Confluence

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: EAN LAMBERT

Ean had just strapped himself into the shuttle on his way to training the next day when a request came through from Abram.

Linesman Lambert, as the senior New Alliance Linesman, you are required to attend the Confluence today.

Ean wasn’t sure if it was a real summons or another of those he was supposed to be too busy to attend.

“Do I say I can’t go?” he asked Bhaksir.

“You can’t ignore a summons from Admiral Galenos.”

“But suppose he doesn’t want me to go?”

“He wouldn’t have asked you if he didn’t, would he?”

Ean checked the whereabouts of Michelle. She could tell him if he was supposed to attend or not.

Michelle was breakfasting with her father. Talking reasonably, but the Lancastrian Princess’s lines had a faint brown taint that told Ean she was choosing her words carefully.

“Everyone who visits the alien ships must request to, and be cleared by the committee. I cannot send Merchant Dow with the Factor.”

“And who controls this committee, Daughter?”

Not a good time to interrupt her.

“Shuttle’s waiting for you, Ean,” Sale said, through the comms. “We need to get there before the main party.”

He still didn’t know if Abram meant him to go or to refuse. He called Fergus and Hernandez. “Can you run line training today, please? I need to go out to the Confluence.”

“The grand tour,” Fergus said. “We heard about it. We’ll treat your trainees gently.”

Ean jogged down to the shuttle bays, Bhaksir’s whole team behind him.

The Confluence was happy to greet them.

It had been a patient ship, waiting for its crew, and there were some people Ean didn’t want on it. Like Arnold Peters. Maybe he could convince Abram to let the Confluence choose its own crew. It wouldn’t choose Peters.

The song of the Confluence changed to a pleased purr.

“Ean. What did you do?” Sale asked.

Ean was glad Sale’s comms beeped then. “Lancastrian Princess Shuttle Four requesting permission to dock.”

A team of Yaolin guards stepped out, followed by Admiral Orsaya.

They’d left Orsaya on Confluence Station. Shuttle Four must have collected her on the way. Why hadn’t she come with Sale and Ean? How close behind them had Shuttle Four been all this time?

Governor Jade of Aratoga stepped out next, then the Factor of the Lesser Gods. It was hard to pick who wore the most gold jewelry. The Factor was followed by his bodyguards—six of them—and after him, Abram.

The Lancastrian soldiers on board the Confluence saluted. Ean didn’t.

One of the bodyguards was smiling.

The Factor moved up to where Governor Jade halted.

“Linesman,” Governor Jade said to Ean, and the chill that had come in with the visitors rolled away with the warmth of her words. “Allow me to present the Factor of the Lesser Gods. Factor, this is Linesman Ean Lambert, leading linesman for the New Alliance.”

“Welcome to the Confluence,” Ean said.

Abram nodded at Ean, as if he was supposed to be there. Ean was relieved.

“A ten.” The Factor glanced at the bars on Ean’s shirt. “I thought all the higher-level linesmen worked with Gate Union.”

Ean didn’t need the lines to know he was lying. It was common knowledge that both Ean’s contract and Jordan Rossi’s belonged to the New Alliance.

“We have two level-ten linesmen working with the New Alliance.” You couldn’t hear the smile in Abram’s voice, but it came through clearly on Confluence line one.

Abram wasn’t lying, for if you took Ean to be a level twelve they still had two other tens. Jordan Rossi and Ami Hernandez. Not that Grand Master Rickenback had certified Hernandez yet. For the moment, Admiral Katida preferred that no one knew the Balians had a ten as well.

Abram indicated the cart that waited for them.

Sale didn’t like the cart. She made her crew march to the bridge most days. “If you exercise while you’re here,” she’d said once, “you don’t need to go back to ship and spend hours in the gym.”

