Linesman (32 page)

“I second that motion,” the Yaolin councilor said.

“I second Roscracia's motion,” a councilor in a white sash countered.

The Roscracian motion failed. The Nova Tahitian motion was passed.

Beside Rossi, Wendell relaxed. “I'm going back to the ship. Be ready to leave at a moment's notice,” and he strode out of the council chamber.

•   •   •

THEY
departed as soon as Orsaya came out of the council session and signed the orders.

Wendell, his hair cropped close to his head and now sprayed an appalling green with the red still showing through on the roots, was dressed as the captain of a supply ship. “You know what to do?”

“Damage a line.” It made his heart flutter a little because linesmen didn't damage lines.

“Line nine or line ten. Nothing less. It has to be a line they need to get through the void, and it has to be one they'll send Lambert to fix.”

“Understood.” He wasn't an imbecile.

“You have half an hour to do it. That's how long it will take to unload supplies. You must be back on the supply ship by then. Galenos will suspect something if it takes longer.”

Rossi had no intention of returning to the supply ship. “Understood.”

“Right.” Wendell turned to his crew. Six of them wore casual clothes similar to that of Wendell's although they looked much better turned out in theirs. Presumably the rest of the fake supply crew.

Even Rossi was dressed in casual clothes, the first time he'd been out of Rickenback colors since he was five years old. He told himself it didn't matter because he was never going to wear Rickenback colors again, but every time he caught a glimpse of his sleeve, or the leg of his trousers, it made him feel uneasy, off-balance.

Everything would be fine when he got back to line eleven.

Wendell frowned at his crew. “Can't you look like workers?”

“Yes, sir.” They obediently ruffled up, but they still looked as if they'd stepped off a modeling vid. There was something about soldiers, Rossi mused, the way they stood, the way they held themselves.

Wendell waved an arm half in defeat, half mock disgust.

“It's a media ship, sweetheart,” Rossi said to him. “They probably expect their supply crew to come dressed for auditions.”

“Maybe we should see if we can get one,” one of the uniformed women said. She pushed one cheek forward and held the pose. “How do you think I'd go?”

“You won't get an interview, Korta,” one of the casually
dressed soldiers said. “You're arriving in a supply box, remember.”

“Enough,” Wendell said. He looked at the man standing to his left. By his pips and the logos on his pocket, he was the second-in-command and the navigator. “Have you gotten everything you need, Grayson?”

Grayson nodded. “Just be ready to come and pick us up when we have our package.”

Rossi didn't ask what that meant. It didn't concern him.

•   •   •

EVEN
if he hadn't felt the lines as they jumped, he would have known they had arrived by the way the
Eleven
filled his soul and made it hard to breathe. A distant eleven right now, but as the supply ship drew closer, the glory increased.

He was home.

He lay back and tried to breathe.

Grayson and Korta hovered over him. “Oxygen, maybe,” Grayson said, while Wendell's blotched white face receded and came forward behind them.

“He'd better do his job. We're at the media ship,” Wendell said. “Are you capable of moving?” to Rossi.

Rossi didn't reply, just stood up and followed them onto the shuttle.

Grayson and the rest of the uniformed crew packed themselves into two container-sized supply boxes.

“Unload us gently,” Korta admonished one of the casually dressed women.

“You wish.”

Korta made a rude sign and pulled the door closed behind her. Rossi heard the snick of a bolt locking into place from inside the container.

The six casually dressed crew started to unload, taking extreme care with the two containers, despite what they had said.

Wendell steered Rossi along the corridor.

“Where are we going?” Rossi asked. How soon could he break away?

“Engineering.” Wendell led the way with sure steps that
said he'd either been on a ship like this before or he'd memorized the specs. “You had better be able to do this.”

He paused at the door. Rossi thought Wendell was giving him time to recover, for the uneven beat of the
Eleven
was taking his breath away. Instead, he crowded close into Rossi's space—the rudest thing a spacer could do—and said quietly, “Other people can be as obsessed as you are, Jordan Rossi. I want my ship back. This is how I get it.” He stepped back. “Not to mention, the lives of my crew depend on your doing this properly.”

