“He already has,” Grieve commented under his breath as the admiral walked off. “He was outvoted.”

  After that, a continuous stream of people came up to her. Most of them wanted to know if she was up to it. Grieve knew them all.

  “You should sit down soon.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “If you collapse now, you’ll give them ammunition to get you kicked off ship, ma’am,” Grieve said. “Nova Tahiti has worked hard to get you here. Best not to undo all that good work on the first night.”

  She heard the steel in his voice and wondered what he’d do if she refused. Was he the simple spacer his uniform made him out to be? He was very confident around all this brass. Whatever he was, he was right. Tonight wasn’t the night to show weakness. Not at a function hosted by Nova Tahiti.

  She had just sat down when a spacer approached her. He was one of the few uniformed people in the room who wore anything less than commodore’s pips, and the others were all in her party. She watched him come. He was slender, and his movements were quick and light, but she would bet he had never undergone military training. His hair was long for most military.

  He wore a Lancian uniform, unadorned except for the bars below his name. She looked more closely. The bars went all the way across the pocket.

  “Linesman Lambert,” Grieve said softly beside her. “Don’t be misled by the ten bars.”

  Kari Wang turned to look at him.

  “Lambert is Lancia’s chief linesman,” Grieve said blandly.

  Lambert was there now, smiling and offering his hand. “Ean Lambert,” he said.

  She took it automatically. “Kari Wang.” What was a level-ten linesman doing wearing a Lancian military uniform? Why wasn’t he in a cartel house?

  “I know.” Lambert pulled out the chair next to hers and sat down. “You’re the captain of the Eleven.” He grinned broadly. “And let me tell you, the Eleven is really looking forward to it.”

  “Looking forward to it?” Was he part of the crew?

  “Maybe I am putting words into its mouth,” Lambert admitted. “I’m looking forward to it. Ships need people, you see.”

  They were swamped by another round of dignitaries before she had time to ask him what he meant. This time the questions were aimed as much at Lambert as they were at her.

  “Is the ship ready for a human crew?”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Is she emotionally stable?”

  “I don’t know,” Lambert said, and she didn’t know which one he was answering. He probably didn’t either. “You’ve all seen the captain’s record.”

  A diplomat in long green robes said quietly to another diplomat in a dark gray suit, “Her whole crew was destroyed. And her ship. That’s her record.”

  Kari Wang didn’t even realize she’d surged out of her seat—or tried to—until she felt the viselike hand on her shoulder that held her back. “Easy,” and the woman who’d stopped her from proving to everyone just how emotionally unstable she was right now, said to the diplomat in green robes, “Doesn’t it occur to you to wonder, Speaker Rhodes, what the Kari Wang was testing out there that led Gate Union to target them as the first ship they attacked after Nova Tahiti allied themselves with the New Alliance. Because I wonder.”

  “Admiral Katida. Balian,” Grieve said quietly from behind her.

  Kari Wang didn’t need the introduction. Before she’d been promoted to admiral, Katida had been head of Balian’s covert operations group. Every single world that had crossed from Gate Union to the New Alliance had come up against Katida’s people at one time or another, Nova Tahiti included.

  “Isn’t that what the military is for, Admiral? To concern themselves with questions like that.”

  “Speaker Rhodes, if more politicians concerned themselves with questions like that, we might not now be at war.”

  Lambert winced, but he turned his face away so that only Kari Wang saw it.

  The tall, dark-haired woman who was talking to Galenos not far away detached herself midsentence and came over to join them.

  “Speakers.” She nodded to Rhodes and the woman in the gray suit. To Katida. “Admiral.”

  “Lady Lyan, Crown Princess of Lancia.” She didn’t need any introduction either.

  Lady Lyan turned to Kari Wang. “Captain. Lancia is delighted to have you aboard as captain of the Eleven.”

  “Eleven.” Speaker Rhodes, who’d been edging away, stopped. “So the ship has been chosen?”

