Rossi looked at Ean. “Someone’s depressed.”

  It was Ean’s mood the ship was reflecting.

  “So this is the famous Eleven,” Hernandez said, saving Ean from having to reply to Rossi. “It looks like . . . a ship.”

  “Mine?” the Eleven asked, a line chorus of hope, all the way up to eleven. It sent Rossi and Hernandez to the floor and Ean to his knees.

  It took Ean a moment to understand what it was asking. “Not this one. You know who yours are.” The crew might not have come on ship yet, but they sang to the Eleven every day.

  Instead of becoming disappointed, the ship brightened. It took Ean another moment to realize that the shuttle bearing Kari Wang had arrived. “This one’s mine.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  “Yes. This one’s yours.”

  They waited to greet the captain. It was only polite on her ship.

  Kari Wang was accompanied by her usual retinue. Doctors Fitch and Ofir and Spacer Grieve. Did she ever get time alone?

  She greeted them with frosty civility. “As you were,” she said.

  That felt strange, too, someone’s telling Ean to relax on a ship that hitherto he’d had free rein on. Worse, the other linesmen felt his discomfort, for they all looked at him strangely.

  He concentrated on what they were there for. “Let’s sing to the ship, ask line seven what it does.”

  He tried to relax as the song soared in the large space. The Eleven had superb acoustics, no matter where you were on ship.

  Rossi and Hernandez sang directly to the seven on the Eleven. Fergus, as usual, sang to all the sevens. He really couldn’t sing to just a single line. He was aware of the ship seven, and singing directly to it, but he was singing to the other sevens at the same time.

  All the sevens answered him back, too.

  As Ean listened, he thought about Abram’s visit of the previous day and the discovery that Redmond had access to an alien ship.

  The Alliance had only discovered the Eleven after Redmond had tried to annex the Haladean cluster. Maybe Redmond’s reason for attempting to take over Haladea in the first place was because there were alien spaceships nearby. In which case, the ships would be in this sector.

  The linesmen finished their session with no more idea on what line seven did than they had before they started.

  “Any other bright ideas?” Rossi asked.

  Not about line seven, no, but, “I want to contact other ships,” Ean said. “You can tell the difference between human and alien ships, can’t you?”

  “Of course.” Each alien ship was unique, but the human-built line ships all had undertones of the Havortian.

  “So you’ll recognize another alien ship if you hear it.” If this worked, it would be so simple. “I want us to sing to every line five we can hear. There’s another alien ship out there. I want to find it.”

  “Another one?” Fergus said.

  Rossi didn’t look surprised. Orsaya must have already mentioned it to him.

  “Some real work at last,” Hernandez said.

  “If you think I’m singing to every ship and shuttle in the Haladean sector, you can think again,” Rossi said. “You’re talking thousands of lines.”

  He had a point.

  “Why don’t you ask your precious lines to find it for you? They’d do it faster.”

  “If there is another ship, I’d like to find it,” Hernandez said.

  “Sweetheart, there are a thousand ships around Haladea III right now, and the lines know how many shuttles as well. We’re not all like the one-man choir here. We have to contact them one at a time. We’d be at it the rest of our lives.”

  Ean was glad Fergus asked, “Can you only talk to one line at a time?” because otherwise he would have. “I thought you could hear them all.”

  “Hear, yes. Talk to and get an answer. That’s one-on-one.”

  “So the lines and I talk, and you listen.” Ean tried not to be daunted by the numbers Rossi had given. He could use line one and line five, so he was just talking to ships, not to ships and shuttles. It was still a lot of ships. At least Haladea wasn’t one of the busy commercial hubs—or not yet, anyway.

  “We’re talking to all the ships we can contact,” he told line five. “I want you to contact the ones on each ship. Say hello, and how is your ship.”

  He sang with line five.

  The noise of the replies drowned him. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t block it. The sound crashed down on him.

  He came around to an oxygen mask over his face, and Radko wadding her jacket under his head. “Let’s not try that again,” she said.

  “Lines a little strong for you, Linesman?” Rossi asked.

  Rossi and Hernandez were both fine.

  * * *

  EAN couldn’t tell if any of the ships that had replied were of alien origin. There had been too much noise. And Rossi was right, it would take a long time to talk to each ship individually. Not only that, ships jumped in and out of the sector all the time.

  There had to be a better way to discover alien ships. But how?

  The first thing Radko did when they got back on the Lancastrian Princess was take him down to see the medic.

  “I’m fine,” Ean said. He avoided the medic when he could.

  “Whether you are or not,” Radko said, “you’re going to see him.”

  One didn’t argue with Radko when she’d made up her mind.

  “What’s he done now?” the medic asked.

  “He was singing to the lines,” Radko said. “He collapsed.”

  Which was really going to endear him to the medic, who was convinced Ean would someday turn them into a crazy ship, like the Balao.

  “Let me look at him.” The medic prepared him for the first test. This involved putting a sensor net over Ean’s head and taking readings. He had twenty such tests, none of which had existed before Ean had come on board. They were the medic’s own invention. Ean wasn’t sure if they worked or not, but he was sure of one thing. The medic liked building gadgets. “What exactly did you do?”

