Linesman (21 page)

“Treat her carefully, or Captain Wendell will bust you down two bars,” one of the guards was saying.

Another time, another place, Ean thought he might like Captain Wendell.

Soon after that, the shuttle took off. Captain Wendell wasn't wasting any time separating Michelle from the ship.

JORDAN ROSSI

THEY JUMPED TWICE.
The first jump was to pick up the Nova Tahitian councilor, Ahmed Gann, who came on board radiating almost as much anger as Orsaya.

“This is a farce,” Gann raged. “We can't even manage a simple kidnapping.”

“Maybe next time Markan will listen to us.” Orsaya's eyes were flat and cold. “We told him it was a stupid idea.”

Rossi agreed. Whoever had decided to kidnap Emperor Yu's eldest daughter deserved to be court-martialed, then sealed in a life capsule and sent into space with two oxygen cylinders and a very long time to contemplate the stupidity of what they had done as they waited to die. Still, it was almost as gutsy as something Lyan herself would have done, and if it had worked, would no doubt have cemented Markan as a power in Gate Union.

The only problem was, Admiral Markan of Roscracia dined frequently with Cartel Master Iwo Hurst of House of Sandhurst. On reflection, Rossi decided he was glad the kidnapping hadn't gone well.

“You know the worst thing,” Gann said. “Roscracia is getting a lot of support right now. Divna Neumann had the
cheek to call me up and tell me that if I didn't have the stomach for war, I should retire.”

Rossi raised an eyebrow at Fergus.

“Councilor,” Fergus murmured quietly. “Ahmed Gann's opposite for Roscracia. Believed to be easy to sway on a vote if you can make it persuasive enough.”

One could always rely on Fergus to know things.

Rossi glanced over at Rebekah Grimes, standing tall beside Orsaya. She had a knowing smile on her face. He'd just bet he knew where some of that persuasion was coming from, too. Smooth-talking, ambitious Iwo Hurst.

He considered the two women together. No doubt la Dame Grimes thought she looked confident—almost regal—beside the soldier. He had news for her. Orsaya had a presence even Rebekah couldn't hope to emulate.

He smiled at the other linesman. Maybe one day he might tell her that, too.

The second jump was to rendezvous with the ship Lady Lyan was being taken to, the GU
Gruen
.

“The alien ship is nothing Wendell can control,” Orsaya said. “We need to get Lady Lyan away from it.”

“So we're sending her to another ship?” Gann asked.

“Exactly.” She looked at Rossi and Fergus. “You two will take a shuttle with Administrator Gann to the
Gruen
. Linesman Grimes will come with me.”

“Where are you going?” Rossi knew. She was going to the confluence. The confluence was his. Rebekah Grimes didn't appreciate what she'd had there. She'd left. And Orsaya was taking
her
instead of
him
.

He fought down the panic that engulfed him, already calculating how far it was to Orsaya's weapon. She had to let him come. It was his right to be at the confluence.

Orsaya nodded to an orderly behind them.

Rossi felt the familiar jolt of a blaster set to stun.

EAN LAMBERT

THE TRIP WAS
a long one. The longest shuttle journey Ean had ever taken. By the end of it, he could only hear line eleven, and that only faintly. If he lost all of the lines, would Michelle's ship and the alien ship be able to come through together next time they jumped? Because he wanted them to. He needed them to.

Abram had to be doing everything he could to get Michelle back. If Ean could keep Abram's ship and the alien ship jumping when they did, then Abram would guess soon enough which ship Michelle was on.

What if he lost line eleven?

He needed to sing. That way the lines would hear him and help him to keep in touch with them. But they could hear the guards in the main shuttle compartment. If he sang, the lines wouldn't be the only thing to hear him.

He would have to sing soon.

Ean gripped his knees and tried to keep the tenuous thread alive.

They landed at last. The guards took Michelle off the shuttle.

“Door,” Sale said, and Ean realized that without the
power of the other lines behind them, they were on a totally enemy ship.

“I think I might set off the alarms,” he said.

“But you opened them before.”

“Yes, but—” How did he explain it? “That was our ships helping. We came so far, they can't hear me. If I tap into line eight here, I'm tapping into their ship only.”

“Line eight?”

“Line eight doesn't do anything,” Losan said. No one knew what line seven or eight did.

“I think it does security.” It seemed to take responsibility for the overall protection of the ship. Katida, who was a level eight, was going to like that if she could learn how to use it. But it didn't matter which line he meant or what it did. The lines belonged to this ship.

“So we're stuck here with no backup?” Sale said.

Ean nodded. “Sorry.”

