this, you'll find me a changed man."

"That'll be something to see." She returned his smile and deliberately let it fade. "These same conspirators were behind our parents' deaths." She nodded grimly at Miklos's curse. "Mother and Father were on their way to begin the negotiations with the shaauri when their ship was sabotaged. The Kinsman liaison—Kane VelArhan—who survived the supposed accident was the man I approached to help me find you. I made the mistake of believing he was our ally."

"Kane VelArhan—Jonas? I remember him." His eyes narrowed. "So he survived to betray us."

"His loyalty is to his fellow Kinsmen. I learned that to my cost." She returned his comforting grip. "Look, I don't know how much time we have. Tell me everything you know— what they plan for you and the Eurydice." She glanced up at the bare white walls. "It hardly matters if they hear—I have a feeling that Constano would tell us sooner or later, just so he could gloat."

"I've noticed that about him," Miklos said dryly. "He's one of the chiefs in this operation. And there are shaauri on their side, Kori. A few of them are here now."

"Shaauri who want to keep the treaty the way it is, for reasons of their own," Kori guessed. "But I'm willing to bet the shaauri in general don't know any more about this than we did—or than Kinsman Prime does."

"You think any Kinsmen can be trusted?"

"I don't think all of them are ready to start a war. And that's what this is leading to, no matter what Constano and his cohorts believe. Now, tell me what you've learned."

Miklos dropped his elbows onto his knees. "Now that I know they killed our parents, it all makes sense. I understand that they were already planning to disrupt these negotiations by setting up some sort of conflict between Persephone and the shaauri—create new suspicions and hostility—and I gave them the perfect opportunity when I showed up with the Eurydice." He ran his hand through his hair. "I almost outran them. She's a damned fine ship."

"But they caught you."

"Yes. And they've been working on a scheme to use the Eurydice and the crew to make it appear that rogue shaauri attacked and destroyed us without sufficient provocation."

"I was on the ship. The damage appeared to be from shaauri weapons."

"Exactly. They went to some pains to fix that up. And that's only the start. They're putting together a false captain's log, using simulations of my voice, to pin the supposed attack on one shaaurin in particular—the son of some shaauri elder who's important in the negotiations."

Kori whistled silently. "And they would arrange for someone from Persephone to find the wreckage ... and a few bodies, and the log—"

"And report to Grandmother, who already hates the shaauri—"

"And who only continued these negotiations for the sake of our father and his memory. If Grandmother thought shaauri had killed you, she wouldn't forgive them, even if some considered your unauthorized travel across shaauri space to be sufficient provocation. She would not only break off the negotiations, but she'd likely accuse the shaauri's chief negotiator of murder." She shook her head. "Do these people have any idea what they're starting?"

"We know exactly what we're starting," a voice said from the open doorway. Constano waved a pair of Kinsman guards ahead of him into the cell. Miklos's crew members closed in around the Challinors protectively, but they were separated and hustled out of the room.

"How pleasant to see you again, Lady Kori. I hope you haven't found our accommodations too primitive." He glanced at Miklos. "Since your brother has already told you half the story, I'll be happy to complete it," Constano said. "You'll be an important new addition to our operation." Another pair of guards, with minimal courtesy and weapons at the ready, urged the Challinors to follow Constano into the corridor.

The room to which they were led was an office adapted to serve as a meeting room, with a large table at the center and as many as thirty chairs crowded around it. A number of the chairs were occupied: by twelve of Constano's ranking compatriots, Jonas, and four shaauri.

Shaauri. Miklos had warned her, but it was still something of a shock to see them so close. No alien had ever visited Persephone, and even Kori, in her varied travels on behalf of Royal Intelligence, hadn't met one. They kept rigidly apart from humans.

Except Kinsmen. And these shaauri were likely traitors to their own kind.

The shaauri, dressed in loose vests and trousers, seemed ill at ease in the human-shaped chairs, though Kori couldn't be sure what emotions passed behind those exotic features. Tilted red-gold eyes regarded her and Miklos steadily. Triangular ears, lined with rows of sensitive hairs, twitched and angled forward and back. The whiskers, which appeared almost comical in vids, were anything but amusing on the living beings. One shaaurin laid his hand on the table, revealing intricately painted nails that resembled claws.

