She separated the trainees into two groups of seven, one of six. “Make them welcome, help them if they have problems. You know the drill, they don’t.”

  Ean’s hands were shaking. He tucked them under his armpits as he watched the group divide. “How long should we train this lot for before we send them back to their ships?” he asked Fergus and Radko. Every trainee was talking to the lines now. If they knew enough to help train the Eleven’s crew, did that mean they were ready to return to their own fleets?

  “Depends what you want them for,” Fergus said.

  “And what damage sending them back half-trained will do,” Rossi said.

  “Even you, Rossi, fix lines straighter than you used to.”

  “And you think that’s enough?”

  “What do you think?”

  Whatever Rossi thought was lost in his crossed arms and raised eyebrows and the arrival of the first shuttleload of Eleven crew onto the Gruen.

  * * *

  DAREJANI Tinatin was first off the ship, followed closely by Mael St. Mael.

  “What is this place?” Tinatin asked. “It’s sad. Just sad.”

  “Sick maybe,” Mael said, looking around, his gaze stopping at the paramedics, and then at the oxygen stations along the wall. He shivered a little and checked his suit readings. Then leaned over and checked Tinatin’s.

  Ean heard a low hum of approval from Radko.

  “We don’t have to wear them,” Tinatin said. “Just put them on.”

  Wasn’t that wearing them? “How do you mean sad?” Ean asked.

  “It’s just—” Tinatin waved her arms around, almost braining Ean as she did so. “Sad. Someone should fix this ship.”

  “So what’s wrong with it?” How strong was she if she could pick up the underlying emotion of the ship so quickly?

  “She has no idea.” The accent was Balian, short and sharp. Jem Abascal, the Balian seven. “She’s guessing. She has no real line ability. She’s a one.”

  Ean didn’t need the nodded greeting to Ami Hernandez to know the two Balians had worked together in the past. Their lines were comfortable together.

  “Yes. What would she know?” That was the six from the other night.

  “I didn’t say it was the lines,” Tinatin protested. “I said it was a sad ship.”

  One of the linesmen already on the Gruen, Esfir Chantsmith, said, “It’s not the ship’s fault its lines are bad.”

  Chantsmith always defended the ship. Even when he wasn’t on it, like the time at the Night Owl, when Ean had read the transcript of his conversation with Solvej and Klim.

  Ean smiled at them all. “It is about the lines, you know. And you’re right. It is a sad ship. That was a good call. Line one is the crew line, and this ship doesn’t have a strong line one.”

  “Crew line?” Mael asked.

  “A ship with a well-knit crew who got on well together.”

  He’d bet the Kari Wang’s line one had been strong, but he’d never say that to the Eleven’s new captain, even though it was a compliment.

  “Kari Wang was supposed to be on this shuttle,” Sale said. She made for the shuttle door, but Mael stood in her way. “The captain will be out in a moment,” he said. “She’s just getting her legs together.”

  They looked at each other. Sale moved first. “Get this lot into the big cargo hold,” she ordered the trainees assigned to mind them.”

  Mael made sure she moved away from the door before he moved.

  Sale came over to Ean. “Tell me what’s going on.” She made it quiet.

  Ean sang gently to line five. He couldn’t see what was happening on the shuttle the way he could on a ship, but he could pull one of the camera feeds out through the line. And the audio.

  It looked like a standoff, with Grieve holding a suit, saying, “We don’t know what damage these untrained linesmen will do.” Kari Wang didn’t have a suit on yet. It looked as if everyone was holding their breath while they waited for her to decide.

  “Not this again.” Sale watched the comms over Ean’s shoulder. “That woman has a real problem. You tell her,” as Grieve opened his mouth to speak. “She can’t keep doing this.”

  Kari Wang held up a hand. “Don’t say anything. Jon, Fitch, leave please.”

  Jon would have argued, but Fitch pushed him out into the shuttle bay. Bhaksir went down to head them off.

