The Diamond Deep (5 page)

Onor recalled the way he'd imagined the death song being sung for Ruby herself. “I hope she doesn't get herself murdered.”

Marcelle frowned. “I bet she's planning on attending as many of the festival spots as possible.”

“I'll stay with her,” Onor said.

Marcelle gave him a long look, and he wasn't quite sure what he saw in her eyes. She was as almost as tall as he was, so it was easy for her to lean over and kiss him right on the lips. “Good.”

Ruby paced the command room, threading through people dressed in finery, careful not to meet their eyes or stop to talk, She needed to think.

It was time for another celebration. Past time. Bright banners streamed digitally across all of the screens in the
Fire
, proclaiming tonight the Festival of Hope. She imagined people all over the ship getting ready, finding their best clothes, doing each other's hair.

Joel was elsewhere with his commanders.

Jaliet had helped her choose a purple dress belted in gray. It swung loosely around her hips, the color shifting and changing with her movements. She felt pleased; Jaliet had driven her staff to create a color that Ruby had never seen rendered in fabric.

She paced the room slowly, full of pent up energy. Ix had told her it could still be months before they got close enough to home to make voice contact, especially now that the
Fire
only moved at about a tenth of the speed it used between systems.

Just yesterday she'd heard the rumor again—that Adiamo would be abandoned. To believe that would be to accept death aboard the struggling
Fire
. So, assuming there
were
people, what would they be like now? Although she didn't understand why, Ix and Joel and others had told her more time passed in the Adiamo system than on the ship.

“Ix?” She spoke to the air. In this room, that was enough.

“Yes, Ruby?”

“Could we start schools? To learn what we knew when we left home?”

There was a slightly longer silence than usual. “What do you want to know?”

She shook her head. Customs would have changed. Joel had helped her see that one of the great weaknesses of the
Fire
was that knowledge didn't change fast or go deep. She had learned to repair bots, but she would never have been able to build one.

Her hands fisted, and she took a deep breath and forced them to relax. “Can you make a list of what we used to know and don't know anymore?”

“Knowledge slip is a matter of degree. You have all been taught the skills you need for your jobs.”

Damned AI. “Will you or won't you?”

“I will try.”

She came up beside Haric, Ani, and Onor, who were leaning over the map table. Four pods blinked orange. The others were yellow or green. Ruby touched Ani's shoulder. “What did you ask it?”

“Where you can go safely tonight.”

Ruby squinted at the colors, memorizing the red ones. “How did you decide?”

Haric answered. “Onor asked Ix where people are saying bad things about you.”

Ruby frowned. “Then that's where I should go.”

Onor looked exasperated. “Some days I swear you have a death wish.”

Ani interrupted the potential argument. “We're classifying your enemies. There's Lya and her crowd. Not too dangerous, although Lya's still mad enough to slap you.”

Ruby laughed. “I can take her. And there's Ellis and Sylva. Do you know where they are?” That was a group she might just avoid.

Haric answered. “Not in the outer levels. Not on command. So that leaves them in between.” He glanced at her. “You could stay away from there.”

Hardly. “What about cargo?”

“Colin keeps that. It's safe.”

She smiled at Haric's defense of his old boss.

Joel came up behind her. “Are you almost ready?”

“Yes, sweetheart.” She loved the way she smiled at the sound of his voice. “Can we start in cargo?”

“I'll order the train to take us there.”

The cargo bar hummed with activity. Most of Colin's strength seemed to be on display: men and women with well-muscled limbs, stunners, and the periodic scar or disfigurement that went with hard work. These were the people who lived in the shadows of the ship, trading on goods, information, and services that the formal power structure needed but couldn't perform itself.

Colin came up to greet them, clad all in black. His clothes matched his graying black hair and intense dark eyes, and the tiniest bit of black beard. “The beard's new,” Ruby commented.

He laughed. “With you rogues in charge, I needed to look more dangerous.”

“So you're not going to obey us either?” Joel smiled as he said it.

“And lose my reputation like you've lost yours?”

“Someone has to lead,” Joel said.

“Better you than me.” Colin took Ruby's arm. “Can I get you a drink?”

“We want to talk to people.”

“Later. Let me get you a drink.”

“Wine,” she said.

Joel leaned down and gave her a hug. “I'll catch up to you.”

She watched him walk away. Even from the back, even from a distance, he made her feel short of breath.

When she focused back on Colin, he was looking at her quizzically. “You really do love him, don't you?”

“Don't you?” she shot back. “No matter what you want to believe, he is your captain. He's very good at his job.”

Colin laughed. “He's a better captain than the old one.” The gentle pressure of his hand on her arm steered her toward the bar, where she hopped up on a seat and crossed her legs, being careful not to muss her dress. Colin brought her wine and poured a glass of still for himself. As he handed her the glass, he said, “How is it? Being close to the top?”

“Harder than I thought.”

He gestured expansively around the room. “It's been ten times as hard to keep this place going as it was to compete for the top spot.”

