Confluence

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: EAN LAMBERT

Ean heard the Confluence’s “Welcome home” as Sale and her team docked.

“This is not their home. That is the Lancastrian Princess.”

Abram hadn’t understood his message. Helmo would kill him for stealing his crew. So would Vega. Maybe even Sale herself although Sale did give the ship a pat as she came on board. He’d seen Kari Wang do the same thing on occasion, and Captain Gruen, as well. But Sale was a group leader, four promotions away from captain yet.

“We choose.”

“You’ll get your people soon.”

There was no way the New Alliance would give the ship to Sale. Everyone was worried Lancia would take the Confluence. That was another reason the ship would never be Sale’s.

“Do you know about politics?”

Blue misunderstanding.

“Power factions.” Ean didn’t have the words to describe it. “Worlds.”

“Worlds?”

How did you describe a world to a line ship? They must know they were there because they avoided them, but Ean had never seen them depicted on the displays of the ships. “You know about suns.”

“Suns?”

Of course they knew about suns, and, if his surmise was correct, flicked enemy ships into them. “Those big balls of energy in space.” He used the tune for Bose engines for energy. “They have worlds surrounding them.” Line four and line two. “People live on these worlds.” Line one. “Our home ships, if you like. Where we come from.”

More blue confusion. He might as well have been speaking gibberish. Which he probably was to the lines. It was like line seven all over again. They could be saying exactly the same thing to each other, but they didn’t have the knowledge to link it to something both of them understood.

“Anyway, these factions will send you more people.”

“More people is good.”

They needed to get Sale away from the ship while those “more people” bonded. And keep her away afterward. Did a ship ever have two “Ships”? Ean didn’t think so. But they did bond with new captains if they didn’t have one—as was shown with the Eleven’s accepting Kari Wang. Best to get Sale off the ship and see what happened.

“Ship is ours.”

And he’d have to stop worrying about it while he was on a Confluence fleet ship. Let Abram deal with it.

He was glad the shuttle of paramedics arrived then. Forty of them, all wearing Lancian gray. A new batch again, for Ean didn’t recognize any of these people. Didn’t whoever was in charge of assigning paramedics understand they were taking the linesmen onto the strongest ship in the two fleets? They should have sent experienced people.

None of these paramedics had been on the Confluence before. They were a long way past the original group supplied by the Lancastrian Princess, Balian’s Captain Seafra, and Yaolin’s Admiral Orsaya.

There were four shuttle decks on the Confluence, each of them immense, each of them easily able to hold the full group of trainees, as well as forty paramedics, Craik’s team, and Bhaksir’s team.

The deck they used for training was set up for human linesmen, with oxygen tanks spread throughout the vast space. The other three—all of them a long trek through the ship—were closed off. They didn’t have breathable air yet. You always had to wear a suit on the Confluence, for you never knew when you might step into alien atmosphere.

Before Michelle had bought his contract, Ean had never worn a space suit. Now, he sometimes felt as if he lived in one.

The first trainee shuttle arrived, disgorging forty trainees onto the shuttle deck. Then the next. And the next.

Peters was in the first batch, along with the four Xantos.

Nadia Kentish looked around. “It’s as big as a barracks parade ground.”

“You’d get used to it,” Lina Vang said, but she sounded doubtful.

Scout Ship Three sounded smug. “Not like me. I’m sneaky and fast, and not too big.”

None of the Xantos answered, but they all looked around, as if wondering who had spoken.

Ean turned to what he had some semblance of control over. “Do you want to talk to them?” he asked Sale.

“Of course.”

As Radko would say, “Was the sky on Lancia purple?” Sale always addressed the trainees.

“Who goes first? You or Rossi?”

“Rossi. So I can do damage control if I have to.”

Damage control. Ean shivered. Michelle had used those words earlier today, talking to Yu.

Rossi had an orator’s voice, and he knew how to use it. “Linesmen.”

He got instant silence.

“The best way to learn the lines is to experience them firsthand. You need to be where the lines are. There are some”—and he glanced at Ean—“who believe you should practice it as some nebulous art in a far-off spaceship, but nothing matches firsthand experience. I, Jordan Rossi, level-ten linesman, know that. That is why you are here. After today, all of you should understand what is different about these lines and how you have to respond to them.”

