In a war like this, where Gate Union was doing everything it could to restrict New Alliance access to lines, the New Alliance would do everything it could to ensure the safety of the only two high-level linesmen they had access to.

  “How do I get to Lambert?”

  Markan got them both tea. Stellan hoped it was coincidence that he’d waited until Stellan’s stomach had settled before he served it.

  “Line politics. Delivered to us courtesy of Jita Orsaya,” followed by the obligatory teeth grind and twitch. “How much do you know about the Grand Master of the line cartels?”

  His—or her—job was to look after the welfare of the linesmen. If a linesman had problems with his cartel house, for example, he’d ask the Grand Master to sort it out. That was the theory. In practice, it depended how powerful the house and what level the linesman was. It was a prestigious job, equivalent to a head of state. “Let me see,” Stellan said. “Leo Rickenback is currently Grand Master.” He hadn’t met Rickenback himself, but in the months Rickenback had been in the position, Stellan had spoken to two cartel masters, both of whom had been positive about the appointment. “The cartels seem happy with him.” Not Markan, of course, because he openly supported Iwo Hurst, of House of Sandhurst, for the role.

  “They chose Rickenback because Orsaya pushed them into it.”

  “Because she wanted Rossi?”

  “Because we were allying with Hurst. That woman.” Markan finished his tea in a long gulp and poured more. “She chose the only person the other houses would have been happy with. Sometimes, I think obtaining Rossi was pure luck on her behalf.”

  Jita Orsaya made her own luck.

  “Enough about her,” Markan said. “We’ve been slowly undermining Rickenback’s position.” Stellan wasn’t sure if the “we” was Gate Union—for why would they bother—or simply Iwo Hurst and his cartel house.

  “So how does this get me access to Lambert?”

  “Morton Paretsky wants his old job back. He wants to force a revote. It will be a three-way vote, but Paretsky has been out of it for six months. He doesn’t realize how close Hurst is to the numbers.”

  Stellan nodded.

  “Paretsky’s looking for a cause, and he thinks he’s found it. Apparently, there was some irregularity with the way Cartel Master Rigel signed Lambert over to Lancia.”

  With Lancia involved, Stellan wasn’t surprised.

  “Lady Lyan threatened Rigel,” Markan said.

  “That’s really going to stick.”

  “We’ve convinced Paretsky it will. Rigel will play along. He’ll do anything if the price is right, and we’ve paid him enough.”

  “How will open warfare between the cartels help me get close to Lambert?” They were at war and everyone knew the cartels were biased toward Gate Union. Lancia could tell the cartel masters to go away, and no one could do anything about it.

  “It won’t, but we paid Rigel to ensure Lambert meets with him. Rigel thinks Lambert’s misplaced sense of loyalty will do that much. The cartel business is an excuse to get Rigel onto Haladea III.”

  Misplaced sense of loyalty was an odd phrase to use in relation to level-ten linesmen, who had no loyalty to anyone except themselves.

  “Does Rigel know what you plan?”

  “He thinks we’re going to offer Lambert a job.”

  With Lady Lyan owning the contract. Rigel couldn’t be that naïve.

  “So Rigel gets me access to Lambert. What then?”

  Markan took out a phial. “Dromalan truth serum.”

  Stellan pulled the sleeve of his uniform down over his fingers before he picked up the little bottle. Markan may be blasé about handling it, but once it got into your bloodstream you couldn’t stop it working. He didn’t want to start blabbing his personal secrets out to anyone who was around to listen.

  He realized he was rubbing his killing hand down the side of his leg. He forced himself to stop.

  If Markan noticed, he ignored it. “I’ve sent you through a list of questions. Record everything.”

  “And afterward?”

  “Let him go.”

  “The logical thing would be to kill him.”

  “You haven’t the stomach for it anymore, Stellan. We’re not using you here because you were once a good assassin. We’re using you because of your ability to get into an enemy territory and get close to a subject.”

