The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song) (24 page)

36: The Cargo Bay

As he stumbled out of the train car behind Conroy, Onor gaped at the crowded transport station full of grays and, here and there, a red. One flash of blue twenty people away from him. There was no time to count or look for people he might recognize; his job was to follow Conroy and to keep Penny and another man, Hal, with him. It had been a hard ride, the train car swaying and smelling of scared and excited people, so crowded most people stood. Penny clung to him and Hal clung to Penny.

Now, across the floor, they threaded behind Conroy in the same way, a line of four clutching each other, Onor and Penny hand in hand and Hal behind her. Conroy led them to the desk where travelers checked in, handled this time by grays. A young woman recognized Conroy, nodded briefly at the other three, as if counting. She made a mark on a slate and stepped aside.

Another group approached from the other side of the bench. The Jackman, Marcelle, Jinn, and an older man Onor didn’t know. Marcelle. Marcelle appeared to be a small group leader just like Onor was.

The Jackman hadn’t emphasized the changes in her enough. She’d lost every bit of fat she’d ever had, replacing it with defined muscle. Her hair had been cut short, and her cheekbones and chin had grown prominent. She had a hard look about her until she saw him, and then her face collapsed into a broad smile and softened.

He was so happy to see her that he almost let go of Penny. Marcelle’s smile looked like he felt, warm and excited and nervous all at once, and seeing her made him a touch less alone in this crazy drill.

If it
was
a drill. He didn’t think so anymore.

The Jackman and Conroy moved warily, their eyes excited, edgy. They went together through a door. He and Marcelle joined up, and he dropped Penny’s hand for a moment, holding Marcelle tighter than he ever had.

They followed the leaders down a hall, branched to the left, then the right, and went through a door that looked like it should lead to an ordinary office. Instead, a sloping hall ramped up.

They took it at a run, Onor and Marcelle looking behind and then ahead like twins. Enough of a climb that Onor felt it in his chest, although running practice had given him enough breath to take it. By the time they got to the top, the footsteps of another set of people running behind them pushed them harder.

Maybe they were going up into the other levels. They ran through two close-spaced doorways with thick seals that were almost surely an emergency airlock.

He stopped short when he spotted another train, sleeker and blacker than the one he had just been on. It looked so . . . pretty . . . he wanted to gawk at it, but Conroy didn’t stop, and Penny bumped into him, pushing him with her hands, so he kept going. Inside the train car, Conroy went one way while The Jackman went another. Onor had no time to even say a word to Marcelle. He found himself in the very front row, facing a blank wall.

Other people poured in until every seat was taken, but no more, unlike the ride through gray. More disciplined, more exact. He didn’t doubt they were elsewhere now. The info feeds on the inside of the train along the ceiling described things and places he’d never heard of before. “Nav group meeting at 1600 hours in the diamond lounge,” and “storyteller session at the main mess at 0500 tomorrow.” His eye caught a third sign, with Ruby’s name in script across the top and a picture of her just more than half dressed, looking like she was dancing.

He stared at it for the rest of the time it took for the train to fill up.

They started moving. The windows were small, and all they revealed was a blur, mostly of tunnel and occasionally of lights or corridors.

Conroy stood up in his seat, hanging on to a lip in the roof. He had turned so he faced the entire car of people, maybe forty or so total. “Pay attention,” he bellowed.

The few whispered conversations that had been going on silenced.

“We’re going into a position as extras only. We’ll be watching doors and making sure no one comes out. We are not to hurt anyone, or to allow each other to be hurt.”

“Where are we going?” someone called out.

“I couldn’t explain if I tried.” He looked pleased, like they were going to a party. “What you need to know is to avoid force at all times unless we tell you otherwise.”

“So we don’t get locked up?” someone asked.

“Ix’ll know,” another voice spoke up.

“There’s too many of us to punish,” a woman said.

Conroy raised a hand for silence. “Our goal is to stand where we’re told and to block passage. Hurt no one. Be alert and follow orders. You know who your group leaders are, and they will direct you. Take direction only from them, or from me, or from the man in the back with a beard.”

