Alliance, page 27
part #2 of Linesman Series
Her hands were scraped, but they didn’t hurt. The site doctor had sprayed something on them. They were about the only thing that didn’t hurt.
They reached the entryway. She was glad of the smoother floors indoors. “I fell,” she said. “I can walk now,” although she wasn’t sure she could.
“Humor me. Pushing you lets me take my anger out on something.”
She humored him. “Why so angry?”
“Because you’re stubborn, and you refuse help when it’s offered. You fell again.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact.
“I fell again,” she agreed. She almost wasn’t going to tell him where she’d fallen, but someone would have to fix the railing on the stairs. “I was doing stair exercises. The railing gave way.”
The lift arrived then. Grieve pushed her in. If Kari Wang hadn’t pressed the button for her floor, they’d still have been sitting in the lift on the ground floor.
They were joined on the next floor by a commodore and two captains from Nova Tahiti. Kari Wang moved her chair out of the way so they could get in.
“I thought we’d agreed on the stairs you could exercise in,” Grieve said, as the bell pinged for their floor, making the commodore and captains look at him strangely.
“That’s right.” Grieve didn’t move, so Kari Wang stood up and exited the elevator, leaving him to bring the chair.
Her legs ached, and maybe Grieve could wheel off some of that aggression he had. She settled back in the chair.
“You’re telling me the railing on the stairs out there gave way.” He waved a hand roughly in the direction of the stairwell. “Those railings were triple-bonded, alarmed, and padded so we’d know the second you fell.”
She hadn’t known they were alarmed. “So you already know about this?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
* * *
GRIEVE brought in a team of experts who went through the railings with enough equipment to run a small ship.
Their findings. Shoddy workmanship.
“The alarm system never worked,” the team leader said. “It wasn’t hooked up. Except at the top, which was probably where you tested. As for the railings themselves. Yes, they’re triple-bonded, but the bolts were low-grade. They were always going to fail as soon as something hit them with force.”
“So you’re telling me we paid a fortune for top-of-the-line protection, and we got this,” Grieve said.
“It’s common nowadays,” the team leader said. “The good contractors are booked out for months. If you want a fast job you’ll only get fly-by-nighters.”
* * *
AT Kari Wang’s next meeting with the admirals, MacClennan told them Grieve had offered to resign.
They all looked at her.
She knew, if she asked for it, he’d go. Maybe they’d kick him out of the fleet, maybe move him on to another, less prestigious job.
“We all have mistakes on our record,” she said. “This isn’t as bad as some.”
“Thank you,” MacClennan said.
“It’s an unusual error for Grieve,” Admiral Katida said. “He’s so efficient I was starting to think you’d replaced his brain with a computer. After all, you can replace everything else.”
Which was high praise for the man indeed.
Kari Wang made her way back to quarters in a thoughtful mood.
Grieve was waiting for her. Alone.
“I want you to know it won’t happen again,” he said.
Kari Wang looked at him. “I’m sure it won’t,” she said.
“I don’t know how it happened. I checked the contractors thoroughly.”
He wanted her to say something. To yell at him, or sack him, or even dock his pay. She could feel his need, desperate, under the surface. Anything to acknowledge he’d failed, instead of this blanket, “Don’t let it happen again,” he was getting.
Kari Wang got them both tea. Weak and lukewarm, like a spacer took it.
“If you want to do penance, Grieve, let’s do something useful. I want you to work out exactly how you were taken in. There has to be something that would have tipped you off. You work out why, so you don’t make that mistake again, and we’ll call it quits. Okay.”
He looked at his glass, not at her, “Thank you,” then gulped his tea as if it was water for a thirsty spacer. He grimaced at the taste, or maybe at the temperature. “Thank you,” he said again.
TWENTY-FIVE
EAN LAMBERT
THE GRUEN MADE a good training ship, for its lines went out of true easily. No matter how clean the lines were when the trainees left it, by the next day, they needed fixing again.
It missed its old crew. It was unwanted, unloved. Even the trainees were reluctant to be there because the lines cried out with loneliness. The teams who manned it had picked up their captain’s attitude. This was a dead-end job. The sooner they were out of it, the better.
The ship knew it wasn’t wanted.
Maybe that was why it clung to the little kindnesses when it got them. Esfir Chantsmith—who always had time for the ship—got special attention. But Chantsmith alone wasn’t enough, and he was due to go back to his own ship when line training was finished. What the ship needed was a captain who cared for it, and a full crew to keep it.
There was no science yet to prove it, but Ean was sure line ships were more sentient when they had other sentients around them. Ships needed people. People who wanted to be there.
It was time Captain Song took responsibility for her ship.
Ean’s schedule was planned to the minute. Mornings were spent with the trainees, afternoons on the Eleven or the Confluence—unless he needed to attend one of the interminable council sessions—and evenings training the Lancastrian Princess linesmen or working with Fergus on line seven. Occasionally, he was required to attend functions. In between all this he answered line questions. From Abram’s Department of Alien Affairs, from politicians, from the military. Luckily not from the media, though. Abram and Michelle answered those.