  It hadn’t exactly been a secret from where Kari Wang stood. Gann had known, and the Nova Tahiti power brokers had agreed with him.

  Kari Wang looked thoughtfully at Lambert. Linesman Ean Lambert had known as well.

  EIGHTEEN

  SELMA KARI WANG

  THE ELEVEN WAS a big ship. Far bigger than the Kari Wang.

  “Suits on,” Grieve said. “No helmets, though. We think we have the atmospheric mix right, but just in case.”

  Kari Wang picked up the suit, then froze. Last time she’d worn a suit, everyone around her had died. She pushed the suit away.

  “It’s rules, ma’am,” Grieve said.

  She shook her head.

  Jon leaned over and said something quietly to Grieve. She couldn’t hear it through the sudden roaring in her ears. Grieve tapped something into his comms.

  “Stopping now,” the shuttle pilot said, and the engines cut out. “Take hold.”

  A force grabbed the shuttle, and jerked.

  “Shit,” Jon said, and gripped his seat. Fitch hung on to his seat belt.

  Another force grabbed the shuttle. Another jerk.

  “Entry takes some getting used to,” Grieve said. “We think when you work out how to fly the ship’s own shuttles, it won’t be so rough.”

  Jon sounded strangled. “You mean this is normal?”

  “Yes.” Something pinged on Grieve’s comms. He looked at it, looked at Kari Wang, showed it to Jon and Fitch, then stood up as the all clear sounded. “Let’s go see the ship.”

  They were met at the air lock by a voice raised in song.

  That was almost as worrying as Grieve, Fitch, and Jon conversing quietly behind Kari Wang’s back. Grieve wheeled the chair he’d carried the day before.

  Linesman Lambert was the singer. He was surrounded by a team of Lancastrian guards. They all wore suits, helmets down their back.

  The team leader in front of Lambert frowned at Kari Wang’s lack of suit. She opened her mouth to speak—presumably about the suit—but both Jon and Grieve shook their heads.

  Kari Wang ignored them.

  Worst of all was that she knew how she would react to someone on her own ship behaving like that. She wouldn’t make them put on the suit, of course, but she wouldn’t let them step out of the air lock, either. They’d be heading back with the shuttle, placed under the care of a psychiatrist until they could work out their issues.

  The rules weren’t there for fun. If they wanted her suited up, there was a genuine danger the air on the Eleven could go at any time.

  Lambert stopped singing and smiled at her. “Welcome aboard the Eleven,” he said.

  She inclined her head. She couldn’t speak yet.

  “Let’s give you a tour,” Lambert said, reassuringly, and she knew, by the way he patted her hand as he turned away, that he had registered her discomfort and chosen to ignore it.

  One of the spacers handed her some goggles. “UV filter,” she said. “You’ll find them easier to see with, at least initially.”

  It was a big ship. Kari Wang watched each section as they passed through. “This ship must take a thousand people when it’s fully staffed.”

  “There were 1024 aliens on board,” Lambert said.

  She supposed she should think about the previous occupants, but right now the current occupants disturbed her more.

  “Don’t worry—” Lambert caught his breath, and stumbled. One of the soldiers with him grabbed an oxygen mask off a nearby wall and pushed it over his face.

  Lambert pushed it away. “I’m fine.” He sang, breathlessly, and seemed to listen.

  There were oxygen stations everywhere, Kari Wang realized. The only real signs of human habitation.

  One of the Lancastrian guards held out an oxygen mask to Kari Wang. She pushed it away. “What’s going on?”

  “Line eleven,” said the guard who’d loaned Kari Wang her goggles. The name on her pocket was Radko. “Affects linesmen.”

  Suddenly, MacClennan’s insistence on line testing made more sense. “I’m not a linesman.”

  Radko’s gaze swept over the other Nova Tahitians.

  “None of us are linesmen.”

  Radko nodded, then turned back to Lambert. “Are you finished yet, Ean?”

  “Fine,” Lambert wheezed, and made off down the corridor.

