Linesman (17 page)

“Ean.” He realized, subliminally, it wasn't the first time Katida had said it. He looked over.

Her fingers pleated the sheet that covered her. “Lady Lyan is—”

What did Michelle have to do with anything?

“She has a reputation. Her body is a weapon she uses in
much the same way as Galenos would use a blaster. Don't think that because she—”

Ean just stared at her.

“Damn.” Katida breathed deeply. “You're a nice enough lad. She's a shark, that's all.”

She could talk about sharks.

“Just be careful. And don't get too attached.”

Ean could have told her that the first time he had met her, Michelle had tried to kill him, that Michelle owned his contract, and that was all. Instead, he just smiled his thanks and they lay there again in silence.

JORDAN ROSSI

WHEN ROSSI CAME
around, the emptiness that had been the confluence ached inside him, making him lethargic and unable to move. Everything was dull and muted, even the normal ship sounds.

He stared around the cabin and wondered if he would die.

He didn't notice Fergus seated near the bed until he said, “You'll thank me one day.”

“I'm going to sack you.”

Fergus ignored him. “We're not going to Eco anymore, we're going to Barossa, along with every other sightseer in the galaxy. You should probably watch the vids before you get there.” He turned the vid on and went back to his own comms.

Rossi was seriously going to sack Fergus as soon as he could get enough energy to call Rickenback.

On-screen, Coral Zabi was interviewing Lady Lyan. At first Rossi didn't even bother listening. He wanted to die, and failing that, he wanted to get back to the confluence as soon as he could. Maybe he could kill Fergus now and escape.

Finally, some words seeped through, and he realized he was hearing them for a third time. The vid was set to continual replay. Another reason to sack Fergus as soon as he could.

Lady Lyan. “The Alliance has always claimed this ship.”

Coral Zabi. “Why force our ships to travel with you?”

Lady Lyan. “To save your lives. You saw what happened to the shuttles. That field wasn't going to stop. If we hadn't saved you then you, too, would have been vaporized.”

Coral Zabi, looking at the screen. “According to Lady Lyan, Gate Union deliberately triggered the defense mechanism on the alien ship.”

The video cut to the ship in question, and Rossi forgot his misery enough to sit up. “What is that thing?” It was a perfect sphere.

“An alien ship,” Fergus said. “Watch this. It can only be Yannikay. Superb piloting.”

On-screen, a ship appeared out of the void, dangerously close to the alien ship, and moved in closer. Way too close. Rossi clutched at his sheet. Every spacer's nightmare. Lady Lyan's well-spoken accents continued in the background. “That ship deliberately went close enough to trigger the defense mechanism. That it jumped as soon as it had meant the pilot knew she had triggered it.”

They watched a green pulse travel out from the alien sphere. They watched two shuttles destroyed and the pulse travel inexorably closer. Rossi hoped the media camera was unmanned because it was going soon.

Then, suddenly, the green field was gone, and the star field behind changed.

“They jumped.” He was stupidly relieved. “They cut it close.”

Fergus sighed. “You weren't listening. They didn't jump.
Lady Lyan
jumped and took the media ships with her.”

It was impossible, and Fergus should have known better than to even listen to such far-fetched rumors. “The media make up their own stories.”

“Not this one they don't.” Fergus picked up the remote. “This one is so far-fetched they don't have to.” He flipped three channels in quick succession.

On the first, a serious-looking scientist was explaining just how impossible it was for three ships to travel the void and retain the same spatial ratio. “The explosion would take out a solar system.”

“Technically, there were four ships if you count the alien ship,” Fergus said.

On the second channel, two political commentators agreed it was a declaration of war. “The preemptive strike definitely came from Gate Union,” one said.

On the third, a broadly grinning Yannikay was being interviewed about the split-second timing required for such a jump. The interviewer was obviously a pilot himself, caught up in the technicalities of it.

“Go back to the second channel,” Rossi ordered. If he concentrated hard, he didn't notice the emptiness as much. Why would Gate Union strike now? Did they want the ship so badly they were prepared to risk a whole war on it? Or were they more ready to declare war than even their allies realized. “But why, for the lines' sake, let the media film them making a preemptive strike?”