Symbolism. For the shaauri, the smallest movements held great meaning. It was almost impossible for most humans to learn all the variations, which was why telepathy was so useful in communication. The fact that shaauri vocal cords produced sounds far beyond the threshold of human hearing didn't make matters any easier.

The guards pushed Kori and Miklos into chairs across the table from Jonas and the aliens. Jonas was as expressionless as the shaauri. He sat a single chair's width from the nearest shaaurin, the red of his uniform nearly matching the fur of the aliens.

"You wanted to know our plans, Lady Kori," Constano said, sitting down at the head of the table. "We've been discussing you at some length, and we think we've found an excellent way of exploiting your presence here." He nodded to Miklos. "Your brother enhanced our program with his fortuitous arrival, and you've done the same. It seems that you not only found the Eurydice, damaged in an unprovoked attack by a shaauri youth, but you vowed to seek revenge."

Kori leaned back in her chair. "Did I? That doesn't seem very likely."

"I think you'll find that it makes perfect sense. And since you'd convinced a certain Kinsman to help you, you also found yourself in possession of a ship with the capability to hunt down your brother's murderer in his own space."

"The A'amia."

"Indeed. With your many skills, you managed to take the ship from Kane VelArhan, who bore you some misplaced loyalty because he'd once worked with your family. You left him in a life pod and went in pursuit of the young shaaurin and his small crew, whose own ship had been damaged in the conflict. You found him in the process of repairing his vessel, and brought the A'amia's shaauri weapons to bear.

His crew-kin were wiped out, but he disabled your ship and boarded while you were otherwise engaged. You and he fought and killed each other." He sighed. "Very tragic—and the end of any hope of closer ties between Persephone and the shaauri."

7

Kori laughed. She laughed long enough that four pairs of shaauri eyes widened and eight fringed ears flattened sideways, while the Kinsmen glanced at each other in consternation.

"You seem to have it all worked out," she said at last. "But you're assuming a great deal of stupidity on the part of the shaauri, as well as myself. Shaauri might attack my brother's ship for trespass and treaty violation, but they'd be just as likely to call in the Kinsmen to deal with it. What you're describing is a very risky and dangerous act. Just who is the shaaurin who would behave so rashly?"

"You know something of the shaauri, Lady Kori, but you obviously aren't aware that shaauri youths can be quite wild. In their walkabout years apart from clan and Line, they have few inhibitions, and some are said to go temporarily mad. Add to this a personal resentment of humans—" He shrugged. "The young shaaurin responsible for your death is the offspring of one of the elders negotiating with Thetis Challinor. This youth is known among his peers to resent the prospect of closer ties with humans. The Eurydice proved too much of a temptation when it intruded upon shaauri territory."

Kori steepled her hands beneath her chin. "Let me guess. You'll arrange to have someone from my world find all three derelict ships and enough intact debris to provide sufficient proof of what happened. Thetis Challinor will find herself minus two grandchildren and royal heirs, all because of the hostile act of an offspring of the very shaaurin she's supposed to be negotiating with in good faith. But since her granddaughter attacked and killed a shaaurin of an influential Line, the shaauri aren't likely to offer much sympathy."

"Very good, Lady Kori."

She stood up. "I understand that you're on the verge of starting a new war—one that's as likely to hurt you and all Kinsmen as it is the rest of us."

"A war? I don't think so. Thetis Challinor isn't so stupid, whatever her personal feelings. But it will set back these negotiations, possibly halt them for years, and by the time that lost ground is recovered we'll have a better, more permanent plan in place."

"Unless the Concordat and the shaauri learn how they've been manipulated."

"They won't." He glanced at his shaauri allies. "We have our own shaauri, who—"

"Have learned to lie like humans? Deceive their own people?" She turned to stare at the four shaauri. "And what do you get out of this, Sh'eivali?" she asked, in the blunt, simplified Shaaurii pidgin that only Kinsmen, and a very few other humans, could speak. She didn't bother with courtesy beyond the general shaauri address; her rudeness was deliberate, forcing them to acknowledge her and recognize her lack of fear.

