The Diamond Deep (62 page)

Ferrell Yi, the reddish-blue skinned woman who ran the Exchanges. Ruby had seen her a few times, but never talked to her except in passing.

Ramon Paul, the Head of Defense, a man Ruby had met three times, and had rebuffed advances from twice. Probably not a supporter.

Gunnar Ellensson. She was almost willing to bet that Gunnar was a friend.

The announcer gave out one more name. “Winter Ohman.” Joel clutched her arm more tightly when he came out; he meant something to Joel. There was no opportunity to ask right now, of course. Then he turned to look directly at Ruby. She recognized him as the man who had been at breakfast and refused to give his name.

Now that everyone was seated, Koren stood and stated, “Read the charges.”

The room became eerily and completely quiet, as if hundreds of people were holding their breath.

The woman who had faded into the background came back up and spoke, her words clipped and emotionless. “The Court of the Deeping Rules will evaluate whether or not the people of Ash violated the Do No Harm law by bringing an enemy of the
Diamond Deep
inside our walls. This is a violation of history. As such, the Chief Historian sits in judgment. The specific rule in question in front of the court was born at the end of the Age of Explosive Creation. That rule demands that human consciousness is never to be uploaded into a machine body in whole. Violations of that rule demand death of the creature so created. Anyone providing assistance and succor is subject to imprisonment or banishment.”

A soft mutter flew through the courtroom behind them, although no one in front of them reacted.

The knots in Ruby's stomach might be nerves or disease or both. Whatever they were felt twisted and deep and hard inside her. Maybe they were simply the knots of hatred for Koren and her kind, for all of this crazy place called the best place in the Adiamo system, for a world so bored and vicious that they dared to prosecute the
People of the Fire
for being invaded, and for giving Aleesi mercy.

It wasn't justice.

They should have charged her with trying to create a revolution.

In spite of the chair, Ruby could stand, especially with the table right in front of her to hold onto. She almost stood and protested, but Satyana's absolute calm bled into Ruby like ice and warning.

She sat still, waiting.

Aleesi spoke into Onor's ear, her voice soft but not whispery. “None of you created me,” she said. “I need a way to speak to the assembly.”

“Why?” he asked her.

“To save you,” she said. Her voice had none of the emotion he was used to. She sounded . . . flat.

“What about Ix?”

“Just give me a voice. Trust me.”

Onor didn't answer her. It was not his call.

The woman beside Koren asked what sounded like a routine interrogation. “Does anyone in the courtroom question the right of the Councilors or of the Voice of the Deep to counsel the bench, or of Koren to judge this matter in her role as Chief Historian?”

Onor was sure someone should at least
question
Koren's role, but Satyana sat silently beside him, her throat and jaws thick with tension.

Naveen also looked forced still. If Naveen was going to betray them, they were truly lost and friendless.

No one answered the mouthpiece. After what must be the proscribed time with no challenges, she said, “The trial may begin. The prosecutor is Loura Pillar and the speaker for the defense is Satyana Adams. The prosecutor may speak first.”

The woman who must be Loura was a complete stranger to him. Even so, he didn't doubt for a moment that Koren's case could be made. Koren surely had a copy of Ix. They probably didn't have Aleesi, not if Ruby and Joel had been able to hide the webling. But Ix would be enough; it had the tapes of the murders in the cargo bay and it had the tapes of them talking to the robot spiders, and probably even of him releasing the brains that held Aleesi from the captured robotic body.

He was right.

All of those things played out in front of the entire courtroom. Even Ruby singing to Aleesi, courting her, trying to make friends. Most damning of all, Aleesi telling Ruby that she was illegal and Ruby telling her that she couldn't help that, she didn't make the rules. The entire courtroom overhead Ruby's exact words, “I am good at breaking rules.”

Aleesi whispered in his ear yet again. “Give me voice.”

It took him a while to manage a full subvocal sentence in a way he could hope no one noticed. “Maybe we can get you back to the Edge.”

“I am already there,” she said. “Now give me a voice.”

If only he understood more about what was going on. With everything. The Court. Aleesi. Ruby. Damn it. He leaned over and whispered into Satyana's ear. “Aleesi wants to talk.”

Satyana's eyes widened a tiny bit, and under the table, her hand touched his thigh, squeezing it. Telling him something. Yes-but-not-now he decided, although he didn't know her well enough to be sure. It had been a message and not a caress, though; his thigh hurt.

Loura Pillar stood after the clips ended. Pale and tall, she had dark hair that hugged her shoulders and shimmered with purple highlights. Her clothes were dark and modest, even down to long sleeves and full-legged pants over dark shoes. Black lace gloves covered her hands. “So you see, Ruby Martin and the people of Ash knowingly brought a being they knew was illegal into the
Diamond Deep
, breaking court precedent and putting the entire station at risk. A being that she kept alive even after it proved harmful on Ruby's own ship,
The Creative Fire
. This being is from a class of intelligences outlawed at the
Deep
long before anyone in this room was alive.” She stalked in front of the Councilor's table and the other table, back and forth, her voice loud enough that everyone in the room could undoubtedly hear. Onor imagined her face being broadcast throughout the station. Surely, with Ruby here, the proceedings were being watched.

“This being is not an AI; it is an enslaved human. Slavery is common at the Edge, used by pirates and thieves. Enslaved humans are copied over and over and over, losing fidelity with each copy. Losing
sanity
. Losing what made them human in the first place. This practice creates beings that are abominations. They are not human, not machine intelligences, not robots. This one is a danger to us.” She turned and stared at their table, looking first at Evie and then at Onor and then stepping close to Joel and Ruby.

