The Diamond Deep (21 page)

The moment felt full of crushing import. Ruby circulated, taking hands, murmuring encouragement, and doing her best to look brave.

The
Fire
felt wrong. Its engines had shut down two days ago, but it still creaked and popped, the noises more pronounced than before.

Ruby stopped next to SueAnne and watched beside her. The opening they were about to enter had been built for them in the week between their agreement to dock here and now. She had seen metal changed—filed or welded or heated and shaped. This had sprung from nothing, as if metal could be created out of air. “They grew that,” she muttered. “They grew a cage for us.”

SueAnne gave her a slightly surprised look, her dark blue eyes lost in wrinkles. “Perhaps they grew a home for us.”

Ruby put an arm around SueAnne's slightly stooped shoulders. “I hope so. They have power and knowledge. I suspect they will not share those easily.”

SueAnne chewed on her lower lip. Her gaze returned once again to the looming station. “I used to hate you,” she told Ruby.

Ruby stiffened, but waited.

“I hated you for being young and strong, and for starting the fighting. I hated you for wanting things you weren't supposed to have.” She fell silent for a moment. “I still don't approve of fighting,” she fingered her new gray uniform, “but I'm glad to have Joel in charge and you beside him. We may need your courage.”

“Thank you.” Ruby whispered. “Thank you for saying that. It's been hard to feel accepted.”

“Don't assume you are. Most of Joel's advisors believe you are evil on three accounts. You are gray, you are young, and you are a woman.”

“They allow you into their councils.”

“But you note I am the only woman, and that is because I helped Joel gain his following. My power rests on his acceptance of me.”

Ruby chewed on her bottom lip. “They accept you because of him.”

“And they are insanely jealous of him because of you.”

Onor stuck close to Joel after the
Fire
ceased moving. Joel looked tired, but then they all must look that way. They had gathered hours ago, eaten lightly, and waited far longer than they expected. Ix remained silent, which made it seem like they were missing a key part of themselves, and needed to be extra vigilant.

Onor scanned faces, checking the location of everyone and looking for anything out of place. He had done this twenty times already, but he forced himself to see it as freshly as he could. Whatever was about to happen, the visitors from the
Diamond Deep
would form their first impression of the people of the
Fire
based on this meeting.

Jaliet, Ani, and Ruby had transformed the room. They'd covered the worn seating in green cloth. Hand-sewn rainbows made from old uniforms lined the bottom of bench. In a few places the decorations had begun to sag. He gestured to Haric, who was following Ruby as if he were a five-year-old after his mother. The boy started toward him, elbowing through people.

Marcelle was not here, of course. She had chosen to work in the creche. He had to think about her pregnancy, but his mind kept refusing to wrap itself around the idea. He would think about it a lot later. He had to.

Haric slid through two large men to stand in front of Onor, white-faced and pale. He stood straight and looked like he wanted to be brave. Maybe they all looked like that. Onor leaned down and asked Haric, “Can you fix up the decorations?”

Ix whispered. “It's time.”

Onor had never heard Ix whisper, or heard a whisper be so amplified.

He turned. They all turned. Haric stayed beside him.

The door opened.

Allen, Conroy, and two of Allen's men that Onor recognized came in first. They were followed by a silvery being that moved like a dancer, as smooth as the finest material Onor had ever touched. He had thought the robot spiders beyond them, the materials and engineering out of reach. This was unimaginable.

Two people followed. They wore form-fitting uniforms that shimmered when light hit them. A woman in fine blues and a man in brilliant oranges.

The woman was as beautiful as Ruby, and as young. She had even darker skin than Ani, with long, white hair that hung down her back. He had never seen that color combination, and when she turned to look at him, her eyes were a deep gold. The effect chilled and attracted him.

The man was thin and no taller than the woman, brown-skinned, with black eyes and hair. But he too looked wrong, the colors of everything about him—skin and hair and eyes, while black and brown, still different than the colors Onor was used to seeing on a human.

Both people moved as smoothly as KJ's dancers, as if they didn't really have to touch the floor but chose to do so.

The robot stopped part-way into the room and flowed into a standing cylinder.

The man and woman stopped beside the robot. “Welcome to the
Diamond Deep
,” the woman said. “I am Koren Nomen.”

A gesture from Joel pulled Onor into a ring of six guards who walked behind Ruby and Joel as they approached the delegation. KJ and his dancers stood nearby, in casual stances that belied how lethal they could be.

Joel spoke stiffly. “Welcome aboard
The Creative Fire
. I am Captain Joel North and this is Ruby Martin, who represents our crew.”

Ruby made an expansive gesture with her hands. “And these are some of the people of
The Creative Fire
. Thousands more are working or resting on other levels of the ship. We send you greetings from all of them. We have had a long journey, and we are pleased to be in our home system.”

The woman—Koren—gave a soft nod. “You must be weary.” She gestured to the brown man who stood beside her. “This is Naveen Tourning.” Her hand swept to point at the robot. “And this is one of three assistants who will help me perform an inventory and check on your ship. We will stay with you during your quarantine. I am the
Deep
's Chief Historian. I look forward to learning about your journey.”

