Linesman (25 page)

Line five should be easy for someone like Rossi. But he didn't have the faintest idea what to do.

Everyone was watching. He was aware of it in a subliminal way, in the same way he was aware of the huge bridge they were on and the dead alien bodies slumped over various consoles and on the floor. Why would a ship like this take so many people to run it?

He breathed in deep.
Open the comms
, and pushed the thought at the line as if he was mending it.

Everyone shuddered at the discordant sound that came
from the comms—even he did—but the line opened, and a flood of noise came through.

“Subtle,” Sale murmured to no one in particular. She took the comms. “I take it everyone will hear this message.”

“May not be a bad thing,” Lady Lyan said.

“Personally, I'd prefer they had to snoop it, like everyone else.” She thumbed the switch. “This is Sale on the Alliance ship”—she hesitated—“
Eleven
calling Commodore Galenos of the
Lancastrian Princess
.

“Come in,
Eleven
.” Galenos must have been hanging over the comms to have answered so quickly. The line was weak and filled with static.

“Status report, sir. We have secured”—she made a face that couldn't be seen on the comms—“the ship and have turned the security system back on. We are now heading toward you.”

“Good.”

“Instrumentation is—” She paused, and Rossi could see she was sweating. “We will need you to gauge distance and speed. We cannot as yet do that ourselves.”

“Understood.”

Why was that so important?

Sale was sweating badly now. “Line twelve is down, sir.”

Line twelve? Surely they didn't mean Lambert.

There were a few seconds' silence at that. Not long, but Galenos was normally prompt. “Same problem as before?”

“No,” and “No, sir,” from Lady Lyan and Radko together.

“Estimated time to resolve?”

“No idea, sir,” Sale said.

“Thank you. We'll see you when you get here. Well done, all of you. Galenos out.”

He clicked off, and Sale wiped her palms on her shirt. “Let's hope he got the message.”

The noise from the comms still came through. The line was still open. They heard Galenos's voice through the static. “This is Commodore Galenos from the
Lancastrian Princess
calling the GU ships
Wendell
and
Gruen
and media ships
Galactic News
and
Blue Sky Media
.”

He didn't include the third Gate Union ship that had arrived.

“Wendell,” said a crisp military voice, and three other ships identified themselves as well.

“I presume you heard that transmission.”

“It was broadcast on every channel,” Wendell said.

“Without line twelve, we do not have full control of the automatic defense system. You know the limits.” They'd been plastered over the media for days. “Have a jump ready.”

“He got that message, at least.” Sale was relieved.

“Line eight controls security,” Lambert said, from where he was prone on the floor. His voice was hoarse and shaky. “And that joke about line twelve wasn't funny the first time, or anytime after.”

“He knows who we mean,” Lady Lyan said, her voice as shaky as Lambert's, and Radko said at the same time, “It's not a joke.”

“There is a line twelve,” Rossi said. “Line eleven and twelve, on this ship.”

They looked at him as if he'd suddenly turned into one of the dead aliens, every single one of them with the same expression on their faces—at least, the Alliance soldiers did. The other prisoners just looked confused, except Fergus, who nodded.

“You just worked that out?” Sale said finally.

“A real line twelve?” Lambert asked. “You can hear it?”

This wasn't the time or the place to talk about how you felt the lines, you didn't hear them. Sale and Radko, and probably Lady Lyan as well, would jump to the defense of their crazy linesman.

“What does it sound like?”

“One of the new lines is obviously the confluence.” Rossi knew that with a sudden certainty.

Fergus looked worried.

“That must be line twelve.” Lambert looked disappointed. “I am deaf to it.”

Lady Lyan sighed. “Don't you think it might be line eleven, Ean?”

“But I don't get the awe and the magnificence and the—”

“I don't care what anyone gets,” Sale said. “We have a ship, basically out of control, heading toward the
Lancastrian Princess
. Do something about it.”

EAN LAMBERT

EAN CRAWLED TO
his feet the way he'd done so often lately, by rolling onto his stomach, then using his hands and knees to push himself up. It wasn't the sort of move he'd dreamed of making in front of other tens; but then, the dreams he'd had about other tens were just that, dreams. Reality was radically different. He had changed a lot from the sheltered linesman he'd been ten days ago.

And even if his dreams of being accepted by the other linesmen were crushed, he wouldn't change what had happened. He wouldn't change line eleven. Or even Michelle and Abram—although he'd thought he hated everything to do with Lancia—even if he could live his life over.

He crooned a tune to quiet line five. The static was loud and hard on the ears and added to the almost overwhelming wash of noise.

Line five was indignant.
“So rough. It doesn't know how to target its line.”

Now the lines were conversing with him. And why not? They were obviously intelligent.

“He's not used to lines like you.”
It was half song, half thought. One day he'd like to sit down with some linesmen
and compare how they communicated with the lines. Maybe every one of them did it differently. One thing was certain, these alien lines were far more used to aural communication than human lines were.

He changed his song to include line eight, and the on-screen displays changed back to the star chart.

“I hope someone can read these.” It came out as song. If he sang too much to the lines, he'd start singing whole conversations. Then people really would know he was crazy.

They were already crowding around.

“We're moving fast,” Craik said. “Which one is the
Lancastrian Princess
?”

Ean pointed to the one showing strong on line eight. He was getting used to the noise—somewhat—and could hear the ship song when he focused on it. Ships had their own song, and the captains—and the crew—helped make up the tune.

“These two are the media ships.” Very weak lines all the way up to ten. “
Wendell
.” Strong lines. “
Gruen
.” The ship that had arrived earlier was strong on line ten, and he recognized it suddenly. “Rebekah Grimes.”

