The Diamond Deep (37 page)

“I know that's what you wanted. To make it hard for me. But you're hurting everyone. Not because you're irritating me; I can handle that. But you're not helping with any of the things we actually need.”

“I am watching out for us.”

“I don't understand. We were never friends, but we used to live in the same pod, go to the same school. We knew the same people.”

Lya gave a short bitter laugh. “You don't protect us anymore. So I am merely protecting us from you. I'm gathering everything I can find out about what you're doing, and telling people.” She looked down at the table in front of her. “They need to know you don't really care about them.”

“You know better than that,” Ruby snapped, immediately sorry that Lya was getting to her. “You can see how hard I'm working.”

“To get dressed up? To be the fancy whore here like you were back on our ship?”

Ruby didn't slap Lya, although her arm twitched.

“I see you with good food and good clothes and able to leave whenever you want. Are you going to leave Joel for Naveen and abandon us? Are you just taking care of yourself?”

Ruby couldn't rise to Lya's bait. As soon as Lya took a breath, Ruby said, “I'm trying to make a place for us here.”

“We should never have come here. We're slaves. We're tied to the future of the same people who misused us, and you're pretending it's all pretty and sweet, that we really all get along, even though it's not true. We're still kept down, but you're so wrapped up in your fame you don't even see it.”

It was amazing Lya had any followers at all. She wasn't making any sense. The robot reappeared with white cups full of steaming green tea that smelled wonderful. More credit spent on the cups. Ruby held the tea in her hands, letting it warm them. She counted three deep breaths before she continued. “We had to go somewhere. Lym is no longer home to anyone. We could have ended up floating forever around a planet while the
Fire
finished falling apart.”

“So why are we all together? We're doing almost all the work now. Just like before. Only now we're feeding the reds and the greens and the blues and they're doing nothing. It's all on
our
backs to keep things going. Take
us
away, and leave them. If you really care.”

Ruby thought of SueAnne patiently keeping books from her wheelchair, of Jali sewing late into every night to get them all ready, of KJ and Joel and Conroy and The Jackman working to set up physical programs and to keep people training. But none of that was what Lya wanted to hear. “You could be right as far as manual work. We are good at that and should be proud of it. But others are working, too. In a lot of ways. I do know that KJ's dancers are earning credit.”

“And keeping some of it.”

Ruby hated that as much as Lya. “I don't make all of the decisions. I'm going out to do two things, which you should know if you've really been witnessing, and thinking about what you hear.”

Lya did flinch.

“To learn about the Diamond Deep and—hopefully—make us enough credit to thrive here.” Lya started to say something and Ruby held up a hand to interrupt her. “Begging for work at the Exchange—no matter who does the work—is leading us to a bad future. To something I can't let happen.” She shivered at the thought of the Brawl. Lya would die in there in no time. Many of them would. “This trip matters.”

“Why should we believe you are doing this for us?”

There. That was the question she wanted. “You don't have to believe anything. I'm going to offer you a trade.”

Lya looked puzzled.

“I'm not going to be here for you to follow around. Nor will I be here to keep Joel from locking you up if you follow him around.”

Ruby gave her a beat to talk into, but Lya didn't use it. So Ruby kept going. “I need you to help here. If you agree to help Marcelle in the schools—to do what she asks you to, and to attend three hours of classes a day—you and all of your people . . .”

Lya frowned and looked unhappy but again she said nothing.

“Then I will take Min with me. You will be able to witness the trip. If there's a way for her to communicate back to you, she'll be able to.”

Lya's eyes narrowed. “Why Min?”

“Because Joel will only let me take someone who is also able to guard. Min is trained as a fighter, and now she looks like one, too.”

Lya stood up as if she planned to leave without answering. “I had wondered if she was a traitor.”

“Lya!” Ruby barked. “Sit down.”

To her surprise Lya obeyed.

“If Min is a traitor to you, I don't know it. I haven't talked to her since we arrived here, and if I had, you'd know since you're following me around like a shadow.”

Lya picked her cup up and hugged it.

“You claim you hate me because Hugh died fighting for us. Not for me, for us.”

“He loved you,” Lya whispered. “He loved you so much. And he died for you.”

“He died for you, too.”

“I told him not to fight.”

Both of their voices were rising. Other people in the bar had started to watch them. Ruby tried to modulate, managed a whisper that still sounded angry. “No one should die young. But the world isn't fair. Maybe you do hate me. That's not fair either. We were never close friends even before. But I do what I'm doing because of a friend of mine who died once, and because of Ben. We're both honoring the dead.”

Lya licked her lips. Her hands shook.