  “What’s my code?” Stellan was looking forward to the assignment in a way he hadn’t looked forward to one in years.

  Markan held out his hand for Stellan’s comms. He tapped in a code. Stellan checked it. He’d been caught once with an invalid code. He wasn’t going to be caught again. He managed—just—not to raise his eyebrows at the permissions on the screen. Markan really wanted information from this linesman.

  EIGHT

  SELMA KARI WANG

  THEY DIDN’T LET Kari Wang rest with her brand-new pair of legs. They made her learn to walk again.

  Kari Wang didn’t see the point of it. She missed her ship. She’d betrayed her crew by staying alive when they hadn’t. They should have let her die. Instead, she had to do endless exercise, all of it in a long, narrow room while medical staff watched her.

  She felt like a Twicket lizard, a pet that had been all the rage when she’d been a girl. Her best friend had one. Mottled pink-and-gray creatures. And she was mottled, all right, the scarring was intense—and that was from the operations she’d had—not the catastrophe. You kept the lizards in a glass cage with a treadmill and gave them nothing else to do. The lizard would run on the treadmill. Probably out of boredom, Kari Wang decided. As it ran, it converted energy from its body fat, and the reaction made it change color, the pink deepening to a rich mahogany-violet eventually.

  Her friend’s lizard had run itself to death.

  Maybe she could run herself to death.

  She couldn’t even walk a straight line.

  “You’re doing well today, Selma,” Fitch said. “Your balance is much better.”

  He called this balance. Once she’d been able to hold her balance during a gravity change on her ship and maintain the same position from null gee to two gee.

  Fitch showed her the balance chart. “Five days ago, you listed off after the third step. Now it’s only after the sixth or seventh. That’s quite an improvement.”

  Three steps in five days. “Quite.”

  “It is,” Fitch agreed, his earnest expression so like Will’s, Kari Wang had to look away. So many things reminded her of what she had lost. It was best if she didn’t think at all.

  Today’s audience was larger than usual. Sometimes that happened. Jurgen Arnoud, the bearded doctor, loved explaining the groundbreaking medical advancements that had gone into rebuilding her legs. How important it was, how valuable it was.

  They should have tried it on someone else. A captain always went down with her ship.

  The visitors watched her unsteady progress. She ignored them.

  One of them wore an admiral’s uniform. Admiral Marsh MacClennan.

  MacClennan was frowning although not at her.

  Military psychiatrist Jon Ofir was there as well. He dropped by every day even though she’d made it plain she didn’t want to talk to him. Jon was frowning, too, but he was looking at her.

  As for the two people with them, Kari Wang wondered if she had died after all, and this was some cruel afterlife. Ahmed Gann, who, until their sudden, unexpected secession from Gate Union, had been the Nova Tahitian representative on the Gate Union Council. He was now the equivalent for the New Alliance.

  Beside him stood the First Councilor.

  Maybe the whole thing was a horrible dream she couldn’t escape from, and when she woke up, she’d find Nova Tahiti was still part of Gate Union, her ship was whole, and there was no such political entity as the New Alliance. Lines, she hoped so.

  Gann was talking rapidly to the others.

  She had no balance, nearly fell. First Councilor stepped forward to help her, then stepped back as Jon Ofir shook his head slightly.

  “She’s lost her ship,” Admiral MacClennan said. The words were flat. “Have you read any of the studies on the relationship between captains and their ships?”

  Maybe he’d read the same paper Medic Halliday had.

  Jon said cautiously into the silence that followed MacClennan’s words, “One does have to question her mental fitness at this moment. She has just lost her ship.”

  “And her crew,” MacClennan added.

  “Not to mention her physical fitness,” Dr. Arnoud added. “She can’t even walk a straight line.”

  They must have known she was listening though none of them showed it.

  “Put her in another ship, and who knows what she’ll do,” MacClennan said.