Ean thought it was because the Confluence didn’t like the cart, but he’d never told Sale that. The Confluence didn’t see the point of the cart. “Not need. Faster,” and showed an image of something that looked like a pipe. He’d drawn a picture of the image and shown it to Sale, who’d shaken her head. She’d not seen anything like it. Maybe Ean had misinterpreted the image. Whatever it was, one day he’d find it. Or Sale would.

The cart was a long box with an electronic motor at the front, a seat for a driver—Craik—and a long, flat tray at the back others could stand or sit on. A raised bar along the center allowed you to hold on.

“I hate these things,” Governor Jade said, stepping on and gripping tight. Two of Craik’s team stepped up either side of her. The others stepped on as well, all except the bodyguard who’d been smiling.

His face was alight with wonder.

A linesman, though he didn’t have bars on his shirt.

Confluence line eleven surged—not Ean’s doing.

The linesman gasped and tried to breathe. Sale reached for the nearest oxygen with a scowl, while Craik and Losan stretched the linesman out on the floor. Craik placed the oxygen mask over the man’s face.

Abram’s voice was hard. “There is a reason we asked you not to include linesmen in your party.”

“A linesman.” The Factor looked bemused. “Surely you are mistaken.” The overriding emotion emanating from him was irritation rather than surprise. He glanced at the bodyguard beside him.

The bodyguard’s nod was so slight, Ean wondered if he had imagined it, but he’d had a lot of practice lately interpreting the secret deals people in power made. He recognized an agreement when he almost didn’t see it.

“Our linesmen undergo rigorous training before we allow them on board the alien line ships,” Orsaya said. “The lines are too strong for them. We need to acclimate them first. Without that training, the strength of the alien lines can be incapacitating on occasion.”

Training Ean should have been conducting right now. Hernandez was berating the linesmen for their sloppy responses. Or she had been, until the surge of line eleven. Now she was waiting for the paramedics to declare everyone all right. It was another new batch of paramedics. Ean would be glad when they were all trained. He hadn’t realized how much they had come to rely on the paramedics Abram had supplied, or how skilled those paramedics had become.

“Given that this gentleman is here without bars on his shirt”—Orsaya indicated the linesman on the floor—“one can only assume he is here dishonestly.” She looked directly at the Factor as she said it.

“So it would seem.” The Factor frowned down at the gasping linesman.

“I take full responsibility for this.” The bodyguard looked at the Factor. “My apologies for the deception, sir. I was aware of what this man was. I’d heard about the ban. I thought it was a security measure. I didn’t realize it was for their own safety.”

He couldn’t say anything else, could he. Not if the Factor still wanted to see the ship.

“I am disappointed in you, Captain Jakob,” the Factor said. “We had strict instructions to bring no linesmen.”

Jakob bowed in apology.

If it had been Michelle in the Factor’s place, she would have admitted she’d been part of it and not made Abram—for Ean was sure from the way he moved and spoke that Jakob was more than a simple bodyguard—take the blame.

The linesman improved enough for Sale to help him sit up. “The confluence. I thought it had gone. It’s… amazing.”

Ean knelt beside the other man. “Linesman?” He made it a question.

“Glenn. Linesman Glenn. House of Sandhurst. Level seven.” It was an automatic reply, one linesman to another.

Ean hid the disquiet the information gave him. Linesmen level seven and above remained with the cartel houses. They also wore house colors. The fact that Glenn hadn’t meant what?

“How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, I think.” Glenn smiled again. “I was at the confluence, but it was nothing like this.”

Sometimes, it seemed to Ean that he was the only linesman who’d never visited the Confluence back when no one had known it was a ship trapped in the void. “Good.” He stood up. Based on his experience with linesmen, Glenn would be fine.

“The linesman stays with the shuttle,” Orsaya said. “The stronger lines on the bridge could kill him. We had an incident yesterday where the lines accidentally killed a linesman.”

The Factor nodded, as did Governor Jade. News traveled fast.

“So how dangerous are these ships?”