He meant more than the bars. Colin controlled a whole population of strongmen and misfits that he glued together with a combination of power, promises, and a sense of home. “How different is it now that Garth's out of power?”

He laughed. “We never cared much who ran things. Going home is a bigger deal. There's far more people coming here for drinks or dances or songs. Change makes people crave ways to forget it.”

She sipped at her wine. “Your drinks here are always too sweet.”

He ignored her comment. “Is Joel going to let you come sing for us again?”

“Of course.”

He looked skeptical.

“Well,” Ruby said, “There's still a few strays to round up. We won, but there's people who won't accept that. Surely you hear stories.”

“In a bar? Never.” He tilted his head back and poured the entirety of his glass of clear still down his throat, barely reacting.

“I'd fall over if I did that.”

He laughed.

“We need to focus on what happens when we get home.” She set her glass down. It wouldn't do to get tipsy so early in the evening.

“Can you tell people when that might be?”

“No. If I knew, I'd tell.”

“Then what good are you?”

She missed everything about the outer level. As she moved from the inner circles to the outside, the
Fire
seemed to go from clean to gritty, from backstabbing to brutally honest. “Will you show me more about the cargo holds? Take me through them? I'm trained for null-g.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“That might be our wealth when we get home. And I have no idea what's in them.”

“I'll talk to Joel.”

“I can make my own decisions.”

He gave her a long thoughtful look. “You should stop that. It's dangerous.” He ran a finger across her cheek, sending heat into her belly.

He'd always been attractive, and she'd always resisted. She leaned away from his touch. “I need to lead from in front. That's why people respect me.”

“That's a dangerous way to do it.”

“You should try it sometime.”

“You know nothing,” he said. He looked away, but not fast enough to hide the hurt she hadn't meant to cause him.

Ruby's feet throbbed even though she wasn't standing on them. They'd spent an hour visiting two parks out in the working levels of the ship, and now they were headed one level inward by train. Ani and Dayn and a few others had caught up with them, and sat talking softly near the back of the train car. Ruby let her head rest on Joel's shoulder, lulled into dozing dreams by the low conversations around them, the soothing whoosh of the train, and the warmth of Joel's arm against her back.

The whine of metal on metal snapped Ruby's eyes open, and Joel's arm tightened around her. His other arm shot out and braced them as the train car jerked and jerked again.

They inched forward and came to a complete stop. Dim light showed the outside walls, just a touch more gray than the black of the deep tunnel.

Ruby stood and peered through the window.

Joel stood beside her, close but not touching. “What do you see?”

“Nothing yet. Doors and darkness.”

Behind them, Onor started yelling at people. “Up. Be ready.”

The train jerked forward, rocked, and jerked forward again. Ruby barely managed to keep her feet under her.

The station and train doors aligned. Actually, one door, and with only a small window in it. Nothing more than a maintenance stop.

Perhaps the
Fire
had another damned problem. But if so, she hadn't felt it or seen it, and surely Ix would have used the train car's speakers to tell them about it.

The station door opened.

Joel shoved Ruby behind him. His stunner appeared in his hand as if it sprang there by his will alone. Onor stood beside him, fumbling with his own gun. Haric was a step behind Onor and next to Ruby, his face ashen with fright.

The train doors slid open.

Ruby didn't have a weapon. She peered around Joel's back. The room was full of men and women wearing pure red and blue, a protest in color. They pointed stunners at the train doors, aimed, shot.

The bodyguard closest to Joel fell, fast but loose, the boneless crumple of the stunned.

Joel fired once, twice, his shoulders moving against her as he aimed again. He stood completely exposed, as exposed as their attackers' front line. The groups were maybe twenty steps apart.

A scream from inside the station drove their enemies toward the train car.

Ani tugged on Ruby's arm, pulling her back as the orderly group outside turned into a mob and rushed the train doors.

Joel twisted oddly and leaned toward her. She leaned back into him for a moment to hold him up, then stumbled.

He fell on top of her, face to face. He caught some of his weight on his arm, crying out. At least Joel wasn't the dead-weight of the completely stunned, although he must have taken a partial hit. His eyes were wide, like the idea that he could be hurt had startled him.

Ruby hissed for Ani.

People fought hand to hand, clogging the train's doorway.

Onor and Haric were in the front.

Ruby spotted Ani's dark skin through the legs of a tall guard who leaned over her and Joel.

From behind her, a barked command. “Down!”

Onor ducked, pulling Haric down with him. The guards fired over them.

Ani scuttled up and she and Ruby each took one of Joel's arms and tugged him back. He struggled and then found his feet, standing up near the back of the train car. His left arm hung loosely at his side and a grimace of pain marred his features. He turned toward the door but Ruby held him back. “Wait until you're steady.”

He grimaced but obeyed. He climbed up on one of the train seats and looked over the heads of their defenders.

Ruby stood beside Ani, trying to make sense of the chaotic movement. Screams and grunts came from inside and outside the car. The stunners were too quiet to hear over the chaos of commands and counter-commands.