The Diamond Deep (48 page)

Is loving

The lies of our hearts

 

A babe lies in its mother's arms,

Hungry

She offers her breast, her milk,

Her help.

The child grows and gains

Love and hope and life

But not work.

Time passes.

He is gone now, locked

In a place full of failures

The mother turns away,

Tends to her own bare

Life of desperation

 

Turning away

Does not make

Danger disappear.

Turning away

Is loving

The lies of our hearts

 

The mother grows older,

Weaker

Locks her loss and love

She works

It becomes her turn

To join the masses

She cannot work

He is with her, locked

In a place full of failures

He sees her in the brawl

But he turns away from her

Time passes.

He is gone now, locked

In a place full of failures

The mother turns away,

Tends to her own bare

Life of desperation

 

Look inside

See despair

Starve it out

Embrace the hope

Of helping

The lovers of our hearts

There were more verses. Tens of verses. The cruel possibilities suggested so much. But this was enough. For now.

She waited on the end of the stage. A few people clapped, and then a few more, and then more, but nothing like the wave of approval that had met her a few moments earlier, a song before. This felt tentative. Approval and dismay, perhaps. Or approval and fear.

She spoke into her microphone. “I am not surprised that you are quieter now. My people and I come from another time in your history. When we left, the
Fire
was designed so that there were people with different jobs, with different amounts of power. That is inevitable. We are not all the same.”

She paused, let them accept that. As soon as a quiet whisper of conversation came to her, she started speaking again. “No one starved. No one lived without any privacy, without any hope, without the arms of families. We age and we die from age like your ancestors did. But no one dies alone in a crowd like the people who die in the Brawl. I am sorry that the first song I bring you that is of you, for you, about you, is about a horror so deep that it took me weeks to figure out how to sing about it.” She paused again, the space of a breath or two. No one clapped. “There is also much beauty in the
Deep
, and I will sing about that for you soon.”

The few faces she could see in the front row displayed confusion, anger, unhappiness, and slightly more subtle emotions like uncertainty.

She wanted them to think.

She bowed and walked off the stage, steeling herself for Naveen's reaction.

Only after she had left the spotlight did she hear the first tentative claps. By the time she went behind the curtain, the level of applause told her that about half of the people had joined in.

Onor, Joel, Marcelle, and The Jackman sat silently, staring at the screen. The bar had gone quiet after Ruby's song about the Brawl and her short speech afterwards. Marcelle was the first to react. She stood up and clapped, staring down at Onor until he did the same. Joel stood, dragging The Jackman up. Their whole table stood there, clapping by themselves, watching the crowd from the concert begin to file out of the large theater bubble on the screen in front of them.

After a short delay, Onor heard clapping from behind him. He looked around and saw that it was people from the
Fire
. He heard a third table from the other part of the room. After a few moments, clapping came from all directions and Marcelle had started whistling catcalls. Yet most of the people from the
Deep
sat still, or whispered one to another. Just before Marcelle sat down, Onor caught a few claps from a group of Deepers in the far corner.

Then one more.

An eerie delayed reaction.

As they sat back down, Onor leaned over to Marcelle and kissed her cheek. “Thank you. That was perfect.”

“That was stupid,” Joel whispered, soft enough that only the four of them could hear it.

“She's always been stupid,” The Jackman said. “But you gotta admire a girl who'll take on a whole space station full of people.”

Joel chewed on his lower lip. “Aren't thousands of her own people enough to protect?”

Onor's laugh broke some of the tension around the table. “I knew she'd do that ever since she saw the Brawl. I'm surprised she managed to wait this long.”

In spite of the others' laughter, Joel still looked unhappy. “She takes too many risks.”

Marcelle gave him a sweet smile. “Isn't that why you fell in love with her?”

Joel glowered even more. Silly, serious man.

Allen came over and sat backwards on a chair. “Can I offer you a round in condolence?”

Joel raised an eyebrow. “Condolence?”

“Over a hundred people have asked for refunds.”

“How did you know that?” Onor asked.

“Naveen called me. He wanted to know if you all had seen what she did.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“That he should have known he was playing with fire.”

Joel finally laughed, although creases of worry still furrowed his brow.

Evie came up to see if they wanted refills. After she took their orders, she leaned close to Onor. “Have you heard from Haric?”

The undertones of worry in her voice made Onor smile. “I checked before we came in here. He said he's settled into a hotel room outside the Exchange. He was about to go find a good place to watch the concert. I bet he's someplace just like this.”

Her eyes rounded. “But not with us. With Deepers.”

Onor tried to reassure her. “It should be okay. I can't imagine anyone will hurt Haric over this. Besides, some of the Deepers liked what she did.” He thought about adding that they were even less likely to hurt a kid, but Haric probably wouldn't want to be referred to that way. “He'll be okay.”