“You saw the news the other night, Factor,” Governor Jade said. “Deadly, I’d say.”

“To their own side, I mean.”

“Dangerous,” Ean said, because he wanted them to realize that.

“Dangerous and deadly.”Confluence’s lines sounded smug.

There might have been a bit of miscommunication there. Not to its own side, surely. “Surely that’s not how you want to be thought of?” But he’d forgotten, this was a warship.

He’d also forgotten he hadn’t planned on singing in front of the Factor.

“The singing, Linesman?” the Factor asked. “What does that signify?”

He’d jumped on a single tune very fast. Almost as if he’d been waiting for a song so he could ask the question. How much did he know?

“Are you kidding?” Linesman Glenn said. “That’s Crazy Ean Lambert. He always sings.”

“Sings?” the Factor asked. Did Ean imagine it, or was it taking an effort to keep up the friendly facade?

“And he’s famous right now,” Glenn said. “Because the New Alliance is so desperate for tens, Lady Lyan paid millions of credits for him. Even though he sings. The linesmen are still talking about it.” He looked at Ean. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

But he had, and everyone on ship knew it, including the Confluence, and the ship didn’t like it. Or was reflecting someone else’s dislike of it, rather. Ean guessed it was Sale, and was warmed by her unspoken defense.

“I’m used to it,” Ean told Sale though Glenn had been the one to speak.

“We’re not. And we don’t appreciate the insult to our linesman.”

“Not here. Wrong place. Wrong time.”

Something must have got through, for Sale straightened and looked at Abram. “Sorry, sir.”

Yes. The Confluence was listening too much to Sale, and she was listening back.

“We should move on,” Abram said with a slight smile. “We’ve a trip ahead of us.”

And Abram would have shut down the conversation long ago if he hadn’t wanted to hear it.

Sale looked at Bhaksir. “Leave someone to guard Linesman Glenn.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bhaksir chose Ru Li and Gossamer, and she stayed as well.

Ean listened to Glenn talk to them as the tour made the long trek up to the bridge.

“It’s hard, not wearing the uniform when you’re from a cartel house. You feel as if you’ve suddenly become invisible.”

Ru Li danced around the shuttle bay, seemingly unable to keep still. “I hope they paid you a lot of money to do it, then. I wouldn’t become invisible for anyone.”

The dance took him around the whole bay. It was a Ru Li-style sentry march.

“They’re not paying money.” Glenn rubbed his hands together. “I get to take part in an experimental program House of Sandhurst is supplying linesmen for.”

Captain Jakob let go of the center rail momentarily, grabbed it again as Craik turned into another corridor. Ean leaned over. “Are you all right?”

Jakob didn’t pay any attention to Ean.

“I get to work with people like Dr. Quinn, who’s done so much to open line theory recently,” Glenn said.

“How do you open line theory?” Ru Li asked. “Make it available to the public?”

Jakob twitched.

He couldn’t be listening to Glenn. Could he? How?

“Of course not.” Glenn looked at Ru Li as if wondering if he was a little simple. Which was exactly what Ru Li would have been aiming for, knowing Ru Li. “Information like this is so classified even the linesmen don’t know about it.”

Ru Li and Gossamer would find out what they could from Glenn. Ean’s job was to stop the snooping. He sang under his breath, searching for unknown line fives on the ship. Yes. There.

And there. And there.

Someone was leaving listening devices along the way. He was tempted to send a high-pitched noise through line five, to see what Jakob would do. No, it was better if he didn’t know they had been discovered. Not yet, anyway.

They stopped and stepped off the cart to look at the immense image on the wall of the crew room. Another listening device joined the others.

“Impressive, isn’t it,” Governor Jade said. “I predict a new art movement will sweep the galaxy over the next few years.”

One of the Factor’s bodyguards stepped close. The ship seemed to consider him while he considered the image.

“No, not that one,” line one said, and the other lines agreed.