Anger and contempt came from the minds of the shaauri, impossible to mistake. Jonas shifted in his chair and halfway rose. The shaaurin nearest him twitched an ear in his direction and spoke in the fluid, half-audible shaauri tongue, showing the tips of his sharpened front teeth.

"Dakiro Aarys says," Constano translated, "that his Line will be glad to see that no other humans walk among shaauri. His Line will do whatever is necessary to end these negotiations."

Kori wasn't used to reading shaauri as Kinsmen were trained to do, but she thought Constano spoke the truth. Except ...

"That isn't entirely accurate," Jonas said, settling back in his chair. "Dakiro Aarys also said that if it were up to his Line, all humans would be cast out of shaauri space forever. He includes Kinsman." He gave Constano a half-smile. "The Aarys Line is notorious for hating anything human. They've no Kinsman adoptees among their families. They even refuse to learn our language. I'm surprised they would work with us."

"The lesser of two evils," Constano said. But his face was rigid, as if Jonas had reminded him of something he would rather have forgotten. "They can be trusted to handle any information leaks on the shaauri side."

"And where is this shaaurin I'm supposed to kill?" Kori demanded.

Constano spoke to the aliens in fluent pidgin. They pushed at the centermost shaaurin until he rose from his seat. His slight build, paler color, and lack of bars suggested that he was young, not yet a full adult.

"May I introduce you to Haiimo Evalan, youngest son of the chief negotiator to the Throne of Persephone," Constano said. "Our allies arranged his capture, and an appropriate story to mask his absence, though it's hardly rare for youths on walkabout to disappear for some time during their years of wandering. His family wouldn't be concerned about him in any case—until they find evidence of his death at human hands."

Kori met the young shaaurin's gaze. Perhaps it was only a projection of human qualities, but she could have sworn she saw fear in his bright eyes. He kept his ears pointed straight forward, a gesture of defiance.

"If we hadn't found you," Constano said, "we'd have arranged his death to appear to be caused by other anti-shaauri humans. But you've made our task so much simpler."

"You're very sure of yourself," Kori said. "But you underestimate Thetis Challinor—and I think you misjudge the shaauri."

Constano chose not to answer. "We already have the Eurydice prepared. Within twenty-four hours, the A'amia and young Haiimo's vessel will be suitably altered to show the damage inflicted by these tragic conflicts. And now that Jonas has joined us, we have someone to carry word of the theft of his ship, and your hunt for vengeance against Haiimo, back to human space. Once, of course, we've verified his loyalty."

Kori held her breath and let it out silently. It was too much to hope for that they would accept Jonas's apparent shift in allegiance so easily. She could think of only one obvious way for Constano to test him.

A way Jonas would hate. A way that would strip him to the soul.

Constano would force his way into Jonas's mind, humiliate him, and then kill him.

"Jonas Kane VelArhan," Constano said with a sudden show of formality. "You know what we must ask of you. You will prove that our path is also yours. You will let down all your barriers and open your mind to me."

Jonas rose from his chair. "I'm ready," he said. His gaze flickered to Kori, and in that instant she saw in his eyes what he hadn't allowed to show before: his absolute promise of loyalty, his pride—in her—and his stubborn courage. He was going to let them do their worst. He was going to attempt to deceive them in spite of the risks and his own powerful inhibitions, lie to them even as they entered his mind. Make them trust him, so he could find Kori and Miklos and the others a way out of this deadly trap.

It wouldn't work. Even if his mind was healing, he surely hadn't the strength or skill to hold them at bay indefinitely— not these ruthless telepaths who would stop at nothing short of destruction. But he saw it as their only chance.

All Kori had ever learned of the shaauri tumbled through her mind. A solution came to her: a crazy one, rife with pitfalls. She wasn't even sure she had the details right. All she could do was pray.

Pray that Jonas wouldn't stop her.

She moved away from the table so quickly that her guards were left behind. Her long strides carried her face-to-face with Constano.

"Artur Constano VelRauthi," she said. "I challenge you. I challenge you to single combat, by the shaauri's honored and ancient custom, for the lives of my people."

Constano stared at her. He laughed. He gestured for the guards to take her away.

"Stop." The command in Jonas's voice was so strong that the guards halted in their tracks. He faced the shaauri and began to speak, rapidly, in a language that bore as much resemblance to Constano's pidgin as a baby's babble did to the speech of a great orator. His voice reached pitches that no ordinary human could create; all he lacked was the ears and whiskers.