  Radko reached out and grabbed him. “Wait for us.”

  He waited.

  “These oxygen stations?” Kari Wang asked.

  “Are necessary. You get strong linesmen in here, and you’re going to need them.”

  “All of your people will get special training in dealing with line-related issues,” the team leader—Bhaksir—said. “It’s a real pain.”

  They continued through the seemingly endless corridors. Lambert kept up a song for most of the way. No one seemed to find it unusual.

  “I tell you something,” Fitch muttered, as Kari Wang ducked under another bulkhead. “If we’d known about this ship, we’d have built your legs forty millimeters shorter. I wish they’d told us.”

  She managed the first smile of the day.

  “Average height of the aliens is eighty percent of human norm,” Bhaksir said. She seemed to be everywhere, listening in. “Bridge is coming up.” She looked at Grieve. “You might need that chair ready. It can be a shock first time you see it.”

  Lambert’s song rose, and amplified around the great space they entered that was the bridge of the alien ship. The humans on the bridge looked around. Some smiled a welcome. One, with group-leader pips, detached herself from the group in front of a board and came over to greet them.

  “Captain Kari Wang. Group Leader Sale.”

  Kari Wang nodded, only half listening.

  The panels were flickering bars of light. She could vaguely make out what looked to be a star chart on the main screen, but she had no idea what the rest of the screens showed. There were colored bars of light everywhere on the star chart.

  How in the lines was she going to work out what was happening on ship?

  Sale must have caught her expression. “Exactly,” she said. “You’ll require a lot of faith in the people you work with, for this is a line ship, pure and simple.” She tapped a secondary set of boards, placed around the Captain’s Chair. Familiar equipment. With an obviously alien-designed screen right in the center. “We’ve put some human boards in, and some sensors, but we don’t know what we’re covering, so this is all you have.”

  It was little better than a scout ship. “And how is anyone supposed to run it?”

  “That’s what your crew is for.” Sale tapped one of the weaker-colored bars on the huge star chart that took up one wall. “Ships,” she said. “That one is”—she checked her comms—“Scout 5.” She tapped one of the three strongest sets of lights on the chart. “The Confluence.” Another strong set. “The Lancastrian Princess.” The third strong set. “The Wendell.”

  “The Wendell?”

  “It’s part of the Eleven’s fleet.”

  According to the news vids Kari Wang had watched on the Fierro, Wendell and his crew had been with Yaolin when the New Alliance had been formed. Their own world, Wallacia, had declared them outlaws. She felt sorry for Piers Wendell. She liked him, and he was in almost as bad a position as she was.

  “As you can see,” Sale said. “The lights have nothing to do with the size of the ship. It’s all about the strength of the lines.” She tapped the screen again. “Ean, give her the tour.”

  Sale’s pocket was covered in badges, as was everyone else’s on the bridge—except Lambert’s. Every badge, without exception, displayed the glyph that marked the wearer as among the top 10 percent for that particular qualification. Every wearer—without exception—also wore braid on their shoulders that proclaimed them members of Lady Lyan’s personal guard.

  How did Lady Lyan’s personal guard get to work on this ship?

  Lambert guided her over to the stool underneath a hooded canopy, where Kari Wang could see the whole room. “The Captain’s Chair. The line chassis is here,” and touched the canopy, almost affectionately. “Sit down, and I’ll introduce you.”

  She sat, glad to have a reason to. Her legs ached.

  The stool was hard, and short, but if they made it much higher, she’d be blinded by the canopy.

  Sale made a sympathetic noise. “Pity you’re not shorter,” she said.

  “She’ll be fine,” Lambert said. Bhaksir and Sale made faces at each other, as if they didn’t quite trust his optimism.

  “You’ll probably walk around a lot,” Sale said.

  It was a pity she didn’t have the legs for it right now.

  Lambert sang, the same waterfall of sound he’d been singing before.

  Introduce her, he’d said. “Who are you introducing me to?” she asked, when it was over.