  Ean could see drops of moisture on Kari Wang’s face. She was sweating badly. “Sorry,” she said to Grieve. “Some days it’s harder than others.”

  “I don’t understand,” Grieve said. “It saved your life. I would think you’d love to put it on.”

  “Exactly. It saved my life. When everyone else died.”

  Ean bit his bottom lip. Even Sale was quiet.

  Kari Wang took a deep breath and struggled into the suit as clumsily as Ean had the first time he’d worn one. She sealed it with a little more finesse, leaving the helmet hanging down her back, then walked stiff-legged to the air lock.

  * * *

  SEVENTY certified linesmen, fifty presumed single-level linesmen—plus Kari Wang and her entourage, Sale and Bhaksir’s teams, Ean, Fergus and Rossi, and who knew how many paramedics—filled the largest cargo space on the ship.

  Ean made his way over to a temporary dais that had been erected on one end.

  Tinatin, who had joined Mael, gestured toward the guards, then to Ean. He whispered a quick song to line one, to hear what she was saying.

  “They’re to make sure he doesn’t escape. His cartel master has come back to collect him, but the New Alliance won’t let him go.”

  Sale joined him on the dais. He stepped back to let her speak first.

  “Note where the nearest oxygen cylinders are. Note where the paramedics are. Note where your assigned buddies are.” Some of the assigned buddies were grinning, thinking they knew what was to come. They’d be disappointed, for fifty of the newcomers were single lines, and so far, single lines had not been troubled by line eleven.

  It was the same talk she’d given to the original trainees.

  “If you’re in trouble, signal a paramedic. If the person next to you is in trouble, you’ve all been trained in how to deal with heart problems. You know what to do.”

  “I’ll say,” one of them close to Ean muttered. “They’re anal about it. How many times in your life do you treat victims with heart problems?”

  Fergus, who was standing nearby, murmured, “About twice a day, on average.”

  Ean hid his smile.

  “All yours, Ean.”

  Ean sang the now-familiar explanation to the Gruen lines. “Introducing more linesmen.”

  “Mine?”

  “Not this lot,” and the hum of disappointment it returned made Tinatin frown. And, he noticed, Chantsmith wince.

  Ean had to do something about Song. A ship shouldn’t have to tolerate an absent captain.

  When he was done, Ean put his comms on the podium in front of him and sang to open the lines to the speakers in the hold. “We’re going to sing. Let’s start with some warm-up exercises. Sing along with me.”

  One hundred and twenty musically gifted people made an impressive choir. No one complained. Had they already heard about line training?

  Fergus moved through the crowd. He tapped the shoulder of a woman who was singing halfheartedly, and moved his hand up to show she should increase her performance. Even Rossi scowled at one less-than-enthusiastic performer.

  The original trainees watched.

  “Right,” Ean said, after ten minutes of exercises. “Now we’ll sing to the lines.” There were a few uneasy mutters at that. Mostly from those with bars on their pockets. Ean ignored them. “We’re greeting the lines, saying hello to them one at a time.” He smiled. “And if you genuinely believe you are talking to them, don’t be surprised if some of them answer back.”

  There were more uneasy looks, and lots of feet shuffling, but he didn’t give them time to think about it. “Line one. You sing what I sing.” He launched into song. “Hello, hello, hello.”

  There was a lot more halfheartedness about this particular exercise.

  At least he could rely on people like Tinatin, who sang with gusto.

  Ean stopped singing. “Line one is replying now,” he said. “Some of you may hear it,” and line one replied.

  Tinatin’s eyes widened, then rolled to show the whites. Kari Wang and Fergus both hurried forward, but Fergus was there first, putting a hand on her shoulder to support her. He must have been watching her.

  Tinatin blinked at him.

  Fergus smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, then rounded his thumb and forefinger in the universal “spot-on” sign.

  He left her then, to move through the crowd and give the thumbs-up to other white-eyed individuals.