If ever Kori had needed her telepathic abilities, it was now. She opened her mind, gathered all her concentration, and let Jonas's meaningless sounds flow through her. She became a Kinsman. And she understood.

"Sh'eivali!" he said. "I am Jonas Kane VelArhan. You know my Line. You know that I have lived among the shaauri for seven years. I speak as interpreter for the Lady Kori Challinor of Persephone, the woman you name enemy." He angled his body so that his back was to Constano. "Constano VelRauthi names himself your ally. He claims he is worthy of shaauri honor. I tell you now what Constano VelRauthi is afraid to tell you."

"Kane—" Constano snarled. His hand went to his sidearm.

The shaaurin farthest to the left leaped up in a motion almost too swift to follow and silenced Constano with a hiss that hurt Kori's ears. Constano went very still.

Kori heard the shaaurin's thoughts, so disorientingly alien, more clearly than the half-audible words he spoke.

"I hear you, VelArhan," he said. "Speak."

"The Lady Kori, daughter of Lord Georg Challinor, granddaughter of Thetis Challinor, has invoked the shaauri law of challenge in single battle to Constano VelRauthi. She claims the right to fight for the existence of her Line against the one who would destroy it."

The shaauri looked at each other, ears and whiskers atwitch in some silent communication. The leader made a sweeping gesture with one clawed finger.

"So?"

"Constano VelRauthi has not heard her challenge, because he is afraid of facing this small female. He denies her the right due even the least of shaauri, because he is a coward."

It was an insult of the highest magnitude. Shaauri ears pressed flat. Constano surged forward and stopped himself.

You're dead, Kane, he said in his mind, the thought as loud as a shout. "Sh'eivali, it is true that I have not heard this female. She is human. She is not even of Kinsman blood. She has no right to invoke challenge."

"VelRauthi speaks truth," the shaaurin said to Jonas. "This female has no right."

"Perhaps not by shaauri law," Jonas said. "But what of daring and courage? Once it was considered an art in itself, worthy of admiration: neeal-damera, courage-beyond-hope. This female is of high status in her Line and deserves a chance of honorable death. Shaauri have not ceased to honor bravery in their enemies. Is it only you who have abandoned the heart of your people?"

The shaauri leader bared sharpened teeth, and the black-tipped fur on his shoulders bristled. No unarmed human could long stand against such a creature if he chose to attack.

But Jonas stared into the shaaurin's eyes, unbending. "You have been quick to trust one who holds no true loyalty. He is not adopted of your Line. Where are the Rauthi? They are not here. He hides from other Kinsmen. He breaks with his own Lines, shaauri and human." He made a scornful gesture with a sweep of one hand. "What did Constano promise you when this is done? An end to invading humans for all time? You know only what he wishes you to know, see what he wishes you to see." He pointed at Constano in blatant accusation. "I am human, but I am also Arhan. I know this man. I name him liar, and coward. He took the life of his sibling because of his own ambition. He desires wealth and power only for himself and those loyal to him; he cares nothing for shaauri or even his own race. He, and each of those who follows him, stands alone, like a mad outcast. Soon you will be like him, dragged down in his madness."

The slightly elongated pupils of the shaaurin's eyes expanded to black ovals that eclipsed the red-gold. "All of Line Aarys stands with us."

"Yet only you are here. As you fight for the purity of shaauri culture, you yourself have been tainted by what you most despise. You have learned to lie like humans. True shaauri would never ally themselves to a coward for the sake of expedience. You have adopted human ways and dishonored your own."

Kori thought he'd gone too far. But the shaauri leader did not fling himself on Jonas. His ears cocked sideways, the tiny fringe of hairs rippling in agitation.

"We are not human," he said at last.

"You still honor shaauri law and custom?"

"We honor it."

"Then let there be challenge. Let Constano prove he is worthy of the trust you give so easily."

The shaaurin swiveled his ears to take in the sibilant whispers of his companions behind him. Only the young prisoner was silent, his attention fixed raptly on the exchange.

Abruptly the leader turned on Constano. "Do you fear this female, VelRauthi?"