Linesman Rossi nodded, as if Ean had confirmed something Rossi already knew.

“Just wait till I get my hands on her,” Sale muttered. Ean glanced sideways at Radko and saw from the tightness of her lips, she was probably thinking the same thing. Revenge was a very Lancastrian thing. Rebekah didn't know it, but by killing Abram's people on the other shuttle—if that was what had happened—she had signed her own death warrant.

“You'll make sure Captain Helmo's ship is safe?”
he asked line eight.

“Of course.”

Ean changed his tune to include the other lines of the alien ship and checked them off one by one to see if they were okay.

“One?”
Still heavy and depressed but getting better with people around.

“Two?”
Fine. Needing some repairs, but otherwise good.

“Three?”
The same.

“Four?”
Likewise.

“Soon,”
he promised them.
“Once we've gotten past this little problem.”

“Five?”
Better now.

“Six?”
Heavy and strong, and likewise needing some repair. But it could go on.

“Seven?”
Ditto.

Ean realized suddenly, that if he could talk to the lines, he could find out what line seven did.
“We'll have a long talk later,”
he promised.

“Eight?”
Busy right now trying to avoid fire.

“Nine?”
Fine, and thank you for asking.

“Ten?”
Likewise.

“Eleven?”
Contented now that Ean was here.

“There's another line,”
Ean said.
“I can't hear it. I can't talk to it. Tell it I am sorry, and ask if it's okay.”

He was met with silence.
“No,”
said line one, eventually.
“Only us.”

“Are you sure?”

Of course they were sure.

Maybe they couldn't feel the confluence either.

“Ean.” Sale clicked her fingers in front of his face, then jumped back as if she was afraid of what he might do.

He slowly focused on her.

“Spatially, we're this close.” She brought her thumb and forefinger together, so they were almost touching. “Do something.”

“At least no one's firing on the
Lancastrian Princess
anymore,” Losan observed. “Or on us.”

“That's because they're all too busy preparing to jump.” Sale turned away. “I hate this. I want to be doing something, not just waiting for someone else to do it.”

Ean looked at the screen. “Should we bring them in the same way we came?”

“No.” It was a general explosive no, from allies and prisoners alike; and echoed, too in the lines.

“The ship is too big,”
line eight said.

“Can we bring it inside the protection?”
Ean asked, and spent time and voice explaining what he meant. They finally agreed on that.

The ships grew closer.

Captain Helmo was probably having a heart attack of his own. Sale looked like she was, and even Craik clutched at the air and looked as if she would grab the controls at any moment. Losan kept saying, “Oh God,” over and over.

Sale was speaking calmly into the comms. “Moving closer. Cannot read distances.”

An equally calm voice from the
Lancastrian Princess
came back at intervals. “Twenty kilometers. Nineteen. Eighteen.”

“How does one pilot this thing?” Craik pounded on the panel in frustration. “I can't—”

“Careful,” Sale said. “You don't know what you're hitting.”

Craik pounded on her knee instead.

“Seventeen.”

“You control the ship through the lines,” Fergus said suddenly. “You'll never pilot it if you're not a linesman.”

“Wonderful,” Craik said.

“Sixteen.”

“How close do we have to go?”

“This close.” Ean showed them the line distance by holding his arms a handsbreadth apart, but they had no way of correlating it back to distances they understood. All he knew for certain was that it wasn't linear. The distance had halved between sixteen and seventeen kilometers.

“I want Yannikay,” Craik moaned.

“Are you sure of this, Ean?” Sale asked.

As sure as he could be of the lines. Which meant little because he'd really only just met them. Ean shrugged.

“And thank you for that inspiring answer, too.”

She'd have hated it more if he'd lied.

“Fifteen.”

“I can't look,” Craik said. But her eyes kept flickering over the panels, watching, guessing, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Fourteen.”

Abram's voice came through. “Should we jump?”

Everyone looked at Ean.

“Should they jump?”
Ean asked the lines, then, more anxiously,
“You won't damage Captain Helmo's ship? Or
the people in it,”
but he was starting to realize that to the lines people were part of the ship, not something separate.

“You want them inside the field,”
line eight said.

He nodded, then realized how the others would interpret that. “No. No. Don't jump.”

Sale gripped the comms so tightly her fingers were white. “Ean says not to jump, sir.”

“Thirteen,” said the calm voice from the comms.

“Fine,” said Abram.

“One of the other ships has just fired a weapon,” Fergus said, seconds before Losan, who was watching that board, said, “Movement from the
Gruen
.”

“You don't need me to tell you what to do,”
Ean said to line eight.
“Protect your own.”

He heard the line respond.

“Twelve.”

Even Ean was sweating.

On the panel, something flared bright—and loud—as line eight's counterattack met Gruen's.

“Eleven.”

It was deathly quiet on the bridge. Ean readied himself to sing. He didn't know what, or how he could help, but he would do what he could.

“Ten.”

“Oh God,” Losan said.

It was the only sound.

“Automatic-defense system not yet triggered,” Abram said.

“Nine,” said the calm voice.

Lights changed on the boards, and there was a burst of sound. Ean had no idea what it meant.

“Stationary at nine kilometers,” said the calm voice from the
Lancastrian Princess
.

No one spoke.

Michelle took the comms from Sale. “How do we look, Abram?”

Abram took his time answering. “No idea,” he said eventually, honestly. “We're inside the trigger zone. We should have set off the automatic-defense system. Is it still on?”

They all looked at Ean, who checked with line eight, then nodded.

“Apparently,” Michelle said.

“Good. Then if Ean can guarantee you a safe path, let's get you home.”

Ean tuned out then. If they planned to move on, he had some lines to repair.