Linesman (18 page)

JORDAN ROSSI

REBEKAH GRIMES GREETED
Rossi as coolly as he greeted her. “I'm surprised you could tear yourself away from the confluence, Jordan. You seemed especially taken with it.”

Orsaya, who'd accompanied him to the meeting room, promptly sat down and turned on her comms. Another admiral—this one four stars—had accompanied Rebekah, and he sat down and checked his comms, too. Rossi wasn't sure if they both had news or if they were pretending to give them privacy. The presence of the extra people made the meeting less awkward, at least.

He smiled an artificial smile at the other ten. “They must have paid you a lot of money, Rebekah.” Even the confluence couldn't keep Rebekah away when high sums were involved. She had her own drug—money.

“Of course, but Janni must have told you.”

It took a moment to realize she was talking about Janni Naidan. Sometimes he forgot she had a first name.

“But the Alliance didn't hire just me,” Rebekah said. “They hired another ten as well.”

That was impossible. All the tens were at the confluence.

“Ean Lambert.”

Crazy Ean Lambert, who sang to the lines and did the lines-alone-knew what damage. “He's not really a ten.” He'd thought she meant a real one.

“As he himself pointed out, he is certified.”

“That's rubbish, and everyone knows it.” If the people who'd been running the ceremony that day had more experience, or even if they had been able to think faster and call in someone who did, the whole certification farce would never have happened.

“He's certified, and he's servicing lines,” Orsaya said, without looking up from her screen. “If you hadn't been so wrapped up in the confluence, you would have noticed that he's building himself a reputation. He's been doing all the higher lines for the past six months.”

Rossi felt sick. The damage he could do.

“The Alliance thinks he's so good, they've taken him on.”

Even though they had come to the confluence specifically to hire Rebekah, and had their choice of every other certified ten while there, they had gone to crazy Ean Lambert. He wondered if they'd tried to hire someone else and hadn't been able to.

Rossi sighed. “So you want us to pressure Rigel to pull him.”

Orsaya did look up then. “That won't do any good.”

“Sweetheart, Rigel is easy to manage.” You could bully Rigel or you could bribe him. Either worked.

Orsaya smiled a thin smile that showed just how much she disliked him. Rossi knew he had to pull himself together. The confluence was turning his brain into mush. He didn't normally make enemies of allies. He had the charm, and his was usually the voice of reason, which was why, unless House of Sandhurst succeeded in taking total control, he would be the new Grand Master and not Rebekah.

He wished Paretsky would hurry up and die and that the black hole inside that used to be the confluence didn't call so strongly.

“It's not Rigel you have to manage,” Orsaya said. “Lancia owns his contract now,” and she said, with some wistfulness, “I wish we had thought to do it.”

Both linesmen stared at her.

“That's impossible,” Rebekah said eventually. “He's a ten.”

It didn't happen. The lower lines contracted out to noncartel houses, but nothing over a six.

“Sweetheart,” and Rossi knew it was a deliberate take on his mode of speech. “Didn't you notice the uniform he was wearing?”

“But that's—” Rebekah stopped. “He's useless.”

“Lancia doesn't seem to think so,” Admiral Orsaya said. “And after you left, he somehow connected with this alien ship and managed to lock the
Lancastrian Princess
and two media ships to it so that they all jumped together. Not bad for someone who's ‘not really a ten.'”

“It was definitely the ship's doing?” It was a question Rossi had to ask. Imagine what they could do if they could bring multiple ships through the void together. He could see, suddenly, why the two factions of Gate Union were working together on this and why the linesmen needed to as well. If the Alliance grabbed this technology, they could take a whole phalanx of warships through to the same spot instantly. It would change the face of warfare and give an almost unlosable position to the side that had it.

“I want to feel the lines of that ship,” Rossi said.

“We all do,” Rebekah said.

“We are in Alliance territory,” Orsaya said. “Commodore Galenos has set a four-hundred-kilometer no-go zone. The only level-ten linesman who is likely to get close enough to those lines to feel them is the man you denigrated just now.”

Abram Galenos hadn't yet made admiral although it was popularly agreed it should have happened years ago. According to which media you listened to, that was either because Emperor Yu refused to let the man who was guarding his daughter be given his proper due, or that Galenos had turned down at least three offers of promotion because he felt it his duty to guard the Crown Princess. Rossi thought the former more likely. The Emperor could be demanding when it came to family—or so the rumors went.

Either way, Galenos in charge made it harder.

EAN LAMBERT

ON THE THIRD
day after their move to the new space, Abram called Ean to the small meeting room. A barrel-chested stranger stood proud to one side. He looked up with a fawning half smile that faded as soon as he saw Ean.

There was only one person he could be expecting with a smile like that.

“Ean. This is Messire Gospetto.” Messire was an old-fashioned honorific, used for artists and masters. One hundred years ago, Rigel would have been Messire Rigel. Rigel would have loved it. “He'll be working on your voice. Gospetto, this is the man you will be working with.”

Ean smiled and held out his hand. He wasn't surprised when Gospetto stepped back.

“But I am working with Lady Lyan,” Gospetto said.

Abram's gaze went hard.

