Linesman (19 page)

“And that's another issue altogether,” Michelle said, and Abram nodded. “The best military in the world can't keep everyone out forever. Someone will slip through the exclusion zone eventually. Probably the media. And when that ship triggers, it will be a PR nightmare.”

Abram seemed to have come to a decision. Ean wasn't sure if the talking had helped or he'd planned on doing it anyway. “I'll warn the diplomats and military on the other ships that we cannot guarantee their safety but that they are welcome to come back if they wish.” He looked frowningly over them both. “And full protective gear, Misha. All the time. Even when you're alone.”

Michelle made a face.

Abram turned his full frown onto Ean. “I'll order a suit for you, too. It will take around a week. Meantime, be careful.”

•   •   •

THE
first shuttleload of diplomats arrived midafternoon. Ean got into the lift to go to his afternoon session with Gospetto and found himself pressed up against Tarkan Heyington and Admiral Varrn. Radko squeezed in as well.

“Linesman,” and the Tarkan pressed closer. “It is good to see you.”

Ean smiled and nodded at them both.

Radko got out at the same floor Ean did and followed him to the meeting room.

“Am I under guard again?” His voice was improving slowly.

She rolled her eyes. “I'm supposed to be protecting you,” and leaned against the wall while Gospetto ran through the breathing exercises.

At dinner that night, Katida said, “Good to see you have some voice back. You'll need it soon. Galenos and Lady Lyan are under increasing pressure to do something.”

He glanced around. For the moment, they were alone. “Do you think there are traitors on board?”

Katida rubbed her forehead as if a headache was starting. “Why don't you come back with me when this is over? Some time in my military would do your paranoia a lot of good.”

“So you think I am paranoid?”

“Ean”—and she leaned close because they could see Tarkan Heyington making for their table—“you should treat everyone as a potential traitor. Even me.”

“But you—” By then, the Tarkan was slipping into the seat on the other side of Ean.

•   •   •

NEXT
day the small meeting room was in use. Radko found a quiet passage where the three of them could stand.

“This is outrageous,” Gospetto said. “I demand to see the commodore. I cannot work like this.”

“Just do it.” Ean had more voice back today. He actually had some volume.

“You should not be talking yet.”

Gospetto crossed his arms and raised himself to his full height—in heels—and glared at them both. “Commodore Galenos. Now.”

“He's busy,” Radko said flatly. She crossed her arms and stared him down.

There was no question who would win the staring contest. Ean stood, breathing in fully as Gospetto had taught him, and waited for his voice tutor to accept it.

Finally, Gospetto muttered, “I
will
talk to him about this, whether you like it or not,” and started Ean on breathing exercises.

Half an hour later, Gospetto said, “So, let's hear you hum.”

This was it. There was no way he could hum without the lines hearing him, and Katida had hinted last night that he had to talk to them soon. Ean took a deep breath and hummed direct to the lines.

Line eleven came in, loud and powerful, and sent Ean to his knees.

“Not like that,” Gospetto said, but Ean ignored him.

“Not so strong,” he begged, giving up the humming for real voice with the little breath he had left. “I can't . . . I am very weak,” and thankfully the line calmed to something that allowed him to breathe.

Every other line on all four of the ships was listening, and Ean could feel each of them pouring in support, shoring up the line—his line—as best they could. He realized, bemusedly, that they were mending him. Lines didn't mend humans. Humans mended lines.

“No.” They were all weak. “You can't afford to waste your own strength.”

“I said stop,” Gospetto screamed, and grabbed Ean and shook him. A detached part of Ean noted that he wasn't using any voice control at all.

Radko reached out to stop Gospetto, but four line eights reacted simultaneously—before Radko had even moved away from her wall—to repel him in a sonic boom. He hit the other side of the tiny corridor with a thump that made Ean's teeth rattle.

Gospetto turned a funny green color and started to choke.

Ean's bones ached with the lines.

Gospetto's comms had fallen into the middle of the corridor. The front was shattered, but the speaker still worked. “Messire Gospetto.” Abram's crisp voice. “You said he couldn't sing for another four days. What is going on?”