  Tinatin didn’t sing again.

  * * *

  AFTER line training Ean sought Tinatin out.

  “What did you hear?” Tinatin was asking Mael.

  “Me. I heard lots of people singing.”

  “When it talked back, I mean.”

  “It didn’t talk to me,” Mael said.

  Ean joined them. “What did you hear?” he asked Tinatin.

  She looked at her feet and shrugged.

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “What did you hear?” He wanted it in her own words.

  She shook her head.

  That was a pity, but the more he pushed, the less likely she was to answer. Ean considered what he should do next. “I heard it,” he said. “It said hello back.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Come for a walk with me,” Ean said.

  She looked doubtfully at Mael.

  “Team leaders won’t be happy with us if we wander,” Mael said.

  “This is line work,” Ean said. “This is important.”

  “Important for you, maybe, but you haven’t got bosses like ours.”

  That was easily fixed. Ean called Kari Wang, who was at the shuttle. “Captain,” he said, “I want to talk to two of your crew.” He would have preferred Tinatin on her own, but Mael was obviously going to come along. “They may be delayed.”

  “Let me guess.” She sounded resigned. “Tinatin and Mael.”

  “Yes.” Why did it have to be them?

  “Her crew?” Tinatin said to Mael behind him.

  “I’ll get Grieve to square it. If they miss the transport, you’ll take responsibility for getting them back to barracks.”

  Radko moved up closer to the comms. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” Kari Wang clicked off.

  “How did she know it was Tinatin and Mael?” Ean asked Radko.

  “I don’t know, Ean. Maybe it has something to do with the way Tinatin heard the lines.”

  “Could even be because we’re not on the shuttle,” Mael said.

  “Could be that, too,” Radko agreed.

  Fergus joined him and Radko as they started down the corridor. For a moment, Ean didn’t think the spacers were going to follow.

  “We got permission from the captain,” Mael said to Tinatin. Ean heard it through the lines. Mael’s voice didn’t carry. “Don’t you want to know more?”

  Tinatin hurried after them, Mael more leisurely, but he had longer legs. “If she’s our captain, does that mean we’re crewing the alien ship?” she asked Mael.

  “Probably.”

  “If it’s not general knowledge, maybe you should keep it to yourself,” Radko said.

  “Captain Legless has been around enough that some of us were wondering already,” Mael said.

  Mael seemed the type who would pick up information like that. Michelle had told Ean the Aratogans had a lot of faith in Mael. They’d brought him back from the rim especially for this job even though they had a dozen failed linesmen to choose from, and other worlds didn’t agree with their choice.

  Mael’s psychiatric assessments had pointed out some real problems. There had been one made by the Aratogan medic, the other made by the psychiatrist who’d arrived with Kari Wang.

  The Aratogan report had been brief. After so much time out on the rim may find it difficult to adjust to a more controlled environment.

  The Nova Tahitian psychiatrist had been blunt. Sanity questionable. Has been demoted once. Does not follow orders well. Recommend he not continue with the program.

  If Mael worked out, Ean wanted whoever had chosen him to be on the team that chose future linesmen. Still, today, Ean wasn’t here to talk to Mael although he would like to know what line he was. He was here to talk to Tinatin, who’d heard line one.

  “What do you think lines are?” Ean asked Tinatin.

  “Lines of energy. Havortian fields.”

  “Not what they tell you in the cartels. What do you really think lines are?”

  She looked at him as if doubting his sanity.

  “What does line one do then?”

  “Nothing.” Her reply held the bitterness of personal experience. “Nothing useful, anyway.”

  “It’s the crew line,” Ean said. “It tells you how the crew and the other lines on the ship are.”

  “You realize that’s not how they put it in line training,” Fergus said.

  “It’s not?” Ean had always known what line one did. He’d never considered he had it wrong. “What is it, then?”

  “Let me remember. It was a long time ago.”

  Mael looked at him sharply.

