Linesman (28 page)

Then came the linesmen. Jordan Rossi, big-chested and confident, smart in his midnight blue with the leaping gold rickenback on the pocket. The blue was almost the same color as Michelle's skirt and jacket had been that first night. Fergus Burns, same blue outfit but looking washed-out beside Rossi.
Ean couldn't tell what he was thinking, but as the camera closed in on the linesmen, he could see the black shadows under Fergus's eyes and white lines around his mouth. As for Rebekah Grimes, he couldn't tell what she was thinking either. A cynical half smile turned down one corner of her mouth, but that could have meant anything.

The ceremony didn't take long. The agreements had been made days before, the contracts checked and triple-checked by the lawyers and everyone else. All they had to do was sign them.

The only exciting bit was when Gruen refused to go when the prisoners were being handed over. “I'm staying with my ship,” she said. Her own people had to drag her out, and she went screaming all the way.

“One crazy ship in the making,” Katida said.

Captain Helmo would have stayed with his ship. “Wendell didn't want to stay with his.” Ean was disappointed.

“Don't underestimate Wendell, Ean. He's not stupid enough to fight a fight he'll lose. He'll be back—with a crew—to collect if he wants it. When we're not expecting it.”

“Maybe we should have kept the captains,” Ean said. No one understood the bond between captain and ship, and it was definitely stronger on some ships than others. Being asked to choose between your allegiance to your world and your allegiance to your ship would be hard. He wondered what Captain Helmo would do. Steal the ship back if he could, probably, and take a dive into the void with it if he couldn't, with the lines in full agreement.

Ean shivered at the thought.

JORDAN ROSSI

JORDAN ROSSI FELT
like doing some screaming of his own.

He watched, stone-faced, as they sedated Hilda Gruen and carted her off on a stretcher to the hospital.

“What about you?” the orderly asked Captain Wendell.

“I'm fine,” Wendell said.

He wasn't fine. Rossi could see the anger that radiated out from him, could even feel it in the lines—and if that bastard Lambert had tainted his linesmanship, Rossi was going to strangle him with his bare hands even if he had to listen to the lines singing while he did it.

Rossi remained stone-faced as he watched on-screen the wrap-up of the short ceremony. He continued to watch as the Alliance representatives—including their tame media—left. It was dusk when they did, and the six ships hung as low, artificial stars in the northern sky. Not long after their shuttles reached ship, they blinked out.

He didn't think at all, because if he did, he'd think about the ship-confluence and how it had been taken away from him.

He and Wendell made a silent circle of two inside a relieved, chattering crew, who hadn't expected to get out alive.

The silence of the ship-confluence was like an empty hole in Rossi's soul. He mocked himself for it.
You hated the confluence.
But it didn't ease the pain.

•   •   •

FINALLY,
he and Wendell were summoned to a meeting.

It was held in the largest senate hall on Iris. Ahmed Gann was there with another man. Tall and thin, with the classically handsome features of a politician. Both of them were dressed in the long black ceremonial robes of the Gate Union Council. The rainbow sash of Gate Union crossed the left shoulder while the sash on the other shoulder denoted their home world. The green nebula for Nova Tahiti on Gann's, the blue-striped sash similar to the one on Orsaya's uniform on the other man's.

Rossi still hadn't worked out which world she came from. Once Fergus would have told him immediately, but there had been more important things to know these last few days.

“Council has convened a meeting for this evening,” Gann said to Orsaya. “They're looking for someone to blame. Markan has called in every favor he has. The odds are stacked against us.”

It seemed to Rossi that Gann was a lot more comfortable around Orsaya than her own councilor was.

Orsaya's face was grim. “I hear you.” She and Gann looked at each other and sighed in unison. “So this is it?” Orsaya looked at her own councilor. “You are aware of the consequences from here?”

He had a politician's voice, clear and ringing. “If we lose or do nothing, we drop down to a second-class world. If we win, things will remain as they are. We are aware that Roscracia and its allies will try to crush us. Our worlds have voted. We say try this one last thing. It is worth the risk.”