His question was a challenge in itself, a test. Kori felt how much rested on Constano's answer. With all their contempt of humans, these shaauri were deeply stung by Jonas's words. Constano and his rebels had made a serious mistake somewhere in their plans.

Constano hesitated, but not out of fear. He was twice Kori's size. He must be calculating the risk of losing the respect of his shaauri allies, of his scheme unraveling bit by bit should anything at all go wrong....

"We have nothing to fear from this female," the shaaurin said. "If you do not fear her, you will fight her. Now."

"No," Jonas said suddenly. "He will fight me. The Lady Kori Challinor is my lifemate, and under shaauri law I have the right to fight in her place."

Jonas was well aware of what he had done.

The shaauri were unsettled, hostile and dangerous, Constano looked ready to shoot him, and Kori ... Kori gazed at him in consternation, her thoughts torn between incongruous joy and anger.

He knew she had offered the challenge to prevent Constano from exposing his deception, and he had sabotaged her plan. He admired her, profoundly, for her courageous act. But there was no time for explanations now, no going back.

"You are lifemated?" the head shaaurin asked. "I thought this was rare among humans."

"He's lying," Constano said. "All he says is lies."

"It is true," Kori said, her voice firm and clear. "We shared a bond of the mind that few can know. But I was the one who challenged—"

"I will fight for the lady," Jonas interrupted. "Or are you afraid of me as well, Constano?"

The rebel Kinsman cast a glance about the room, taking in the shaauri and his watching followers, from ranking telepaths to the least of the security guards. They were all watching him. Waiting.

He tossed his sidearm on the table. "I accept your challenge, Kane."

Jonas spoke again to the shaauri. "I hold you as witnesses, Sh'eivali. I, Jonas Kane VelArhan, have challenged Artur Constano VelRauthi to single battle, in the name of my life-mate, Lady Kori Galatea Challinor. My challenge has been accepted. If I am victorious, I claim the lives and freedom of myself, my lifemate, her sibling Miklos Challinor, the crew of the Eurydice—and that of young Haiimo Evalan."

"And if I am victorious," Constano said through bared teeth, "You'll still die for our cause ... but much less pleasantly." He stepped away from the table and drew a knife from a sheath tucked at the small of his back—his adoption-gift, like the one Jonas wore. He held out his hand, palm up, and drew the blade across his skin, leaving a thin line of red. Jonas faced him and repeated the action with his own weapon.

"It is witnessed," the lead shaaurin said. "Let it be done. Let none interfere."

With a mien of implacable gravity, the four shaauri, and their young captive, ranged themselves at one end of the open space between table and wall. Constano's Kinsmen formed a loose circle, exchanging glances and keeping hands conspicuously away from their weapons.

"You heard him," Constano said. "No interference."

The room went silent save for the perpetual hum of life support and station systems. Jonas loosened the fastenings at the top of his uniform and pulled off his boots, letting his bare feet test the deck. Kori's thoughts pushed against his mental barriers, demanding attention.

You hear me, she said. Jonas—

You can't stop this, he answered, refusing to turn. It's our only—

Her hand reached for his shoulder, pulled him around with angry strength. Her eyes burned with passion and promise. She drew his head down to hers and kissed him as she'd never kissed him before. He cupped the back of her neck in his hand, heedless of the blood, and held her close even as he denied her further entrance to his mind.

His mind, that she had miraculously begun to heal in the midst of their greatest passion. She didn't even know how much she'd done. But he couldn't lose himself in her now— not even if it was to be the last closeness they shared.

"Go," he said gruffly. "Don't interfere, Kori."

She went, but not before she gave him the one thing he did not expect.

Her love. Her love for him.

"Kane!" Constano shouted.

Once a shaauri challenge was witnessed, there were very few rules. He knew Constano would try to kill him. But he'd practiced shaauri martial arts with Hraan many times at Arhan Holding.

And he had so much more at stake.

He put Kori out of his thoughts—Kori, and her brother, the watching Kinsmen, all the humans he had ever known. He became shaauri, living in the moment, for this moment poised between life and death.

The hilt of his knife was warm and alive in his hand. He half crouched, balancing his weight on his right leg, knife held close to his body. Constano was the first to attack.