Aleesi continued to demand to speak.

“Quiet,” Onor said,

“Give Satyana an earbug.”

He did have one. He had thought briefly about giving it to Ruby but she looked too tired to manage one more thing. No, too utterly exhausted. He fished in his pocket and palmed it.

“These people showed nothing but contempt for us. They are not the people who left here, they are the great-great-great grandchildren of those people, and they never learned the lessons of the Age of Explosive Creation. We owe them nothing.” The woman was actually sneering and her voice had risen. “We gave them and their unschooled and undisciplined people a chance. We let them into our home and that very day, when they swore to obey our rules, they knew they were willfully breaking them.

“We call for the imprisonment of Ruby Martin and Joel North, for the death of the abomination they brought into our midst, and for penalties upon all of their people.”

Ruby stood. Ruby stood in spite of how weak she looked. Joel stood beside her, stoic and furious. Ruby spoke loudly enough for her voice to carry. “No one in Ash except me knew of that rule.”

Loura Pillar ignored her.

Murmurs and noise came from behind them, and one or two people clapped. Onor forced himself to look behind them to assess the threat. Most of the people sat in their seats, unreadable. A few looked positively feral, like the worst of the reds used to look before they beat someone when he was small and nothing had yet changed on the
Fire
. Once more he felt surrounded by enemies even though he was sure that many of these people must have come to hear Ruby sing, watched her on their slates, or known about her.

“Sit down,” Koren snapped. “You'll have your opportunity to speak.”

Ruby protested as Joel almost forced her back into the wheelchair.

If only they had never come here. Onor bumped Satyana's leg with his and fumbled the earbug into her fist.

Loura Pillar sat back down, her face once more a mask.

The mouthpiece spoke. “The defense may now address the advisors.”

Satyana stood and walked around the table. As she did so, she brought a hand up to her ear.

Onor smiled.

“Thank you,” Aleesi said.

At least she could now bother Satyana directly. He wasn't at all sure Aleesi would get her way, or how such a thing might happen, but the problem was no longer his.

Beside him, a single tear streaked down Evie's face from time to time. He wished there was something to be done with her, some way to put her someplace safe and let her cry her pain out. But they were far from Ash. He whispered to her. “Was Aleesi talking to you, too?”

“She told me it would all end up all right.”

“That's all?”

Evie nodded.

Satyana's words drew his attention. “We will call a number of witnesses. Our argument is simple on its face. First, Ruby spoke correctly if out of turn. She made this choice alone. Second, the Deeping Rule that Ruby is accused of breaking has not been broken: there has been no harm done. Our legal system allows for this.”

Loura interrupted. “At a lower level of infraction.”

Satyana stared at Koren.

Eventually, Koren gave the tiniest of nods.

“Third, Ruby Martin has followed all three of the Deeping Rules. She has taken responsibility for herself and for more than herself, for the collective of the people who came with her.” Satyana pointed at Joel. “Along with Joel North, they have started to succeed when they themselves were harmed seriously by those who greeted them.”

Koren's only reaction to Satyana's words was a bare and desultory nod, as if to say, “Go on, I'm bored.”

Satyana herself had gone quiet, and he was willing to bet she was listening to Aleesi.

Perhaps Koren didn't think they had enough to prove her wrong, or maybe she was sure that her position as judge would protect her. They had Satyana and Winter Ohman and Naveen all on their side. Maybe. Hopefully. Winter Ohman had set this up. He glanced at their table from time to time, but he never looked directly at Onor. Afraid to give away that he had met with them?

“Fourth, the being Aleesi poses no danger to us.”

Even though something in the hushed tone of the audience's reaction and murmurs at this last proclamation of Satyana's turned up his sense of danger, Onor kept watching in front of him. The Councilors' faces remained stoic. The Voice of the Deep showed slightly more reaction: Ferrell Yi turned to the head of Defense, her face touched with surprise and worry. Gunnar Ellensson looked thoughtfully at Ruby, almost as if there was a game they played together and she had just produced an unexpected move.

Onor wondered if Gunnar was friend or enemy.

Onor was once again reduced to watching as Satyana pulled her first trick out: she called Naveen as a witness. Naveen established that he had, in fact, copied Ix from the
Fire
. Satyana called on Ix, pulling up a version that Naveen stated was exactly as he had copied it, with no interaction with the people of Ash after the exodus. So before Onor had been given a copy to carry about in his pocket like gold.

This Ix verified that Ruby didn't publicly share the knowledge that bringing Aleesi here was illegal, even with Joel. It also verified that Ruby was not entirely truthful: KJ knew what Aleesi had said about the law. It did show that when Onor carried the webling up and away from the spider body, he had not spoken to it.

Gunnar and Ferrell Yi both looked at him then, their faces solemn and cold. He did his best to look quiet and confident.

It was good to hear Ix's voice, to feel comforted by something so familiar. But the real Ix, the Ix that had been at all of the morning meetings and shared the webling with Aleesi, would be in true trouble.

Ruby's accusers had not called witnesses; they had played media. Ix could be questioned in this context, and Loura Pillar asked, “Ix, were you allowed to repeat or play private conversation for others? Conversation behind the closed doors of people's own habs?”

“No.”

“And you are designed to do what?”

“Protect
The Creative Fire
.”

“Including her crew?”

“Yes.”

“So you are unwilling to tell us what Ruby Martin may or may not have shared with Joel North or KJ may or may not have shared with others?”

“I can relay anything they said to each other in public. They did not speak much of Aleesi at all, and never told others that it is an illegal being.”