Orsaya nodded at Gann. “You know what to do if you need to.”

“I know what to do.” He half bowed to her, and he and the other councilor left.

Orsaya stared after them. “Once in the void,” she muttered, and turned and left the room herself.

“You realize there's a third option,” Wendell said, as he
and Rossi followed her out. “You win, and Markan decides to destroy you anyway.”

Rossi had no idea what they were talking about.

“Roscracia was always going to destroy Nova Tahiti and us with it,” Orsaya said. “The trick is to win so powerfully that they can't. If we win, it will take a coup to oust us.”

Wendell raised an eyebrow.

All Rossi had been worried about was Sandhurst's taking control of the line guild. He'd spent too long at the confluence. He was out of touch with important happenings.

The large senate hall where the hearing was to be held was awash with uniforms, full of top-level military from the Gate Union worlds. Prominent among those on the first row of curved seats that faced the dais was a dark-haired man in the distinctive purple-brown camouflage uniform of Roscracia. The name on his pocket said
MARKAN
. He was laughing with an admiral dressed in scarlet. So this was the infamous Admiral Markan who wanted so badly to go to war that he had talked Gate Union into what had to have been the stupidest kidnap plan in a long time.

Not that it looked to have destroyed his standing any, from the way he and the other admiral were laughing together, but that could have been for show. Rossi knew as well as anyone how important it was to always look as if you were winning even when you weren't. Although based on what Rossi had just witnessed, Markan wasn't going to be laughing for long.

Sometimes politics even turned his stomach.

There were two lonely empty seats on the raised dais. So, it was to be an interrogation.

Orsaya took a seat in the bottommost tier facing the dais, close to the far left. She exchanged a cold nod with Markan, seated in the middle of the same row. Given how they obviously felt about each other, it was probably a good thing everyone had been asked to leave their weapons at the door.

Rossi tried to work out who in the crowd were pro-Markan, pro-Sandhurst, and who were on the Gann/Orsaya side. He couldn't tell.

The only other civilian in the room was Iwo Hurst, the Sandhurst cartel master. He was seated in the second row, behind Markan.

Hurst looked at Rossi, then away.

Admiral Orsaya frowned at Hurst. “What is he doing here?”

Markan said, “The line cartels feel a linesman should be involved in the questioning.”

Oh yes, there was no doubt Roscracia fully supported House of Sandhurst's bid for line supremacy.

“Surely, then, Leo Rickenback should be here.”

Surely Janni Naidan should, given that Gate Union knew well who the cartel power brokers were, and that Morton Paretsky and Rebekah Grimes were both unavailable. Although Rossi would have settled for Rickenback. Leo was his cartel master, after all. The only communication he'd had from Leo so far was a cryptic apology, which didn't make any sense at all. Maybe it was for not being able to get here.

Iwo Hurst said smoothly into the tense silence, “As you can imagine, Rickenback is somewhat busy right now. I am here in his place.”

Rossi knew he was missing something important. It was a pity Fergus wasn't here. He could work out the nuances faster than anyone.

“This is military business, not line business,” Orsaya said.

“Lines are involved,” Markan said. “It is appropriate to have a linesman here.”

There were a lot of nods in the crowd. Rossi wondered if Orsaya was overconfident of her ability to take Markan down. He had a lot of support here.

The two admirals matched stares.

Another committee member stirred. This one wasn't an admiral. He was only four seats away from Orsaya. “I concur with Markan. It is appropriate to have a linesman present when we are discussing lines.”

Rossi revised his imaginary pro-Markan count up. So many people so obviously supporting the Markan faction meant those worlds would support Sandhurst, too. It hadn't been this bad when Orsaya had dragged him off on this crazy escapade. What had changed since then?

He laughed to himself. What had changed was that in between, there had been a botched attempt to first murder,
then kidnap the Crown Princess of Lancia. It should have made the Orsaya/Gann faction ascendant. He suspected it had done the opposite.