Jonas danced out of the way of his strike. He watched for Constano's brief hesitation and lunged forward, his own knife thrusting at Constano's arm. A red streak appeared on Constano's uniform.

Constano cursed and wasted no time in attacking again. He telegraphed his intentions with each motion. His downward cut missed Jonas's knife hand by several centimeters. Jonas was ready with a counterstrike, circling his opponent with trained speed and thrusting from an angle Constano didn't expect.

He nicked Constano's shoulder and grabbed the Kinsman's knife wrist with his free hand. Constano used sheer strength to break free and made a clumsy inner slash at Jonas's neck. He lost his balance and fell. Stumbling to his knees, he wasn't prepared when Jonas kicked the knife from his hand.

A lethal stroke would take a matter of seconds, swift and sure. Jonas's shaauri thoughts burned with desire for vengeance—for Jennara, for himself, for lost Kinsman honor.

But he hesitated. And Constano, lying at his feet, struck again—not with his blade, but with his mind.

He did what Kinsmen were trained from birth to despise, what Jonas had never truly believed possible, so smoothly and efficiently that Jonas's defenses crumbled before they were fully engaged. Constano used his own mind to tear through Jonas's as if it were so much tissue. He found the reopened neural pathways and twisted them into hopeless knots, bent only on destruction of the crudest kind.

Jonas was too newly healed, too vulnerable. He staggered away from the attack, covered his head with his hands as if such a futile gesture could protect what lay within. Second by second, he lost more of his ability to think, to hear, to see. Constano might deal him a lethal blow and he wouldn't know it until the last spark of life left his body.

Kori would die. Kori would die, because he couldn't leave Kinsman "honor" behind.

Kori.

All at once she was with him—with him, in his mind, lifting him up, bridging the rifts that Constano's violence had wrought. She wove strong, glowing fibers made of her own thoughts and will, creating a gossamer web as strong as love itself. The web meshed around and about him until he could feel no difference between his mind and hers.

They were one. Together they gathered their strength and rose to face Constano. Together they drove him from their minds and pushed, hard, until his will buckled and his face contorted in fear. But they did not do as he had done. They hadn 't yet become what he was. They used their body, strong and lithe, to renew the attack. Constano fell. They straddled him, their blade at the pulse beating hard in his neck.

And Kori left him. Left him whole, and lucid, and victorious. His senses were his own. Constano stared up at him, waiting for the death blow that was his to give.

They all waited: Kinsmen, shaauri... and Kori. She had fallen to her knees, her eyes filled with hope. The oneness had passed, leaving in its wake the certainty that neither one of them would ever be alone again.

Jonas lifted his knife from his enemy's neck. He grabbed Constano by the collar and hauled him to his feet.

"Sh'eivali," he said to the shaauri, "I call upon you to witness my victory. I claim the rights I have won with my body. The Lady Kori Challinor, her brother, and the other prisoners must go free."

"We witness," the head shaaurin answered. Not even a twitch of his whiskers revealed a reaction to his own defeat. He turned to Haiimo, released his bonds, and pushed him away.

But it wasn't over yet. Constano's Kinsmen had tightened their circle about the combatants, and most of them had weapons out and ready. Jonas knew he couldn't kill Constano, not even now. And Constano's honor was nonexistent. He would have to be held prisoner until all the captives were off the station and aboard the Eurydice.

"Constano," he said, "tell your people to drop their weapons."

Constano laughed. "You haven't won. Killing me won't make any difference."

As if to prove the truth of his words, the Kinswoman nearest Kori stepped forward and neatly placed the muzzle of her disruptor against Kori's back. The shaauri shifted, ears and whiskers revealing their agitation.

"You keep assuming that the rest of us are like you," Constano said. "Soft. Obsessed with rules we imposed on ourselves to protect inferior humans. Bound by shaauri codes of honor." He shook his head. "No, Kane. We make our own rules from now on. Kinsmen will rule human space, as we were meant to."

"Orders, sir?" the Kinswoman asked.