  “I was singing to ships. Other ships. Lines one and five.”

  “They’ve never knocked you out before.” The medic compared the readings against a chart of old readings.

  “The first time he was on the Eleven, he collapsed,” Radko said.

  “He said he was over the alien ships’ knocking him out.”

  Sensory overload, and Radko was right, as usual. “These weren’t alien ships,” Ean said. “These were human ships. I just contacted a lot of them at once.”

  “Strikes me you shouldn’t have been contacting a lot of other ships anyway,” the medic said. “Outside of the alien fleet, I mean. Sing to line one.”

  Everyone had ideas on what Ean should and shouldn’t be doing. He obediently sang to line one. “Testing my line. How is the ship?”

  The line answer was a mix of sound—“Lines are good. Ship is good”—colors, scents, and images. Ean saw a quick succession of Captain Helmo talking with his second-in-command, soldiers going about their business, other soldiers climbing on the big nets in the cargo space Helmo had emptied for them, and, lastly, a berry-scented image of one of the engineers asleep in a bed in the medicenter.

  “What’s wrong with Jaffir?”

  “Fell down the stairs coming back from the Night Owl,” Radko said, when the medic just grunted. “Lucky he only fell one flight.”

  If they were the stairs Ean had run down after his own visit to the Night Owl, Jaffir was lucky indeed. “Is he hurt?” He was careful to say “hurt” and not “damaged.” Sometimes he forgot and used line terminology for everything. Radko understood, but the medic took it as a sign of a crazy line.

  “Watching for concussion,” the medic said. “He hit his head. Now, I need some blood.”

  Not that Ean knew what blood had to do with line ability, but this was part of the ritual.

  He followed the medic’s instructions automatically and thought about what to do next. Redmond had a line ship, according to Abram, but if he couldn’t start from that ship, where else could he start?

  Through the lines, Vega’s voice rose in exasperation. “Luckily—or maybe unluckily for you—” Someone else was getting a tongue-lashing from her.

  It seemed to be a favorite phrase of hers. She’d said the same thing to him the other day. “Luckily—or maybe unluckily for you, you aren’t the only person people are trying to kill,” she’d told him. She’d been talking about Captain Kari Wang.

  After which they’d gotten on to Redmond, then Professor Gerrard, who’d presumably sold a secret about the Havortian to Redmond in exchange for funding for Gerrard’s project.

  Maybe whatever Gerrard had told them had allowed them to find this other alien ship.

  If he couldn’t find the ship itself, maybe he could start by finding out what Gerrard had discovered.

  * * *

  HE called Orsaya once the medic had finished with him.

  “Admiral Orsaya. You must have checked Professor Gerrard’s work on the Havortian. Before he stopped it, I mean.” How did you ask in a nice way if she’d stolen his research?

  She looked as if she could see right through him. She probably could.

  “You think you can get something when I’ve had a team working on this for five years. Longer.”

  When she put it that way, it was unlikely. “I’ve had more experience with alien ships,” Ean said. “Maybe I’ll find something you missed.”

  “Maybe I should have put Linesman Rossi onto it,” but seconds later the information started scrolling through to Ean’s comms. Exabytes and exabytes of it.

  “Thank you,” Ean said. All that data. It was almost as bad as talking to all the ships in the sector at once.

  There had to be a better way.

  He clicked off and scrolled through the data. Orsaya was right. She’d already been through this. There’d be nothing here to find.

  If he’d been Professor Gerrard, he wouldn’t have given Redmond the only copy of his work. He’d have a backup somewhere. Orsaya should have found it already.

  Unless Gerrard carried it with him. It would be too precious to leave behind. He’d have taken it with him to the edge of the galaxy. Orsaya would have been too busy with New Alliance politics to follow up on Gerrard.

  This time Ean called Abram. “Gerrard’s ship,” he said, without even waiting to say hello. “Did they collect the bodies?”

  “Every single piece they could,” Abram confirmed, and Ean remembered that some of the bodies would have been in pieces. How big a job had it been, collecting them all?

  He grimaced. “I need to see everything Gerrard had on him.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  STELLAN VILHJALMSSON

  STELLAN HEARD ABOUT Lambert’s visit to Song but hadn’t been able to get anywhere close. He knew the linesman’s movements well by now. The mornings were spent training other linesmen. They did that on New Alliance warships—if there were any booked up for repair—or on the Gruen.

  Of all the things the New Alliance had done in this war, keeping the Gruen irked Stellan the most. There were two possible outcomes for a ship captured in battle. You took it to the scrap heap and turned it into parts, or you stripped it of anything remotely belonging to the defeated party, renamed it, and brought it back into service as a new ship.

  Instead, the Gruen sat there—untouched, unmanned—like a trophy they flaunted in the face of those who had lost the battle.

  In the afternoon, Lambert usually went out to the alien ships. Getting to them was about as likely as flying to the largest moon of Haladea III without a suit. There was a four-thousand-kilometer exclusion zone. Get any closer without permission, and you got fried.

  Stellan didn’t plan to go near the alien ships. Nor anywhere near the warships. They were too well guarded. The Gruen, now. Captain Edie Song spent a lot of time on planet. But she did, on occasion, go out to her ship.