Abram couldn't possibly have heard Ean sing. Unless he was still getting the residue from their first trip through the void. Or maybe he was watching through the comms.

Radko picked up the comms. “He looks like he's having a heart attack, sir.”

“Lambert?”

“Gospetto.”

“Line eleven is giving
Gospetto
a heart attack?” Even Ean could hear the skepticism in Abram's voice.

Radko glanced over at Ean. “More like line twelve, sir.”

“Line—”

“You should watch the security tapes, sir. And I need to do something about Gospetto before he dies on us.” Radko clicked off.

Paramedics arrived then and made straight for Ean. He knelt in the corridor and rested his forehead on the rubber floor. “I'm good. Look after him,” but they insisted on checking Ean first, leaving Radko to deal with Gospetto.

“I'm fine.” He just wanted to sit for a minute, but the lines were insistent. One of the paramedics helped him to his feet while the other moved across to help Radko. “I'm fine,” he sang again to the lines, and they finally quieted. Ean slid to the floor, where he sat with his back against the wall.

Radko came over to crouch beside him while the paramedics—both of them now—worked on Gospetto. “You okay?”

He felt like a giant tuning fork.

“I don't— I haven't got any control.” His voice came out louder and with more power than he'd expected, so strong that it echoed in the passageway. Gospetto moaned at the sound, or maybe he just moaned. Ean stopped, and said softly, “I can talk.” He could talk. “I can talk,” more loudly. It wasn't full strength yet, but whatever the lines had done as support had definitely improved his vocal cords.

“What do you think the lines are, Radko?”

“Had you asked me that ten days ago, I would have spouted something about lines of energy, Havortian fields, and other rubbish.” The classic textbook answer. She dropped from her crouch to sit beside him and lean against the wall, too, as they watched the paramedics. “Now, I have absolutely no idea.”

“Neither do I.”

One of the paramedics said, “He's stable.” They loaded Gospetto onto the stretcher. Strange to realize they had come prepared already with a stretcher. They disappeared down the corridor with their load. Ean and Radko remained sitting.

Eventually, Ean said, “It wasn't funny. That joke about line twelve.”

“It wasn't a joke.”

“Oh.”

They sat in silence for a time. Ean was just about to get up when Radko said, “Are you human, Ean?”

What was human? To a Lancastrian noble, a boy from the slums was less than human, but a linesman wasn't. Yet he was still the same person. At the moment Ean didn't feel very human. He had more affinity with the lines than he did with other people. Going through the void had changed him, and kept changing him every time he did. Surely it affected other linesmen the same way. Or maybe Rebekah Grimes was right. Maybe he was crazy.

No one knew how the lines worked, even now, five hundred years after their discovery. Lines were energy. And certain humans had an affinity with that energy.

Most people didn't even believe lines were sentient. Ean did. Today, they had even tried to mend him. Ean, a human, who wasn't a line. If that wasn't sentience, what was it?

As to what made a linesman, no one knew that either. There was no particular gene that said, “this person has an affinity for that particular energy.” Or not that they had discovered. You either had it, or you didn't.

There were tests you could do to show if you had the potential to become a linesman. Basic tests like perfect pitch and a tendency to left-handedness. Or more advanced ones like how your right auditory cortex responded to the Havortian line tests. But it didn't always show true. Some people did well on
the tests, went into the cartels, and studied for years but couldn't pass certification.

Of course there were lots of theories, but until Ean had contracted to Rigel, all he'd had access to were the rumors and wild stories. One popular theory in the slums had been that it was caused by radiation and that the linesmen were irradiated in secret by their government before birth. Another theory was that the linesmen were aliens, planted among the humans by the line owners.

Ean thought he was human, but Radko's question was reasonable under the circumstances. “You could ask the medic,” although he thought Ean was crazy. “Maybe there is something wrong with me.”

Radko stood up, a long unfolding of legs. “That sort of wrong I wouldn't mind having,” she said.