  “Something about the strength of the other lines.”

  It was that, sort of, but it was much more.

  Fergus took out his comms and called up Rossi, who they’d left talking to Hernandez. “Jordan, what’s the official definition of what line one does?”

  “The bastard version or the cartel version?”

  Behind him, Tinatin sucked in an awed breath. “That’s Jordan Rossi,” she whispered to Mael. “He’s a level-ten linesman.”

  “So’s that guy,” Mael said quietly back, nodding at Ean.

  “But Rossi’s famous.”

  “Cartel version,” Fergus said.

  “It shows the strength of the other lines,” Rossi said. “The health, if you want to put it in Lambert terms.”

  “Thanks.” Fergus clicked off.

  “You have Jordan Rossi on one-click on your comms.” Tinatin was almost too awed for words. “And you don’t even have to say who you are when you call him.”

  She obviously hadn’t seen Rossi back in the training room. “He does have some friends,” Ean said, then added hurriedly, in case Fergus thought Ean was talking about him. “Rossi, I mean.” Fergus had hundreds of friends.

  Fergus laughed. “Foot in mouth, Ean.” He sobered. “They don’t talk much about line one in training. Not from what I remember. I think it’s mostly used by lower linesmen as a gauge to tell when they need a higher-level linesman for repairs.”

  “That’s pretty much what they taught me, too,” Mael said. He looked at Fergus. “You did line training?”

  “Failed certification,” Fergus said.

  “Me, too.”

  Fergus nodded. “This is the best place to be right now for people like you and me.”

  “You are amazing,” Tinatin told Fergus. “You get things. You know important people.”

  “Thank you.” Fergus smiled at her. “Right now, one of those important people wants to talk to you about line one.”

  He didn’t have to put it quite that way. Mael gave Ean a sharp look. Ean hoped he wasn’t as pink as he felt.

  “Line one. As Rossi said, the people and line health.”

  “I was that far away from someone talking to Jordan Rossi.”

  Ean wasn’t sure to whom she was confiding. Maybe she wasn’t sure herself.

  Mael pushed her gently toward Ean.

  Ean knew how to get a linesman’s attention. He sang to the lines, especially to line one, and explained to it how the other line one wasn’t listening at all.

  “I am listening,” Tinatin said.

  He had to stop his triumphant “hah,” for he hadn’t actually spoken the words. “Why don’t you sing with me then?”

  She went shy on that.

  Ean didn’t push her. He could see she was the sort who might practice on her own, given enough encouragement. “I think we should go to another ship,” he told Radko. “One that’s not so sad.”

  “Confluence Station,” Radko said.

  He would have liked the Lancastrian Princess—Ean was as proud of her lines as Helmo was—but Radko wouldn’t have agreed.

  “Confluence Station,” he agreed, and they made their way down to the shuttle, where Bhaksir and the rest of the team joined them.

  They left the Gruen contented for the moment. After all, it had just been boosted by linesmen, but Ean knew he’d have to do something about the ship eventually. He also knew what Abram, Katida, and Orsaya would say. “Not important enough to worry about right now.” He’d have to come up with a reason to make it important.

  Tinatin spent half the journey to Confluence Station being awed by the fact that she was sharing a shuttle with Jordan Rossi, then regained some of her natural effervescence. “Did you know Confluence Station used to be at the confluence?”

  “It was all over the vids,” Fergus said, straight-faced.

  She gave him a look that said her opinion of him was slipping. “I went there once. While it was the confluence. I didn’t get any of the awe and wonder. Everyone else went ‘ooh, aah, isn’t it magnificent,’ but it wasn’t. It was ordinary.” She cupped her chin in her hands. “Line ones don’t even get that.”

  If they trusted her, now was the time to tell her the reason she hadn’t gotten any of the awe was because she was a single level, not because she was a line one. Even Ean was smart enough to keep his mouth closed. He didn’t need Radko’s warning pressure on his arm to keep quiet.