He didn't realize he'd spoken the last aloud until Fergus said, “Current gossip on this ship is that the media weren't supposed to survive the attack.”

“Then Gate Union should have made sure of it.” He looked up as Jita Orsaya entered the room. Traitor Fergus had to have called her. She wouldn't have known he was awake otherwise.

“It did,” Orsaya said. “But you can't hit something that isn't there, Linesman Rossi.”

“So they had to know what you were planning and were ready to jump.”

“Lady Lyan jumped,” Fergus said. “She took the other ships with her.”

“We both know that's impossible.” Four ships together in the void like that—it would be like a sun going nova.

“Obviously not,” Orsaya said, and looked around as Ahmed Gann hurried in.

He was out of breath, probably called by the same call that had brought Orsaya but farther away. Or maybe Orsaya was just fitter.

At least Gann had the decency to allude to how they had brought him here. “We regret what happened, Linesman, and if what you say is true, then we understand we have a problem with the confluence to deal with later.” What
he
said. He hadn't
said, Fergus had, and Fergus was a liar. “But you understand we didn't have time to discuss the issue.”

“Maybe we should have discussed it,” Rossi said. “Maybe you should learn not to take everything at face value.” He deliberately ignored Fergus.

Orsaya seemed to lose patience with the small talk. “We have long suspected the confluence acts like a drug on linesmen,” she said. “Particularly the higher levels. Can we get to our immediate problem now?”

“Go ahead,” Rossi said, but only because he knew that once they stopped talking, he could do something about his immediate problem, which was getting back to the confluence. Some crazy part of his brain imagined he could still feel it waiting for him, ready to fill him with exultation if only he'd let go.

“We are working together on this,” Orsaya said.

“Of course we are.”

Her look told him not to compound his earlier stupidity with further ignorance. “The Gate Union factions are working together,” she said. “We're meeting Rebekah Grimes at Barossa.”

“Sweetheart, you don't—”

If she'd had a good reason, he'd be dead right now. “We expect you to work together. We want that ship. We want its secrets.”

And they thought a linesman could give it to them.

“We'll be at Barossa in twenty minutes,” Orsaya said. “Have your questions ready for Linesman Grimes.”

Rossi nodded. When he finally managed to contact the House of Rickenback, he would demand they did something about Fergus and Orsaya both. He was a linesman level ten. They had no right to treat him like this.

EAN LAMBERT

SHIPS ARRIVED HOURLY
to gape at the alien ship. Within twenty-four hours, space was so crowded the gate controllers refused to let anyone jump closer than five thousand kilometers. They still came, even though they weren't close enough to see anything.

Abram invoked martial law to force them to stay at least four hundred kilometers out and to have a jump registered. Lucky, Admiral Katida said, they had jumped to Alliance territory.

Ean didn't think it was luck at all. Captain Helmo would have prepared the jump. Of course he would jump to somewhere he considered safe. For a Lancian ship, safe would be somewhere near Lancia, he supposed, but he didn't ask. He didn't want to know.

His memories of Lancia were of always being hungry and cold. And of the lines. The music had been with him all his life. He'd grown up with the big line five at the exchange near the junction, the tiny two at the liquor house on the corner near where Old Kairo lived in his box. He hadn't known what it was back then, but the music had been as real to him as anything else.

Even people had music sometimes.

One day, when he'd been around five years old, the Cann siblings—Joshua, Marieke, Trini, and Wen—had taken him down to the spaceport with them.

“Because you're small, you see,” Wen had explained. “There's advantages to being small. You can fit in spaces we can't.”

His father said the Cann family was psychotic, but he said that about everyone in the block, and Ean didn't know what psychotic was then. He liked the Canns because they all had the music. So he'd trotted off down to the spaceport with them, more than a little pleased with his elevated role. These were important people. Joshua Cann had gouged out a policeman's eye with his bare fingers, Trini Cann carried two big knives she used to slice people with.

“Will I be in your gang?”

Trini had turned on him with one of her knives. “Why would you think that?”

“Trini.” Wen put out a hand to stop her. “He's only a kid. Don't scare him.” He'd turned to Ean. “It's a family gang. You're not family. But you can work for us.”

“Okay.” Ean had liked Wen best. Wen's music was kinder than the others. Deep and strong.

