The Diamond Deep (34 page)

They made it through Ani's stammered introduction, and Jali's cool one, and ended up at a very nice table under a tree with a pitcher of iced water, an orange pot full of tea, and a small platter of little cakes. “I'm happy to see that you came to ask me for additional help. I'm sorry my lead about
The Great Bastard
didn't work out, but there are others brokering work.” He held a small cup in a large hand, took a small sip, smiling. “It would be easier to find room for more bodyguards.”

“We have thousands of people. Only a few can do that job.”

“There is a large ship,
The Lady's Love
, coming in from Mammot in a few days. I will be talking to the crew-bosses there.”

Jali asked, “And that work will be?”

“The usual. Unloading.”

Jali sipped at her tea and looked only the slightest bit interested. “And how many jobs might be available for a group such as ours?”

“Maybe twenty. Maybe a few more.”

“That would pay . . . ?” Ruby asked.

“I don't set the price. Probably five credits a day.”

So little. Ruby sighed. She looked over at Ani, who held her own cup but didn't drink the tea. She seemed entranced by the others in the cafe, slightly shell-shocked. But then Ruby remembered how exhausted she had been the first day she came here. She leaned over and whispered in Ani's ear. “Drink water.”

Jali spoke to Lake, “And in trade for that, you would like to have?”

“There are many things I would like. Credit eases a man's way, but it is very traceable. What might you have to offer?”

Ruby answered. “We have people who can count and keep inventory. We have trained robot repair crews. We have others who know how to keep bar, or to make still.”

Lake set his cup down carefully. “You know how to repair our robots?”

“We can learn. I did the job myself, once.”

“And your hands are entirely too pretty, and your voice worth too much for such a thing.” He leaned back, his look measuring. “I can arrange almost anything if you can help me do so.”

Ruby went cold. No wonder she hadn't had any success, no wonder Lake had given her certain looks from time to time, as if waiting for her to say ritual words. He wanted a bribe. How could she have been so naïve? She bit her tongue, and blessed Jali for saying, “We do not have spare credit to help you in a meaningful way. Perhaps we will be able to provide assistance in some other way?”

“There are many forms of commerce of a station this size. Your people are—somewhat unique in how
original
you are.”

“What do you mean?” Ruby asked.

“You have a following now. Naveen has stirred up interest. There will be people who would like to sit across a table from you—like I am now—but who will be unable to do so. There may be other ways to satisfy their appetites. Perhaps you have a few young girls who are looking for opportunities to serve as companions?”

Before Ruby could react, Jali spoke again. “We do not participate in that trade. What else might help you plead our case convincingly?”

Lake looked at Ruby, his eyes as warm and friendly as they had always been, as if what she had just heard him say changed nothing. “Sometimes I am allowed to organize events here. Perhaps I can work with your manager to put on a concert, and you can pay me well enough that it covers my time to sell tickets.”

Ruby swallowed, still furious and slightly confused.

Once more, Jaliet saved her. “Naveen may contact you in a few days. In the meantime, please consider us when
The Lady's Love
arrives. Surely you are also rewarded by the crew who are able to find the right workers.”

Lake shook his head. “More people need ways to earn credit than there are opportunities.”

Ruby had read him completely wrong and wasted days. But she also did not want him as an enemy.

Lake stood and gave them a slight bow. “Keep me in mind if you need anything.”

Ani watched him leave. “How are we going to learn everything we need to learn?”

Jali laughed. “One step at a time.” She turned to Ruby. “He will need to be paid to help us. And I suspect his appetite is not small.”

“I suppose he helped us get a few jobs to demonstrate that he could, and then made sure we missed on others to show his power?”

Jali shrugged. “He's looking out for himself.”

“We all are,” Ruby said.

“We've got to figure out the systems,” Jali said. “We need something like Ix.”

Ruby hadn't told her about Ix, or about the idea that they may be able to load Ix into Aleesi. She didn't like the idea. But it would be better than selling their children. She still remembered her friend Nona, who had been murdered while selling herself to a red. That past had seemed dim, but now it felt real again and almost immediate, Nona's bloody face close in her memory. She couldn't let those days return. “We need a safety net.”

“Naveen wants you to tour,” Jali said.

“We need more than me.”

Jali stood up. “No. But if you weren't here, what would we have? We'll work on getting skills for everyone else, and learning how to trade. But that will take time. Fox would have taken this opportunity, and we should learn from what he did for us.”

Ruby let out a long sigh. “We need to find a better power position.”

Jali said, “We are weak as newborns here. I bet Lake is five hundred years old, and knows how to con anybody under a hundred without even thinking about it.”

Ruby picked up a small pink cake and took a bite. “I suspect we're buying this food. We might as well eat it.”

Onor sat beside Naveen and stared into his cup of water, wishing it were something stronger. On his other side, Ruby fidgeted with her cup, twisting it round and round and periodically clinking the edge on the table. Joel, KJ, and SueAnne filled the rest of the chairs.

Everyone seemed to be avoiding everyone else's eyes.

Onor worried. Ruby's cheeks were stained by dark circles and her hair hung limply down her side. She looked thinner. She needed rest, and sleep, and to relax. The hand that wasn't working the cup in circles fingered the beads around her neck, one of the old ones from the days before the real fighting on the ship. It looked out of place here, hand-made and childish.

SueAnne and Ruby had been spending more time together. SueAnne whispered to her, “You must prioritize.”