That was strange. The whole ship was a little strange today. Ean would be glad when the Factor and his people were off the ship.

“Or that one,” as they moved on and another of the party stopped to inspect a door.

“Not that one, either,” the other lines agreed.

If Ean had been alone, he would have asked what the ship was doing. But he wasn’t alone, and he didn’t trust the Factor or his so-called bodyguard.

Back at the shuttle bay, Ru Li was saying, “According to Jordan Rossi, the only good line scientist is a dead one.”

“You’ve met Jordan Rossi.” The lines were full of Glenn’s awe.

“A couple of times. Haven’t you?”

“Not Jordan Rossi. Or Rebekah Grimes, either. What’s she like?” He asked the question as if he thought she was still alive, working for the New Alliance.

Ru Li looked at Bhaksir and Hana.

“I don’t think we met her,” Bhaksir said.

Beside Ean, Jakob relaxed.

The group moved on, Sale, Abram, and Orsaya answering questions.

Another five joined the chorus of strange line fives. Should Ean do something about it? Like ask Jakob to empty his pockets? Not yet. Wait until their visitors were gone. Otherwise, they’d plant something else, something harder to detect.

They reached the bridge. Sale and Abram started explaining the setup to the visitors. Only one person really saw anything. The woman who’d stepped out of the shuttle in front of Glenn. Ean was certain she could hear the panels.

The Worlds of the Lesser Gods had come well prepared. A multilevel and a single-level linesman.

Should Ean say anything? Or pretend he hadn’t noticed?

Orsaya came over to stand beside him. “Is everything all right?”

Ean looked at the single-level linesman.

“I hear you.” Then, as the Factor came over to join them, “How are you finding it so far, Factor? Somewhat of a letdown when you cannot even read the boards.”

“It’s impressive just in the size,” the Factor said. “I have warships whose whole crew would fit onto this bridge. And everyone on board would be deaf and blind to it. As am I. Tell me, Linesman,” to Ean. “What do you see?”

The correct question was, “What do you hear?” but Ean chose to interpret it literally. He knew what Sale couldn’t see. “Flickering lights. A starfield.”

“And only linesmen can see this?”

Most people didn’t yet know about single-level linesmen. “Certified linesmen, and those who failed certification,” and Ean looked deliberately at the single level the Factor had brought with him.

The Factor followed his gaze. “I see.”

“We all see,” Orsaya said. “Let’s ensure it doesn’t happen again. You won’t get off so lightly another time.” She smiled, all teeth. “You have used up some goodwill already.”

Governor Jade was talking to Sale. “I’m not sure,” Sale said. “Ean?”

He moved across to them.

Behind him, the Factor turned to Orsaya. “I believe you made a study of linesmen, Admiral.”

“I have, yes.”

“Particularly the higher-level linesmen. Did you study Lambert at all?”

“Of course.”

“He came out of nowhere to become the leading linesman for the New Alliance.”

If the Factor had been a linesman—which he wasn’t—he would have felt the chill sweep the ship though Orsaya’s voice retained its normal crusty tone. “Out of nowhere, Factor? He was the only linesman working with high-level lines for six months.”

Had the Factor timed his question so that only Orsaya and some of the guards were close?

Abram moved to join Orsaya and the Factor. Jakob intercepted him, asking about something on the wall. Abram stopped to answer him.

Deliberate? Or coincidental.

If it was deliberate, then the Factor hadn’t heard Ean could listen through the lines, for otherwise he’d know that no matter how he kept his voice down, or how many people Jakob kept away, Ean would hear him.

“So Lambert was lucky. In the right place, at the right time. The rumors of his abilities…” The Factor let the words trail off.

Yes, he had been in the right place, and no one could deny that. Ean couldn’t help his smile.

“It depends what you mean by rumors, Factor. Maybe if you asked straight out what you want to know, I could answer your question.”

The Factor looked at her as if no one had spoken to him bluntly before. Maybe they hadn’t.