The linesmen broke into spontaneous applause.

Fergus came up beside Ean. “I’m not sure it was wise to let him up there to put you down like that. Jordan may have dropped his plans to become Grand Master, but he’s still ambitious. And political.”

No matter how much he denied it, Rossi would never willingly go far from the eleven lines, and as Grand Master, he’d have to travel the galaxy. In a way, Rossi had earned the occasional bagging right. He was stuck here, subordinate to Ean, and he knew he could never leave.

“If it makes Rossi feel he is in control, I don’t care what he says, as long as he does what needs to be done.” At least Fergus was still alive and whole. “How have you been?”

“This suit.” Fergus grimaced. “As for the rest.”

“On this ship,” Rossi’s voice thundered, “you will experience the true strength of the lines.”

“I’ve been doing some listening, Ean. I’m sorry to say, but I think there’s a problem with the linesmen Lancia sent in. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were deliberately stirring up trouble.”

Lancia. Ean wasn’t surprised. “It’s probably part of Yu’s plan to destabilize Abram.” If they had to kick the Lancastrian linesmen out to save Abram, he’d do it.

Almost as if it were a signal, Ean became aware that Emperor Yu and Admiral Carrell had stepped onto Confluence Station. Sattur Dow followed.

“Abram? But why?”

“It’s a long story.” Ean had forgotten Fergus didn’t know the details. But he was a good source of information, and he knew how to keep his mouth shut. “Fergus, what does Lancia do to traitors?”

He shouldn’t have asked it, not when he’d just said what he’d said that about Abram.

“Traitors? What have you done to upset Lancia?”

At least he didn’t realize the question was about Abram. “Nothing.” Yet, but if Yu challenged Abram as a traitor, he’d do something about it. “The Factor implied the New Alliance wouldn’t punish the traitors, not as he believed they should be punished, so we let him take Jakob and the crew of the Iolo home.”

Fergus looked at him. “You can’t be serious.”

Unfortunately, he was. “I was wondering how Lancia punishes someone for treason.” He hoped his voice stayed neutral.

Fergus considered it. Jordan Rossi had once said he had a storage-box mind. Full of facts and figures, all filed neatly away. It wasn’t a function of line seven, so it was something that Fergus, himself, was good at, outside of line ability.

“I think Emperor Yu has them shot. They have a trial, but if the Emperor truly believes someone is a traitor, the trial is a sham.”

That’s what Ean was afraid of.

“Lancia has a bad reputation for its treatment of people who betray them. Don’t forget Rebekah Grimes.”

Abram had executed Rebekah. But she had killed his people.

“Lancia’s way is quick, but I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Emperor Yu. You tend not to see those people again.”

That’s what Michelle was worried about. And Ean was now, too.

On Confluence Station, Admiral Orsaya greeted Yu and Carrell respectfully but without warmth. “Admiral, Your Imperial Majesty. You got here fast. It’s less than an hour since your clearance came through.”

“Times like these,” Carrell said, and looked as if he thought Orsaya would agree with him, “the less advance notice the better.”

“Where is the Lancastrian linesman?” Yu demanded. “I want to talk to him.”

“Linesman Lambert is conducting line training today,” Orsaya said.

“We have come from the Gruen,” Yu said. “There were no trainees.”

Maybe it was a good thing they’d woken Sale and Orsaya earlier. Otherwise, the trainees would have still been leaving when Yu arrived.

Ean dragged himself back to what was happening on the Confluence. “Thanks, Fergus. I’ll let Sale know about the Lancastrian linesmen.”

Rossi had finished his oration. Ean had no idea of the rest of what he’d said, but the trainees were happily agreeable.

Sale stepped up to address the trainees. “One day I might kill you personally,” she said to Rossi, as they passed.

“She doesn’t mean it,” Ean sang hastily as the ship lines stirred, especially line eight. “It’s a human way of saying they’re annoyed with other people.” He waited till the lines subsided. “Don’t say things like that, Sale.”

Rossi laughed aloud. “Lines a little out of control, Linesman?”

Sale looked daggers at Rossi. When she turned to Ean, her gaze wasn’t much less ferocious. “Can I speak now?”

He nodded.