“Will you send me a message as soon as you know anything?” she asked.

“If you'll do the same.”

“I will.”

This time the after-party was at Headman Stevenson's home.

Ruby let Jali fuss with her hair until Naveen sent a minion to pound on her door. As soon as she saw Naveen, she tried to read his reaction. When she had first come off the stage, every muscle she could see had looked tense and he had spoken in short commands. Now, his jaw was a little more relaxed and he was willing to look at her. In spite of the faint smell of wine on him, there was nothing in his look that suggested any kind of approval. “What were you thinking?” he asked.

Her tiredness seemed to vanish with his question, worry taking its place. “What I told them. I meant that. Sometimes art matters.”

“More than feeding your people?”

“Of course not.” But then after a minute, she said, “Maybe.”

“People here don't talk about the Brawl. They hardly want to be reminded of it. Especially in an encore.” He almost sounded pleading.

“I'm not just a pretty little singer.”

“Well, hurry up,” he said.

“What?”

“You can't wear that.”

She had on the outfit designed to look like the last uniforms from the
Fire
, the ones they had all worn for docking day. Jali had just finished it this morning. They'd argued about how much to tuck it so that it showed her figure. Jali had won; it was tucked and piped. Almost too pretty. “I rather like it.”

“Are you trying to commit suicide? Or just tired of singing? I can stop this whole thing right now. I've already made enough credit that I never have to work again if I don't want to. But you have mouths to feed.”

She felt her apprehension transforming into anger, going from one emotion that made her tremble to another. “I do. But I cannot unmake myself, and I cannot refuse to care. You're the one who took me to the Brawl. Surely you did that because you knew it would affect me.”

“I hoped it would scare you.”

“Look. Let's go. I won't sing that song at the after-party. I'll behave there.”

“But you're going to wear that?”

“Yes.”

He looked exasperated and intrigued all at once.

Along the way, she felt as if he were trying to form words around an idea. He finally said, “Look. We don't do revolution here. There hasn't been a change in power in thousands of years. I'd like to see a change, more than you know. But you can't just come in from the outside and make that happen.”

Ruby didn't answer him. But if she hadn't known Lila Red the Releaser existed—even though she failed—Ruby would never have tried. Perhaps these people just needed to know it could be done.

The way to Headman Stevenson's was a broad, clear tunnel with art murals painted on the walls. Nothing as secret as getting to Gunnar Ellensson's had been.

At least government here was accessible.

It was also apparently popular. The huge room was full of people. The Headman saw her, and then ignored her until she came to him in the reception line. There, he took her hand and said, “Welcome,” and looked at her eyes. “That last song?”

“Yes?”

“Don't ever sing it in my presence again.”

She flinched, but held her ground. “Perhaps you would explain why? Maybe over a drink?”

To her surprise he handed off the duty of greeting people to the woman next to him. He took her arm, leading her. She wouldn't quite describe the pressure of his hand on her arm as painful.

Naveen and KJ followed. She waved the others off, thinking that too big an audience might make it harder for her to have a serious conversation. Min looked like she wanted to join Ruby, but Ani pulled her away and they followed Jali and Dayn into the crowd.

The Headman apparently had a similar thought, as he only allowed one of a crowd of hangers-on to follow him. He led Ruby out of the party and into a small room that held only a table and a few chairs. There was already a pitcher with water and cups on the table, as if the spot were always kept ready. “Please sit.”

Ruby did, KJ on one side of her and Naveen on the other, the Headman and his own guard opposite them with one empty chair.

Headman Stevenson waited until everyone had poured water. Today, he wore a flowing white outfit that was sheer enough to show his multicolored tattoos. Something in the way he dressed reminded her of Lake, the man who had wanted to sell her women off to brothels. Or maybe she could smell it on him. At any rate, she didn't like him, and she didn't trust him. But there was no denying that he radiated the confidence that came with real power, or that so much confidence made fear beat like wings in her heart.

For a long, awkward moment no one said anything.

The door opened and Koren walked into the small room. She wore sparkled and stitched blues very much like she had the first time Ruby met her, and once more her arms and neck flowed with golden chains. “Hello, Ruby.” She didn't even acknowledge KJ or Naveen.

Ruby said nothing. She couldn't trust herself not to admonish Koren for her rudeness, and for a thousand other things, so she sat with her nails dug into her palms. Koren had brought them down. Or more accurately, they had allowed Koren to bring them down. Either way, they were enemies now.

Koren had the same sense of power the Headman did, even though she was clearly subservient to him.

It was hard not to speak.

Headman Stevenson looked at Ruby. “I am going to assume that you are simply naïve, and you do not appreciate the value of our choices here.”