The Diamond Deep (52 page)

She bent to her slate.

He held up a hand and waved.

They came over and sat, and Onor introduced Marcelle.

Once more the man and woman remained anonymous. Onor looked at them and said, “Why don't you just make up names?”

“Misrepresenting yourself is illegal here,” the woman said.

“We need your help,” Onor said.

They looked curious but waited for him to speak.

“We have . . . something Naveen helped us with. A situation.” He was having trouble with words. Fear that a situation Koren already knew about would backfire? “We have two AIs sharing a single webling. It was the only place we had for them. We want to separate them, so one of them can be carried with us. Can you help us set that up?”

The man's eyes had narrowed. “It could be risky. Why is it important?”

They'd asked about exposing Koren, and they needed Ix to help with that, and this would protect Ix. “We . . . it will help with what you want us to do. To expose Koren.”

The man stared at him for a long time, measuring. “I can call someone.” He stepped away from the table, touched his slate and then his ear, and in a moment he was talking in tones too hushed for Onor to hear.

“What would you like?” Onor asked as he called Evie over.

She gave a mute look that implied desperation and he shrugged to let her know that he had no word from Haric.

Evie looked as if Haric's absence had scraped something vital from her, but she turned away with their orders.

Perhaps their relationship was more intense than he had thought.

Joel appeared, making a hole through the crowded floor by moving chairs aside to get SueAnne's wheelchair through. They sat down and greeted the woman, accepting her return smile. Allen noticed them and came over.

As soon as the man finished with his phone call, he sat back down. “Ruby says hello.”

“You saw her?” Onor asked.

“How is she?” Marcelle asked.

Joel leaned in. “When did you see her?”

“Recently. She's okay, but she looks weak.”

“Who was with her?” Joel asked.

“Dayn.”

Joel's eyes narrowed. “Not KJ? Have you seen KJ?”

“We know who he is. He was off proofing the next place Ruby is supposed to sing.”

Joel sat back, brow furrowed. “What do you mean, weak?”

“She says she's just tired. That she misses you and will see you soon.”

“I want her home.”

“We're not in control of that,” the man said. “But we did order up a medical bot examination for her.”

Marcelle leaned in, clearly interested. “What can a medical bot do? I'm in charge of medical here, and we have some of our own from the
Fire
, but all they do is help lift people or help with simple surgeries. They can't tell, for example, why someone is tired.”

The man answered Marcelle. “The kind of bot we ordered her time with should be able to tell that for Ruby.”

“Can I see one? Can you send one here?”

“You can order one,” the man said. “I'll see that someone sends you information.”

“Thank you.” Marcelle put a hand over her belly, and he saw it jump slightly as the baby kicked.

SueAnne frowned. “What will that cost us?”

“We're paying for Ruby's exam.”

“We have another thing to talk about,” Onor said. “We sent someone out to look for cargo, like you asked us to, and they seem to have disappeared.”

“You sent one person out?”

Onor nodded.

“We heard Koren knows you're looking. She found Ruby at a party and told her to tell you to stop it.”

Onor sat back, suddenly worried. “So they're both in danger.”

“I want her home,” Joel repeated.

Marcelle was stroking her stomach, as if danger to Ruby meant danger to their child.

“You got from her to us in one day. Can we go?” Joel asked. “We can pay you.”

SueAnne glanced at Joel with a sour look on her face but Joel ignored her.

“Maybe. But first we need to find the person you sent for proof. They're in immediate danger.”

“I'll go,” Onor said. “I sent him.”

“Who do you want to take with you? One of the dancers? Chitt?”

“No. The Jackman.”

Joel frowned. “Really? What about Chitt?”

Marcelle spoke. “The Jackman loves Onor like a son, and he's smart.”

Onor glanced at the man. “We need to move the AI first.”

“It's as good as done.”

Onor waited in the bar for The Jackman, Marcelle yet again beside him. It had taken three hours to prepare, and Marcelle looked exhausted. “You should go lie down.”

“I might not see you again.”

“Of course you will.”

“You don't know that.” She didn't flinch or turn away.

Evie plopped down at the table. She wasn't wearing her waitressing uniform.

Onor blinked at her. “You're not going.”

“Try to stop me,” Evie replied calmly.

“Haric wouldn't want you to go,” he told her.

The Jackman elbowed his way through the door.

Onor picked up his pack. Aleesi hadn't exactly been copied, but a secure connection to the webling existed in a two-inch by two-inch wafer in his pocket, and he had a fistful of small round nubs made to fit inside ears.

Evie stood.

Onor opened his mouth to tell her no, but Marcelle put a hand on his arm and gave him a look he'd come to dread. “I would go if it was you.”

Onor glanced at The Jackman.

He shrugged. “If it were Marcelle or Ruby we wouldn't be able to say no. I bet Evie won't listen to us either.”

“You're getting soft, old man,” Onor said.

“We might need her help.”

Evie practically glowed.

Onor leaned down to hold Marcelle, and she whispered in his ear. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said. “Don't have that baby until I get back.”

“Then you had best hurry.”