“I am coach to the greatest singers and speakers in the galaxy. I am famed for my ability to bring out the best in them. I came here to work with Lady Lyan. The pinnacle of my career. Final recognition of everything I have done.”

Abram said, “Lady Lyan has her own voice coach. Whom, naturally, we would have called had she been available.
Unfortunately”—and the bite in his voice was clear—“we had to settle with what was available.”

Gospetto drew himself up, affronted. “I do not stand here to be insulted.”

Ean had worked before with trainers who didn't think much of him. He held out his hand for Abram's slate.
I'll work with him.
If he was as good as he claimed, there had to be something he could learn. Besides, he was genuinely starting to worry that he might not get his voice back.

Abram blew out a long breath. “We couldn't get anyone else,” he admitted, which was bound to endear him to Gospetto. “Do what you can. If he's no good, I'll send him away.” He turned to Gospetto. “We want breathing exercises and voice control, so he doesn't keep straining his voice.”

He left them then.

Alone, Gospetto stared at Ean in a leisurely way. Ean recognized the gaze. He'd been subjected to similar ones all his life—since he'd become a linesman, anyway, because no one really looked at slum kids. He hadn't even realized, until he'd left Lancia, that people like him were invisible to most people. It was the look that took in the plain uniform—with no decorations that Gospetto recognized—and the lack of expensive adornments, and said “you are nobody; why are you wasting my time?”

Ean knew how to deal with those looks. He stared back openly, taking in the other man's high-heeled boots, the bulge of fat around his stomach, which reminded him of Tarkan Heyington—did this man own one of those close-fitting shirts, too—and the fashionably plaited hair. For the last six months, Rigel had also plaited his hair.

“So,” Gospetto said eventually. “Let's hear your voice.”

Ean just shrugged.

Radko slipped into the room and took up her customary stance against the wall. They hadn't spoken to each other since she'd showed him where the laundry was, but when he'd come out of the hospital, the clothes were neatly folded on his bed.

“Well, come on.”

Maybe this wasn't going to work. Ean tried to borrow Gospetto's slate, but the other man moved away as if he thought Ean was stealing it.

“He can't talk,” Radko said. “His voice is strained.”

Gospetto raised his arms and looked heavenward, like the character in a rock opera Ean had sneaked into once when he was small. “And they expect me to do something about that.”

Everything about him was theatrical. As if he was playing a part. Ean wondered what the real Gospetto was like underneath all that acting.

Radko rolled her eyes and didn't care that he saw it. “You teach him how to manage his voice, how not to strain it again.” It sounded like an order from Abram. “Breathing exercises and voice control.” Her own voice dripped sarcasm. “Surely, even you can do that.”

What had Abram told her?

“And that's really going to help when I can't hear how you use it,” Gospetto muttered, but he set Ean to breathing and wasn't happy with the results. “You have the lung capacity of a Nend,” and made Ean breathe deep and hold his breath.

“That's a myth,” Radko said. They both looked at her. “Nends with no lung capacity. They just can't take as much oxygen as most humans can, so they breathe very shallowly off their home world.”

“Suddenly a simple spacer is an expert on alien beings,” Gospetto said.

He should be careful with his insults. There was nothing simple about the spacers on this ship.

“I used to work with one,” Radko said. “And they're not alien. They're modified Terran stock. Like the Aquacaelum. The only aliens anyone knows about are on that ship out there.”

Ean didn't think there were many of them. Line one was much too quiet. He borrowed Radko's comms.
Then they're probably all dead.
Or so alien he couldn't even recognize the line as people.

She read it, frowning, and didn't comment. But she did tap something onto her screen—sending it on, he suspected—after which she put her comms away.

Gospetto sniffed. “That ship is a myth,” he said. “Something trumped up by the Alliance to start a war because they're scared Gate Union is getting too strong.”

Did he realize what ship he was on? Ean borrowed Radko's comms again.
We didn't start it.
He didn't know when
it had become “we” rather than “the Alliance.” He was a linesman, logically allied to Gate Union. And he hated Lancia. Didn't he?

Gospetto pushed the air out of Ean's stomach and made him stand taller. “You can be sure there were machinations behind the scenes that made it look like that, but I guarantee you something the Alliance did triggered the whole thing.”

•   •   •

DINNER
that night was one of the interminable buffets. Katida joined Ean as he moved his way down the line. “This will probably be the last night we have the ship to ourselves. The evacuated hordes will start returning soon. Galenos can't keep them away forever. Unless you can pull a miracle out of the lines.” And she paused expectantly.

Ean shook his head, suddenly not hungry. Gate Union and Redmond wouldn't wait forever either.

Nor would line eleven.

Katida patted his hand. “You can only do what you do,” she said. Which would have been comforting except that another admiral came up then, and they started discussing exactly how long it would take before one of the idiot sightseers ventured too close and fried themselves and every other ship in the vicinity.

Gospetto was talking to two dignitaries—he obviously considered the military lesser beings—near the salad bar. The dignitaries hung on every word. He saw Ean and didn't, quite, move away. He was as bad as Rebekah. Ean just smiled and reached past him for some salad he didn't really want.