She raised her voice. “As you can see, it’s a big ship.” Unbidden—or at least unbidden by Ean—the ship amplified her words, so everyone heard clearly. “You get a guided tour as part of your training, but it is line training. That is what you’re here for. That’s what you’re expected to do.” She looked directly at Peters. “Any complaints, and you go straight back to the shuttle.”

She looked away, over the crowd, before he could argue. “Access is restricted. Don’t wander. We know where you are at any time. If you wander, you get sent back to the shuttle. Understood?”

She held their gaze until most of them nodded.

“Good. We are on a line ship. An Eleven-class. You all know line eleven can be strong. You know the symptoms. You know what to do. We have paramedics here.” She indicated the paramedics around the room. “Help your teammates. If you see someone in trouble, do what you can and call the nearest paramedic.”

Line eleven had been quiet so far. Or as quiet as it could be. Some of the trainees still had difficulty breathing. The paramedics were already among them.

“Ean.”

Ean stepped up. “You know the routine. We will now greet the lines on this ship.”

He started with line one. The standard introductory training song. The crew of the Eleven called it the Hello Song, and it was as good a name as any.

Here, on the Confluence, the lines were strong. Even Peters’s eyes widened as line one answered.

Maybe it was as simple as that. They should have brought them onto the Confluence first, and all that antagonism would have gone.

Line two.

Sale came over to Ean while he waited for them to sing. “Thanks for the amplification, Ean. It was a good idea.”

“That wasn’t my idea. It was the ship’s.” Yes, and ship was feeling pretty satisfied with the praise. “Have you ever sat in the captain’s chair, Sale?”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing so.”

“But you’ve spent a lot of time on the bridge.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

Ean sang line three and waited for the trainees to sing it, too, and for the reply.

“Ean, you don’t ask questions without a purpose.”

Ean ignored that.

Line four. The trainees were more animated, and so was the ship. Not only that, the ships of the whole fleet were listening in. The council had better come up with that list of ships and worlds, for if the ships started choosing people, Ean didn’t know what he was going to do.

“I think.” What did he think? “I think that you don’t always have to be a linesman for the lines to hear you.”

“That stands to reason,” Sale said. “The Confluence knows we’re here. It opens doors for us.”

“It does?”

“How do you think we get around the ship?”

He hadn’t thought about it at all. Initially, he’d asked the ship to open the doors. He’d assumed Sale’s team had added human triggers. They’d brought technicians in to add human screens. Engineer Tai had supervised that.

“I’m sure it thinks we’re deaf, dumb, and blind, but it recognizes us, weird creatures that we are.”

Deaf, dumb, and blind, maybe, but it had recognized that Sale wanted to be heard and amplified her voice. It would do other things for her, if she asked. The way it had shown her the medical center. He’d bet they’d talked about it here on the Confluence after they’d discovered the medical center on the Eleven.

She could ask… what? He looked around for inspiration, and his gaze fell on the electric cart that both Sale and the ship hated so much.

“You should ask the Confluence to show you how to get to the bridge fast, Sale. Tell it that you need to get places quickly. Ask for another way.”

“And how is it going to understand me, let alone tell me what I want to know?”

“The Confluence can sense what you want. Like before, when it amplified your voice.”

“The lines can certainly sense humans better than most humans can sense the lines,” Sale said. “That’s obvious. But we need linesmen to really talk.”

“She wants transport,” Ean whispered to the lines. “She doesn’t want to use—” How did one describe a cart? He tried to remember back to what he had felt through the lines.

He should suggest to Abram that Sale be included with the captains when they talked about the lines. But that would give the Confluence ideas. Did he care? He liked Sale. She would be good for the ship.

But right now, he had training, and the lines were waiting. He turned his attention back to his job.

Line five.

On board Confluence Station, Orsaya was saying, “I don’t know what time the linesmen will be back.”

Line six.

All the way up to line ten. And finally, line eleven.

“Gently,” Ean cautioned. “Human lines. Weak.” And line eleven was gentle but it was strong and close, and still took all the multilevel linesmen down.

Nadia Kentish dropped to her knees beside Lina Vang, who’d gone down hard. She signaled to a paramedic. “Over here.”

On board Confluence Station, Yu was already preparing to depart. What was the point of going all that way out to a ship and leaving almost immediately? Orsaya stopped to answer her comms. Carrell slowed to wait for her. Dow and Yu kept walking toward the shuttle.