Rossi straightened his clothes though they didn't need straightening. Message understood. To Wendell, he was dispensable if he didn't deliver, and Orsaya wasn't here to override that. He straightened his shoulders, too, as he followed the other man into the Engineering area.

Inside, the lines of the ship were overwhelming. Rossi staggered, inadvertently falling against his new archenemy, Wendell. This was a simple thirty-people cruiser. The lines shouldn't be this strong. What had Lambert done to him while they'd been on the
Eleven
that made him feel the lines this way?

Lines one to six were fine, but lines seven and up were terrible. Wendell could have waited, and the lines would break themselves within six months.

Wendell gave Rossi a sharp glance but didn't say anything. “Are you Bonna?” he asked the sole engineer in the room.

“Who's asking?” He was just a kid, fresh-faced, with grease under his fingernails and smeared over his coveralls, which fit about as well as Wendell's did.

Rossi straightened his own clothes again. It was like an itch you couldn't scratch.

“We hear you buy things.”

Bonna looked wary. “Who told you that?” He glanced from Wendell to Rossi and back to Wendell again.

Wendell scratched his head. Some of the green powder flaked off onto his shoulders. Rossi tried not to shudder.

“A mutual friend.” Wendell glanced sharply at Rossi. His message couldn't have been clearer. Get to work.

Rossi didn't advertise to the world what he was doing, not
like Lambert did, so he watched while Wendell brought something out from under his jacket, concentrating carefully on separating the lines.

His concentration faltered when he saw what Wendell placed on the bench.

A disruptor.

Bonna leaned forward to look at it. “Where's the power pack?”

It didn't look to be missing anything so far as Rossi could see.

“I'm not stupid,” Wendell said. He glanced again at Rossi. “He's got the power pack. After you give us the money.”

Wendell had better not pull him into this.

Rossi gently teased the lines apart. Whoever had left the higher lines on this ship in such a mess should face a disruptor themselves. Still, the lower lines were clean. Someone had mended them recently. Galenos had probably sent one of his own engineers in. It wasn't this engineer, for sure, because he didn't have a solitary bar on his coveralls.

Bonna rubbed his nose and pursed his lips. “Weapon like this,” he said. “Easy to trace.”

“Extra easy,” Wendell agreed, and pointed to something on the holster. “Note the markings. This is a new model. First of its kind.”

Bonna nodded. “How much?”

“It's 350K.”

“Daylight robbery.”

“A new one would cost twice that.”

More like ten times that, but if Wendell truly had been selling stolen goods, he couldn't ask anywhere near the real value.

“I'm not paying half price for something that's so easily traceable. Especially when I can't sell it for any more than that.”

Rossi closed his eyes and let them haggle.

Fixing lines took a combination of native talent and mental skills, all honed with thousands of hours of practice. A good linesman could feel the energy exuded by a line, could sense whether it was damaged, and could use all those hours he'd spent training to push the line back into place. Beginners often accidentally pushed the lines out of shape. If they
weren't stopped in time, they even broke the line. Rossi had never broken a line, and the last time he'd pushed one the wrong way, he'd been ten years old.

Sweat beaded his forehead. He slowly pushed line ten away from what it should be. The very act brought acid to his stomach and gave him heartburn.

He couldn't do it.

Bonna touched his arm. “Are you okay?”

In his exposed state, the touch was like a jolt of electricity. Rossi pushed him away. “Don't touch me,” and realized that he'd pushed the line away, too.

Alarms went off on every board.

Rossi scrambled to push the lines back into place.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Bonna pressed
ACKNOWLEDGE
buttons, and pressed them again when the alarms came straight back on.

Wendell pressed the disruptor against Bonna's chest. “What did you do?”

He looked as if the alarms had given him a fright, and he had automatically grabbed the closest weapon. He should have known better. If Rossi had succeeded in damaging a line, the alarms would have gone off anyway.

“Shit.” Then Bonna realized what he was holding. He pushed it away. “No power pack, remember.” He frantically pressed acknowledgments across the board again.

“Is this how you get out of paying us?”

“What?”

Wendell was line-raving crazy.

“Of course it's not.”

“Give me 50K.”

“Geez,” Bonna said. “You must want that money bad.”