“You didn't know my friends,” Ruby said, more slowly. “But I knew Hugh and you knew Ben. I need you to trust me. To believe that I'm honoring them both while I try to save us all.”

Lya's answering laugh sounded bitter. “I can't believe how arrogant you are.”

“Will you do it? Promise me you'll help the colony while I'm away?”

“Will you tell everybody what you're doing before you go? And why?”

“I don't have time.”

“For your people?”

Ruby sighed. There was so much work. She needed a month of sleep. “Okay. You're right. I will, in trade for Min and the return of your women in white to helping the community as much as you can.”

“While you're gone.”

The deal wasn't perfect, but at least Lya and her followers would be safe from Joel. Lya would be doing something useful, and Ruby would have Min. She could—perhaps—use her to build a bridge back into the whispering women. The thought chilled her. It was so . . . calculating. Not how she pictured herself.

They were fracturing.

She leaned over the small table so that her face was close to Lya's. “Thank you.”

“All bets are off when you get back.”

Ruby allowed Lya to have the last word.

Ruby surveyed the kitchen table. Naveen had helped her procure fresh vegetables and fruit, bread so soft that a small chunk she'd broken off to taste had disappeared in her mouth before she swallowed, and three sharp, tangy spreads. Best of all, there was a tall bottle of chilled wine. All of it food they'd never seen before they came here.

She felt too nervous to write, so she paced for almost an hour before Joel came in. He glanced at her face and then at the table, his face frozen and his back stiff.

“What's the matter?” she asked.

“Everything.”

“Sit down. Naveen brought us food.”

If the table were a person, his gaze would have cowed it into sitting down. “I'm not hungry.”

She crossed the room and stood beside him. She could feel his tension without touching him, almost smell it on him. “Did something happen?”

“I heard how you took care of those women. You can't do that.”

She stilled and took a deep breath. “Can't do what?”

“Take one of them with you. You can't reward them for disrespecting you.”

Ruby poured two glasses of deep red wine. “I already asked her. She can fight.” She held a glass out to him. “It's not as if I asked Lya.”

“Take Chitt. Take Samara. Take a dancer. But not one of your enemies.”

“We need one of the old worker-class people with us.”

“Fine. Take The Jackman.” He finally took the glass and downed half of it in one long pull.

“He hates me. Besides, we want to look friendly.”

“Isn't Min the one with the scar?”

She hadn't realized he knew that. “Yes. Jali can dress her up. She's the right size to wear some of Daria's clothes.”

“Take Daria.”

“She's no fighter. This is my trip. It will only be a few weeks, and I needed Lya and her women to be out of your hair while I'm gone.” She took a sip of the wine, rolling the bitterness on her tongue, savoring it. “Besides, KJ is going to be with me. What could go wrong?”

“Everything. Anything.” He put a hand on her shoulder, stiff and heavy. She stepped into him, trying to lift his frustration with touch. They stood that way, close but stiff, like two strangers forced into a small space. He put a hand on her face, his palm big enough to cup her entire cheek. “Look. We don't have to do this at all. You don't have to go. We can still go find Laird and the others. Koren found me yesterday, and her offer is still open.”

She stepped back, her mouth open. “You would abandon them all?”

“I saw Laird in the Exchange today. He has a job helping with the station's defenses, loves what he does. He lives in a place that's all his own, and he looks healthier than any of us—ever.” He truly looked torn. “We could be that happy. We could.”

Ruby felt like all of her had tensed all over again, like even the blood in her heart had stopped in protest. “The guilt would kill us.”

“You're pushing yourself too hard. It's not possible to do what you want to do. We can't make enough to save everyone, but I want to save you.”

She spun away from him, staring at the wall, too furious to say anything else.

He came up behind her, close enough that she heard him breathe. “I've been watching you get more and more exhausted. More worried. This is not the
Fire
. If it were, I would be the captain and I would be responsible and I would be happy you were helping. But this is a trap and we can't get everyone out of it.” He paused, and although she couldn't see it, it felt as if he reached for her and then dropped his hand.

“And taking Koren's help isn't? It's all a trap, Joel. This whole place is a trap. We have to stay together. I'm taking Min because I need a lever to understand Lya, to change her.”

“If you were with them all the time, serenading them from task to task, they wouldn't be happy.” His sounded so bitter it pulled at her heart even while she was mad at him. “You cannot do all the books, get all the jobs, write and sing, work with Ix, and communicate to everyone all the time. There is only one of you. There is no win here. We were lost the moment we decided to come here.”

She turned to face him. “You could come with me. Leave Onor in charge. Leave KJ back here with Onor.”

He went silent. For a moment, she thought he might be considering it. “I would lose whatever reputation I have left.”