The Diamond Deep Read online

  As soon as they were inside, she took a long drink of water and flopped onto the bed. Joel was more disciplined about getting to the same place, and soon they were right next to each other, breathing softly.

  Ruby couldn’t recall being so drained since the days of fighting. Her head spun as hard as her feet throbbed. Joel lay beside her on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She reached deep inside herself for a scrap of energy and managed to roll over closer to him and touch his cheek. “I didn’t see any children. Not one.”

  She left her fingers on his jaw so she felt him say, “I think I saw one being carried. A babe in arms. We’ll ask Onor.”

  “Has he come home?”

  “I think he would have met us,” Joel said

  “Or passed out from exhaustion. In the old days I could have asked Ix.”

  “I know.”

  She stretched, fighting to find a few more minutes of awareness for conversation. It had been a long day, but she still felt mystified by her exhaustion. “I didn’t see anyone that looked old, either. I want to know how they do that.”

  “It’s unsettling.”

  “I’m amazed we got SueAnne home.” She had so much to think about now. “We need to assign someone to keep track of these credits, maybe a few people. So one can watch the other.”

  “The Fire was so much easier,” he murmured. “We had to work to live, but everyone was fed.”

  “That’s not so different than it is here.”

  Joel rolled to face her, stroked her hair. “But we were all always together. Even when the levels were closed off and I didn’t know you existed, we were all necessary.”

  “We’re all going to be necessary here.”

  He paused for a moment, and then asked, “How are we going to care for people like SueAnne? How can she earn credit?”

  “People will have to pool the credit they earn, I guess.”

  He touched her cheek, ran a finger along her lips. “How will we make them? This is not a closed space where they must accept a leader.”

  “Or leaders.”

  “Or leaders.”

  Ruby had closed her eyes, but nevertheless she heard his soft laughter in his voice. She whispered, “We’re going to have to be so strong, so smart. Koren is no friend, and Naveen may not be either. We may not have any friends here.”

  “We have each other.”

  By the time they made it into the meeting room they’d chosen, Joel was seething. “If you don’t do something about those women, I will.”

  The room was still empty, although someone had already been here brewing stim, the scent of it filling the air and giving Ruby a boost. She put a hand on Joel’s arm, felt the tight set of his muscles. “I will take care of this. It’s only been two days since they started it. I’m thinking.”

  “Don’t think too long.”

  Maybe love was always infuriating. She had learned that taking him on directly seldom worked. Not that she was happy about the women; they bothered her on a deep note. But she spoke quietly and calmly. “Lya was my friend once.”

  He only softened a bit. “If you allow yourself to feel guilty about Hugh forever, he will haunt you. Save your guilt for those you actually kill.”

  “What a happy thought.” The door opened and Haric came in with three cups in each hand. Ruby smiled at him. “Six? Aren’t we only expecting Onor and KJ?”

  Haric grinned at her. “And me.”

  “That’s still only five.”

  Haric simply smiled and continued to look full of a secret. He poured three cups, and the three of them sat down at the table.

  “What happened here yesterday?” Joel asked.

  “There’s five more children that came up sick, but one of the first ones who got sick looks better. Marcelle’s really worried about another one, though.”

  Ruby frowned. “They’re all quarantined?”

  “And you feel okay?” she asked Haric.

  “I was sick one day. But I’m better now.” He looked more closely at her. “You look tired. Are you okay?”

  “I am tired. We were out a long time yesterday. I can’t tell you how much there was to see.”

  “I wish I could have gone with you.”

  He was so earnest. “I know. I have a feeling we’ll all get to see more of the station soon.”

  The door opened again, admitting Onor and Naveen.

  “You’re the sixth,” Ruby said in greeting.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Good to see you. Haric will pour you some stim.”

  They shared stories from each other’s trips while they finished the first round of stim. Onor’s description of the Brawl fascinated and frightened Ruby. Although it was Onor who had relayed the story of seeing the Brawl, Ruby turned to Naveen. “How do people end up in the Brawl?”

  Naveen looked down at the table. “They can’t support themselves, even at a basic level, and no one speaks for them.”

  “How can you be so cruel?” Ruby demanded.

  “How can we not?” Naveen raised his head. “A space station is an enclosed system with limited resources.”

  “You have enough resources to feed your hungry,” Ruby snapped. “No one starved on the Fire. No one. When we had a shortage, we all went on reduced rations.” The whole idea turned her stomach. “I was there. In Exchange Five. There are enough resources there to feed thousands, clothe thousands.”