The Jackman raised his hand.

Conroy sat back down, apparently having said all he was willing to. Onor’s heart pounded. This was real. He wanted to know more, but he was willing to trust Conroy, who must have reasons for what he chose. He wished he knew if this was a small fight or a big one, or if they were taking over the whole ship.

He would do a good job. That mattered. Doing a good job.

The train stopped and they disembarked. Conroy and The Jackman took up the last of the line. Marcelle was close again, but not close enough to talk to. Posters made of light splashed across high walls, bright and pulsing, screaming for his attention.

The hallways on the far side of the station appeared to be clogged. People jammed the room, milling, the foursomes hard to hold together. By the time the empty train pulled away, Onor was shirt to shirt with Conroy, Penny, and a stranger. Yellow light played across one shoulder and Conroy’s head, too distorted to read and so bright it forced Onor to squint.

The collective body odors of fear and adrenaline twisted his stomach. He swallowed and closed his eyes, wishing for clear air. He was thirsty. His small water flask was jammed between his hip and the wall, hard to reach. He stayed thirsty.

After way too long, the pressure in the room eased as people began to stream through the door. He had entirely lost sight of Marcelle, and he could barely follow Conroy and keep in step as they went through the door in their turn. They entered a long hallway, so high Marcelle could have stood on his shoulders without reaching the ceiling. It was just wide enough for four across. Every twenty feet or so, a door opened to the right. The left wall was metal, unadorned except for lights that looked hand strung, like an afterthought.

A cargo container. He recognized the look. They had gone outward instead of inward. He wanted to slow down to really see, but he was swept by the tide, pulled by Conroy and pushed by the people behind him, able only to move forward.

A knot of people on the floor outside of one door included three down on the ground, two in gray uniforms and one in blue.

Conroy cursed and bent down over the fallen blue, a young man with blood streaming from his scalp.

Forward progress stopped in front of the door long enough for Onor to look in. A big room, but dark. A white light played over the door, almost blinding him. Jeez, what dark love did these people have for flashing lights? It was worse than the vestibule outside the train had been. He tried to see through it anyway, shading his eyes. Dark silhouettes of people, men and women. Impossible to make out faces. Noise and shouts spilled over the people inside, the meaning drowned in the sheer number of voices.

Conroy stood up, muttering, and they went on.

A drill siren began to screech through the door they had just passed, confusing him for a moment until he remembered that the drills were for the real thing, and whatever this was it was real and the sirens were a real warning for someone.

They left the door and the single white light behind and went on, the press of people unrelenting for what seemed like a long time. Finally Conroy stopped, leaning against the wall. They were in front of a door, and people moved in the back of the room on the other side, too far away for Onor to see anyone clearly. Steady light revealed people in blue and red clothes—not really uniforms, but more casual clothes—gathered against one wall, with grays between them and the door.

“Stop here,” Conroy hissed in a loud whisper. “Stay together and stay here.”

They stood, all in a row, with their backs to the smooth wall. Conroy had managed to maneuver them so he stood in front of a door, Onor on his right. Then Penny and Hal. Then The Jackman, then Marcelle. Once more Marcelle was close enough he could see her but not talk to her.

All of the doors he could see now were closed. Now that he could stop and look, he was sure they were all cargo doors and that this was a single big cargo bay, converted to something else. He couldn’t say what.

He sidled over to Conroy. “What do we do next?”

Conroy’s posture suggested he wasn’t interested in questions. Onor stepped back to the precise center between Penny and Conroy. The light above his head pooled his shadow around his feet. With no one walking or talking, it had become uncannily still. Onor had never been in the cargo areas before, only really in the two gray pods. He felt like he was standing on a small crack in the world as he had known it.

He hoped he stood in his parents’ footsteps.

37: Secret Places

When Dayn mentioned the grays by the door, Ruby wanted to race toward them. The crowd pressed in on her, making the idea impossible. She managed to scream up at Dayn, “Boost me up!”