"Carry on as planned. If the shaauri object, kill them, and dispose of them in a manner that reinforces our objectives. They'll simply be more unfortunate casualties of the new human-shaauri hostilities." He smiled at Jonas. "Your 'life-mate' is quite an interesting woman, Kane. It's a pity we must lose her genetic contribution to our ranks. I can make her death quick, or most unpleasant. Release me, and I may—"

The door to the room hissed open, and a frantic young Kinsman rushed in. "Sir!" he said. He skidded to a stop, staring at Constano and Jonas. "Sir? Three shaauri ships are approaching from Basterra wormhole. They've hailed us, demanding to speak to Jonas Kane VelArhan." He swallowed. "They're Arhan ships, sir. What are your orders?"

Jonas felt Constano go rigid in his grip. "Arhan? But no one else knows our location—"

"I'm afraid they do," Jonas said. "Before you captured the A'amia, I recorded a message for my shaauri Line recounting my suspicions about a possible conspiracy, as well as my actions to that point, in case something should happen to Kori and me. When you boarded, I sent a message capsule out by remote, routed directly to the Arhan Line Holding. It was admittedly a desperate act, but your delay in returning to the station allowed enough time for the message to be received. I suspect that someone in your faction leaked your base's coordinates ... the Administrator on KS13, perhaps?"

Constano's face went blank. "Only three ships—"

"Only three, and you have more firepower than they do. But if you attack them, you'll have to destroy them. That's not going to be so easy to disguise. A single survivor, even a rumor, and all Arhan will be after you. It's part of those shaauri codes of honor you seem to despise."

"It's over, Constano," Kori said. She glanced at her guard, who lowered her weapon. The other Kinsmen slowly did the same. Kori met Jonas's gaze, and in less than a heartbeat their minds met and came to perfect agreement. "Give up now, and we'll use our influence to see that you aren't handed over to the shaauri for punishment." She swept the room with her glance. "I think you'd all rather face your fellow Kinsmen ... wouldn't you?"

The last of the Kinsmen let their weapons fall. Their former shaauri allies moved quickly for the door, leaving the bewildered young Haiimo staring after them.

"So," Constano said with a twisted smile, "you've won after all. Take your shaauri vengeance."

Jonas released him. "No," he said. "I think you'll suffer enough when you're stripped of power and Kinsman privilege. Once all shaauri and humans know what you've done, it may actually facilitate the Persephonean negotiations—and alter Kinsman life forever."

"No," Constano whispered. But Jonas wasn't listening. He dropped his enemy in a heap at his feet and went to claim the woman he loved, just as the first of his Arhan brethren came gliding through the door.

As unlikely as it seemed, the passenger seats on the A'amia converted to a remarkably comfortable bed, just big enough for two.

Kori lay beside Jonas, her fingers and thoughts intertwined with his. At last they had privacy—after the Arhani had taken custody of the rebel Kinsmen, Jonas had compiled and sent a full report to Kinsman Prime, Haiimo was returned under Arhan protection to his own Family, and Miklos and crew were safely aboard the patched-up Eurydice.

The royal ship was already on its way back to human space with a personal Arhan shaauri escort... and what a story they would have to tell Archon Thetis Challinor.

Kori's grandmother was going to have to change her way of thinking about the shaauri, especially after they turned up on her doorstep with Miklos in tow. But shaauri and Kinsmen were going to have to change as well. The old ways of suspicion and resentment were coming to an end.

And so is everything we know, she thought. Jonas heard, and pulled her close.

It's not all endings. Not unless you want it to be.

Suddenly, irrationally afraid, she rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, shielding her mind from him. It felt like cutting off a part of herself.

"At the rebel station," she said slowly, "why did you take the challenge from me? Did you think I couldn't handle it?"

She felt him move behind her, begin to reach out and stop. "I knew that Constano's shaauri allies had to be shamed into recognizing a challenge by a human, and I thought I could manage that better than you could."

"But you did convince them to accept my challenge— before you claimed the privilege of fighting in my place."

"As your lifemate."

Was that why she was afraid, now, of all times in the past few days, when all physical threats were at an end? Because he might be lying—Jonas, who had never lied except to his enemies—or because he might be telling the truth?

"Wasn't that just part of your ploy, to protect me? It was very noble of you, but—"

He cupped her shoulder in his hand. "It wasn't a ploy." He pulled her around, forcing her to face him. "It happened that first night on the station. I didn't want you to realize it, then. I'd been trying to hide my ... handicap ... but you discovered it. You did more than discover it, Kori. You began to heal my mind without even knowing what you did."