Ruby glanced at Joel, who had the common sense to remain quiet. Lately, Onor had heard tension between them. Three long weeks of going only backward was wearing on them all.

Today, no one had found work. Naveen had shown up with a few thousand earned credits for them, but still they were two days further behind for the week. Ruby had taken to beating herself with that number.

Ruby sat up straighter and looked at Naveen. “Will you do everything you can to protect Aleesi?”

“Yes.”

She kept looking at him, intense. “Can I trust you?” She looked around at the whole table, Naveen following her gaze. “Can we all trust you?”

“I will do my best to put Ix into Aleesi and leave her whole. But I will prioritize Ix. You need that worse. The community will need an AI while we tour.”

“You'll do it here.” Ruby said. “I don't want her out of our sight.”

“I will, Ruby the Demanding Red, I will.”

Naveen's laughter and Ruby's choice seemed to release them all from the tension that had filled the room just a moment before. SueAnne rose to pour more water. Joel smiled at Naveen; the first thing Onor had seen between the two men that was better than truce since they were kicked off the
Fire
.

“How long do you need?” Ruby asked.

Naveen shrugged. “A few hours. Maybe a little more.”

Ruby gave out a weak smile. “When should I plan to leave?”

“A week.”

Ruby shook her head. “Two weeks. I need to write some songs for here. And I want you to take me out for two days. I want to see more places so I can learn more.”

Joel tensed.

Ruby must have sensed it in him. “Not just me. Joel and Onor and KJ, too. At least.”

Naveen frowned. “It would be better to leave sooner.”

“A week and a half, then. A week and a half after you get Ix working.”

“A week and a half from now,” Naveen insisted. “Timing is important. We can stop along the way,
during
the tour.”

“I want to see what's good about the
Deep
. And I want to see the Brawl for myself. You can't possible show me everything, but you can pick the absolute best and the absolute worst.”

“We aren't allowed anywhere near the best,” Naveen said. “We aren't really even supposed to know the best that exists here. They hide their excesses from us.”

Ruby smiled at Naveen, that quirky, you-didn't-understand smile of hers that Onor had always loved. “I did not say the richest and the poorest. I said the best and the worst. Another way to think of it is as the cruelest and the kindest. A core lesson from our history on the
Fire
is that those in power are often both as good and as bad as those out of it.” She shared a glance with Joel where whatever they saw in each other's eyes softened them both.

When they left the room, they had to push through the whispering women. Lya was there, her eyes fastened on Ruby as if she hungered for something. Maybe Ruby's beauty, or her power. Not the revenge Lya had once wanted; something in her desires had changed, become greater than anger or hatred. Perhaps it was sorrow, but it felt like there was some other purpose to it as well, but one that Onor couldn't quite grasp.

Whatever it was, the whispering women made it hard to guard Joel and Ruby. Onor had to assume the women could have weapons, even though so far they hadn't shown up with so much as a thick pipe disguised as a walking stick. Onor found the whole situation inexplicable, both why Lya followed Ruby around, and why Ruby allowed it.

Joel didn't appear to understand it any more than Onor. He'd made a few off-hand comments that showed he was more frustrated with the women than Onor was, and a few times he had worn such contempt and anger on his face that Onor almost felt sorry for Lya.

The whispering women had traded for or made more and more white clothing over time, so now they looked like pale ghosts. It almost seemed that as Ruby and the others began dressing more and more like the bright inhabitants of the
Diamond Deep
, Lya and her women fought to be everything the station was not.

SueAnne and Naveen waited with Onor for the entire entourage of the colorful and the white to disappear around a corner. SueAnne was using her chair today, rolling back and forth in an odd imitation of pacing the corridor. “I don't envy Ruby,” SueAnne muttered as if she were talking to no one.

“Because of those women or because she carries so much on her shoulders?” Naveen asked.

“Both.”

“She's strong,” Naveen said.

“Look more closely,” SueAnne warned Naveen. “She's exhausted.”

“I'll make sure she rests.”

“You may not have that much power,” Onor cautioned. He frowned at the now-empty corridor. “Look, I promised someone I'd have lunch with her. Naveen? Can you eat with SueAnne? I'll meet you back in the main galley.”

“Of course.”

He found Marcelle in her office, a small square box with a depressing little black desk and small chair. A sign on the front of her desk proclaimed Marcelle “Director of Education.” She looked up when he entered.

Her face was streaked with tears.

“What happened?”

“Two of the babies died.”

She'd been sneaking into the creche at night and refusing to tell Ruby. He slid around the desk and she stood so that he could fold her into his arms. It was becoming more natural to hold her, to feel her thin frame against his, to have his cheek and nose tickled by her curly hair. “I'm so sorry.”

“They didn't do anything. We brought them here, and they died.”

“I know.” He rubbed her back, his fingers feeling big against her. She was losing muscle. “You need to eat more.”

She didn't respond to that. “I expected to lose Aaron. But I was surprised to lose Pia. I thought she was getting better.”

“How many are still sick?” he whispered. How much worse might it get?

Her tears took her over and he dug around for a handkerchief and wiped her cheek dry over and over.

“Only five.” She struggled to get her breath. “We sent three home yesterday.”

“So it might be okay? It might just be what Koren said, that some of us are allergic to the new things in the food and the air here.”

“It's only babies and the old,” Marcelle said. “At least that's all that stays sick.” She sank into him again, letting a few beats of silence go, stiffening while the time went. “I get so mad. I can't help myself. I'm sure
they
could help them if they wanted. Or we could find a way to get help.”