The Diamond Deep (16 page)

So maybe he was willing to answer her in his own way. She paid careful attention while he pointed out features of the claw and the arm, and then the powerful, flexible feet. They stared at the object in the cage. It was almost featureless, as long as her calf, and almost as big around as her waist. Smooth and black. “Have we gotten a good look at this in the live bot?”

“The way it's tied we can't see it at all.”

She rocked back, staring at it.

“No, we're not going to move the live one.”

She laughed. “I'm not that much of an idiot. But maybe there's footage. Ix? Can you review your recordings for anything we can learn about this? It has to be the brains.”

“Yes, Ruby.”

“Is it talking to you yet?”

“No.”

“All right. Let me try one more time.” She needed a reaction, some kind of win for keeping the thing alive.

Back at the bottom of the bay and staring up at the bot, Ruby said, “Ix? Translate.”

“Ready.”

“We are unhappy that you invaded us. It is a fact that we damaged your ship, and it is done. It cannot be undone any more than the way that you killed our people can be undone. Now that you have our history, you know it has been a long time since we left Adiamo. We have told you our story. Will you tell us yours?”

Ix's spider-voice asked, “Is the
Thief of a Thousand Stars
following you?”

She didn't know. Ix responded. “No.”

The machine remained silent.

She stood, nearly floating, holding onto the vertical traverse line. “Ix?”

“Yes, Ruby?”

“Is the air in here safe?”

“Yes.”

She unclipped her helmet so the spider-thing could see her.

“Don't,” KJ warned.

“It's only a rule.” She drew in a breath of fresh air, full of strange lubricants and smells that must be unique to cargo. She'd had her helmet off on cargo before—always against orders—and she didn't remember the oily tang she scented now.

She didn't know what she was hoping for, just that maybe . . . maybe . . . the bot would react to her humanity. There had to be some way to touch it, and damned if any talk they'd tried had done it.

She started in on “Homecoming”:

 

Long and dark is our night flight

No stars shine inside Fire's skin, only

Me and you. And love. We're going

Home

No reaction. She sang it all the way through, putting as much feeling as she could into it.

As her words trailed off, KJ whispered, “Bravo.”

He didn't sound as ironic as she expected. She whispered back, “You're welcome.”

She sang two other songs. Singing to the unresponsive metal seemed both ridiculous and right.

Ix interrupted. “
The Creative Fire
is being hailed by
Diamond Deep
.”

“Another ship?” KJ asked.

“A space station.”

Ruby put a gloved hand on a suited hip and spoke to the robot one more time. “We're going to go talk to
Diamond Deep
. We'll be back. We would . . . we would really appreciate information.”

She waited, hopeful.

KJ interrupted her. “Time, Ruby.”

“I know.”

“After you. Put your helmet back on.”

She had promised to obey KJ, and she'd already pushed it. Still, she hated fastening the damn thing again, losing her own senses to the overwhelming stench and dulled sight of the suit. On the way up the traverse lines, she struggled to turn her thoughts from the huge and non-responsive machine toward the space station.
Diamond Deep
.

Halfway up the traverse lines, she asked, “Do you think the station will be friendly?”

“Are you asking me or Ix?”

“You.”

“I think it's best not to expect anything. That way, you'll always be surprised, but you'll never be caught napping.”

“Like the robots.”

“Like the robots.”

“Next time you practice—with the spider dancers, in a cargo bay—can I join you?”

“How could you possibly have time?”

“I want to do everything.”

He was silent until they reached the airlock. While they were inside, out of sight of the robot and maybe even of Ix, he whispered, “You can't be everything. You have to trust others.”

The words stung. “I trust you.”

He laughed. A light came on. KJ opened the outer door of the lock, and he and Ruby spilled out into the corridor. KJ took his helmet off after they were safe, and Ruby followed his lead.

“You did well in there,” he said.

“How? It didn't respond to me at all.”

“You didn't threaten it, or bully it. You were sincere. If—like you suspect—it is more than a machine, then you may have affected it.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“I hate leaving it right now.”

“We'll come back.”

“Hurry,” Ix interrupted. “Joel wants KJ with him now. He's sending Dayn with a faster cart.”

Onor stood with his back to the wall of the map room. Sharp worries crawled up his spine at the new threat. After the spiders, he didn't trust anything from Adiamo. The core of the command level assembled, coming in by twos and threes until about twenty-five people filled the room. Ruby came in with KJ, looking sweaty, her hair a touch awry.

Back when Joel had been supporting the insurrection army Onor belonged to, he had felt nothing but admiration for the man. As he watched Joel walk over to Ruby and whisper in her ear, Onor wondered if power itself corrupted. Now that Joel stood in Garth's place, he seemed to have become more like the man he overthrew. Ruby herself had lost clarity, ripped between conflicting loyalties. Maybe that was what you got for sleeping with the enemy. He shrugged off the thought as uncharitable, but he felt a stinging kernel of truth in it.

Ellis and Sylva, and so many followers, killed so coldly.

After Joel and Ruby finished a low conversation that drew their heads together, Joel addressed the room. “We have received a message from one of the space stations that orbits Adiamo, the
Diamond Deep
. After you hear it, please keep the contents secret for now, and think about how we should respond.” He glanced at Ruby, his voice firming. “Then we will play it for others.”