Orsaya looked at the committee member who had spoken. Her expression was eloquent. Didn't they already have a linesman present?

“An unbiased one,” the committee member said.

He would keep, but Rossi would remember him. He could have pointed out that Hurst technically wasn't a linesman, just a cartel master, but he didn't. He wanted to know what Hurst planned.

“Very well,” Orsaya finally agreed after another long, cold pause. She turned back to Markan. “I know what you are doing. Remember, this is my operation. If you—or your linesman—obstruct us, I will put in a formal complaint.”

Orsaya might have said she was in charge, but she let others do the questioning, only intervening when the questions went off track.

What had happened? How had it happened? What was the ship like? How had they gotten onto the other ship? How did the alien ship control the Gate Union ships?

Wendell's answers were as clipped as Rossi's own.

“Listen,” Rossi said finally, angrily, when they started on about the new lines. “I had experience on that ship. I had experience with those lines. You took me off. You exchanged me for that—” He couldn't say bitch here, linesmen had to show some solidarity. “Rebekah Grimes.” And for Fergus. “What sort of stupidity is that?”

Orsaya fixed him with an icy glare. “The stupidity is entirely your own, Linesman.”

How dare she call him stupid?

“Linesman Grimes engineered the death of a shuttle crew. If you fail to realize the implications of that, you are stupider than even I thought.”

Twice.

Iwo Hurst opened his mouth as if to argue, then thought better of it.

“Lancia's terms of exchange of linesmen were nonnegotiable.” Orsaya's lips straightened into the thin line Rossi was coming to know so well. “Maybe, Linesman, if you want us
to believe we are working on the same side, you might start cooperating, and telling us what we want to know.”

The military gentleman sitting beside Orsaya—another admiral—leaned close to her and said under his breath, “Maybe we should just kidnap Lambert.”

“Believe me,” she said, equally quietly back, “if I could, I would.”

Rossi heard it, clear as clear, through the lines.

EAN LAMBERT

REBEKAH GRIMES WAS
tried for war crimes two hours after the ships moved to Alliance space.

Ean was the only one who didn't attend the trial. It didn't make any difference. He could feel it through the lines, heard it on line one more clearly than if he'd been there. And on Rebekah's line ten.

It was a somber ceremony. The only sounds were the voices of the witnesses called to trial—there weren't many of them—the questioners—Abram, Michelle, and Captain Helmo—and Rebekah Grimes's clear, succinct answers.

What had happened after the shuttle had left the
Lancastrian Princess
? She didn't know. Why didn't she know? She just didn't know. How had she killed the crew on the shuttle? No comment. Why did she destroy the lines? She had no idea what they were talking about. How had she ended up on a Gate Union ship? She was a linesman, trying to get home. Naturally, she would hail the closest ship.

All the way through, Ean could hear the satisfaction that emanated from her line. They couldn't prove anything.

At the end, Abram said, “Linesman Rebekah Grimes. We accuse you of the deliberate murder of at least ten Lancastrian
soldiers, along with the destruction of a shuttle belonging to the Empire of Lancia. We accuse you of conspiring in the attempted murder of Crown Princess Michelle of Lancia, and of all occupants of the
Lancastrian Princess
.

“You can accuse all you like,” she said. “You cannot prove any of it.”

“Circumstantial evidence points to your being involved.” The lines vibrated with the emotion in Abram's voice. “As such, you have been tried and found guilty.”

“I'm a linesman,” Rebekah said. “Outside the jurisdiction of the Alliance or Gate Union. The cartels will try me and find me guilty or not.”

The cartels would never find her guilty. Ean understood that now. She'd been working with Gate Union and the cartels. Not to mention, she was a level-ten linesman.

Abram was the one who executed her.

The execution was followed by a wash of satisfaction from the lines. It was done. Their coworkers had been avenged.

Afterward, Ean stayed in the fresher long after the water ran out.