Orsaya waited for his response.

“Admiral Orsaya, you have a level ten of your own under contract. Surely it irks you that Lambert was elevated above him merely by a combination of circumstance and birth. Jordan Rossi is a strong ten. Possibly the strongest now that Rebekah Grimes has gone.”

He knew Grimes was dead even if Glenn didn’t.

“Yes, Rossi is strong.” Orsaya bared her teeth in another smile. “But Factor, don’t make the mistake of assuming Lambert is weak simply because of his reputation. It takes resilience and determination to get where he is.”

Was it a warning? Or a threat?

Abram joined them. The Factor nodded and turned to where Sale was explaining how they had integrated the human equipment alongside the alien boards. The guards were asking plenty of questions. Intelligent questions. Expert questions. Ean was pleased when Sale gave one of them a flat stare.

“That’s classified.”

Eventually, Abram glanced at his comms. “I’m afraid that’s all we have time for on this visit.”

“Surely a few more moments,” the Factor said, although Ean had the feeling he was as impatient as Ean was for this trip to be over.

Abram sounded regretful. “Apologies, but our time is heavily scheduled. I am sure your time is, as well. Governor Jade is to address the council this afternoon, and Admiral Orsaya and I have a meeting with Admirals MacClennan and Katida.”

“Of course.” The Factor smiled although his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Jakob secreted one final device, and they all stepped back onto the cart.

Governor Jade gripped tight. “Surely the aliens had a better transport system than this. Or did they run all the way to the bridge?”

“We don’t know, Governor,” Abram said. “We certainly haven’t found anything we identify as transport yet.”

The ship was considering the single-level linesman again.

“Yes?”

“No,” Ean said. “She’s banned.”

“But she is promising,” the ship said.

“No.” He was singing in front of people he didn’t want to sing in front of, but he couldn’t stop there. “She works for bad people.”

“We like her.”

Ean sighed. “What’s your name?” he asked the single-level linesman. If Michelle did marry the Factor, then theoretically she could be one of the crew. And why was the ship suddenly considering who was suitable and who wasn’t?

“You said we could,” the ship reminded him.

He had?

The linesman didn’t give her name. Ean didn’t care. He’d get it later. Abram would know.

“I realize this is a miracle ship,” Governor Jade confessed to Sale, as the cart made its way back the way it had come. “But it still scares me. I’m happy to get back to something human.”

She didn’t have to say it aloud.

“We don’t mind,” the ship lines said comfortingly in Ean’s mind. “We don’t want her anyway.”

Ean didn’t answer that. There was nothing he could say.

The Confluence responded more to nonlinesman than the Eleven did. Was that because most of the people who came to it were nonlinesmen? Or was it because—being a larger ship—it had housed nonlinesmen in the past?

After the shuttle had left, Ean said, “Jakob is not coming back on this ship.”

“Give us a reason. We can’t ban someone just because you don’t like them.” Sale paused to think about that. “Or can we?”

“What about leaving bugs around?”

Ean sang them through the ship, finding the tiny line fives. As he found each one, he channeled the signal back to the other devices that had been placed. When he was done, the only things these little lines were communicating with were each other. Sale picked them off the wall as he located each one.

“Normally we’d leave them.” She tossed the last of them into a container. “Doctor them to send back misinformation. Are you sure that’s all, Ean?”

“I think so.”

“We’ll take these back as evidence. That woman. She was a linesman?”

“Did you know?”

“A blind man could have seen the way she reacted to the boards.”

Smugness washed through the lines. It came from the ship, not from Sale. You couldn’t fool its people.

Its people? “These are not your people. They’re Helmo’s.”

Did he imagine that the ship deliberately ignored that? Could lines indicate deliberate ignoring anyway?

“This ship,” Ean told Sale, “is acting strangely.”

“You have to expect that, Ean. It’s just had unpleasant visitors.”