They'd skirted the spaceport, keeping close to the electrified fence that crackled and snapped with every step and towered so high, Ean couldn't see the top of it. They walked so long, Ean had wanted to stop, but he'd known even then it would be a foolish thing to do. He could hear from the grim determination of their music that nothing would stop them. Nothing.

The roar of shuttles taking off and landing got louder as they got farther around. So loud that eventually he put his hands over his ears to stop it hurting.

“Here,” Joshua said finally, stopping at a spot where the fence didn't crackle or snap as loudly as it did in other places. He pulled Ean's hands away from his ears, forcing him to listen. “There's a gate down there.” He pointed farther along. “When you get inside, go to the gate and press the green button. Got that. The
green
button.”

At the time, Ean hadn't known his colors at all, but he'd nodded anyway. He knew buttons.

Marieke brought out a metal band and a pair of rubber tongs. “Make it fast,” she said. “We'll have five minutes at most before someone comes to investigate.” She'd shoved the band up against the weak spot in the fence, where it had flared brightly. Ean could feel the heat from where he stood. It hadn't been an adventure for a while now. He turned to run.

Trini and Joshua picked Ean up and pushed him through the hole they'd made. His ankle caught the side of the hoop. It burned, but he was too scared to scream. This was far worse than his father's beating him after the Juice man had been.

He fell onto the ground on the other side, even as Marieke's band of metal flamed momentarily, then disappeared. The crackle and sizzle reappeared.

“The green button,” Joshua reminded him.

Ean ran to the gate. There were two buttons. He pressed them both. Again and again.

The Canns piled in. Trini had her knives out.

“Make it fast,” Joshua said to her.

She came straight for Ean.

Ean turned and ran. Out onto what he knew now was a landing pad. He hadn't known then. He'd been so focused on escaping, he didn't hear the scream of the engines as a shuttle dropped down onto the pad. All he'd noticed was that the Canns turned and ran the other way. Then he felt the heat above him and ran faster. He put his hands to his ears to stop the noise, tripped and rolled, but by then he was past the danger.

Years later he realized just how lucky he'd been. It was a small one-man shuttle, he'd cleared it in time, and by then spaceport security had swooped down on the Cann siblings.

Ean lay in the shadow of the ship as the pilot turned the engines off and jumped out. He didn't dare breathe while the pilot walked away, and a security team carried off the Canns.

Gradually, he became aware of the music. Sad music. Hurting music. He lay, hands over his ears, listening to the song while he tried to work out what to do, crooning quietly under his breath, trying to make the music better. Because it was wrong to be so crooked, and he knew that.

Half an hour later the pilot returned. He had another man with him.

“I'd be grateful for anything you can do, Linesman,” the pilot said. “Life support keeps failing.”

“Payment up front,” his new companion had said. “I wouldn't put it past you to not have the money.” This man had music, too. Stronger music than anything Ean had heard before.

He heard the chink of comms against comms as the transaction was made. That was a familiar sound. His father paid for Juice the same way.

Then the man's music joined the sick music, and the music fought for a long time, but when he was done, the music was straighter, clearer, although it was still a bit crooked.

“That should do it,” the linesman said, eventually.

Ean wanted to tell him the music wasn't straight yet, but he didn't move.

“Thank you,” the pilot said. “I'm eternally grateful, Linesman.” They'd both walked away again.

Ean didn't move till nightfall. Once it was dark, he made his way across to the gate, where he pressed both buttons and let himself out.

He hid every time he saw the Canns after that. When he was seven, they were part of a robbery-gone-bad in one of the upmarket shops in the Royal sector. In the fight that followed, a security guard was killed. Marieke Cann died in the shootout. Joshua Cann died not long after from complications to an untreated eye injury sustained in the same fight. A fitting end for him, Ean's father had said. Wen and Trini spent ten years in jail.

Ean had other priorities. He had a name for the music now. Linesman. And once he asked, it wasn't hard to find out more about lines and linesmen. He determined to become one.

He spent a lot of his time near the spaceport, trying to get close to the lines on the shuttles. When he couldn't do that, he stayed near the big line five at the exchange. Or outside the liquor shop, begging with Old Kairo.

