Read Online Linesman by S. K. Dunstall - Free Book Online

again, but what little there was shook with disappointment. He should have gone there straight from the function, whether the invitation to sit had been an order or not. At least then they would have just had him for insubordination; now they simply thought him crazy.
    He couldn’t even walk straight; and he could feel them watching him. He heard, and almost saw through line one, Michelle half step toward him and Abram put out a hand to stop her.
    They waited until he was gone before they said anything, but his whole body was vibrating with the lines and he heard—clear as anything through line one—“Did you get the music?” before he deliberately blocked the lines out of his mind by repeating nonsense rhymes in his head.

THREE

    JORDAN ROSSI
    THE CONFLUENCE WAS a perfect sphere 4,172.36 meters in diameter. Infinitely small on a galactic scale, yet if you asked most linesmen how big it was, they would say, “Huge as space, as big as the galaxy,” and their voices would be full of the truth of just how enormous it was.
    To Jordan Rossi, the confluence made him feel important and insignificant at the same time. It made him realize how vast the universe was and how small a part of it he was. The confluence was huge and glorious. It made him want to sing. It made him want to fall to his knees and dedicate his life to it. Every time he was near it, he was filled with something akin to joy and felt his heart would burst just being near the greatness of it.
    Jordan Rossi hated it.
    He’d always been a man who controlled his own life. From the five-year-old boy who’d insisted on taking the line tests, to the seventeen-year-old who’d
known
he was ready to be certified, all the way up to the powerful, influential ten he’d become. He’d been in control all the way. The confluence took that control away from him. Worse, he couldn’t just walk away because the confluence wouldn’t let him.
    He stood at the viewing platform sipping a glass of wine—not generally allowed, but he was a ten, and who was going to stop him—and watched the nothingness that made it.
    â€œWhat do you think it really is?” he asked Fergus.
    Fergus had been his personal assistant for twenty years. They worked well enough together that when other linesmen came poaching, House of Rickenback always matched their offer and raised it, which made Fergus not only one of the longest-lasting assistants in any cartel but higher paid than many lower-level linesmen. He was worth every credit, if only for the way he could ferret out information from anyone. Not that Rossi ever intended telling him that.
    It was the same question Rossi had asked every day since he’d arrived. Fergus had two standard responses—no answer, or a diatribe about its being a line sink, which Rossi always ignored. Fergus hated the confluence, too, but that was because he couldn’t feel the lines and wanted to be back in the comfort of the cartel house rather than here on station.
    Today, Fergus just shrugged.
    A crowd of tourists flooded onto the viewing deck. A shuttle must have arrived. They recognized the uniform, saw the bars on Rossi’s pocket, and left him room. One or two nudged each other and pointed him out. Rossi ignored them.
    For most of them, this trip would be a waste of time. Even now he could see one disappointed tourist turning away with a disgusted, “That’s it.”
    Rossi didn’t care. If you couldn’t feel the lines, Confluence Station was nothing but a spartan space station out in the middle of nowhere. Sure there were a few restaurants, and a nightclub—there always was when there were tourists and linesmen—but there was nothing else, and in two days, when the shuttle was ready to depart, most of the tourists would be ready to leave with it. Good riddance to them, too.
    He was more interested in the linesmen who had arrived with them. This new batch was mixed. Two