Sale was as bad as the ship.

When he got back to Confluence Station, Ean called Vega. He made the line secure.

“No,” Vega said. “I haven’t heard anything. On jobs like this, Lambert, you don’t, and you don’t want to, either.”

He hadn’t been calling about that, but it was good to have the report.

“What if she’s in trouble?”

“We expect her to get out of it herself. The only time she’ll send a message is if she’s in so much trouble she can’t get out of it. It’s called a dead man’s message, for obvious reasons, so you’d better hope we don’t hear from her.”

Ean fervently hoped they wouldn’t, and equally fervently hoped she’d be back soon. “I need to talk to Linesman Glenn.” Glenn had mentioned an experimental line project, and Ean wanted to know more. He might not tell Ean, but he would tell Jordan Rossi. If Rossi chose to cooperate, and given it was line business, he would.

“You’re too late.”

He hoped she meant they’d sent Glenn home, and not the way she’d made it sound.

“Glenn had a line-induced heart attack on the way back in the shuttle. They couldn’t do anything for him.”

Ean stared at her image. “Line eleven’s been quiet all afternoon.”

Lemon-sour Vega washed over him. “So say the linesmen on board this ship. Someone didn’t like his being outed as a linesman.”

A heart attack. Someone had come well prepared.

“We’re going over ship records now,” Vega said. “If you can think of anything he said or did that might have triggered an outcome like that, let me know.”

“Glenn was about to start working on a top secret line project. House of Sandhurst was involved. And someone called Dr. Quinn. It’s probably not important, but Jakob didn’t like his talking about it.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Vega said.

The first thing Ean did after he clicked off was send a request to all the fleet lines. If Radko called, he wanted to know the instant it happened.

Vega called back half an hour later. “You have good instincts. We’ll never make a decent soldier of you, but you can be useful on occasion.”

That was just Vega’s manner. Ean could hear through the lines that she was pleased with what she had discovered. “Your friend Dr. Quinn works for TwoPaths Engineering.”

TwoPaths Engineering was a Redmond company. They made spaceships based on the plans of the Havortian, the alien spaceship that had been discovered five hundred years earlier. They didn’t realize the New Alliance knew that. Or the fact that TwoPaths’ sister company—FiveTrees Consolidated—was building weapons based on those same plans.

“Aren’t the Worlds of the Lesser Gods enemies with Redmond now?”

“Supposedly,” Vega said. “Which makes you wonder why the Factor is running around with a Redmond-based linesman on his staff.”

Ean sighed, and Confluence Station sighed with him. And speaking of which, Confluence Station was still too chirpy for a station whose equivalent of its captain was in intensive care.

“Are you still there?” Vega asked. “Because I’ve nothing else to say. I’ll keep you informed.” She clicked off.

Ean stared thoughtfully at the comms. The ships were quiet. The Lancastrian Princess was the most uneasy. Helmo—and Michelle’s—worry about what would happen now permeated the whole ship. On the Wendell, Wendell was dyeing his hair, and everyone on the ship exuded satisfaction about that. What was the story there?

The Gruen was content. Hilda Gruen was pacing her ship, pulling the occasional trainee into line. “I don’t care if you’re a level twenty. On my ship, you do as I command.”

Ean had always thought linesmen were treated as special. It didn’t seem to be the case on fleet ships. Or maybe it was because Gruen didn’t have any crew but the trainees.

“We’ve got crew,” the Gruen lines told Ean, and showed him. The two original Aratogan teams who’d been assigned to the ship. Along with Esfir Chantsmith.

The Blue Sky Media ship’s captain was drunk again. He always drank.

The Galactic News ship buzzed with enthusiasm. Christian, the engineer, was talking to Cooper, the producer, about something.

And Confluence Station was going along as if everything was normal.

Maybe, for the station, it was.

“Where is Ship?” Ean asked, and used the tune that denoted the station. Had he upset the station by asking the obvious, when the station commander was still unconscious in hospital?