Joel's face had stilled, and his voice quieted in a way that Onor knew meant he was evaluating something he was very unhappy about. “We are pleased that you will stay with us. We will provide you adequate quarters on this level and we will escort you to see parts of the
Fire
that might interest you. But we cannot allow your robots to wander at will.”

Koren's smile looked as insincere as Joel's. “You cannot believe that you own this ship.”

Ruby stood still and quiet, her back straight. One of her fists had clenched.

Joel spoke, his words clipped with buried anger. “We are the crew and owners of the
Fire
.” He looked directly at the strange golden-eyed woman.

“You have chosen to dock this ship in a place that
Diamond Deep
went to great expense to create for you, an expense which you must pay back. You cannot restart your ship from here and leave. It is in no condition to fly anywhere.” Her features were unreadable, her voice like poetry edged ever so slightly with disdain. “This ship is barely good for salvage.”

Ruby had stepped closer to Joel. She broke into the conversation, loudly but calmly, speaking for the whole room to hear. “We are happy to have arrived in a place where we can learn about the home that we left. We have a history of our own to share. If you are truly a student of history you will want what we offer to be given freely.”

“I do. But do not assume I have control of your future. Naveen and I are emissaries of others.” She paused, letting her words sink in. “We will speak of this later.”

“Tell us about the quarantine,” Ruby asked. “What do you mean?”

“Before you can leave the bay we have created for you, you must be scanned for anything that could harm us. This is for your good as well. You could easily be infected by germs from our world, or us by germs from yours. Your AI may only communicate with us via messaging and may not share information freely with our systems. We have disabled some of its higher functions until we can fully evaluate its logic. It is still able to run your life support and essential systems.”

Ix could be controlled from outside? Ix had been silent because it was trapped? Onor hated Koren for it instantly, a hot intense hatred fueled by disbelief. Ix was
their
AI. It belonged to the
Fire
, and its job was to protect them. He was in no position to ask if Ix had consented, but he didn't think so. Ix liked its power.

Joel and Ruby stood silently, anger obvious in the tight lines of their jaws. His own body had tensed and heated, and his breath sped up. Koren spoke to them as if she were a green and everyone from
The Creative Fire
were lowly grays, or children, or both. Even Joel and Ruby.

Koren watched them all closely with her odd golden eyes. Surely she knew the effect her words were having. But she continued. “Your cargo must be examined. You have come from worlds we have never seen, and there may be dangers in your holds.”

Like robot spiders from the Edge. Although the woman couldn't know about Aleesi. She must be speaking of the various treasures they had collected at far star systems long before Onor's birth, and which were protected in containers and watched over by the people who lived in the cargo bay.

After a few moments of the tensest silence Onor had ever felt, Ruby snapped at Koren. “What we have brought back from the stars is ours to share with you, not yours to take.”

Joel put a hand on Ruby's arm, as if to quiet her. He smiled his not-smile again. “We are healthy. We came from here. Surely we share the same genetics.”

“You know nothing of the complexities of a multi-species star system full of billions of beings. The danger of contamination is real. Diseases from the Edge can kill us if they are not caught quickly, and our germs can damage humans who inhabit the Edge. And yet only twenty generations separate us from the founders of the Edge.” Koren made the word Edge sound like a curse. “We are hundreds of generations removed from you. We have evolved.”

“You two came freely to us,” Joel observed. “Surely if it is that dangerous, you would be speaking to us from your station and not in person.”

“We volunteered. We have formidable medical resources with us. And I am willing to die to learn firsthand of your journey.”

Onor didn't believe her.

Naveen spoke for the first time. “And I am here to tell of what we learn, to report out to the
Diamond Deep
. Many people inside are watching us now.”

Ix was broadcasting this meeting to all of the commons. Marcelle was hearing it somewhere, probably standing among women and children, bridging warrior and mother. He wished she were here where he could see her, and that she wasn't pregnant. Not now, anyway.

Ruby nodded at Koren. “We note your interest in our welfare. We are a strong people who came from here and returned. We endured much along the way, us and our ancestors.” She paused for effect, standing tall, her red hair framing her face. She was always at her most beautiful when she was angry. “We are a fair people. We will be fair and honest to those who are fair and honest toward us.”

The robot flexed, as if it were reacting to Ruby's words, preparing itself in case she chose to launch herself into a physical fight with the golden-eyed woman.

But of course she did no such thing. Ruby held her ground, not looking away or down. Waiting.

Koren bowed to Ruby, looking stiff and perhaps—just perhaps—a bit uncertain. The smile on Naveen's face looked much more genuine, and Onor almost swore that he was trying hard not to laugh.

Even though only two days had passed since docking day, Jali had worked miracles yet again, helping Ruby and Ani dress for lunch with Koren. She had put Ruby in a gray dress that dimmed her pale blue eyes but offset her red hair, and given her a belt and sash made from old uniforms that contained all of the colors of the
Fire
. Jali had also braided Ruby's hair with colored ribbons. Jali and Ani both wore pale blues, with the edges in darker blues. The color highlighted Ani's dark skin and Jaliet's black braids.