He wasn’t going to get time out if he didn’t ask for it. The question was, whom did he ask? Abram and Michelle were constantly busy. In the end, he went to Vega.
“Don’t I have enough people assigned to you already.”
“I wasn’t looking for a minder. I’m telling you I’m going down to Haladea III.”
“Yet I have to organize not only your regular crew, but another team to accompany you. And ensure there are crews on call on planet if required.”
“I just want to visit someone.”
“Every time you go anywhere, Lambert, you get into trouble. I have to rearrange everyone’s schedule to accommodate you. These schedules have been planned weeks in advance.”
Vega, Ean decided, liked to be organized. “What if something unexpected happens?” Like the arrival of a captain for an alien ship. Ean had broken his carefully planned schedule for that before.
“On my watch, everything’s planned for.”
“So you must have planned for me wanting unexpected trips down to the planet, as well.”
Vega’s face puckered in what might have been a scowl. Or a smile. She inclined her head. “Bhaksir’s team will accompany you, with Craik and her team on the ground as immediate backup—and note, I have to take them off their work on the alien ships to do this.”
“Thank you.” Ean escaped before she could say anything else.
* * *
AS Ean stepped onto the shuttle to go down to Haladea III to see Song, Abram called. “The final security clearance for the Eleven crew came through five minutes ago. You can start line training tomorrow. They’ll arrive on the Gruen after your session with the other trainees.”
They had discussed whether to train the Eleven’s crew on the Eleven, but Ean wanted them used to singing to the lines first, and the Gruen was their de facto training ship. He also wanted the two groups of trainees together for that first session. Those who had been training for a while might be able to help with the newcomers. After all, 130 people were a lot to train.
Maybe Edie Song would be there tomorrow if he could convince her to come out to the ship. Then they’d see what the lines could do.
Song’s quarters were on barracks, close to the rooms they had set aside for the Nova Tahitian party. On their way, they passed a room with an open door where Fitch was arguing with Kari Wang.
“You’ve just had regen.”
“So I’ve new skin now. You don’t need to treat me like an invalid.”
Kari Wang’s arms and legs—and the side of her face—showed the mottled pink of new skin grafted alongside the old. In parts, there was bruising as well, so she was tricolored, and she moved carefully.
“Your muscles will be sore.”
“But not my walking muscles.”
“Walk down the room and tell me it doesn’t hurt.”
Kari Wang stood up. Her face was turned to the door—away from Fitch. She winced, then saw Ean watching her and frowned instead.
Ean stepped inside. Radko followed him in.
“If you’re here to tell me how grateful the ship is that I’m safe, I don’t want to hear it,” Kari Wang said.
“She’s a little grumpy today,” Fitch said. “She’s sore, and she won’t admit it.”
“I think I’d be grumpy, too,” Ean said, watching the careful way she put each foot down.
“So what do you want?” Kari Wang demanded.
Fitch was right. She was grumpy. “I’m going to see Captain Song. Talk to her about spending more time on her ship.”
Kari Wang reached the end of the room. She turned. “You can’t force a captain to be with a ship they don’t want to be with.” Ean was sure she wasn’t talking about Edie Song. “If someone doesn’t want to be there, you should get rid of them, give the ship a chance to get a captain who will care for it.”
“Sometimes you have to take what you can get,” Ean said.
She stopped when she got close and glared at him. “And sometimes that’s the stupidest thing you can do. To the captain, or the ship.”
“I don’t want unwilling captains for my lines any more than you want them.” The lines didn’t need them. “If I could do something about it, I would.”
Unfortunately for both of them, she didn’t have any choice. Ean didn’t either. He had to live with it. And so would she.
Radko moved between them. “We’re on a schedule,” she reminded Ean.
Fitch had moved across to Kari Wang and had a hand ready to hold her back. “Easy,” he said.
Ean and Kari Wang stared at each other. Ean realized he was breathing hard. He looked at Radko and managed to make his voice normal. “You’re right. We are on a schedule.”
He nodded to Kari Wang and Fitch, and turned and left the room.
Behind him, he heard Fitch say soothingly to Kari Wang, “Your heart is racing as fast as a rookathook. I’ll get something to calm you down.”
“Rookathook,” Ean said, because half of Bhaksir’s team was out in the hall with them, and he didn’t want to show them he was upset. “What’s that?”
“It’s an animal,” Radko said. “They move and look something like a crab, but without the hard exoskeleton. They’re closer to a rodent.”
Ean couldn’t imagine it.
“Their heart beats 250 times a minute.”
Kari Wang would be dead then if her heart were beating that fast. Ean knew a lot more about hearts than he had six months ago.
Behind them, Kari Wang’s irritated reply faded away.
“Interestingly,” Radko said. “In their natural habitat, rookathooks are pied in color. Much like Captain Kari Wang’s skin back there. But it’s an optical illusion. When you photograph them, their images show smooth brown fur.” She frowned. “Most people don’t see them in their natural habitat. They’re native to Redmond.”
