Linesman (16 page)

Michelle's ready smile flashed out. “Primarily to save your lives,” she said. “You saw what happened to the shuttles.”

Both reporters nodded.

“That field wasn't going to stop. If we hadn't saved you, then your ships would have been vaporized, too.”

“But why fire in the first place?” Watanabe asked. “If you control the ship, then surely you could have prevented what happened?”

Michelle's face hardened, and her expression became grave. “We are still investigating the properties of the ship. We knew—and Gate Union knew—that the automatic-defense system was still on. We knew—and Gate Union knew—that it could be triggered by any ship going closer than a specific distance. That is why our ships were so far out.”

“So you're saying that the Gate Union ship accidentally breached that boundary.” Coral Zabi.

“Accidentally, Coral? If you watch the vids, you will see the ship deliberately went close enough to trigger the defense mechanism. It jumped as soon as it triggered it, which meant it knew what would happen.”

“And that,” said Admiral Katida from behind Ean, “is as close as you get to a declaration of war without actually stating it as a fact.”

She looked unwell, and a lot older than she had yesterday. Ean pulled out a chair for her. She dropped into it with thanks. “Heart problems. At my age.”

Abram smiled. “If you didn't listen to the lines, Katida, it wouldn't be a problem.”

She raised an eyebrow at that.

On-screen, Michelle was fielding questions from two suddenly animated reporters who scented a news story bigger than they had expected.

“And why is Lady Lyan declaring war on Gate Union? I thought we were preventing one.”

“We are,” Abram said. “But we cannot ignore a deliberate attack. Particularly not when the media were there to film it for us.”

This part of space was less isolated. Abram estimated this broadcast would reach fifty billion people at least, and go on from there.

Katida raised her eyebrow again. “That's not Gate Union's style.”

Abram smiled a hard smile. “Oh, I'm sure they didn't plan it.” According to Abram and Michelle, what they had planned was that the media ships would be destroyed along with Michelle's ship. “The best-laid plans, Katida.”

Katida rubbed her forehead. Her skin was parchment yellow. “Being in the hospital, you don't hear anything.”

The medic had implied all gossip came to the hospital. Maybe it just didn't reach the patients.

“I don't like not knowing what's going on.”

Ean thought she wouldn't have complained if she had been feeling well.

“And I don't like luck playing such a big part. I like to be in control.”

“There's really only one piece of luck we've had,” Abram said. “Lady Lyan's bringing Linesman Lambert on.”

“That's not luck,” Katida said. “That's just common sense. Pick the two top linesmen to do a job like this even if one of them does turn out to be a traitor.”

No one had proven definitively yet that Rebekah was a traitor. She might simply have died along with the other shuttle crew. Abram had said they lost contact with the shuttle in the attack on the lines. Tai and his engineers had taken four hours to repair line five enough to call them. By then, it wasn't answering, and it wasn't on the grid.

Katida turned to Ean. “And how are you, Linesman? I see line six survived the void, which no one expected.”

Ean smiled at her. It was nice to have someone interested in the same things he was—the lines. How had Katida lived without it?

“Speechless,” Abram said for him. “Literally,” he told Katida. “And that's where our luck may run out. A singing linesman who can't sing isn't a lot of use.”

Katida studied Ean. “You've more problems than your voice.” She looked at Captain Helmo. “Did you have to be so rough?”

They had no idea what she meant.

“Didn't he attack you?”

All three of them gaped at her.

“That's not . . .” But, of course, she couldn't hear him. Ean just looked at the two Lancastrians and shrugged.

Captain Helmo looked ashamed. “I didn't realize I was so rough,” he said. “I apologize.”

Ean shook his head and held out a hand for Abram's stylus.

“You were just one of a whole series of things that happened,” Abram said. “Don't worry about it, Helmo. I'm more to blame than you.” He glanced at the screen. “Looks like they're winding up.” Ean wasn't sure if it was deliberate, but he didn't hand over his comms.