Sale smiled suddenly and patted his shoulder, even if it did make her hair stand out from her head, although not too much. “No, I'm sorry. You got us much further than we had any right to get. It's about time we did some of the work.”

They did it the hard way, using small tools built into their belts to open an equipment locker, then using the equipment they found there to short-circuit the emergency door and push it open.

“Can't hide what we've done,” Sale said softly. “But we're out, at least.”

They exited the shuttle bay through an access panel similar to the one they had entered on the last ship.

The lines on this ship were well kept. Gate Union—or was it Redmond—kept their military ships in as good a condition as the Alliance did. If there was a war, Gate Union would be able to keep them better because they would have access to level-ten linesmen, which the Alliance didn't. Except him.

It wasn't long before line nine came in. “They're going to jump,” Ean said softly. And he was going to sing. He had to. Otherwise, Abram would lose them. He put his hands to his ears, which didn't help at all, but it felt like it did, and started to sing.

There was no distance in the void. Line eleven heard him, and through line eleven, the other lines heard, too. They all came. They were clear as clear, and joyful around him. Ean greeted every single one of them. Every time he went into the void, the lines were clearer, and he knew that when he came out, the lines would retain some of that clarity. Something in the void seemed to be opening his mind to the lines.

When it was over, he heard Sale say to Radko, “He's not exactly a weapon you can keep hidden.”

“Who'd want to?” Radko asked. “Half of what scares you is knowing what he can do.” She turned to Ean, careful not to touch him. “Is Commodore Galenos still with us?”

He breathed deep and listened as he waited for his heart to settle—there were six sets of lines now, five of them were familiar, four very familiar—and nodded.

The others looked skeptical, and Ean had to remember that they didn't know what he got through the lines. “And line eleven. And the media. And Captain Wendell.”

“Who in hell is Wendell?”

“The other ship. The one we were just on.” Gate Union called their ships after the captain, so Captain Wendell's ship would be the GU
Wendell
.

On line five, calls for paramedics were the most common communication, particularly on the Gate Union ships. He breathed deep and listened while Sale's team absorbed what he had said. Underneath the emergency calls, he could hear another signal.

Radko just nodded as if she expected it. “Same formation as before we jumped?”

Not anymore. Captain Helmo had moved his ship almost as soon as they were out of the void. “Our ship—Michelle's ship—has moved. It's going—” He didn't know where it was going. In the void, he could hear where the ships were in relation to each other, but out here in real space, he had no idea.

“It'll be coming closer to one of the Gate Union ships,” Radko said. “Galenos knows you have to be on one of these ships. He'll be hoping the princess is on the same one.”

Ean finally realized what the other signal was. “He's trying to contact this ship.” Trying to contact both Gate Union ships. The media were trying to contact them, too.

Captain Wendell was the first to answer.

Abram waited till they were both online.

“Captains,” Abram said. “We can keep this up as long as you can. Or until all your linesmen are dead from heart attacks. Give us Lady Lyan, give us my crew who went with her, and call off this senseless war before it escalates into a bloodbath that affects civilians.”

“What are you talking about?” the captain of the ship Ean was on demanded.

“Captain . . . Gruen, is it?”

She inclined her head. Ean heard it in the movement of line five rather than saw it.

“Please don't insult any of us by pretending to not know,” Abram said.

Captain Wendell said. “You can't keep this up forever, Galenos. There has to be a physical limit.”

“I am sure there is,” Abram admitted. “We don't know what it is. We haven't reached it yet.” Which wasn't a lie, and he sounded so sincere and honest that the other captains couldn't know that Abram was finding out along the way, too. “You can keep experimenting until we find it, if you like. Who knows how many of
your
ships we'll control before we reach it.”

“Control?” Captain Wendell asked.

“We control your lines, Captain. Your ships do what we ask them to. Including telling us where you will jump through the void.”

Now he really was bluffing.

“Think about it,” Abram said. “And call me back when you are ready to free Lady Lyan and my crew. Meantime”—and Ean could feel the smile as a movement in the line—“the media want to interview Lady Lyan about being kidnapped. They are most upset that you have denied them access to her.”

He clicked off.

Ean heard the lines move and felt line five damp down to a single thread. A secure line. He sang the same link open to Abram's ship.

“I don't think this line is as secure as you believe it is, Gruen.” Captain Wendell's voice was hard.

That was true now, anyway. Provided Captain Helmo didn't answer.

“Can he control our ships?”

“What do you think? He has, just now, jumped six ships through the void in tandem. Last time he jumped, there were five. He's doing a damn good job of making it look like he controls them.”

“So he could just destroy us.”