With the strength of the lines on the Confluence, Ean could hear and see them as clearly as if he’d been standing beside them, could taste how glad Orsaya was to see them gone.

Dow said quietly to Yu, “She bought it.”

Orsaya couldn’t hear it, but Ean could, through the lines.

“Of course she did. I knew exactly how my daughter would react, Sattur. She has protected this linesman all along, may even have some personal feelings for him. Of course she would send him to what she perceives as safety.”

Yu had deliberately pushed Michelle into sending Ean to the Confluence. He’d wanted the linesmen there. Why?

What had they done?

“Sale,” Ean said. “We have a problem. I think it’s a trap.”

“Over here,” Kentish called. Ean heard the force of it through the lines. She was a nine, and strong with it.

“Trap?”

The paramedic making his way across to Kentish veered toward Ean. He wrapped an arm around Ean’s neck and jerked him back. Ean felt the hard muzzle of a blaster against the side of his neck.

That sort of trap.

Another paramedic pointed a weapon at Sale.

They weren’t supposed to be armed. After the riot on the Gruen, none of the trainees were allowed to carry weapons.

Other paramedics had weapons out. Half of them made for Ean and Sale. The others circled the fallen and not-fallen linesmen.

Bhaksir pressed her own blaster against the back of the man holding Ean. “Move away from him.”

Ean hadn’t seen her take her weapon out. Or move. He’d bet the paramedic hadn’t either.

“Drop it,” the paramedic said to Bhaksir. “Or I kill him.” He looked around at the rest of Bhaksir’s team, who had their weapons out, too. “All of you.”

“Oxygen,” Kentish demanded.

“Keep still, and none of you will get hurt.”

Kentish stood up.

A paramedic raised his weapon.

Fergus jumped in front of Kentish, deflecting half the blast.

They both went down. Scout Ship Three wailed.

The lines came on, urgent, insistent. All ships.

“Radko,” and they opened, without request, to show Commodore Vega at her desk, listening to a message. It was sound only. There was no visual.

“Put your weapons down,” Sale said to Bhaksir. “We’ll let the lines sort this out.”

Ean, she meant, but Ean was listening with Vega to Radko, trying to see at the same time if Fergus and Kentish were all right.

“You are a traitor to Lancia, Commodore Bach,” Radko’s words came through the comms. “You have conspired with Redmond and the Worlds of the Lesser Gods to steal an alien line ship. You have betrayed Lancia, and the New Alliance.”

Ean heard Jakob’s unmistakable voice. “If someone won’t do it, I will.”

“You, and Captain Jakob, and—”

Then Radko stopped speaking.

“No.” Ean’s heart thudded in panic. He pushed the paramedic away, ignoring the blaster held to his neck. “Radko.”

Ten blasters rose simultaneously.

“Hold,” the paramedic yelled to his own team. “Don’t kill the linesman.” Sweat dripped off his face. “You crazy moron. If I say don’t move, you don’t move.”

Ean hardly heard him. Dead man’s message, Vega had called it. The message you sent when you knew you weren’t coming home. Was Radko already dead?

He tried to concentrate on what was happening on the Confluence but couldn’t stop listening with Vega.

If they killed Radko, he would blast them all out of space.

The Confluence lines surged. “Battle,” and the linesmen who’d started to recover went down again.

The lines on the other ships took up the refrain. “Battle. Battle.”

Peters, who had recovered enough to understand what was happening, clambered to his knees. “We’ll die rather than surrender this ship.”

“No surrender. We fight.”

“We fight.” That was Peters, too, who claimed he didn’t hear the lines.

“That woman is Emperor Yu’s cousin.” This voice had clipped Lancian vowels. Commodore Bach. “He won’t take kindly to your killing her.”

“If Yu wants to negate our agreement by sending his own team, he would do well to consider the message I send him.” Jakob’s voice changed, as if he was looking elsewhere. “Find out if she’s had the truth serum yet, and if she hasn’t, for God’s sake give it to her. I want to question her before I kill her.”

She wasn’t dead yet. Ean breathed again. His legs wouldn’t hold him any longer, and he sank to the floor.