  She was never going into another ship.

  Ahmed Gann put his palms together. It looked like praying although Kari Wang was sure he wasn’t. “We will never get another opportunity like this. If you want Nova Tahiti to have any power in the New Alliance, this is the surest way to get it.”

  “Provided she’s mentally up to it,” MacClennan said. He looked at Jon. “Will she recover?”

  “Maybe. Her psych profile is good. We won’t know for months, maybe years, whether she’ll ever get over the loss of her ship. I’ve never heard of a captain’s going on to a new ship.

  Neither had Kari Wang, and she didn’t plan on being the first.

  “Do we have any choice?” First Councilor asked. “As Ahmed says, we’ll never get this opportunity again.”

  “One crazy ship in the making,” MacClennan muttered.

  “Look at it this way,” Gann said. “Everyone will be watching her. We’ll have plenty of warning.”

  “And if she fails?”

  “Are we any worse off than we are now? Lancia and those close to her will control the council while the rest of us scrabble for what power we can. If we succeed,” and Gann paused for a moment. “If we succeed,” he said again, softly.

  Kari Wang’s legs were starting to shake. She kept walking.

  MacClennan finally turned away. “She’ll need medical staff to accompany her.”

  “I am her senior specialist,” Dr. Arnoud said.

  “Fine. And a psychiatrist.” He looked at Jon, who nodded.

  “We’ll need to get you special clearance. This is highly classified.” Everyone with him nodded this time. “And you’ll all be taking thorough Havortian tests. If I see even a hint of line capability in those tests, you’re out of the program.” He paused. “In fact, all of you take the tests. I’d hate to see something go wrong because we missed a linesman.”

  Then he glanced back at Kari Wang. “Good night, Captain,” and marched out of the room ahead of the others.

  Kari Wang kept walking. They could plan all they liked. She was not going to captain another ship. Ever.

  * * *

  THE following week was filled with two hours of walking in the morning and evening, and in between Kari Wang sat the most rigid Havortian tests she’d ever undergone. They were a waste. She’d been tested before she took her ship because the one, unalterable condition in most fleets was that a linesman couldn’t become captain of a ship. The reasons behind that were lost in antiquity. Or behind a veil of secrecy so deep, the people who were guarding the secret probably didn’t even know why.

  Admiral MacClennan came back every day for the next week and watched Kari Wang’s exercises with a brooding intensity that bordered on stalking. On day seven, Kari Wang stopped in front of him, close enough to be rude. “Surely you have better things to do with your time than sit around watching patients in a military hospital.” She’d never seen an admiral who wasn’t busy. She’d never talked to an admiral that way before either, but what did that matter now.

  “I do,” he admitted, but he nodded to himself as if he was pleased she had finally called him out on it. Maybe she imagined that, for no superior officer liked being told off by his or her juniors.

  “Why don’t you go and do it then?”

  Dr. Arnoud put up a hand as if he wanted to shut her up. “She’s on a lot of medication, sir,” he said apologetically to the admiral.

  Sometimes, Kari Wang forgot the doctors were fleet personnel. This was a military hospital, and given the size and the equipment, it was probably the base hospital at Goed Lutchen, fleet headquarters on Nova Tahiti.

  She’d never thought to ask. In fact, she’d asked nothing so far. Any of her own crew would have tried to find out as much as they could. If she ever woke from this nightmare, she was going to be very disappointed in herself.

  MacClennan grunted. He looked at Arnoud, and at Jon, who had just arrived. “Has she done the Havortian tests yet?”

  Kari Wang thought the doctor might have been glad for Jon’s timely arrival. It gave MacClennan someone else to glare at and someone to answer his questions.

  “She has,” Jon said. “Results are mostly negative.” He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to say it, then looked apologetically at Kari Wang. “Her responses on the right auditory cortex showed no line ability, but they have changed since the tests from before she became captain.”

