The Diamond Deep (25 page)

She wanted Koren off their ship. She wanted their ship free from the
Diamond Deep
. Both were impossible goals.

She and Joel had bet their futures. All of their futures.

The station had a right to do what they were doing. Maybe they even did it to every ship that docked here. There was no reason for them not to have rules that Ruby didn't like. But the whole set-up felt like a threat, like she and her people were in some deep danger that she had absolutely no way to understand. She didn't even know what questions to ask, and when that was true, she was used to asking Ix.

She stopped in the kitchen, her hand hovering between stim and still, choosing water.

Next, she started running through KJ's most basic movement sequence, the one she'd learned in the big classes, way back in the days when Fox told her what to do and she listened.

She hadn't seen Fox in a long time. The last time she'd seen him, he had been promoting a band of drummers, and he'd looked away from her as she headed toward him, turned sideways into a crowd, and disappeared.

But she shouldn't be thinking of Fox right now.

She pushed all of the noise of her mind away and focused on moving her body, one flowing pose sliding into another, balance and weight and speed as exact as she could get them.

She hadn't practiced for weeks.

All of her weight rested on one foot and her back stretched out even with the floor, the free foot behind her held flat, hands extended palm-down in from of her. A line of Ruby with a single leg to hold her up, thigh tightened for strength, knee loosened for safety. When the door opened, she tipped the wrong way and had to touch her fingers to the floor to tip back so she could get her foot under her and stand properly. “Joel?”

“I'm here.”

“You were gone a long time,” she called to him. “What happened to poor Naveen?”

“Koren sent him to his room with an
assistant
to guard him.”

That didn't sound good.

Joel came through the hall and stood in the door. His jaw was set with anger, his shoulders tight. “What happened?” she asked.

He crossed both arms over his torso and stared at the wall. “We have to leave.”

“What?”

“We passed quarantine. We're being told that we have to leave the
Fire
. Not just by Koren. That's what she says, anyway.”

He looked as angry as she had ever seen him, and like he could lose control at any moment. Ruby couldn't tell if he was about to explode in anger or cry. She had never felt him like this, so fragile and so angry and so frustrated. She had never sensed despair in him.

She brought him a glass of water, which he waved away. “Who?” she whispered, not wanting to set off whatever was inside him right then. “Who has to leave? You and me or all of command? What do they want?”

“They say we all have to leave. The whole ship.”

“Everybody? That's thousands of people!” The mere idea of it spun her head. She'd assumed the
Fire
was their home, at least for now. That they'd move off it slowly. That people would find work or places to go. “They can't do that, can they?”

He sat on the couch and pulled her down to him. He held her so tight it hurt, his breath uneven as if he was as shocked with his news as she was, even though he'd clearly had it longer. “I think they can do whatever they want.”

It felt hard to think. “Isn't there a court? Didn't you tell me that once? A system-wide court?”

“I don't see how that would stop them. They look at us like some kind of curiosity. As if we're children. Maybe they'll put us all in a play pen and watch us. I don't know.”

“We need the
Fire
. The holds. The things we brought back. That's all we have.”

His jaw was so tight he could barely get the next words out. “Koren says we're lucky we are being granted a place to live for six months. The contents of the holds will be payment for that.”

“How does she know what they're worth?”

“We don't either.”

Her brain raced. The
Fire
's engines were off and might not be reusable at all. Certainly she didn't know how to start them. Ix could. But Ix had been silenced. The
Fire
itself had started falling apart the minute they started slowing down, as if it knew it was coming back to die. Truth be told, even earlier, if you counted how much of their equipment was scrap and parts by the time Ruby was born.

“What did you try to negotiate?”

He shook his head. “It was all presented as orders. I got them to give us another day. That's all.”

He was accustomed to respect and to people following his orders. “Who knows this?” she asked.

“Ani, Allen, Onor. KJ, because I sent Onor to hunt him down and tell him. That's all. But we'll have to tell them all soon. That's why I came for you.”

“How much time?”

“Koren started with two days. I turned it into three.”

“That's not possible.” Thousands of people. They'd all want to bring their things. They'd want to group up as families. They'd be scared. “They can't . . . what about the gardens and the parks and the water systems and the other things that have to be kept up?”

“They're turning off the water that goes to the parks and the gardens.”

“That's . . . that's violating.” There were other words, other things it felt like. This should not be happening to them.

“I'm not sure I can stand this.”

In trade for his unusual vulnerability, she tilted her face up, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. “We'll do this together.”

He went silent for a long time. “Maybe we shouldn't. We don't know anything. We might get blamed for this.”

“Some will blame us.” She pulled herself out from under his arm and stood, facing him. He looked tired. But then he'd spent a whole day with Naveen, spent the evening at the cargo bars, and then had to deal with Koren. She took a deep breath, centering herself. “They need us to lead. Even the ones who blame us are going to need us. Besides, it's not like either of us could hide in the crowds anyway.”