“He wants us to move the ship, Ean.” Sale looked at the paramedic holding the blaster on Ean. “I can’t move it,” she told him. “The linesman is the only one who can.”

On the Lancastrian Princess, Vega said, “Find out where that message originated.”

“Ean.” Sale’s voice was amplified by the lines. He forced himself to look at her. How long would they keep Radko alive?

“He wants you to jump.” Her message was clear. He’d jumped ships before, switched places with other ships in the fleet. She expected him to do that now. She also expected that the other ships already knew what was happening. After all, that was what he usually did.

Ean sang the lines open to the bridges of the fleet ships. Both fleets, for there was no time to choose specific ships, and Craik and four of her team were on the bridge here on the Confluence. They needed to know what had happened.

“What the hell?” the paramedic said. “What’s with the singing? Now?”

If Sale had been Radko, she would have said, “He does that sometimes, it’s his way of coping with nerves.”

But Sale wasn’t Radko, and if he didn’t save her, she wouldn’t be around much longer to say things like that.

Sale shrugged, as if she wasn’t sure. “Ean, the jump.”

Another single-level linesman, this one in Balian uniform, said, “We refuse to allow this ship to be taken. If you do this for them, Linesman, you are a traitor. A traitor to the New Alliance. A traitor to Lancia.”

“They’re traitors anyway,” another trainee said. For the Lancastrian linesmen—those who were standing—had produced weapons as well.

“Shit,” from the ship, and Ean had to look to be sure Sale’s mouth hadn’t moved. But the linesmen heard it, every single one of them who was capable of it.

“Did you?” Never mind. It wasn’t the time or the place.

The Lancian captors—they were all Lancastrians, Ean realized—rounded up the linesmen. Was Lancia trying to steal the ships?

Fergus struggled to his knees. “I think I’m going to be sick.” He crawled over to Kentish. “She’s alive.”

“Who are you?” Sale demanded of the Lancastrians. “Who sent you?”

“I need that jump, Linesman,” the paramedic said, holding the weapon on Ean. “Otherwise, I start shooting people. Starting with that one.” He indicated Sale.

“No one will cooperate if you shoot Sale.” Least of all the ship.

Line eight was getting louder. So much so that the human eights—all of them singles—were showing distinct signs of distress.

On the Lancastrian Princess and the Wendell, response teams ran for the shuttle bays.

“Give me the coordinates,” Ean said.

Helmo clicked through to Vega. “Are you receiving this?”

“Spacer Radko? Loud and clear. I’m sure everyone is.”

“Radko? No, I mean the Confluence.”

“Tell me.”

“The coordinates. Please.” Everyone on all 135 ships heard that.

Peters strained forward. “He’s as much a traitor as the other Lancastrians. See how none of them are fighting it.”

“That’s because we’re outgunned,” Hernandez said. “Group Leader Sale isn’t stupid.” Hernandez was like Sale, expecting him to swap with another ship. If he did that, he left Radko to die.

The paramedic gave Ean the coordinates for the jump.

Ean read them aloud. “They were 2341.123416.23.21. Where’s that?”

“None of your business,” but Ean hadn’t been asking the paramedic.

Answers came, almost simultaneously, from Helmo and Vega on the Lancastrian Princess, Wendell on the Wendell, and Kari Wang on the Eleven. “Redmond sector.”

Which was still half a sector away from the Worlds of the Lesser Gods, where Bach and Radko were. At least where he presumed Radko was. Half a sector. Far enough away that Redmond couldn’t reach them before they’d had time to rescue Radko and return home.

As for the people on the Confluence. They wouldn’t be any worse off near the Worlds of the Lesser Gods than they would be here.

“Lambert,” Vega said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Vega wouldn’t give him Radko’s coordinates.

“Ean,” Sale said. “We need to act.”

Ean nodded, and directed his song to line ten. “Can you take us to where Radko’s signal was?” The lines wouldn’t remember the signal if they left it too late.

He realized the lines were already acting, and hurriedly sang line seven in. It wouldn’t do to take the whole fleet with him. That would be an act of war.

And this wasn’t?

He didn’t care. Radko didn’t deserve to die. Especially not by Jakob’s hand. Or by traitorous Lancastrians’.

But they couldn’t rescue Radko without people to do it, and they couldn’t do that while the Lancastrians—enemy Lancastrians—were holding weapons on them. And line eight was more than ready.