The day after the odd breakfast, and only two hours before Ruby's next concert, Ruby and Jali stood in the dressing room, laughing. Jali's fingers flew through Ruby's hair, braiding in long strings of shiny thread that would look a tiny bit like flames under the stage lights.

They had left the door open. KJ came in, leading a silvery beast that looked as shiny and malleable as the ones they had first seen on the
Fire
. “It's not from Koren?” Jali asked.

“There's a note from Satyana. She says it's in appreciation for your help.”

“A bribe?”

KJ shook his head. “I doubt she can force you into anything. I would like to see the bot in action.”

Ruby stared at him for a long moment, fear rising in her throat for no good reason. She was fine. “Put it in the corner and I'll mess with it after the show.”

“You only have it for an hour,” he said.

She and Jali looked at each other, and Jali sighed. “I can do fewer ribbons than I planned. Give me five minutes to adjust the design.”

KJ gave Jali such a stern look that she took a step back from Ruby. “I'll finish as soon as it's done.”

The robot looked at Ruby. “Strip please.” The robot sounded human and female, almost like SueAnne.

Ruby stared at KJ.

He backed out of room. “I'll be right out here.”

“And don't let Dayn in either.”

Jali stayed, glaring at the machine as Ruby stripped. She felt far more vulnerable naked in front of the silver doctor than she ever had in front of a man. “We don't have time for this.” Ruby struggled not to grab her clothes and throw them back on. After all, she could reach her clothes. The room was small.

“I don't even know how to send it away,” Jali whispered.

Ruby still wasn't completely sure she should trust Satyana. Or anybody for that matter. But she had to trust someone. She'd done it with Naveen.

The robot reached for her arm with more dexterity than she expected, although to be fair it could probably do surgery. Its grip was cool and slippery. It was also too firm and precise for her hand to actually slide free when she tested it. “Hold still,” it told her. Its other “hand” came up, not in a gripping shape but rounded. A needle poked free and slid smoothly into her arm, blood flowing almost immediately and faster than Ruby wanted. The robot doctor seemed very capable. The part of Ruby that used to repair robots wanted to know how it worked.

“Stand still.”

It made a slight whirring sound as it snipped a tiny bit of her hair, and then it scraped some skin from her hip with a cold metal blade. At that she moved away, just be to be told again to “Stand still.”

Jaliet braced her, and she gritted her teeth and let it keep touching her, once behind her knees, once at the wrist. Then it withdrew and said, “Stand away,” which could only have been a command for Jali.

“Close your eyes.”

Ruby obeyed.

“You too,” it said to Jali.

Ruby forced herself to take a deep breath and trust.

She heard a hum, and a faint warmth passed from her head to her toes.

“You may get dressed again.”

Ruby opened her eyes to find that the robot had changed shape and was parked against a wall, ignoring them.

“Let's just put on your clothes for tonight,” Jali said.

Ruby tugged her underwear up and fastened her bra before saying, “Yes.” She felt better just for being that covered.

Jali went right back to finishing Ruby's hair, her fingers pulling tight across Ruby's scalp from time to time. She tugged hard enough to apologize twice, a sign that she was as disconcerted by the machine as Ruby.

Jali poured a blue-gray dress with colored fringe over Ruby's head and tugged it in at the waist with a cinched strap. She used the small
Fire
pin to hold a flame-colored scarf across Ruby's shoulders. Jali herself wore the other one, and the third had been given to KJ.

Ruby kept glancing at the machine. Surely the hour had passed. It made her feel fretful. “Is it a bad sign that it's been here so long?”

“I doubt it.”

“I think so,” Ruby replied.

“Maybe it's in awe of you.”

She shook her head. A small part of her had been afraid of her weakness for a long time, had been hiding it from herself as much as from Joel and Jali and KJ and Onor and everybody else.

“It's almost time to go on.”

The expected knock came on the door.

“Coming!” Jali called. She snatched up a brush for last minute touches and took Ruby's hand. “Let's go.”

The door opened to reveal Satyana instead of the stage hand.

Onor sat next to Evie on the train. Her dark hair reminded him of Marcelle's, but otherwise she was less angular than Marcelle and even thinner. The look on her face drove out any sense she might be fragile, though. In fact, she looked so intense he felt glad she was with them.

He glanced around the slightly swaying car. Two men were deep in conversation near the front. A robot sat three seats away, its only movement to rock with the train. A pretty woman wearing a deep red jumpsuit snored two seats behind him, blue hair hiding half of her face. No one paid any obvious attention to them.

Onor dug into his pocket and pulled out three of the small round objects the technician had handed to him. He handed two to Evie and watched her pass one to The Jackman. He spoke softly. “Put those in your ear. They're called earbugs. Then we can talk to Aleesi.”

The Jackman narrowed his eyes.

“We need her. That's how we even knew what train to take.”

“What else do we need to know?” The Jackman stared at the earbug, making no move to bring it near his ear. “Didn't you write down where we get off the train?”

The Jackman always accepted new things slower than most. “We need Aleesi. Think of having her help as a silver lining for getting attacked.”

“I don't like it.”

“We
do
need her. Or some AI. Everyone around us knows more than we do.”