Even if he was crazy, Ean would die rather than lose the lines. “The music—” was indescribable. He followed her down the corridor. “I'd better go see if Captain Helmo will let me talk to the lines.”

“Let's see Commodore Galenos first.”

They were halfway to the workroom when line one sounded a distress note.

EAN LAMBERT

“SOMETHING'S WRONG,” EAN
said. He started running. “Where?” he asked, but line one couldn't tell him.

He could be running away from the problem.

“Call Abram,” he ordered Radko.

She loped after him, touching her comms as she went. “Linesman says there's a problem, sir.”

“Ask him—” Ask him what? Ean stopped. Line one was people. “Ask him where Michelle is.” Start with the thing most important to the ship and work down. Michelle was the logical place to start because the lives of everyone on the ship revolved around her.

“He wants to know where Princess Michelle is, sir.”

Abram's voice came strong out of the comms. “Shuttle bay. She went down with Tarkan Heyington and Admiral Varrn to meet the latest shuttle.”

Radko took the lead this time, at a fast run. Ean just managed to keep her in sight.

The air lock to the shuttle bay was locked. That usually meant a ship coming in—but wouldn't that mean Michelle was this side of the triple doors, not the other?

“Shit.” Radko pounded on the wall in frustration.

Ean checked the lines. Line three controlled the doors and line two the oxygen. “The outer bay isn't open,” he said. He hoped he was hearing them right. “There's air in there.”

Radko called Helmo. “Captain. We need to get into the shuttle bay. Now. Override please.”

Captain Helmo's grim voice came back seconds later. “Override's not working,” and the Klaxon blare of an emergency siren started. A group of soldiers rounded the corridor behind them—too soon for the emergency signal. Abram must have sent them.

They didn't even know if this was where the problem was yet. When things quieted down, Ean was going to learn how to communicate properly with the ship.

Ean pressed the door button. “Open the door. Please,” he sang, and felt line eight through his bones as it connected through him to the ship and reached in and unlocked it for him.

Radko, who was still touching the wall, vibrated in time. Her hair stood out from her head.

They both fell—literally—through the door.

It saved their lives.

Weapons fired over their heads, chest high.

Two of the soldiers behind them went down. Line one keened a long, high note.

In a frozen moment, Ean saw Admiral Varrn standing beside Michelle, a weapon pointed at her back. Ean wouldn't have seen it if he had been standing. There were bodies everywhere, all of them in gray uniforms with black piping.

Then two spacers on the shuttle fired on him and Radko.

“No.” Michelle jumped to protect Ean.

The force of the firearms spun her around, so that she fell on her back as she dropped to the floor.

“Hold your fire,” Admiral Varrn called in the frozen second that followed. “Hold your fire,” with Tarkan Heyington a panicked echo behind him.

It was a standoff. Abram's half dozen against what had to be thirty armed soldiers on the shuttle. What had happened to the shuttle pilot and crew?

Varrn used his blaster to usher Abram's people into the shuttle bay proper. “Close the door,” and one of the enemy came across and did so.

“Throw down your weapons,” and Abram's people, unwillingly, did so. Even Radko.

“Kill them all?” the man who'd closed the door asked.

“Load them,” Varrn ordered. “We'll kill them later. Ship won't open the doors with warm bodies in the bay, even dead ones. It will take too long.” He gestured to Abram's people. “You carry Lady Lyan's body.”

Ean lay, numb, while four white-faced soldiers reached down to pick up Michelle.

“The others as well. Even the dead ones,” Varrn ordered, pointing to the two who had been shot at the doorway. “They're still warm.”

They all picked up a body to drag. Varrn's soldiers collected the others. Radko, who'd picked up one of the bodies that had already been on the floor, muttered to Ean, “This one's still alive.”

Ean's wasn't. His was definitely dead. A huge burn had blown half his face and chest away. He looked toward Michelle. Both weapons had landed on her chest and torso—they had fired down—so her face was unmarked.

Line one kept up a keening note of distress throughout. It made it hard to think.