Maybe Rossi was right. Let the ship do it. Don’t try to force it.

“Well,” the paramedic said.

“We’ve already jumped,” Sale said.

Line eight was waiting. Ready to protect its people and its ship.

“Linesmen, drop,” Ean sang, and put all the force he could behind his words. “Drop. Drop now, to the floor. If someone near you doesn’t drop, pull them down, or they’ll be hurt.”

He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew the lines would come in waist high. Maybe they always did. After all, they hadn’t exactly measured them, had they.

The lines came in strong to support him, line eleven, too, and if the trainees standing hadn’t been single-level linesmen, the strength of it would have knocked them all down. It sent Ean to his knees, and it was a struggle to stay that much upright. “Drop, all of you.”

The lines took up the chant. “Drop, drop. All of you.”

“What’s going on?” the lead paramedic demanded of Sale.

“Lines. When they’re strong, they overpower the linesmen.” Although she knew as well as Ean did that the single levels shouldn’t have gone down at all. “I need to give Lambert oxygen, or he’ll be no use to you.”

Ean glanced around. His trainees were all down. And the Confluence wouldn’t hurt Sale or her people. “Protect us. Protect Ship from the marauders,” he sang to line eight.

A tsunami of sound rushed past him. A force-wave that crashed into those standing. They were tossed like flotsam in it. Against the wall. Against the ceiling.

Sale was in the wave’s path.

“Sale!”

But the wave flowed around her, and around the paramedic holding his weapon on her.

Sale snatched his weapon while he watched the carnage, openmouthed.

She shot him.

Ean sang a counterwave around himself to protect Bhaksir and her team. The two waves canceled each other out, but he didn’t need it, for line eight flowed around them as well.

Above his singing, he heard Sale, amplified again by the Confluence. “Trainee linesmen. Those of you who are able, collect the intruders’ weapons. Subdue any who resist.”

Sale took out her comms and called Craik, who’d been on the bridge all this time. “Where did he take us?”

“Redmond sector,” Craik said. “We’re still determining exactly where.”

“Redmond.” Sale’s voice was accusing. “You took us where he wanted to go.”

“Battle,” said the Confluence.

Ean staggered to his feet. “Sale, we have to rescue Radko.”

Sale’s comms sounded. Vega. Ean looked at it uneasily. “Maybe you should answer that when we get back.”

Sale glared at him, clicked it on.

“Group Leader Sale,” came Vega’s crisp tones. “You are near a research station orbiting Aeolus, one of the Worlds of the Lesser Gods. Anything you do is likely to be considered an act of war.” She paused, then added, “You are on your own. I repeat. You have no support. Return immediately.”

They were still linked to the Eleven fleet ships. Ean considered turning the link off, but that was childish. Although there was a lot of activity on the media ships. They were listening in. He hastily sang those lines closed.

“Radko’s here,” Ean said to Sale. “On that station. She sent a message. She’s going to die.”

Sale looked at Ean, looked at her comms, then looked at the trainees—busy rounding up prisoners. She looked at her comms again. “There’s only one way home, ma’am. We need to fix his problem before he’ll fix ours.”

She clicked off and watched the Xantos attending Kentish. “How is she?”

Alex Joy shook his head. “She’s alive, but that’s all we can say for her.” He looked from Kentish to Vang, and back again.

Sale looked at Losan, who was nearby. “Take Joy down to the medical store.” She scowled at the paramedics. “If I thought any of them were real paramedics, I’d get you to rouse one.”

If that was possible. Many of them were horribly still.

“But I don’t think any of them are. We haven’t got much in the way of medical supplies,” she told Joy. “See what you can do.” She scowled again. “We’ve a whole hospital here, and we don’t know how to use it.” Then she turned to Fergus. “What in the lines did you think you were doing?”

“I had a suit on.”

“A suit protects vital body organs. It doesn’t protect your head. Or your legs. Not to mention, there’s a hell of a concussion as the suit dissipates the blaster heat.”

Fergus nodded and winced as he did. “Hell-of-a is an accurate way to describe it, I think.”

“Don’t do it again.” Sale turned to Ean. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll send you home,” Ean said. “Give me a shuttle. I need to find Radko. They are going to kill her.”

