The Diamond Deep (54 page)

“What's the fastest way to get there?”

“Let The Jackman lead you. It will give him a focus and you need to learn your way around.”

Yet another thing he liked about her; she taught them instead of telling them. Ix had been terrible at that.

Onor glanced at the booth Aleesi had told them to come back to. Pendants shone and sparkled in artificial light, gold chains draped over leather bolsters, and at least three groups of customers eyed the merchandise. Evie pulled toward it, but Onor took her small hand in his. “Stay close. I don't want to lose you.”

“Aleesi can help us find each other,” Evie hissed.

“And if I lose you, Haric will kill me after we find him.”

She glared at him and pulled her hand free, but she stayed near him.

“Why are there so many more people here than at home?” Onor subvocalized.

“Many are from visiting spaceships. The
Deep
is known for its shopping. People can buy everything from starship fuel to food to baubles they have no possible need for at the Exchanges of the
Deep
.”

It took thirty minutes and two wrong turns to find the booth Aleesi was sending them to. At least twice, Onor became briefly convinced that they were being followed, but then the suspected follower turned away from them.

When the Jackman looked up and said, “We're there,” Onor and Evie stopped beside him and the three of them looked the booth over.

“It's not what I expected,” Onor said.

The booth sold animals. Or more correctly, animal DNA, animal fetuses, and animals designed for specific purposes. A large, hoofed animal with a doleful face pulled a plow in one picture, a small cat-like animal sat on a man's shoulder, looking ready to leap off and protect him, and a variety of small and fluffy beasts in an even bigger variety of colors followed children or cuddled with them on couches. A man stood behind the booth, feet planted, watching a small throng of customers. A few were children, apparently thoroughly engaged in looking through the entire catalog.

Evie approached the booth, The Jackman and Onor right behind her. They stood behind the children, watching the catalog swing by. Onor subvocalized, “I should have been more interested in the cargo. I wouldn't know if any of these came from the
Fire
.”

“Ix is watching.”

“Does it know?” Onor asked. “I didn't think Naveen had copied all of its memories.”

“It has many fragments of the
Fire
's manifest.”

Onor felt the weight of the things he didn't understand.

A tall woman wearing an open pressure suit and comfortable shoes that didn't match it called two children back to her and walked away, leaving the booth momentarily empty of customers. Evie stepped up to the man, who offered a salesman's broad smile. “What can I do for you?”

Evie held up her slate and showed him a picture of Haric. “Have you seen this man?”

A slight, dark look passed across the man's face as his smile transformed to a blank look. “No, I have not seen him.”

Evie brought up a video clip of Haric standing in front of the booth.

Onor winced.

“I cannot be expected to recall all of my customers.” He inclined his head. “May I show you anything?”

Onor stepped in. “We're interested in anything new. Perhaps items you've only had in your catalog for a few months?”

The man smiled. He pulled up a picture of a cat-like creature with white fur. “Perhaps like this? It's a new mutation of our best-selling children's pet for spaceships. It trains easily and can take cold sleep.”

Onor shook his head and said, “Thank you.” The man wasn't going to show them anything, and now they'd announced their presence to everyone. He had expected Evie to do better, but he hadn't remembered how young she was.

He tugged on her arm, pulling her away from the booth. The Jackman followed, the look on his face sour. As soon as they were out of earshot, he leaned down toward Evie. “Don't tell them what you want.”

She turned to face him. “Then how will we find anything out?”

“Build trust first and try to wheedle clues out of people.”

“That will take forever.”

The Jackman sighed. “Better that than alerting your quarry with direct requests. They've no reason to trust us.”

“Or we them,” she shot back.

“But we're the ones who need something they have.”

Evie looked daggers at The Jackman, but she nodded.

They learned nothing more at the next five booths. After the fifth booth—one that sold rare minerals in large and expensive lots, The Jackman suggested, “Let's take a break and stop for something to eat.”

Evie had taken to staring at the ground. “I don't want to stop. I want to find Haric.”

Onor said, “I need fuel to keep going.”

“Besides,” The Jackman said, “It's dinnertime. Maybe we can find a place playing Ruby's concert.”

“That means the Exchange is going to close soon.” Evie looked depleted.

“Where is the closest food?” Onor asked Aleesi.

A few beats of silence passed before she answered, long enough for Onor to realize he hadn't actually heard from the robot spider girl for some time. “I have news.”

“Yes?” Evie slipped up and spoke out loud.

“Haric is in the Brawl. He was checked in two hours ago.”

The Jackman cursed out loud and then muttered, “For what?”

“For being here without permission. No one from the
Fire
is cleared for this section of the ship.”

“I didn't know that,” Onor said.

“No one ever told you. It may be something you can use against Koren.”

“Another thing,” Onor muttered.

The Jackman looked alarmed. “That means it's not legal for us to be here.”

“Who cares,” Evie said. “Don't we want to get caught? Then we'll be with Haric.”