Michelle joined them two minutes later. Damp tendrils of hair curled around her face. Did she always sweat at interviews?

She dropped into the chair next to Ean and gulped the glass of tea Abram had ready. “Strong enough?”

“Admirably,” Abram said.

On-screen, Sean Watanabe was still talking, but Galactic News had switched to the attack.

Katida stared at it. “That's Yannikay's ship.”

She probably hadn't seen it before. She would have been working on the lines when the attack happened and had the heart attack afterward.

Katida watched in silence. “I cannot believe they let the media film an attack like that.”

“I'm sure they weren't meant to survive it,” Michelle said.

Ean borrowed Michelle's comms.
How does everyone know Yannikay is part of Gate Union?
The ship wasn't a military ship.
Couldn't they just say we did it?

Katida smiled. “Here's some of that luck Abram was talking about earlier. Yannikay is the only one who could have flown that close to another ship. She's definitely the only one who could jump from there. And she works for Gate Union.”

Michelle smiled at Ean, the dimpled smile. Ean couldn't help smiling back. “Unlike you, Yannikay doesn't hide her abilities. When she sees that video, she will let everyone know it was her. It was superb piloting.”

Ean could see Katida watching them and wondered what she was thinking. Whatever she thought, it was probably wrong, but line eleven came in particularly strong just then,
and neither linesman had time to think of much for a while except to concentrate on breathing and staying alive.

Afterward, Abram's smile was almost malicious. “Line eleven a little much for you, Admiral?” He ignored Ean's gasping.

Line eleven.
You didn't have to be a mind reader to interpret Katida's thoughts. She pulled herself up with dignity. “I can see a lot has happened in my absence.”

“Let me tell you about it,” Abram said, and the two soldiers walked off together.

Captain Helmo stood up, too. He bowed to Michelle, nodded at Ean. “I'll be getting back to work as well.”

With Michelle effectively on her own, dignitaries started to swarm. Ean recognized none of them. The ones he knew—Tarkans Heyington and Reynes, Governor Jade, Admiral Varrn—must all have been moved over to the other ships when the lines went down.

He wandered off. First down to Engineering, where everyone stopped work and looked at him, making him feel like a freak in a sideshow.

“You want to work on line six?” Engineer Tai asked.

Ean shook his head.
Can't talk,
he mouthed, and finally borrowed Tai's comms to write it down.
Just came down to see how the lines were.
They should give him a comms of his own, but he didn't think Abram trusted him enough for that.

The lines were doing well. They all needed more work, but they had good engineers here. Line eleven ticked an impatient beat behind them all. Was it his imagination, or was it stronger?

Ean handed the comms back to Tai, nodded at the other engineers, and left. An excited babble of talk started up behind him. He'd bet Rebekah Grimes didn't get that freak reaction when she walked into a room. Or maybe she did. He rubbed suddenly cold hands down the side of his trousers. He didn't fit in here even if he wanted to.

After that, he went in search of the one person on the ship who wanted to see him least.

He ran Radko down in the cafeteria.

It was crowded and noisy, and she was laughing with Bhaksir and some of the crew who had traveled with them
on the shuttle. Ean would have left, but by then someone had seen him. The silence spread out in a ripple of jabs, and whispered, “
Linesman's
,” until everyone was looking at him.

What had he done?

Radko didn't move.

He wandered up to her table. Might as well do what he'd come for.

She studied him, then flushed all over. He could see it on her hands as well as her neck and face.

“I didn't—”

He held up a hand to silence her and borrowed her comms. By the time he could talk again, he'd probably have borrowed every single comms on the ship.

“Well done, Linesman,” Bhaksir said quietly from beside Radko. “I hear you saved the ship. And us. And our mission.”

He shook his head.

“Hear, hear,” said everyone around her. Except Radko. Someone started clapping, and everyone in the cafeteria took it up. Someone cheered. Soon everyone was cheering. Ean put his head in his hands. He didn't deserve this.