  Stellan already knew Captain Edie Song better than her crew did.

  Not that she had much of a crew. Song must have pissed someone off badly to end up with a barely manned ship. Two teams of soldiers—eighteen people—who shared time on the Gruen between them. Three days on, three days off.

  Song and her crew were Aratogan.

  With Markan’s help, he acquired Aratogan uniforms and had a team ready for when he called.

  “I hope you’re not planning on walking around as Aratogan,” Markan had said, when he’d called Stellan up to say they’d been dispatched. “You’re no actor. You can’t carry it for long.”

  “I’m a quick in and out, Markan. I know my limitations. But I need a team ready on demand.”

  Markan grunted.

  Stellan’s plan was simple. Find out which days Lambert would be on the Gruen. Formulate an incident that would require Song to be on ship. Accompany her out to the Gruen. Markan had organized clearances for him and his “team.” Thus getting out to the Gruen would be easy. Getting onto the ship once they were there was the hard part. They needed clearances for that, and Stellan didn’t have them. Markan couldn’t get them for him, either.

  “I think our original plan was better,” Markan said. “Rigel looks ready to make a deal with Lady Lyan. Lambert will come down for that.”

  “Markan, Lambert is as well protected as Lady Lyan herself. And they’re using Lyan’s bodyguards to do it. I could assassinate him for you.” From a distance, and he’d want a quick escape route.

  “I need you to question him, not kill him. At least not until we have answers. Do you still have the dromalan truth serum?

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  THEY had a name for the blue-haired woman—Neela Cotterill—but nothing else. Randella Abbey denied ever having said the woman was ex-military. She was lying, but Markan refused to pull her in for it.

  “It’s not important,” he said. “She’s useful to us in other ways.”

  Despite Markan’s misgivings, Stellan wore the Aratogan uniform. It allowed him to blend in and get close to people he wanted to.

  He didn’t use bugs anymore. Whoever had bugged Rigel would be listening for that. Instead, he made himself known to the soldiers from the Gruen when they were on leave.

  Luckily for him, this crew frequented a different bar, for he didn’t know what he’d have done if they’d gone to the Night Owl, where Rigel still spent time.

  The Aratogans weren’t as close-mouthed as the linesmen doing training. From them, Stellan learned that the linesmen had, indeed, been stationed on the Gruen.

  “They go around singing all the time,” one of the soldiers complained. “It drives you crazy.”

  Lambert was known as a linesman who sang. Known to be crazy for doing it, too.

  “I don’t mind them,” another soldier said. “They help with the small line repairs. And you have to admit, the ship does run smoother after they’ve done their training.”

  “So what sort of training is it?” Stellan asked.

  “Not in our need to know,” the crew member said. “They go into the cargo bay, and that’s it. That Sale—or even Bhaksir—she’d shoot us if we tried to go in.”

  If Lambert was on the Gruen, one or both of Bhaksir and Sale’s teams would be, too. If Stellan turned up unannounced, they’d shoot him.

  He had to find a way to get onto the ship, and he had to find it soon. Moreover, once he got his information from Lambert, he had to get off the ship without anyone killing him.

  * * *

  THE drinks were more expensive at the Bar on East, where the crew of the Gruen used to drink. Stellan was the first there—as he’d planned.

  What he hadn’t planned was for Rigel and Rickenback to walk in five minutes after him. Or sit at the bench behind him.

  Stellan sank low and hunched in on himself. He’d changed his hair, and had new contacts coloring his eyes, but he hadn’t made much other effort to disguise himself. He hoped it was enough.

  A woman with dark hair—getting on to a blue-black—but with the same white tips as Rigel’s, stopped by Rigel’s table and looked them over. Down one side of her face she had a striking tattoo—blue-black like her hair, fading into lighter blues and whites. The tattoo extended down her shoulder, onto her arm. She was dressed in a wired corset and short shorts, both of which showed she was too old to be flaunting her body.

  “Lady Lyan made an offer,” Rickenback said to Rigel.

  “You know Lancia,” Rigel said. “I bet it’s as paltry as her first one.”

  “Gentlemen.” The woman’s voice was low and throaty. “Are you after a good time?”

  “We’re not interested,” Rickenback said. “Find someone else.”

  They waited until she moved on. She stopped at Stellan’s table.

  “Go away,” Stellan said.

  There was something familiar about her. He looked more closely. “Have we met?”

  She gave a rasping laugh. “If I had a credit for everyone who’s asked me that while I’ve been on this forsaken place, I’d be a rich woman.” She slid into the seat beside him. “I’m Neela.”

  “Not interested.” Stellan said it automatically, but he eased his comms out of his pocket. Neela was an unusual name.

  “It’s a generous offer,” Rickenback told Rigel.

  “It is generous actually,” Neela said, softly into Stellan’s ear.

  “I said I wasn’t interested.” He kept his comms in the hand that was away from her, ready to thumb in the overriding access code.

  “Twenty million credits,” she breathed, just before Rickenback, behind them, said, “Twenty million credits.”

  Rigel choked on his drink.