He practiced straightening every line he came across, for the lines seemed to prefer to be straight. The liquor store two was the straightest line on Lancia when Ean left.

It was Kairo who had explained that Ean was unlikely to ever get a line apprenticeship.

“That's not for the poor like us,” he'd said one day,
three-quarters of the way through the bottle of Yaolin whiskey Ean had shoplifted for him. Ean thought he might not have said it if he wasn't so drunk. “That's for the rich, with their money, who can afford to recognize talent when they see it.” He spat on the ground, or tried to. “And good citizens.” Another spit, this one more successful. He waved the bottle at Ean. “Keep stealing like this, you'll get a record, and that will be the end of your line dreams.”

Everyone in the slums knew about criminal records. Everyone had them. It was almost a badge of honor. “What do you mean?”

Kairo fell flat on his back and started to snore.

Ean asked him about it again once the old man had gotten over the grouchiness of the alcohol-induced headache. “Why do you say a record will mean the end of my line dreams?”

“Who told you that?”

“You did.”

Maybe Kairo hadn't fully recovered, for he'd scowled as if he wanted to deny it, then shrugged and said, “It's the truth, boy. The line guilds don't take criminals. Don't take slum kids, either. You might as well get the idea out of your head right now.”

“I
will
be a linesman,” Ean said.

“Look at you, Ean. You're filthy. You can't read. You can't write. You can't do your sums. You steal.” And Kairo had looked hopefully at the empty bottle beside him. “A criminal record's an easy way to say no to someone they don't want anyway.”

“But I didn't get caught.”

“I don't know how you've survived so long as it is. You're too naïve for this place, God knows how. You should be dead already. You'll get caught one day. And that'll be the end of it. You've no hope, kid. Give up now.”

The only thing Ean had given up was stealing. He didn't want a record if they could use that to prevent his becoming a linesman.

•   •   •

CARTEL
masters occasionally came to Lancia to recruit promising youngsters. Ean approached them all. It took years of
humiliation and knockdowns to realize that while he was on Lancia, he would never become a linesman. More years of scrimping and saving—and yes, sometimes stealing—to get enough credits for the trip to Ashery, where even though there were four cartel houses, he knew already that Rigel's was the only house that would suit him. Or even take him.

When he stepped onto the ship to Ashery, he had promised himself he would never return to Lancia. He still had no intention of doing so.

Not even if the
Lancastrian Princess
was orbiting the planet right now.

Which, in fact, it wasn't. It was halfway across the galaxy, near a world called Barossa, an almost-forgotten Alliance world which most of the galaxy hadn't even heard of until now.

Preparations for war went on around them.

Initially, they were fighting over a ship, so the battle cruisers that arrived to cluster around them were primarily here to protect the alien ship and the
Lancastrian Princess
.

Abram was preparing for a larger battle. “If they move on us and that ship, it will be the start of an all-out attack on the Alliance.”

He'd called a full war alert on Lancia, overriding one of the Lancastrian admirals who had protested at the need—at the cost—of a warm-start mode for the surface-to-space missile stations. Ean, seated quietly on his couch, hadn't commented on the fact that a commodore could override an admiral.

Even Katida was busy making war preparations of her own for Balian, the world she came from.

Michelle didn't think Gate Union would attack. “They're not ready for it. They'll pull back.”

“They've been preparing for this a long time,” Abram said grimly. “Starting early might not be much of a setback.”

“But we have the ship.”

“Which is just sitting there,” Abram said. “If it continues to sit, people will assume it's not a threat,” and they had both glanced at Ean and glanced away again.

Line eleven stressed occasionally, but Captain Helmo seemed to have that in hand. He'd tell the ship to tell line eleven that Ean was still being repaired. The information flowed up through the lines, and the new line quieted.

It was interesting that the ship listened to Captain Helmo, who wasn't a linesman. Current theory said that only linesmen could control the lines.

I feel like a line myself,
he wrote on Katida's slate. Abram still hadn't returned his own comms.

She was amused. “Maybe you should keep thinking of yourself like that. Just another tool in the arsenal.”

Katida always thought in military terms. Maybe he should think that way, too. If tools were useful, they'd be used, not discarded. If he made himself part of the toolkit, then they'd use him, and he'd get to work with the lines. No one threw away a useful tool.