“Don’t be stupid, Ean. We’re better armed with you on a ship than we are with you in a shuttle. Although you’d better not lose this ship.” She flicked her comms on again, to Craik, on the bridge of the Confluence. “What do we have?”

“The station is threatening to shoot us.”

“Tell them we’ll use the green pulse if they do, so they’d better not try.”

“Right,” and Craik clicked off.

Sale looked at Ean. “Does the Confluence have a green field?”

“Yes.” And line eight was ready to use it, too.

“Not yet. Not until we have rescued Radko.”

Technically, the Worlds of the Lesser Gods were allied with Lancia—and thus the New Alliance. They should appreciate Radko’s uncovering Bach as a traitor, as well as Jakob.

The trainees were rounding up the paramedics who could move, removing their weapons, forcing them into a central circle. Ean tried not to jig impatiently. This had to be done, but every second they wasted here was a second wasted not rescuing Radko.

Sale looked at Bhaksir. “Use what trainees you can to get this lot locked up. Put them in one of the empty shuttle bays, and get Ean to sing the door locked. That way if they cause trouble, we’ll vent them into space.” She scowled at the paramedics. “I can’t believe they’re Lancastrian.”

She picked out three of the trainees, all single-level linesmen and thus standing, all with rankings on their shoulders. “You, help Bhaksir with the organization. Joy, too, when he gets back. Oh, and none of you try any stupid ‘They’re Lancian’ shit. We’re on the same side as you, and we’re your only way home. You’re right in the middle of enemy territory.

“Ean, block any messages from this ship that’s not ours. Some of those paramedics will have comms.”

That was easy. “Only send comms from Ship’s people,” he told line five. “From our fleet people. You know the ones Ship will let you send.”

It was equivalent to Captain Helmo saying, “No unauthorized comms.”

Sale turned toward the bridge. “Come on, Ean. We’ve work to do.”

Ean ran to keep up with her.

At last. It would take them forever to get to the bridge. He was glad he didn’t have to be on the bridge to know what was going on. Even the ship seemed infected with urgency.

“Hurry, hurry. Faster.”

“I can take a shuttle.” It would be faster than having to go all the way to the bridge.

“That’s not going to happen, Ean. You’ll leave us stranded in enemy space with the most valuable ship in the whole of the New Alliance.”

“Technically, the Worlds of the Lesser Gods are not enemies.”

Sale snorted. “Does anyone seriously believe that?”

No.

“Slow. Faster.”

He was going as fast as he could. Surely the ship understood that.

“Keep an eye on the trainees” Sale said. “I don’t want them turning on us. We’re in a really bad position right now. The only thing between us and the trainees’ taking over the ship is you. Keep it that way.”

He should have waited till they’d sorted out the attack here on the Confluence. But Radko might be dead by then.

“I don’t know how long the station will hold off firing on us. We don’t know what weapons this ship has.”

The Confluence was the size of a small city.

“We have a green field.”

“Which is useless because we’ll destroy Radko, along with who knows how many innocent people. Tell me about Radko.”

But first, Ean checked with line eight. “Where are your weapons? What do you have?”

The overlay of sound almost knocked him over. There were lots of weapons, all around the ship, although he couldn’t have told Sale where a single one was right now. One of them was the quiet blue hot blood.

“We have weapons. Lots of them.” Breathlessly, for Sale had started to run. It was a long way from the shuttle bays to the bridge. “Radko sent a message.”

He still couldn’t run and talk, let alone sing, but he tried anyway.

“She said. Commodore Bach,” because Sale needed to know that. “Traitor. With Redmond and the Worlds of the Lesser Gods. And then he shot her.”

“Bach shot Radko?”

“Jakob did.”

“What’s Jakob doing there? Never mind, Ean. Tell the rest when we’re on the bridge.”

He was grateful for that because Sale could run as fast as Radko. “You really should ask the ship how to get to the bridge fast.” Or he could ask it himself, but he didn’t have the breath for anything but running right now.

“We haven’t time to experiment right now.”

“Faster. Hurry.”

He had a stitch in his side, and the lines seemed determined to push him off course. He nearly ran into the wall once, had to force himself away.

“Faster,” the lines insisted, battering him with sound. “Faster.”