He laughed and obliged, bending down and putting one hand on either side of her waist, his thumbs riding beside her spine and his long fingers hooked around her sides. He heaved her up. The light shone full on the door, drawing her gaze right where she wanted to look. Gray uniforms clogged the door, and then there was a space with only a few people moving in it, also grays.

For a moment she saw someone that looked like Onor peering in the door, shading his eyes. The figure moved on before she could be sure. But it couldn’t be him. He wasn’t the type to do such a thing; he was too meek.

She wanted to scream at not knowing what was going on, at the sheer injustice of it. She’d finally gotten out of her house, and now look. If she still wore gray, maybe she’d be right here anyway, only out in the corridor. If only she understood what was happening!

Just as Dayn let her slide down through his hands, using his elbows to keep space for her in the press of people, a siren sounded. The light from above, the moving cone, snapped off, and Dayn put his hand over her eyes, startling her so that she bit his palm.

He held her tighter, keeping her eyes covered.

She understood as blinding light forced itself through the thin cracks between Dayn’s fingers. He slid his hand slowly away from her face and spoke dryly to Fox, “She bit me.”

“She can be like that,” Fox answered back.

“Hey!” she protested.

“Go up,” Fox said, nodding his head to her right.

The bright white wash of light revealed a set of stairs that hugged the wall and went up and up with turns. The stairs were already filled with people.

Her eyes adjusted enough to pull out details. Cargo pulleys on the top and sides, hand holds in rows everywhere except the floor.

The stairs were designed to work without gravity, the walkways caged. In the harsh light, the room looked taller and thinner than her impression of it had been. The small lights that had looked so festive paled to almost nothing. It was a utilitarian place dressed up for dancing, the mundane core hidden from the dancers with darkness and clever light.

Dayn tugged on her arm and she turned to duck under his arm and mount the stairs. They started up, Jali in front, then Ani, then her. Behind Ruby, Fox. Last, Dayn, slowing the progress of the people behind him so that Ruby and her entourage could breathe.

The stairs were full, the going slow. Even so, far more people milled down below than she had thought, maybe a few hundred.

From here, she could see that grays surrounded the rest of the original crowd, pressing them in toward the stairs and up. Maybe seven grays—no eight—nine. None that she recognized.

They pushed the dancers back from the door, effectively corralling them, although she couldn’t see how. They must have weapons of some kind, but they didn’t seem to be hurting anyone.

Good. They couldn’t. It would ruin everything if grays killed people now. They must know that.

They were talking—the grays talking to the fringes of the crowd they pressed upon, the conversation low enough she couldn’t hear it above the heavy breathing of her fellow climbers and the staccato conversations between them.

If she hadn’t let fear drive her up the stairs, she could have stayed below and found a way to talk to the grays.

During a moment when progress up the stairs stopped entirely, she leaned back and asked Fox, “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No.” He put a hand on the small of her back. “Move.”

She ducked her head and kept going, taking the second turn, the cage arching above her head like a bubble. When she reached the door, she clung to the metal jamb and looked through it.

A corridor, doors to the right and left. Most of the doors were closed. People blocked the narrow space, moving forward only in chaotic bunches. Jali walked into the crowd, leading them through drifting knots of people and worried chatter, around a corner, and into a hall blocked by four big men.

The biggest one smiled at Jali.

She held up a hand with all five fingers spread. The hall guards nodded and opened ranks until Dayn came though, then closed off the hall again.

A wide open corridor on their right led through heavy-duty metal doors, across a short metal bridge between massive cargo containers, and through another door. Inside, soft light illuminated a tall desk in front of a blank white wall. A blond woman in a severe blue uniform with silver buttons stood behind it, watching them come in. She nodded. “Jaliet. And the Fox. Of course.” She leaned forward across the desk and reached her hand toward Ruby, her face serene and controlled. “And you look as feisty as your songs.” She glanced at Jali. “Is everything else about her as authentic?”