He went still and watched her, assessing. Not quite hesitating. When he spoke he sounded measured and unemotional, like he was working for all of the control that he could get. His hands were clasped tightly together, as if to keep them from shaking. “Koren offered to take those of us from command somewhere else. The others will want to go. She promised a place that was more comfortable. More privileged. That's the word she used.

“You didn't tell her yes?”

He shook his head. “I didn't tell her no yet, either.”

She tried to take that in. “To buy us time?”

A slight shake of his head. “You might think about it. We could be comfortable.”

“You're just tired. We can't abandon our people. And we can't trust Koren anyway. We're safer if we're all together. You heard what I told them tonight, and how they reacted. They need to know we are all a family, one family.”

“I want you to be safe.”

“I don't care about that. I never have. If the world were still only gray for me, if I were still a robot repair girl, I'd be maimed or dead or raped or something by now.” She took his face between her hands. “Whatever happens, it's better than that already. It's better for almost everyone.” She stepped back, biting her lip, giving him a moment. When he didn't reply, she said, “We can't go backwards. We have to protect them all.”

He was so still. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, and he wasn't meeting her eyes.

“They need us,” she whispered.

He fisted his hands and paced.

“I'll lead them myself if you won't go, but I want you beside me. You're our strength. You earned this job.”
And now we need you to do it.
But she said that part in her head. It would be so hard to do this by herself.

He stopped and answered her, very quietly. “How are we going to lead them through a place we don't know anything about?”

“With our hearts.”

He stood up and took her in his arms. He smelled of the cargo bars, of still and stim, of mint and talk. His heart beat against her ear.

“I will tell her we're staying with our crew.”

She burrowed into his chest. “I love you.”

Joel and Ruby stood side by side, watching the line of refugees snake through a gauntlet of uniformed
Diamond Deep
staff. As leaders, they had gone through first. Now, they waited. They'd sworn to watch as each individual left
The Creative Fire
.

SueAnne led the line, walking slowly and carefully. Her face showed pain that Ruby suspected came from having to leave home even more than it came from her painful joints. All of Joel's other advisors had taken Koren's offer of safe haven somewhere else, but SueAnne had refused. In fact, when she'd learned of it, she had slapped Laird across the face and walked away. Later, she had told Ruby she had wanted to do that for a long time.

A specific process happened for each refugee. First, a pair of uniformed women took their names and pictures. A robot injected each person with medications, using small round buttons with needles that popped out on contact with the skin. Then, everyone passed through an arch where they stood on a plate while an unseen mechanism sprayed them with a fine mist, so they emerged with drops of liquid spangling their hair and cheeks. If they had looked happy, the mist might have made them pretty. On a few faces, it combined with tears.

Ruby and Joel had done their best to message the banishment as well as they could, but without Ix to broadcast throughout the ship, the simple logistics of getting word to everyone and keeping order had required all of the three days they had been given. Koren had offered help from the
Diamond Deep
and by the end of the first day, they had grudgingly accepted a hundred people to help organize the exodus.

Her mouth tasted like ash and she was tired to her bones. It was hard to stand up straight.
Keep the rebels too busy to rebel.

It tore at Ruby to watch how some of the people worked through the line. Some went shambling, the loss painted across features and dropping shoulders. Others walked with their heads up. Here and there, a few of the children and young adults looked excited or at least curious. Everyone carried bags of belongings, or wheeled makeshift carts.

Ruby had managed to get permission to bring some of their robots as beasts of burden, so here and there a robot squeaked by with a pile of extra gray uniform cloth, tools, first-aid supplies, bedding, or piles of food from the last harvest.

Joel stood beside her. He had chosen to wear his most formal dress uniform, and he stood still with his chin up and his jaw tight. Ruby was pretty sure she was the only person to recognize how angry he felt.

A thousand details and questions threatened to overwhelm her. Underneath of those, an anger similar to Joel's burned deep in her, eating at her belly, but she couldn't afford to let it rise to her heart. Not now. She glanced up at him. “That's a quarter of them.”

“About.”

Daria came through the misting arch hand in hand with The Jackman. She let go of him long enough to stop and hug Ruby.

Ruby held her close, her face tickled by flyaway bits of Daria's hair. “I sent a bot to help you with your beads. Did it get there?”

Daria nodded against her shoulder. “Thank you.”

Just behind Daria, Ruby's mother, Siri, and her younger brother, Ean. Siri gave her daughter a cool hug, Ean gave her a warm one. After they left, Ruby frowned. She should find a job for Ean. She didn't mind that Siri didn't talk to her often, but she did miss Ean.

A little later, Kyle came through. He carried two plates that must have held cookies. Ruby lifted herself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I bet you made a few children happier.”

“I hope so.”

Nearer the end, Marcelle walked amid a number of women with children in tow. She carried a girl that mustn't be much more than two or three. Marcelle had talked about being a parent since they were little girls together; she would be a good one. Ruby felt happy for her, if bittersweet. At some deep core place, she didn't expect to live long enough to raise children. She never had. She waved back when Marcelle waved, then Marcelle bent to a child walking beside her, whispering something. She and the child were soon lost in the long thin string of people.