Confluence Station obligingly showed him a dimly lit passage where the tired, older man Ean recognized from Patten’s heart attack was talking to a mechanic.

That was Ship?

Ean could sense, roughly, where on the station it was. “I need to talk to him.”

Line five obediently opened a line.

“It’s okay,” Ean sang. “I’ll do it face-to-face.”

“Face-to-face?”

“Human to human,” and Ean tried to convey the idea of two physical beings talking together. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Why, when you have the lines?”

“Because.” Why? “Because Ship doesn’t have lines like we do. Not the same.”

He got brown confusion and the scent of eucalyptus.

He looked around for Radko, remembered she wasn’t there. “I’m going for a walk,” he told Bhaksir.

“Do you need to?”

Did he? He was doing his job, finding out more about the lines. “Yes.”

“Where, and for how long?”

“I need to talk to the man who was in Patten’s office when he had the heart attack.”

“Can’t you use the comms?”

“You sound like the station.”

Bhaksir gave him a look that showed she didn’t understand what he said. “It would be safer.”

“I’ve a station of lines to protect me.”

“That doesn’t stop you getting into trouble,” Ru Li said. He snapped to attention as Bhaksir glared at him. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“For that, you’re on bodyguard duty,” Bhaksir said. “You and Gossamer. Keep your comms open, and I want to hear from you every five minutes.”

“Five minutes is a little excessive, ma’am.”

“Why don’t I show you my route, so you can see us all the time.” Ean sang it up on screen for her. “And hear us.”

“Did you just volunteer for bodyguard duty?” Gossamer asked Ru Li, as the three of them left. “You knew she would pick you because of what you said.”

“It’s more fun than being stuck in a boring control room,” Ru Li said.

Should Ean remind them that Bhaksir could hear everything they said?

Confluence Station Ship had moved on to the engine room by the time Ean caught up to him.

Bose engines were reputedly quiet, but they still made a lot of noise up close.

A station didn’t need a Bose engine for everyday running, but it needed one for the initial jump through the void to position the station, and since the biggest cost was the engine itself, the Bose also powered the station.

Ean looked at the line chassis. Where did it end if they didn’t have a bridge?

Up close, the man the station had identified as Ship looked more tired than he had the other night, if that was possible. The name on his shirt was Ryley.

“Nonstation personnel aren’t allowed in this area,” Ryley said.

“We’re part of the fleet,” Ean said. Did Ryley know that he meant Eleven’s fleet?

“Even fleet personnel need clearance.” Ryley turned and led the way back. “I don’t know how you even got through the doors.”

“I do,” Ru Li murmured, as they turned to follow.

Ean hurried to walk abreast of Ryley. “How long have you been on this station?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“Twenty years,” the Station sang in his mind, and Ean smelled eucalyptus again, only this time it was younger eucalyptus.

Ean blinked. Twenty years. These were human-built lines, cloned from the Havortian and from the Havortian’s descendants. They’d had five hundred years of human conditioning. Unlike alien lines, they understood the concept of years.

“I didn’t know you were that old.”

Ryley looked at him.

“Older,” the lines said.

Ean got a black sense of a long period of time. Alien, yet familiar, intermixed with human years. That, and something he’d experienced not all that long ago, a time when he’d been talking to Katida. He frowned, trying to place it. And got it. The fresh, new-cloned feeling of the station Governor Jade had co-opted for Aratogan use before the fleet had moved to Haladea III.

“You can remember what you were before? The Havortian?” All human line ships had been cloned from the Havortian.

“Havortian?”

Ean sang the tune that had recognizably been the freshly cloned station he remembered from months earlier. He was unsuccessful, for all he got was lime-green uncertainty in return.

“How old is the station?” Ean asked Ryley.

Ryley looked at him again. “Thirty-six years.”

“And you’ve been on it for twenty?”