Jali laughed. “Yes, Olna, although we have taught her some poise.”

Olna laughed. “You would teach Captain Garth poise.”

“If he needed it.”

“Oh, he needs more than that.” Olna was still looking Ruby up and down, now smiling. “Welcome. Colin has been waiting to meet you.”

The rapid energy of their flight seemed to have dissipated, the cadence of the conversation here gone to almost normal, with only a slight bit of edge in Olna’s voice. Ruby took Olna’s hand. “Good to meet you.” The woman’s grip was surprisingly strong.

“Go on,” Olna said.

Behind the wall that Olna stood in front of, they found a large comfortable room with a bar along one side and a variety of unmatched furniture arranged rather pleasingly. One wall had an herb garden, its containers and lights almost certainly pilfered from one of the gardens on gray. Thyme and mint scented the air.

A group of people stood at one end of the bar, too far away for Ruby to hear what they said as she came in. In the middle of the room, two men sat opposite each other in chairs, staring at a game board. Another man leaned by himself against a wall, watching. A bodyguard after all the others they’d already passed?

Fox and Dayn stepped away from her, clearly not feeling a need to guard her back in this place. Jali walked up to the bar, leaned over it, and talked with the bartender.

Ani, next to her, looked a little shaken.

“Where are we?” Ruby asked her.

“I’ve never been here. Not to this room. It must be Colin’s base.”

“What?”

“I better start with Colin.” She paused. “Maybe I better start even simpler. There’s the power people like Ellis have. That’s the power that comes from the front of command. Do you understand?”

“The power the reds wield at home?”

Ani grimaced. “If you will. But even more, the power that the people who command the ship give the peacers. And that they give us. For example, I’m no peacer, but I move goods around, including food. That’s power of a sort. Formal power.”

“Okay.” No matter what Ani wanted to call it, this was the power she hated with all her being, had ever since Nona died.

“And there’s the power that gets other things done.”

It felt like she was getting a lecture. “Do people live out here?”

“Yes. But they’re not all good people.”

Another whole new level to the ship. The only cargo bays she’d been in held stuff, and nothing breathed in those. “How do they manage the life support?”

“Same as everywhere else. With the work done on the outer levels and the organization done by us and the priorities set by command.” Ani sounded like she was talking to a two-year-old. “Things work together more than you think. The
Fire
isn’t defined by the awesome workers and the mean people who make them work. We all work.”

Ruby gave Ani a sharp look. “I’m not as simple as my songs. But how does this exist without Ix and the people in command knowing it’s here?”

“Oh, they know.”

“Why don’t they get these people in trouble then?”

“Sometimes they do.”

“I don’t understand.” In spite of what she’d said to Ani, she felt thick, like a little kid unable to understand a basic math concept. It irritated her, but she needed to understand, so she made herself shut up.

Ani sighed. “Sometimes the formal power structure needs the informal one. To get things done they don’t want to do with rules and laws. Or can’t.”

Fox’s hand on her arm drew her away even though she had a few hundred more questions for Ani. She expected him to pull her toward the bar, where Jali still leaned in and chatted, but instead they went to the group of two. Just her and Fox; Dayn now stood beside Jali.

The bodyguard moved away.

The two men with the game board sat opposite each other. The more imposing of the players was probably twice Ruby’s age. His short black hair was streaked with white. He looked up as they came forward and offered a welcoming smile. His eyes appraised her much as Olna’s had, in a way that made her feel like she stood on a scale. She met his gaze and smiled back but said nothing, since he said nothing. His opponent was even older, thin and wiry. He watched Fox and Ruby warily, and as they got close, he sneered, “Hey, young Fox, I see you’ve drug your pet gray up here.”

Ruby fingered the sleeve of her blue blouse and clamped her mouth shut.

Fox gestured for her to sit between the two men. He stood behind her, leaning in a bit, as if asserting ownership. He gestured at the younger man, who still watched Ruby closely. “This is Colin.”