"I... healed you?"

"No one else could have done it—only a woman whose mind was a perfect match for my own. That was when I knew. I knew we had what very few people, human or shaauri, ever come close to touching."

"That explains what I sensed when Constano first came aboard the ship. Your mind felt different, even though you wouldn't let me in."

"For the first time in years, I was able to pick up more than vague feelings from another human being. I tested it on Constano. It was from his surface thoughts that I discovered the role Jennara played in the accident, how she'd decided not to go through with her part in the conspiracy, and how Constano himself made certain the courier ship was destroyed with all aboard. Except for me. Constano knew I'd survived, but he didn't think I suspected anything until I recited his own thoughts back to him."

"You lied to him—to another telepath. And he didn't know it."

"I guess I'm better at deception than we both presumed— almost as good as you are." He traced his finger over her lower lip. "I wasn't sure it would work."

"And you hated doing it, even with Constano."

"It was necessary. But I still wasn't a complete match for Constano. He attacked my mind, and I didn't have strength enough to defend myself. You felt what was happening, and you gave me your strength. You didn't even think about it, did you?"

"No," she said, remembering. "I just understood what I had to do."

"And you saved me. We became one person. Lifemates."

The wonder and terror of that joining was something she would never forget. She had become Jonas, and he had become her. Yet, in the end, they had not lost themselves. They had only become stronger.

To be lifemated meant that the mental sharing would never go away. It would always be there between them, whenever they wanted it. No more loneliness—and no more complete independence. A life of commitment... and...

"Love," she said. "Is that part of it?"

"Can you doubt it?" he said, cupping her face in his hands. "Open your mind to me, Kori."

She did, and his love for her poured in like the breath of life itself. When her heart was full to bursting, she poured it back into him. All her love, her hope, her joy.

He kissed her. She kissed him. After a while, she pulled free and spread her fingers across his chest.

"Are you sure this isn't just a way to get me to keep my end of the bargain?"

Surprised darkened his eyes. "You mean the children?" His mouth curved slyly. "Wouldn't you keep your word?"

"I would. I do. I will." She closed her eyes. "I want our children, Jonas. Whatever they are."

"You'd leave Persephone, Kori? Forget your rank and duty, come with me to Kinsman Prime and try to heal the damage Constano did, as you healed my mind? Help us all find a new way?"

"A new way." She smoothed back his hair. "What will become of the Kinsmen now?"

"I don't know. I do believe that the Persephonean negotiations will be successful and the Kinsman trade monopoly will end. We won't be needed to guide and guard every human ship through shaauri space. We'll have to find a new occupation." He smiled crookedly. "We'll have to learn to be ordinary humans again."

"Not ordinary. Never that." She touched her forehead to his. "Think about it, Jonas. Your telepathy enabled you to understand and communicate with the shaauri. Why couldn't you do the same with all the other intelligent beings we haven't yet discovered? Think of it. A whole galaxy is waiting. The Kinsmen could become a new Corps of Explorers, perhaps under royal Persephonean charter—"

Jonas laughed. "I see you already have our future planned. Far be it from me to get in Lady Kori Challinor's way." He grasped her arms and fell back, pulling her atop him. Fastenings came undone, and breath quickened.

A warning chime sounded. Kori had just enough time to close her tunic before a large shaaurin walked through the hatch. The symbols on his vest identified him as Arhan, and the warmth from his mind was that of family, an individual Jonas knew well. Kori was only beginning to recognize the differences between one alien and another.

"Hraan!" Jonas said, half sitting up. "Kori," he said in Concordat, "you've already met my adopted brother, Hraan Arhan."

Kori carefully pronounced the formal shaauri greeting. Hraan twitched his whiskers and made a rumble almost below the threshold of Kori's hearing.

"He says not to be so formal," Jonas said. "You are family, after all." You can understand him, Kori. Listen with your mind.

The big shaaurin looked them over. His ears flickered sideways. "I wanted to become better acquainted with your life-mate, Jonaas," he said in Shaaurii. "But since you are mating, I will return later."

Kori flushed, and Jonas laughed. "You may have to wait some time, brother."