“I want it now.”

“Okay. Here's 50K.” Bonna slammed his card down on the reader. “You are one crazy sumbitch.”

Wendell checked the credits. Nodded. “Give him the power pack,” he ordered Rossi.

Rossi had no idea what Wendell wanted him to do. “If you—”

Bonna cleared the alarms again.

“It's in your right pocket,” Wendell said, and it was.

It hadn't been there when Rossi had boarded the supply shuttle. He handed it over.

Bonna snatched it out of his hands. By the time they exited, the disruptor had disappeared from the bench top.

Rossi stopped halfway down the hallway. “You are insane. You knew the alarms would go off. Why panic now?”

“So he didn't realize it was us.” Wendell smiled and ran his hands through his hair. More green powder flaked off. He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself. “That went well. He won't even mention we were there. Would you?”

Well, no, not if he'd just bought a disruptor from them. An obviously illegal disruptor.

“And giving him a weapon of that magnitude—”

“Relax,” Wendell said. “The power pack doesn't work.”

“He's an engineer. He can get another power pack.”

“The weapon is tagged.” Wendell smiled again. “We want to catch who he sells this stuff to.”

Certifiably crazy.

“Does Orsaya know you have little side projects like this?”

“Relax.” Wendell started moving again. “It's all part of the preparation. We needed an excuse if we got caught. Keep moving, the others will have almost finished unloading by now.”

Rossi stayed where he was and shook his head. He was right where he needed to be.

Wendell sighed. “Orsaya warned me about this.” He took out a blaster and fired.

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

EAN LAMBERT

EAN WAS ENJOYING
the fresher when the line on the Galactic News ship went. In his father's apartment on Lancia, the fresher had been on a one-minute cycle, and the water had been almost cold and rationed, so that if his father chose to use the fresher that day, then Ean couldn't. One of the best things about becoming a linesman was his discovery of real freshers, where the water was hot, and you could stay until you were clean and warm, and longer if no one complained. Where you could cleanse five times a day if you wished.

He scrambled out and just remembered to pull on some clothes before he went running down to the central office. Michelle was the only one there, going over figures on one of the screens.

Ean wiped away a trickle of water that chose that moment to drip down his face. “I need to get to the Galactic News ship.”

Abram had sent Engineer Tai over to mend the lower lines as soon as the contract had been signed, but Ean still hadn't been across to fix the higher lines. It was planned—in Ean's suddenly seemingly full schedule—for three days hence.

“Lines?” Michelle was already reaching for the comms as Ean nodded.

It beeped before she could get to it. Abram.

“Is Ean there?”

It was Michelle's turn to nod.

“Engineer Bonna from the Galactic News ship called. They've a problem with their lines. He's blaming the work we did the other day.”

Michelle raised an eyebrow at Ean.

“It's not the lower lines,” Ean said. “They're fine.”

He sang softly to line eleven, and through that to the lines on the media ship. Line ten was worst, but all the higher lines were bad.

“Line ten mostly.”

“Of course it would be.” Abram sighed. “You can't fix it from here?”

“I—” He didn't know. He tried, but he wasn't close enough. “I think I could if I were in the void.” There wasn't any distance in the void.

Abram tapped eleven-time on the console where he was. Ean heard it through the lines and through the comms. “It would be an interesting experiment, but for the moment I think we'll do it the old-fashioned way.”

He clicked off, and, through the lines, Ean heard him call, “Sale. I want your team to take Ean over to the Galactic News ship. He needs to fix the lines. Take Radko with you.”

Michelle made them all tea. “Sit with me.” She patted the seat beside her. “It takes time to organize a shuttle.”

Ean couldn't sit. He prowled restlessly. “I should have fixed the lines like I promised I would. Then this wouldn't have happened.”

“You can't be everything to everyone, Ean. You have to accept that all you can do is what you can do.”

It sounded like something she told herself. Ean looked at her and saw sadness in her face. “But what if you know you should have done something and didn't?”

“You don't live in what might have happened, Ean, you live with what you can control. Always look forward, not back.”

It sounded like the Yu house motto. Always look forward.