A strong, purple unease flooded the lines. This man was Ship all right.

So Ship didn’t have to be the captain. Which meant Sale might still be able to be Ship on the Confluence, if she wanted to be.

“If you knew that already, why did you ask me earlier?”

“I didn’t know before. The station told me.”

The purple unease grew.

Ryley stopped at a door. “Here’s the no-go zone.” He tapped the yellow warning sign. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. “See that. It means you.”

“I don’t think that’s going to stop him,” Ru Li murmured.

He got a sharp glance from Ryley. “Or your friends.”

“I am a linesman. My responsibility is the welfare of the lines on this station.”

“Jordan Rossi looks after the lines on station.”

He did. And he was doing a good job. Say what you might about Rossi, where lines were concerned, he delivered. Especially now he’d started singing to them.

“And as for being a linesman,” Ryley said. “I spent six months on this station with linesmen like you.” He glanced contemptuously at the ten bars above Ean’s pocket. “Not one of you lifted a finger to do any work on the lines in all that time.”

Ean bit his tongue, so he didn’t say that Rossi had been one of the linesman here then, and he hadn’t.

“This is our linesman,” Ru Li said. “He’s not like the others.”

“I don’t want to see you down here again,” Ryley said. “If I do, you can be sure I’ll have a word with your team leader.” He looked at the bars on Ean’s shirt. “Or your cartel master.”

“Thank you for your time.” Ean led the way back, aware of Ryley, staring after them, a little cloud of purple unease.

“That seemed pointless,” Ru Li said. “Bhaksir’s right. Couldn’t you have done that through the comms?”

“No.” Because what would he have learned through the comms? Nothing. Instead, he now had a strong sense of the man who controlled the station.

Back in his temporary new home, Ean called Abram. He made the line secure from habit although today he could feel something tapping at the edges, asking to be let in. It was a familiar sound—the Lancastrian Princess — and for a moment Ean almost let it hook in.

Except… why was the Lancastrian Princess listening in?

“How are you, Ean?” Abram asked.

Ean held up a hand to silence him and sent a quick query down to Lancastrian Princess’s line eight. Was the ship asking to listen in?

“No.”

He followed the tentative whisper of sound back. It was on the Lancastrian Princess. There. And there.

By now Helmo had heard what was happening, and the sudden surge of fury—they were doing this on his ship, his beautifully protected ship—galvanized line eight.

Eight surged. The lines trying to listen in disappeared.

Ean’s comms chimed. Helmo. He sang Helmo into the connection with Abram.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m checking to see if the lines are secure now,” Ean said.

He sang every single line on the Lancastrian Princess and got answers from them all. There was no untoward activity. He sang to the other lines in the fleet. Nothing on the Wendell, nothing on the Kari Wang, nothing from Confluence Station. There were two illegal comms on the Gruen. Both of them with trainees. Ean got the Gruen to short them out. The media ships were sending to their usual spies, but nothing that the New Alliance wasn’t aware of.

“All clean,” he said, eventually. “The Lancastrian Princess was the only affected ship.”

Helmo, his arms crossed, looked and sounded the unhappiest Ean had ever seen him. “Our security is usually good.”

“Yes,” Abram said. “I almost wish you hadn’t destroyed them. I suspect if we’d been able to investigate the codes, we’d find they came out of Palace Security. No one else would have been able to slip anything in.”

Palace Security. Vega was Palace Security. But then, Ean realized after one horrified moment, so was Commodore Bach.

“Bach is spying on you?”

“He won’t be doing it without a specific request.” Abram’s tone was grim.

“Yu?”

“Yes. Spying on his daughter.”

“I’ll ask Vega to investigate,” Helmo said, and Abram nodded.

Ean said, “I’ll ask the ship to let you know if it happens again, Helmo.”

“Thank you.”

After he clicked off, Ean realized he hadn’t talked to Abram about Confluence Station. Or about Sale.