Ean and Radko—slower than the others—had just pulled their bodies on board when the shuttle doors slammed, and the emergency override opened the bay doors. They exited in a cloud of instantly frozen oxygen.

In the sudden release from gravity, they floated into each other, live and dead bodies.

Ean watched the screen. Surely a ship should be able to control its own doors. But that was the whole point of emergency overrides, he supposed. For the times when the ship couldn't help you, and you still had to do it.

Varrn had obviously spent a lot of time in free fall. He swung himself over to where the four were tending Michelle and pushed them aside. “Let me see.” With his shark teeth, he looked like he was going for a meal of dead meat.

He laughed suddenly, and made it look more so. “You're lucky, Tarkan. She's wearing a suit.”

Every face on Ean's side brightened, even Radko's. What did that mean?

Varrn thumped Michelle's shoulder, sending her body spinning again. “To think that Lady Lyan didn't trust us. On her own ship.”

“Kill the others now?” asked the guard who'd closed the door.

“Wait till we get to the other ship. We might need them as a bargaining tool if Galenos comes after us too quickly,” Varrn said. “We'll toss them out an air lock later. Tie them together for now. They'll be round before we land.”

Their captors fashioned makeshift chains by looping rope from the shuttle nets around each foot and locking the rope into place with the key locks usually reserved for locking the rope onto the cargo nets. When they were finished, each person's right leg was fastened to the person in front of them, while their left leg was fastened to the person behind them.

Radko managed to get locked just behind Ean.

“They might be good as hostages,” Tarkan Heyington suggested. “Commodore Galenos has always valued his people.”

“It's a lot of work,” Varrn said. “I'm not doing it.” He loosed a toothy smile in Ean's direction. “This one we keep. If Lady Lyan is prepared to die for him, we might be able to use him.”

Every conscious Lancastrian soldier glanced at Ean.

Varrn moved close. “I never expected her to put herself in the front of a weapon for anyone.” Another toothy smile. “You are one valuable bargaining tool.”

“Tool” was the right word. Ean could have told him why Michelle had saved his life. No point destroying the tool you had worked so hard for. Not that anyone would thank Michelle for it. Not even him.

He backed away, clumsy in free fall, until the rope on his ankle stopped him.

“Galenos has launched a shuttle,” one of the enemy soldiers said, and Varrn moved away. A moment later, he added, “And one out from the second ship. And the third.”

Ean held on to a strap against the wall and wondered what to do.

Line one was fading. By his shortness of breath and the unsteady beating of his heart, he thought that maybe line eleven was still there. Or maybe it was just fear.

•   •   •

VARRN
was right. The soldiers did come around before they reached the parent ship. None of Abram's shuttles was anywhere near them yet. The enemy soldiers strapped in, and they strapped Michelle down, but they left the Allied soldiers floating.

“You ever landed untethered?” Radko asked.

At least she was still speaking to him. He shook his head. He'd been in lots of shuttles—especially in the past six months—but he'd always been strapped into a seat.

“Take hold to whatever you can and hang on tight,” Radko said. “When gravity kicks in, you'll hit hard.”

She was right, and even though Ean was prepared for it, he hit the wall, then the floor, with a bone-jarring thud that winded him. He banged a knee and saw momentary black from the pain.

This time they got a stretcher for Michelle. Four enemy guards left at a trot to take her to the hospital, while the line of prisoners was marched to a holding cell. Ean soon got the hang of the short, fast steps and marched in rhythm with the others although line eleven still made him want to change the beat.

This was definitely a military ship. It had the look and feel of the less luxurious parts of Michelle's ship. And they were preparing to jump. Ean heard the deep sonorous notes of line nine kick in. The void alert sounded.

He put his hands to his ears. Maybe, if line eleven could hear him, he could get a message to Abram.

He opened his mouth and sang.

Line ten kicked in.

Line eleven heard him, along with every other line on five ships. They jumped together, in through the eternity that was the void, only this time the lines—four sets of them, anyway—surrounded him and protected him.