“I can tell people where you are,” Aleesi said.

“Why hasn't anyone caught us yet?” Onor mused.

“They don't think you know anything,” Aleesi said.

“So they think Haric does?”

“We've got to go,” Onor said. “We can check into the Brawl, right?”

Evie looked hopeful and The Jackman shook his head.

She frowned at the older man. “It's better than getting thrown in.”

Onor stiffened. “He's not going to be easy to find in there.”

“We have to look!”

The Jackman said, “I'm not going.”

Evie looked aghast. “Why not?”

“Someone's got to stay free to pull you out. Besides, I need to tell the others.”

“Aleesi will tell people,” she said.

The Jackman just looked at her and shook his head.

Onor looked at Evie's desperate face and said, “I'll go. Let's buy something to eat.”

“We don't have time.”

“You're not going to be able to get food later.” He took her arm, pulling her gently toward the food aisles.

She resisted him, and then gave in with a disapproving sigh.

Behind them, The Jackman muttered, “Fools and children. You'll get yourselves killed.”

Ruby stood at the edge of the stage and stared out at the crowd. She tried to drink in their energy, to fill with it so she could burst into voice and give it back to the people who had come to hear her. There was nothing. No, that wasn't right. It almost felt like a wall stood between her and them. She took a deep breath and held her hands together in front of her. She lifted her head. “Good evening.”

A few polite claps.

“I'm sorry I was late. I've just heard that there . . . there may . . . maybe I will have to learn some new things. But now, I'm going to sing for you. This evening, I'm going to start with something simple. A lullaby. This is what we sang to the babies who fretted at night, and sometimes to the old as they neared the end of their lives.”

Her stomach still hurt, but she told herself it was imaginary. Pain was the past, it might even be the future. But it could not be now.

It helped.

A little.

She opened her mouth and started singing.

Singing the lullaby drove the soft words and the comfort that she had to send into her voice through her whole body, soothing away a layer of fear. Underneath the fear, anger bubbled. After the lullaby swelled to its slow end, Ruby stepped as close to the edge of the stage as she dared. The song had cracked the wall between her and the audience, giving her back a sense of them. They wanted something stronger and deeper. “Now that we've calmed down, are we ready to wake up?”

A faint chorus of “yes” and “yes” and “sure” tickled her ears.

“That's not enough. Are you ready?”

“Yes!”

“Really ready?”

“Yes!”

“Then let's have a night of revolution!” She moved into “The Owl's Song.”

The audience went with her, singing the chorus, standing on their feet.

She didn't take a break. She sang every song she'd ever written, from beginning to end. She saved the Brawl song for last. She prepped them for it. “Ready to Brawl!”

“Ready!”

“Ready to change!”

“Ready!”

“Ready for the song!”

“Ready!”

She had kept her anger through all of the songs, the anger mixed up with the pain in her stomach. It had driven her past and through her exhaustion. As she prepared to start the Brawl song, she felt anger thicken her spine, felt it in her feet and the top of her head, as if the anger flowed in and through her and out into the hall, a raw arc of emotion between her and the people watching her. Her anger at the universe for making her sick, her anger at Satyana for telling her, at the robot for finding it, at herself for not seeing it, for not knowing. She let her anger at the whole mess ride inside of her and she threw the feeling into the words.

As the song poured out of her, the anger went into it, imbuing her voice, hollowing her out.

She sang eight verses of the song. Four of them were verses no one had heard. The last one was a verse she hadn't even thought of, a sound that flowed out of her and carried tears with it, so she stood and emptied herself and tears flew down her face and joined the drops of sweat that salted the stage under her feet.

 

The singer grows ever

Weaker

Locks her loss and love

Inside and sings

Her death

Sings the losses

Of all her parents

And theirs, locked

In the memories

Of families, Lost

From the joy of life

Time passes.

She is going now, going

Down into the dark

Before her own people,

Before her love

Before the
Fire

The audience made no sound.

She heard her steps, her breath, her words, her tears falling onto the stage. She let the right three beats fall and then held her arms up toward the sky as she started the chorus.

 

Look inside

See despair

The audience joined her. A hundred voices, then a thousand, then more.

 
Starve it out

Embrace the hope

Of helping

The lovers of our hearts

The sound of all of the joined voices filled the room full of a bittersweet hope.

She took a bow and tipped forward, her hair spilling around her face as she fell onto the stage, every last bit of energy wrung out from her.

The train stopped, the door opened, and Onor and Evie stepped out. Onor half-expected The Jackman to follow them, but he didn't. “Stay safe, old friend,” Onor whispered.

“Good luck.”

Evie pulled Onor through the same dirty station Naveen had led him through the first time they came here. Instead of going right—the way Naveen had led him—Evie tugged him left, following signs down an elevator into a small vestibule. A human guard stood at the far side. He straightened up as Evie and Onor approached. “Can I help you?”