“He won't destroy you while Lady Lyan is in your hospital. And he knows she's there, or otherwise he wouldn't be moving toward your ship right now.” There was a pause before Wendell added, “And I have the other prisoners on my ship.” Ean could imagine the
somewhere
that went with that, for Wendell must know by now that the prisoners had escaped. “He wants his crew back as well.”

There was a deliberate message in there to Abram and Captain Helmo if they were listening. Ean could feel it. Captain Wendell really didn't trust the lines.

Crew were expendable. Michelle and Abram would, in the end, destroy Wendell's ship if the need arose. But Abram would never destroy Michelle.

“I never thought Lady Lyan would be of use to us anyway,” Gruen grumbled. “I haven't seen much evidence of the Alliance fragmenting.”

Wendell sighed. “Captain Gruen, this line is probably not secure.”

“You're paranoid, Wendell.”

One of them clicked the line off. Ean thought it was Wendell.

He became aware of the others, sitting watching him.

“He's not only loud, he's slow,” Sale said.

Radko said, without heat, “He's not a stealth weapon, Sale. He's a line. He needs his own safe place on ship. Lines do.”

Ean blinked at them. That joke truly wasn't funny third time around. Although sometimes he felt more empathy with the lines than he did with humans. “Abram and Captain Helmo are bringing the ship closer to this one.”

Through line one he could hear Captain Gruen grumbling about the paranoia of a man who, given a job to do, started seeing monsters under the bed. “He's losing it.”

Why could he hear the captains so clearly and not the rest of the ship? Because they were close to the lines, of course.
Captains spent most of their time on the bridge, and the lines—which started in Engineering—ended on the bridge. The brain—the chassis that housed them—was on the bridge.

“Where to?” one of the other guards asked.

“Princess Michelle first,” Sale said. She seemed to be the team leader, like Bhaksir was in Radko's team.

“She's in the hospital,” Ean said. “At least, Captain Wendell said she was.”

Radko smiled triumphantly at Sale. “He may be slow, but he gets what we need.” She held out her hand to help Ean up.

How long would it be before Radko had a team of her own? Not long, Ean thought. He shook his head at her offered hand, “I'm fine,” and crawled up using his hands and knees. It was inelegant, but it worked. “What about you?”

“If you can move, I'll help her,” Losan said.

“I don't suppose you know any access panels to the hospital,” Sale asked.

Ean shook his head. “I could ask,” but the other lines weren't close enough to do it for him. He would have to use the line eight on this ship. “I wish we were in the void. Our own ship could do it there.”

They digested that in silence.

“So. Not safe?” Sale finally asked.

“Not safe,” Ean agreed.

“Let's do it the hard way, then.”

Sale was a complex mix of reasonable and irritated. Ean thought she might have been just a little bit scared of him. Was Radko scared of him, too?

He tried to drop behind Radko and Losan, but Radko waved him in front of her. “We can't protect you from the back.”

He was useless. He couldn't fight. He slowed them down. He scared them.

“Drop behind me,” Radko ordered Losan. “Ean, give him a rest. You can help me walk for a while.”

“But what about—?”

“I'm getting used to my hair's standing out. I'm thinking of gelling it that way anyway if it's always going to do it.” She leaned on Ean, and said through clenched teeth, “Not sure about the music yet.”

“That is so weird, the way your voice changes,” Losan said.

“Yours did, too.”

She sounded like her ship, not like a specific line the way Losan had. Ean wondered if that meant Radko was more attuned to the whole ship than Losan was.

“Ean,” Radko said softly, so that only he could hear.

He concentrated on helping her walk, didn't look at her.

“The void messes with your mind, somehow. You always come out of it depressed.”

This time he did look at her.

Did he? “No,” Ean said. “It's making me more attuned to the lines. Radko, there's this whole dimension out there that we don't comprehend.”

“It still messes with your mind,” Radko said. “Realize that and deal with it.”

She was definitely going to be running her own team sometime soon. “And I think that's enough music for the moment,” Radko said, and dropped back to Losan with a sigh of relief. Her voice still held ship music.

•   •   •

THEY
used the maintenance tunnels where they could, and took some wrong turns and had to backtrack occasionally, but they managed to stay out of the public corridors.

“When we get back to ship, every single one of you is going to know the access tunnels for every ship larger than a shuttle,” Sale said. “And have the tools to open them,” as they struggled with a new lock.

Ean had no idea where they were. He tried to listen to line one but couldn't concentrate on moving stealthily and listening at the same time. Radko was right. He needed his own safe place to work and sing.

Eventually, Sale said, “If these numbers make sense, the hospital is up a level and down this next corridor. Go carefully now. There will be guards.”