  “The ship.”

  She was aware Sale and Bhaksir were watching her intently. They’d probably been told to watch her. This whole unpreparedness might even be a setup to see how she reacted.

  Let them watch.

  “Line one,” Lambert said. “The crew line. Or crew and ship, really. On the screen in front of you.”

  He meant the alien screen in among all the smaller ones she was familiar with.

  He sang, light clear notes this time, and she imagined, as part of that song, that the ship welcomed her.

  Kari Wang refused to listen. It wasn’t her ship. It wasn’t her responsibility. Instead, she looked at the screen—if that was what it was, for it was dull, and seemed to vibrate. She put her hand close. Sure enough, she could feel vibrations.

  Lambert stopped singing. “You can see that line one is weak.”

  She couldn’t see a thing except a few vibrating colors.

  “Line two.”

  This time the song was a soft chatter that made Kari Wang think of light and air and warmth. The image on screen was stronger.

  “Line two is still getting used to human conditions,” Lambert said. “Sometimes, things go wrong, which is why you have to wear a suit all the time.” He looked at her, at her suitlessness, then hurried on.

  “Line three.”

  More chatter, and intermittent lights across the screen. “We haven’t worked out all that’s wrong yet.”

  Line three controlled small mechanics, and things like doors, and other ship machinery. From the looks of the screen, half the doors on the ship weren’t working. If she was reading the screens properly, which was doubtful.

  “Line four.” Gravity. This time Lambert’s song was a staccato on/off.

  Kari Wang looked around at the working soldiers. They were all watching her with half their attention, but they had their own tasks, too, and they were doing them. They were used to this.

  “Line five.” The ever-vital comms.

  She was glad there were only ten lines. Or were there eleven? Her crew would have wanted to know.

  “Comms looks strong,” Kari Wang said, for the colors were stronger here.

  Sale snorted. “That’s because Ean’s been singing his heart out to them every day. All the lines. You should have seen how weak they were when we started.”

  “Singing?” Fitch asked.

  Sale shrugged.

  “Line six,” Lambert said, cutting across their talk. This song was heavy and strong. The lights were strong, too.

  When he sang, he had the seriousness and absorption of Will, when Will talked about his own favorite subject—weapons.

  “Line seven.” A comfortable baritone.

  “Line eight.” Rich, and warm and pleasing to the ear. Also strong.

  Line nine was a deep, resonant dirge. Ten, high, clear notes. Both were strong.

  “Line eleven,” Lambert said, and started a beat that sent him to his knees. “Not so strong,” he begged, still in song.

  Radko moved over to the nearest oxygen unit.

  Lambert pushed her away and struggled to his feet. “I’m fine.”

  Kari Wang watched them. The ship seemed less alien than the humans on it. Her own crew would be fascinated. She could imagine Kelan—long a student of human behavior—watching avidly. The others. They’d be watching the ship, asking questions she herself would normally ask. Where were the engines? How did they plan on running the ship? What about the weapons bays?

  Lambert hadn’t even shown her the weapons bays. Instead, he’d sung to the lines. And seeing all this alien technology, when her crew wasn’t here to see it with her, made her numb inside.

  She forced herself to sound interested in something although she didn’t care about the answer. “How many lines are there?”

  “Twelve,” Radko said, and looked toward Lambert, who flushed, but didn’t argue the count.

  * * *

  AFTER lunch Kari Wang wanted to rest. Instead, she met with Admirals Galenos, MacClennan, Katida, and Orsaya.

  “You shouldn’t be doing so much so soon,” Fitch said. “They should give you time between to relax.”

  “Fitch, is there anything wrong with my legs except lack of muscle tone?”

  “No, but—”

  “I’ll be fine.” There had been a time, hundreds of years ago, when losing one’s legs would have been debilitating. Nowadays, they replaced them with neo-alloy legs, which provided instant strength, even if the wearer had to get used to the impulses sent through the nerve endings by the artificial legs. Why had they given her real legs?