She held out her hand, and he took it, holding it rather than shaking it, his hand warm. She slid her hand free of his before he let go and dropped her eyes. He felt and looked like power and reminded her of Conroy.

“And I’m Par,” the other man said, his voice implying distaste. She reached up and put a hand on Fox’s arm. It felt stiff. He didn’t like Par either.

“So what’s the story?” Fox asked.

Par raised an eyebrow. “It’s not your doing?”

Fox tensed visibly. “You think I planned this?” His hand on Ruby’s shoulder left her no easy way to slide up and away from the animosity she felt between the two men.

Colin looked amused. “There is a beautiful singer in our midst. We should not worry about petty things when we can discover her.” He turned to Ruby. “And how have you liked being with us? Is Fox treating you well?”

Ruby took a deep breath. “I want to know what’s going on.”

No sign of worry marred Colin’s face. “I’ll have a report soon. And then I’ll tell you what I know. In the meantime, let’s talk as if the world were normal. What do you like best about being with us?”

She swallowed, her throat dry. “The opportunity to learn.”

“And what are you learning?”

That there was this whole section of ship she had not even known existed. And more. “That I know very little.”

He laughed again and glanced at Fox. “Perhaps you have bitten off more than I thought you had,” he said. “Or perhaps you are right, and she
will
save us.”

Ruby kept a steady gaze, chin up. It was hard to stay here, seated, being appraised like a pretty doll. She should be running back down the stairs and pushing through the door of the club into the hallway she’d seen choked with grays. She should be searching for Onor or Marcelle.

Colin watched her, as if noting the slightest move or change in her breath.

She didn’t let herself blink. A child’s game, but something more here.

“She has spine,” Colin said.

Fox responded. “Ellis is after her, and Sylva. She’s with me until she learns how to get around here.”

“You learn fast, don’t you?” Colin asked her.

“Yes.” He had gone from appraising to flirting. She bent her head slightly, unsure how to react to the heat he drew up in her body.

“I’ve collected some of the best people to teach her.” Fox rubbed her back in sharp nervous circles and she twisted a bit forward to get away from his knuckles. “But she is only part of our strategy.”

A young man burst into the room and Colin waved him over. She could feel a sharp sliver of Colin’s attention on her even as he greeted the boy. Fox’s hand tightened on her shoulder as if he, too, felt Colin’s focus.

The boy trembled in front of Colin, looking earnest and eager to please, if a bit frightened. His full lower lip hung out and he worried at it with sharp white teeth. His shoulders hadn’t yet grown out past his waist, and he stood on his right foot while his left foot toed the ground.

“What do they want?” Colin asked him.

“I spoke to one of them. A woman. Named Pix.” The boy gave Colin a chance to react before continuing. When he didn’t, he added, “She said they wanted us to know they’re there.” He stopped again for a moment, licking his lips. “She said it’s a message that they can go anywhere anytime and that there are more of them than of us.”

Colin kept his gaze fixed tight on the boy. “And are they all workers?”

The boy shook his head. “They all wore gray, but I saw one of my teachers and she’s one of us. Ms. Paulette, with the long hair.”

Ruby leaned in. “They just came to frighten us and then went away?”

“I am not frightened,” the boy said, although he smelled like fear.

“What is your name?” she asked.

He drew himself up so his spine was straight and his eyes even with hers. “Haric.”

Colin had switched his look from Haric to Ruby. “What do you know about this tactic?”

She shook her head. “Can’t you see I’m trying to find out?”

“Fox?”

“I’d be more subtle.”

Par spoke. “No kidding. But you might be a subtle part of this. You and your lady.”

Before Fox could answer, Ruby asked Haric, “Are the grays still outside? Are they okay?”

“Pix said they were leaving. She wanted us to know they could have hurt us or stopped the train and trapped us here. She said they’d be in touch, and she told me to tell
you
that.”

Ruby drew her brows together, trying to remember someone named Pix. No memories surfaced. Probably a fake name. “Me specifically?”

“No, Colin.” Although Haric kept looking at her. “You’re Ruby, who sings.”