  “Of course they have,” MacClennan said. “She’s had her own ship.” He looked her over. “It will be interesting to see how it changes after this. I want you to run tests every week from now on.”

  Nothing was going to change.

  “Everything we could test, we did,” Jon said.

  “Perfect pitch?”

  In fact, Kari Wang couldn’t hold a tune. This nosy admiral didn’t need to know that.

  “Nothing else tested positive on the Havortian scale, sir.”

  Kari Wang turned away to resume her unsteady progress up and down the room. They could talk about line tests as much as they wanted. She wasn’t interested, and she had no plans to take on a new ship. She’d told both doctors that, and the psychiatrist. No one listened.

  She concentrated on the line on the floor. She was getting used to her new legs. They said they’d made them exactly the same length as the old ones, but for some insane reason her feet kept hitting the floor before she expected them to. She thought they might have miscalculated on the height.

  When she couldn’t take that anymore, she went onto the bars. It felt good to be on something she could control. Initially, her arms had been almost as weak as her legs due to lost muscle tone. That hadn’t taken long to fix. Off the ground, she was now as agile as she had been on ship.

  That was the thing, wasn’t it? In space, one didn’t need legs.

  NINE

  EAN LAMBERT

  THE MESSAGE WAITING on Ean’s comms after line training was a reminder of a life so long ago it felt like a dream. How long had it been? Nearly six months.

  Cartel Master Rigel. Ean’s former boss.

  Returning on the shuttle with Fergus and Rossi, fresh from a session teaching other linesmen to open their lines, he knew that his own were wide open. Anything he said or did would go out to receptive lines nearby, including human lines like Fergus and Rossi.

  “I thought training went well today,” Fergus said.

  Their twenty linesmen were coming along. The training was counterintuitive to how the linesmen had been taught to communicate with the lines all their life. Today there hadn’t been as much resistance as there had been in earlier sessions.

  Jordan Rossi snickered. “He’s corrupting their lines. Naturally, they will resist it.”

  “You have to unlearn bad habits,” Fergus said.

  “That’s fine for you to say. You don’t have any habits to unlearn. And I was doing quite well in my ‘bad’ habits, thank you.”

  Despite what Rossi said, Ean could feel through the lines that Rossi had been happy with training today. Or his component of it. Rossi leaked lines like a breached ship leaked air.

  A bad analogy, he decided, thinking on Radko’s space-survival lessons. Air didn’t leak from a breached ship, it exited fast, freezing into a cloud of vapor as it went. He needed a better analogy. Like a sun leaking radiation? He glanced at Radko, who was sitting back in her shuttle seat, her eyes closed. She was particular about her lessons.

  Like a sun giving off radiation then.

  Jordan Rossi gave him a strange look.

  The problem was, Rossi might leak lines, but Ean was closer to the alien lines in that respect. They shared everything, and the better Rossi got at working the aliens’ way, the easier he’d be able to read Ean back.

  Ean decided to ignore the message from Rigel for the moment. He didn’t want to share it.

  Instead, he thought about the training and what they could do to bring the linesmen onside. It would help if Jordan Rossi, respected line ten that he was, endorsed the training. But Rossi was never going to destroy his own reputation by doing that. Not unless there was some advantage in it for Rossi.

  Yet Rossi was—happy wasn’t a word one ever ascribed to him—but his lines were singing with what other people might describe as contentment.

  He wasn’t aware he was snooping until the line sound changed, and Rossi said, “Get out of my lines, bastard.”

  “Sorry.”

  Radko opened her eyes.

  Rossi held up his hands in mock surrender.

  Radko closed her eyes again.

  Ean looked away guiltily. He had been snooping, even if he hadn’t realized it.

  He could have spoken to Fergus, yet around this time on every shuttle trip, Fergus started to grip the armrests. Ean hadn’t noticed it on the first trips he’d taken with Fergus—he’d had other things on his mind, hadn’t he—but it was always noticeable after line training.