“But you have.”
“Yes. Back when I was a child and my parents thought I might make a diplomat. I spent six months there perfecting my accent.”
“Your Redmond accent? It’s a wonder Abram never used you as a spy.”
Radko didn’t answer that.
Abram probably had used her as a Redmond spy.
* * *
CAPTAIN Song wasn’t in her rooms. They finally tracked her down in the gym, running on a treadmill. She looked as if she’d been at it for hours.
“Captain Song,” Ean said.
“Linesman.” She kept running.
Back when he’d been a linesman in the cartel system, hardly anyone had known him. Now, it seemed, everyone knew him by sight, even though he wore a simple soldier’s uniform.
Ean looked around the gym. There were four other users, one of whom was scowling at him. He wasn’t sure why, until the officer said, pointedly, “This is an officer’s gym, soldier.”
It was good to be reminded there was a world out there, full of people to whom the lines were unimportant.
Another of the exercisers leaned over, and said quietly to the officer, “That’s Linesman Lambert.”
“Oh,” said the officer.
So then, of course, everyone watched them, waiting to hear what Ean had to say.
Ean looked around again. “Captain Song. Could we talk outside?”
She looked at the other exercisers, pressed Stop, then picked up her towel and led the way out without a word.
“What?” she demanded, out in the corridor, as she wiped her face with her towel. The towel was as wet as she was. Ean hoped her red face was from exercising and not from annoyance.
He looked around to be sure they were alone. How did he say this without accusing her of deserting her ship? Or maybe he should do that. After all, that’s what she was doing.
“The Gruen needs its captain on board.”
“What?” Whatever Song had expected, it wasn’t that.
“It’s a line ship,” Ean said. “You’re dragging it down by staying away. You need to be on ship more.”
If her face hadn’t already been red, it would have reddened now. “Are you telling me what to do on my ship?”
“That’s the problem. You’re not on your ship. It needs you. Training for the new linesmen starts tomorrow. Can’t you at least be there for that?”
She looked at his uniform, at the braid on his shoulders. Or lack of rank, Ean supposed.
“A Lancian. A simple soldier. Telling me what to do on my ship.”
“I’m not a soldier,” Ean said. “I’m a linesman. I’m responsible for the welfare of the lines on those ships out there. And one of those ships is yours.”
She turned on her heel.
“Captain Song. You are negligent in your duty toward your ship.” He didn’t want to raise his voice, but he wanted her to hear him. He used a technique he had learned from Gospetto, filling his lungs with air and letting the sound carry.
She swung around so fast Ean stepped back. Radko stepped forward at the same time—faster—so for a moment she and Song were standing face-to-face.
Song looked past Radko to Ean. “Don’t you ever tell me what to do in relation to my ship. Especially not while you’re the one who’s keeping it where it is. It’s a dead-end ship, it’s a dead-end job. They should have turned it into scrap.”
“It’s a fleet ship,” Ean said. “We can’t do that.” He didn’t want to think about what happened to old ship lines. Did they die with their ship? Probably. “And while it’s a fleet ship, while its lines are under my care, I say you are not doing your job.”
“What job? What is there to do on a ship stuck orbiting a planet? You know what they gave me? Two teams. Eighteen people. To run a warship. A warship that can’t move without your say-so.”
“It’s not my—”
“What can the Gruen do? Last I heard you were using one of the cargo compartments for line training. As if it’s better than sitting there, empty. It would be smarter to close the whole ship down.”
“We can’t do that.” Didn’t she understand?
“Don’t you come to me about the ‘welfare’ of my ship. It’s a useless heap of junk, and the worst day of my life was when they gave me that commission.”
She turned on her heel again and strode back into the gym.
Ean watched her go. “That was a mistake, I think,” he said to Radko.
“Maybe not,” Radko said. “You had to do it, Ean. Think of it more as the first round of hostilities.”
Hostilities. Even Radko thought it would be a fight. Ean took a deep breath. This was one fight he had to win.
* * *
EAN arrived on the Gruen early, and gave the original twenty trainees their lesson first. They were doing well.
“We’ve got new trainees today,” he told them, as the last song died away.
They’d just been singing to the lines. Their emotions were as clear as if they’d voiced them aloud. The predominant one was jealousy. This was their secret.
Jordan Rossi chuckled. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
“You’re reading my lines, Rossi.”
“Isn’t that what you’re teaching us to do?”
Vega was right. Linesmen could communicate mind to mind. Except, why did it have to be with Rossi, of all people?
Ean took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. “The new trainees are the crew of the Eleven,” he said. “They’ll be doing the same training you are. I want you to look after them.” He frowned at them all. “Be nice to your fellow lines. If you treat them well, they may even invite you onto their ship one day.”
He’d always planned to take the trainees to the Eleven to experience lines there, but a little bribery didn’t hurt.
The overall emotion became more speculative, even calculating.
Sale took over. “They’ll be arriving in three shuttles.” One hundred and twenty people made for a lot of visitors.