“Fresh greens,” Michelle said from behind him. “You can't believe how much I want some.”

Gospetto homed in faster even than Governor Jade. “Lady Lyan.”

“Messire Gospetto,” Michelle said. “I hear you're not happy with your present task.”

Gospetto drew himself up to his full height. “I don't know where you got that idea,” he said, and the way he deliberately didn't look at Ean showed exactly where he knew the idea had come from. “I am sure you are mistaken.”

Michelle leaned in close and pitched her voice low enough
so that only Ean and Gospetto could hear. “Don't ever call my head of security a liar again.” Then she straightened and smiled at a dignitary standing across from them. “Senator Yee, and how is your government taking these latest events?”

“Not well at all,” the senator admitted. “I just wish something would happen.”

“Don't we all,” Michelle said, and wandered off with the senator. She hadn't gotten any greens.

Ean was left alone with Gospetto.

“I suppose I deserved that,” Gospetto said. “But it doesn't make me like you any better.”

Ean just shrugged and piled a clean plate with salad, then didn't know what to do with it. One of the soldiers clearing plates took it out of his hands and whisked it over to the table where Michelle and Senator Yee were now sitting. Ean nodded his thanks. This ship looked after their princess. They always had.

Line one hummed suddenly with pleasure.

It was funny that Captain Helmo talked to the ship and managed the lines, but the happiness of line one depended more on the happiness of Michelle—and the whole crew, really—than just on Helmo. It was funny, too, that none of them were linesmen. If you listened to the guild, the only people who had any influence on the lines were linesmen, which obviously wasn't true. Maybe the lines communicated with everyone, not just a select few. Yet only that select few communicated back.

Ean stared at Michelle's table, not really seeing the guests around it. Linesmen were so convinced the lines needed them. But did they, really? Did they simply need people?

•   •   •

THE
next morning Ean had a thread of voice back. He doubted it was anything Gospetto had done but was sure he would claim it, and he did.

“But you mustn't speak,” Gospetto said. “You should rest it for another week, at least.”

As if that was likely to happen. “There's a war on.”

Gospetto waved an airy hand. “Don't believe everything you hear on the media.” He leaned close. “This is a plot, set
up by the Alliance because they are scared that in the future, Gate Union will come to rival their power. That's how incumbent governments work. Cut them down before they become a threat.”

The future he was talking about was now. Should he remind Gospetto he was on an Alliance ship?

“If they were serious about war,” Gospetto said, “they'd be using that ship out there to threaten Gate Union. Instead, it just sits there. It's empty threats, my boy, empty threats.”

The only reason they weren't using the ship was because
Ean
didn't have any control right now. Ean thought his grasp of politics was subtly better than his voice coach's.

“Now, let's see you breathe.”

They did breathing exercises for an hour, then Gospetto told him to come back in the afternoon.

Ean took sanctuary on the couch in Abram and Michelle's workroom. He was dozing on his couch—Michelle's interview couch—listening to the lines, when Abram and Michelle came in.

“We can't fob the dignitaries off with broken lines forever.” Abram was blackly pessimistic. “They're building all these paranoid theories about what we're doing and why we're not bringing them back now the danger is over. We'll have to let them return.”

“I could go out to them,” Michelle suggested. “Shuttle between the three ships.”

Abram shuddered. “No Misha. That's a security nightmare.”

Ean stood up.

“Stay,” Abram said. “We know where you are all the time. It's easier to watch you in person than watch the vids.”

Everywhere he went? Ean sat down again. It was almost as bad as being on the media ships.

“No,” Abram said to Michelle. “I'd rather bring the traitors back on ship. We'll have a better chance.”

“I thought Rebekah was the traitor,” Ean said, husky-voiced, then wished he'd kept silent. “She's gone.”

Abram poured them all glasses of the requisite tea. “Rebekah wasn't working on her own.”

Michelle brought Ean's tea over for him. “We have
representatives from every Alliance nation here. Nations always look after themselves first, the Alliance second. Even Lancia does. If I thought Lancia was better off without the Alliance, I'd be ditching them, too.”

Once Ean would have believed that. Emperor Yu would desert his allies if it would benefit him, but his daughter wouldn't. She was honorable.

“I would.” Michelle went back to pace around the center console, while Ean pondered the unreality of using the word “honorable” to describe a member of the Lancastrian royal family. But it fit.

Michelle said, “Even those left here ask why we aren't doing anything. I'm running out of excuses.”

“Why don't you tell them the truth?” Ean asked. That they were stuck here because he, Ean, couldn't help them.

Michelle came back to drop gracefully onto her own couch. “Would you tell anyone—enemy or friend—that your only weapon is helpless right now?”

At least they thought of him as a weapon. Or more likely they thought of the ship as the weapon and him a faulty tool that might or might not be able to make it useful.

“Don't fret it,” Abram said. “Our public stance is good for a few days yet. We didn't start this thing. They did. Of course we're not taking preemptive action.”

Abram tapped, unthinking, on the console. Ean wondered if he realized the beat matched that of line eleven. “And our original argument still holds. Line six is weak. If—when—the alien ship fires, we cannot guarantee their safety.”