When Abram arrived, he blew on his tea, even though it
was probably already cold by now, and said, “I want you to take Fergus Burns with you. I want you to assess his lines.”

Ean choked. No one had ever asked him to assess lines before. “I'm not sure I'd know how,” he said.

“How did you know Katida was a line eight?”

“I . . . You could feel it.”

He'd heard about people like Fergus. They showed enough promise to contract to the cartels but they couldn't pass certification. The contract was automatically canceled on failure to certify, but some of the failed stayed on as personal assistants or other workers. For a while there, when Rigel had taken so long to get him certified, Ean had thought he'd end up as one of the failed as well.

Rigel never took the failed linesmen on, but Ean knew of at least three of Rigel's people who had ended up in other houses.

Yet even when he'd worried that he would fail certification, Ean had known he knew the lines. Was Fergus like that, too?

“Find out what he is,” Abram said. “Find out what he can do. Teach him what you can.”

Teach him. Ean could imagine his old trainers fainting with horror at the thought. Fergus probably would, too, if he knew about Abram's plan. Ean suspected he didn't.

“Gospetto checked his voice,” Abram said. “Says he can sing.” He grimaced. It could have been halfway to a smile. “Says he has better voice control than you.”

Ean could imagine.

The lessons with Gospetto had continued twice a day over the last week. Every day, Ean could smell the rancid fear-sweat that grew stronger as the hour progressed. Gospetto had fainted twice.

Ean didn't blame him. The voice tutor's bruises were still fading.

Abram took a long sip of tea. “We don't know yet if Fergus is spying for the cartels,” he said. “He's under guard until we can be certain that he is not.”

“But you want me to teach him.” The thought still gave Ean disquiet. No one had ever wanted him to teach the lines.

“I've been talking to the engineers,” Abram said. “They believe that if you can make a linesman of him, he'll come over to our side automatically. Just for that.”

Imagine if Ean had failed certification. What would he do to work with the lines? What wouldn't he do?

•   •   •

FERGUS
was under guard at the shuttle when Ean arrived. He still wore his Rickenback uniform. Was he still a Rickenback employee then? Or did they just not want to give him a Lancastrian uniform?

His face was gray. He looked tired.

Sale's people waited for Ean. Radko was there, too, her ankle strapped, supporting herself on a pair of crutches.

Ean looked dubiously at her ankle. “What happened?” Last time he had seen her, she'd been fine.

“Hairline fracture,” she said, and made a face. “They think. After all this time.”

“Shouldn't you be on sick leave then?”

“What's the point? We're not in port. I can't do anything. I might as well work.”

“She's here to keep you in line,” Sale said. “To make sure you do what the commodore says.”

Ean strapped in beside Fergus, who flinched away. Ean noticed. Everyone noticed. Not a good start although Ean wasn't sure if the start was bad for him or for Fergus. Lancastrians were loyal.

He sat back and closed his eyes. He'd been able to feel that Katida was a line eight. Maybe if he relaxed, he could feel what line Fergus was. If he was a line at all. Maybe he was a line eleven or twelve. How would he tell then?

The lines were strong in his mind. He sang softly to each of them. He didn't need the comms anymore, or the void—although it helped—to be aware of each of them. The last few jumps had increased his line senses. The lines were part of him now.

He had a special message for the Galactic News ship.
“We're coming. We'll fix you.”

Six ships, sixty-one lines. There was no signal from the
elusive line twelve that Rossi had spoken of. He was deaf and blind to it.

No indication what line Fergus was, either.

Fergus twitched beside him, and Ean opened his eyes. “Sing with me,” he said to Fergus.

Fergus looked horrified.

“I'll tell you what to sing, and when.”

He sang an explanation to the lines.
“Introducing Fergus, one line at a time. He's inexperienced. Be kind to him.”

“Line one, Helmo's ship,” he said to Fergus, and sang a greeting to that specific line. “You sing it now.”

Fergus stared at him wordlessly.

“That's an order,” Sale said from where she was strapped in.

He stared at her, opened his mouth then closed it, and shook his head.

“An order, Linesman.”

Ean thought it was the “linesman” that did it. Fergus shook his head again, opened his mouth, and started to sing.