To her credit, Ruby didn't argue in public. She wasn't happy, though; Onor could see that in the way she swiped her fingers through her hair, tugging on tangles hard enough that it had to hurt. Her power was twofold: the power of the love the outer levels still held for her, and her power to keep Joel's attention. No, threefold. Her feelings had power—they were what drove her to risk, what came out through her songs.

“Listen carefully,” Joel said.

A warm voice issued from speakers near the ceiling, booming into the room with a touch too much volume. “
Creative Fire
. Welcome home. I am Headman Stevenson, the freely elected leader of the orbiting station
Diamond Deep
. We are pleased to see that you have returned. Please have your pilot set course for our station. We will open a data transfer to receive the downlink of your journey so that we can arrange a proper reception.”

“Is that all?” Ruby asked.

“Yes.”

Onor took a deep breath. Pilot must refer to Ix: no one in this room was navigating. If they hadn't run into the ship with the spider bots, he would have taken the announcement at face value. But they had. For a time, no one spoke.

Joel's quietly asked, “What do you think?”

Laird said, “I don't trust them.”

SueAnne followed him. “We have to go somewhere. Even if this whole system is untrustworthy, we are slowing down and falling apart.”

“I would not give them data,” KJ mused. “Not yet. Let's find out what they want it for first, and who they are. Ix? We were sent out here by the government on Lym, right? Shouldn't we speak to them first?”

“Lym is no longer highly populated. It is not the seat of power in Adiamo anymore. Think of it as a big park.”

Onor shifted, watching the backs of people's heads from his post by the wall, wishing he could see their faces. The conversation continued for five or ten more minutes, although it didn't get closer to resolution. There simply wasn't enough information.

He wasn't the only one who came to that conclusion. KJ spoke up. “We don't need to respond immediately. We do have two ways to learn more. One is for Ix to continue listening and evaluating and learning. And—since this must be our decision and not the machine's choice—we need to be shown everything Ix is learning.”

Joel agreed, “Shortly.”

KJ continued. “The other is that thanks to Ruby, we may have a way to learn directly from the invaders. As you know, one of the robots in our hold is still functional. Ruby is working on communicating with it. Although there is no real progress so far, it is an avenue worth pursuing.”

Laird spoke up, “Then
we
should work on it!”

KJ countered, “She has started to build a rapport.”

Laird looked at Joel, as if to ask him to stop being an idiot. Joel ignored the content of the look, and very calmly said, “Ruby is one of us now.”

Laird narrowed his eyes.

“It was Ruby's idea,” Joel continued, “and she has invested the time. Ix is working with her, and KJ. I cannot afford to spend your time there; I need you as my advisor and my weapons-master. Ruby will continue the work after she rests. After spending generations getting here, we do not need to answer
Diamond Deep
today.”

Joel walked toward the door closest to Onor. He gave a hand-signal that Onor should follow him, and to his surprise, Onor found it was just he and Joel walking out of the command room.

Joel walked him through a maze of corridors. The ship creaked and groaned around them, and from time to time a maintenance bot whirred along a wall. Their footsteps almost matched, although Joel's fell slightly heavier.

Joel turned around at a door he didn't open, and led them back the way they'd come. Onor expected to feel angry with Joel for the lives he'd taken, but instead he remembered the man's strengths and then felt guilty for it. This was Ruby's dilemma, too. Being close to power and understanding the nuances, being torn by conflicted loyalties. Everything Onor could remember about who he was before they won battles and changed the ship would have condemned Joel for his choices. But right now, they needed him. No one in command would follow Ruby. Colin had been torn into bits, and SueAnne—the best other choice by temperament—was too old.

Laird would be a disaster. Onor hated the new order on the ship.

Joel broke the silence first. “I'm pleased at how well you did in the cargo bay—getting you and Marcelle away safely.”

Onor felt surprised that Joel even knew Marcelle's name. “Thank you. If Marcelle hadn't been so fast, we would have been caught.”

“Tell her I'm glad she's safe.”

Joel gave him a look that suggested he knew what had happened between he and Marcelle.

Onor's cheeks heated as he said, “I will.”

“What were they like? The spider bots?”

Surely Joel had seen them. “Big. Very big. And fast. I was surprised how fast they were. None of our robots are that fast.”

“What did they make you feel like?”

“Angry.” He felt it all over again, the sense of violation. “They invaded our space. They killed a man I respected.”

“That's how you feel now? Angry?”

“Yes.”

“But how did you feel when you first saw them? When you realized they could jump? When they got close to you and almost caught you? Were you afraid?”

“Of course.” Onor hesitated, searching for the right words. “It doesn't matter what we felt. What we did matters, what they did. That they killed.”

Joel smiled softly. “I would have been afraid.” He paused. “But Ruby sees something else.”

Onor had known she'd saved the last bot from destruction, but he hadn't known about her and KJ trying to talk to it. “What does she see?”

They arrived at the end of the corridor and the closed door again, and turned around again. “Information? A slim chance to learn something? Or maybe just the chance to get attention?”

Joel was getting to know Ruby. “She's brave,” Onor said. “And she wants the best for us. She would fight anything.”

Joel laughed, his laughter bigger and richer and more relaxed than Onor imagined it possible to feel at the moment. “She's not trying to fight it. She's trying to talk to it.”

Onor's laugh was much more controlled. “Words are her most powerful weapon.”

“She acts like she thinks it's alive. Could it be? Thinking?”

“I didn't think so at the time. The damn thing's metal.” He paused, remembering it. “I don't like Ruby so near the thing, even if it's tied down.”