Finally, he couldn’t fight the sound anymore. He stopped, his lungs burning. All he could do was stand with his hands on his knees and drag in deep breaths.

Sale was a full corridor ahead of him.

The lines didn’t normally push him to do things he wasn’t capable of. They were more likely to try to fix it for him. What was he missing?

“Faster,” and the lines sounded relieved that he’d finally stopped.

“Faster,” Ean agreed, and let the noise push him toward the wall.

Nothing. He was going to walk into the wall. Ean closed his eyes and let the music guide him.

Something jerked, and grabbed him, like the force that grabbed the shuttles. Lines four and three were loud, the other lines finally silent. He opened his eyes. It was dark, but he knew he was moving—horizontally, he thought. Scarily fast. He shot upward, then down, then along again. It was worse than a jump; it was a rushing pneumatic tube, and he was in it.

He shot out the other end, onto the bridge in a rolling heap that he couldn’t stop, in time to hear Sale say to Craik, “I’ve lost Ean. I need to go back for him. Can you manage?”

“Too fast.” Lines one, three, and four seemed to be conferring. “Human. Slower?” As if they weren’t sure they could get it any slower.

Ean hit the wall, bounced off, and finally came to a stop. He got to his feet, choking, trying to catch his breath. His suit had sealed automatically. Wherever he’d been, there was no oxygen.

“He’s just arrived on the bridge,” Craik said. “Get here as fast as you can.”

“But he was way behind me.”

“He’s here now, Sale. Trying not to throw up.”

“Shit.”

When he could finally speak, Ean said, “Sale. You should—”

But she was here now, stopping with a skid at the entry to the bridge. “Status?”

Craik shook her head. “No change on station.” She glanced over at Ean. “Not sure about him.”

“I’m fine.” It was a wheeze, but he was fine. He checked the readings on his suit. Radko insisted he always check before he took the helmet off. The air was clean. “Thank you,” he whispered to the ship.

All he ever had to do was listen. “If I don’t listen next time, tell me ‘faster,’ and I’ll remember.” At least, he’d try to remember.

Sale asked, “Is Radko alive or dead, Ean?”

“I don’t know. Jakob said he wanted to talk to her. That was after he shot her, so I think so.”

Please let her be alive.

Sale said, “I need to see the control center on that station. Anything line eight is involved in. And I need to see Bach, Jakob, and Radko.”

What was the control center on a station? The administrator’s office?

“Bach?” Craik said. “Radko?”

“I’ll explain in a minute. Ean?”

He sang up the lines. Station “Ship,” anywhere with line-eight activity, then had to flick through each of the cameras to get Radko—and Bach and Jakob—because none of them were linesmen, and the station lines weren’t as strong as ship lines. Maybe there was something in Wendell’s theory that the more you went through the void, the stronger the lines became.

But speaking of lines.

Ean stopped. “There are a lot of linesmen on that station,” he told Sale. “They’re all strong, and… a little strange.” Crazy was the word that came to mind, but you wouldn’t have a station full of crazy linesmen. Maybe they’d been trained by a secret line guild on the Worlds of the Lesser Gods and were different. “They’re very strong.”

Many of them were reacting badly to the presence of line eleven.

“Show me.”

Ean put them up on the screen on the wall, a matrix of five images by four, room by room. He brought a new one up every five seconds, replacing the one that had been there the longest.

Radko would be in the prisons. He could see two people locked in cells. One was a middle-aged woman who was inspecting the walls of her cell with care, looking for a way to escape. The other was a bulky younger man who sat in the center of the featureless room, staring ahead.

The rest of the station seemed to be a minibarracks. A warren of living areas, offices and meeting rooms, some training rooms. They had a huge medical center. The first rooms were empty, but the rest had patients. All of them were linesmen. Some of the linesmen were being attended to. They had the strongest lines. And felt the craziest.

Ean tried not to shudder. It was an insane type of crazy, unhinged almost.

Most of them wore the uniform of House of Sandhurst.

There, finally, in a room on the sixth level. A woman strapped to a chair, with two men standing nearby. One of the men wore the uniform Ean recognized from the Factor’s entourage. Jakob. The other wore the gray of Lancia. Commodore Bach.

The woman in the chair moved slightly, and Ean could have cried.

Radko.