Gospetto was right. He had a good voice. Clear, pure, and note-perfect even though he'd only heard the tune once.

Line one didn't even hear him.

What if they were wrong? Ean led him through greeting each of the other ones, then the twos, then the threes.

Nothing.

The only reason he didn't stop was because the lines were enjoying their time, each waiting patiently for its turn. They were starting to get personalities. If anyone ever said again that the lines weren't intelligent he'd . . . he didn't know what he'd do. It was an outright lie.

Nothing for lines four, five, and six, but line seven surged strong in reply.

Fergus stopped singing.

“It's okay,” Ean said, soft and soothing, the way one would to a skittish animal. “It's the lines.”

The only sound in the cabin was the machinery circulating the air.

“Let's sing it again. Okay?”

They sang it again.

Fergus got a reaction from every line seven.

“What do you hear?” Ean asked softly.

“I—” Fergus swallowed. “I . . . think they're saying hello.” He blinked, and swallowed again. “I—”

“Let's try the next line,” because it was unfair to the other lines waiting so patiently. Ean sang the greeting for the first line eight.

Fergus heard nothing from line eight up.

“Well done,” Ean said when they were done.

The predominant feeling among the line sevens right now was a baritone eddy of hope. It hadn't been there before, and it sounded a lot like Fergus. Exactly how strong was Fergus if he could dominate the other sevens like that?

Did that mean Governor Shimson was a linesman, too?

That was another one for the cartels to reconsider. It was generally believed that the lines had an order of strength. That line one was lowest, and—until now—that line ten was the highest. That a linesman's ability went up the list and stopped when he, or she, could go no further. Fergus would never have gotten past line one.

They didn't even know what line seven did yet.

“Ready to dock,” Craik said, and Ean put off his pondering and prepared himself for the security on the Galactic News ship. After their last encounter, what would they say when he started singing to the lines?

Radko was watching him. That seemed to be her job. He glanced at Fergus, then raised seven fingers to her. Radko nodded and noted something on her comms.

•   •   •

AS
they moved in to dock, another call came over the comms.

“This is the
Argent
, carrying Executive Tenzig d'Abo of Galactic News. Shuttle, please stand down and make way for the executive.”

“What the—?” Sale snatched the comms.

Abram was there before her. “
Argent
, you are in violation of the no-go zone. All ships need permission to enter this zone.”

“Captain.” Ean wasn't sure if it was an intended insult or if the person who was speaking didn't realize who he was
speaking to. “We have
Executive
Tenzig d'Abo of Galactic News on board. We do not require permission to visit our own ship.”

Sale checked the comms. “D'Abo's CEO of Galactic News,” she said.

Her team was more tense than they had been a moment ago. Ean could almost feel the air crackle with static. Sale looked at Radko's bandaged foot with a hiss of annoyance. “Maybe you should stay on the shuttle,” she said.

“If I need to run on it, I can,” Radko said.

“Shuttle, please stand down to allow the executive to dock first,” the person on the
Argent
said.

Sale frowned at Ean. What had he done? “We should come back another time.”

“I'm not sure line ten could survive another jump.”

Unbidden, Jordan Rossi's rich tones percolated into his mind. He imagined him saying, “Lines don't
survive
. They're bands of energy.”

Why would he be thinking of Rossi right now? The less he thought about other tens, the better.

Even the lines had a taste of Rossi about them.

Sale's frown grew deeper, but she nodded. “Continuing on course,” she told Abram.

“Thank you, Sale.
Argent
, you have entered restricted space without permission and are in violation of laws 874.2.3.1 and 874.2.3.2 and 27.2.”

“Executive d'Abo has every right to visit his own staff.”

“Why don't we let them dock first?” Ean suggested.

Sale's withering look told him he'd asked something stupid.

“We don't know who's on that ship,” Radko said. Thank the lines for Radko, who at least explained. “Could be anyone. Including Gate Union people.”

Maybe he needed more of that paranoia Katida wanted him to get. Except that the world wasn't always out to get them. Sometimes a ship
was
just a ship.

“Going in now,” Craik said, while Abram and the person on the
Argent
argued about the rights the executive had to visit his own staff.