He remembered the comms, and wrote, quickly,
Later, can you show me the laundry please
, and passed it under the noise to Radko, who looked at it and burst out laughing.

“I'll do your laundry for you.”

He shook his head. If she did that, he would still have to ask next time.

Still laughing, she got to her feet. “I'll show you now.” It wasn't a real laugh. No one seemed to be laughing properly at the moment.

Ean followed her out, still holding her comms.

“I'm sorry about—”

Katida thinks Captain Helmo did it.

“No.” Radko was horrified. “I can't, I mean. He shouldn't take the blame.”

She'd really been a proxy for Abram, who couldn't do it himself, so if anyone should take the blame, Abram should.

It's done. And I've no clean clothes.

She laughed a more genuine laugh this time. “If you didn't keep sweating so much, you would still have a day's supply, at least.”

He shrugged.

They went to his room first, and she helped him gather the laundry into a cloth bag with his name on that he didn't even know he had. “Always bag it. No one wants to find your smalls floating around the corridors.” Then they went through a maze of corridors to the laundry room tucked away near some sleeping quarters.

“There's probably one on your floor, but I don't know where it is. There's probably even someone to do the laundry for you.”

Abram had once implied that Michelle had a servant to do things for her, but Ean had never seen one.

He tossed his clothes into the machine, and Radko showed him the button to press to start it. “You don't have to stay around. Come back in an hour.”

Thanks.
He gave her back her comms.

“Why don't you come back to the cafeteria?”

He shook his head. Away from people was good. She left him after he assured her—via sign language—there was nothing more she could do.

“You know where to find me.”

He didn't really; he was lucky she'd been eating, but he nodded.

Left alone, he sank to the floor—the laundry didn't encourage loiterers by providing seats—and leaned against a machine that wasn't currently in use. It was peaceful in here with no one to stare at him and no one wondering if he was a traitor or not. Just him and the lines. Badly formed lines right now, for sure, but when he got his voice back, he would fix that. And even now he could hear Engineer Tai and his people working on them.

It was funny that only lines seven and below were damaged. Surely that meant that whoever had done it had been a level seven. Or had they simply been targeting line six, which was the worst, and the damage had spread out? Who could do that to a line? Not Ean.

Line eleven was unhappy. Agitated almost. It was a pity they didn't have a higher-level linesman to calm it. And that was a thought. How would you test for line eleven anyway? That would shake the cartels.

He would have dozed, but the beat on line eleven kept trying to interfere, so all he could do was try to breathe evenly and not let it take over.

No one would know if he had a heart attack here. He'd be dead before they found him. Maybe he should go, but by then it was all he could do to control his breathing. He didn't think he'd be able to walk as well.

Line five became busy. They called the medic for Admiral Katida. She was either a very strong eight, she was a lot older than she appeared, or she had a weak heart. Abram, demanding to know where Ean was. Radko telling him she'd left Ean in the laundry. And finally, Captain Helmo's angry, irritated voice. “I don't care if it wants to talk to him. Tell it that he was damaged and that we are repairing him. When he can communicate again, he will. Meantime, it will have to wait.” That went from line one to line five, then through the other lines, all the way up.

Line eleven quieted after that.

The emergency team found Ean then and dragged him off to the hospital.
Wait,
he tried to say,
my clothes.
But they didn't understand him, and no one offered him a comms.

He found himself in the bed next to Katida's.

“We're a fine pair,” she said when she could finally sit up. “If I'm in proximity with that for too long, I might get a pacemaker.”

Ean wasn't sure it would help.

They lay in silence for a while. He half dozed, aware of the music of the lines in a way he'd never been before. Aware of all four ships spread out in the emptiness of space. All four sets of lines were damaged, he realized. Even the alien ship's. They were a limping bunch of invalids.

Line one on the alien ship, in particular, was a tiny whisper of sound. If there was anyone left on that ship, they were in a bad way.