  Naveen looked like he was hanging on her every word. She felt like he’d baited her into feeling this way, but surely he hadn’t created the Brawl. He’d just made sure she knew about it. “I see,” he said, “why they call you Ruby the Red.”

  “Are there people here who hate the Brawl?”

  “Of course. Many.” Naveen shrugged. “But there is something like it on every station. It creates discipline.”

  Something about his tone of voice alerted her. “Are you recording this?”

  “I record almost everything.”

  She went silent. He was helpful. Had been helpful. He had also known she would hate anything like the Brawl; like Koren, he had their history. “I want to see the Brawl for myself.”

  “I’ll take you,” Naveen said.

  Onor frowned.

  Joel put a protective hand on Ruby’s hand. “I would like to go, too. Can you take the both of us?”

  “It will cost credit.”

  “Did it cost credit to take me?” Onor asked.

  “I paid it,” Naveen said. “And if I have to, I can pay to treat Ruby.” He hesitated a moment. “And Joel.”

  “We’ll pay,” Joel said.

  Ruby glanced at Haric. “Can you find some kind of bread? I need to calm my stomach.”

  “I’m sure there’s a colored square somewhere called bread.”

  Such irony from a child.

  Onor glanced at Naveen. “Can you show him how to order some real food?”

  Naveen laughed. “Spoiled you, did I? Sure. And breakfast is on me.”

  Haric looked downright perky as they headed for the door. “What kind of real food? I heard you saw a bird.” He was still talking as the door closed behind him.

  “I don’t like him recording you,” Joel told her.

  “I’m sure he recorded you, too.”

  “We’re being used.”

  Something dawned for her. “We’ve always been used. We were somebody’s slaves on the Fire. Probably no one from here, although everyone will use us if we let them. Naveen. Koren. Even Lake. We will have to be careful about who we allow to use us, and be sure we get fair value in return.”

  Onor leaned back and bit at his lip. “That’s cynical.”

  “Is it wrong?”

  He shook his head.

  “We’d better get smart, fast.” She was seething, but she couldn’t afford that. She had to think. “Do you trust him? You’ve spent time with him.”

  She could see Onor consider, knew how his teeth worried his top lip when he was under real pressure.

  “Y
es. As much as I trust anyone I didn’t grow up with or fight beside. I think he can help us. If we’re careful.”

  “Naveen taught you about credit?” Joel asked.

  “He gave us some. For your songs. He’s selling them and he gave us a cut.”

  Ruby leaned forward. “If he can sell them, can’t we sell them?”

  “To who? He knows everybody. We don’t.”

  “How much credit?” Joel asked.

  “Two hundred seventy credits.”

  Ruby leaned back in her chair. “That’s life for one hundred and thirty-five people for one day.” Both a lot and not a lot. “How many songs did he sell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ruby got up and rinsed out cups, thinking as she moved. “Was the Brawl the most awful place you’ve ever seen?”

  “Yes. We don’t, ever, any of us, want to end up there.”

  Ruby brooded while Joel questioned Onor about the number of people in the Brawl (more than he could count) and the number of enforcer robots (maybe one for every hundred people) and about the route Onor had taken to get there.

  Haric and Naveen came back in with soft bread and fruits Ruby had never seen. “Try the green one,” Onor said. “It’s sweet.”

  “After I settle the stim a little.” She reached for a piece of bread, and even that smelled sweeter than she wanted. It tasted good, and helped her back off the fight in her stomach. She needed energy. “We’ll see that we don’t ever end up in the Brawl. Any of us.”

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Joel said. “I did the math. We have five thousand seven hundred and thirty-five people.”

  Naveen’s eyes widened at the number, although he didn’t say anything.

  “It takes two credits a day for survival. Per person. Old or young. I don’t know what it takes to live a decent life, but for the sake of argument let’s say we need four credits a person and a few extra, so multiply six thousand by four. That’s twenty-four thousand credits a day.”

  “But a lot of people to earn them,” Haric said. “Most of us can work.”

  Ruby shook her head. “Deduct the children, and the people we need to raise them. And the old. And the sick. And the people we need to care for them.”

  “How many children do you have?”

  Joel answered. “Between what ages? How old do you need to be to work here?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “About half of us are women,” Joel mused, “and maybe one in ten women has a child, so that’s about three hundred.”

  “Wow,” Naveen said.

  “I didn’t see any at the Exchange,” Ruby commented.

  “We seldom create children on the station. They visit. The miners tend to have them.”

  Joel held up a hand. “Don’t get sidetracked. Estimate. Four thousand can probably work.”

  “But they won’t all be able to,” Ruby pointed out. “Or at least, not everyone finds work every day. Lake said some days there is hardly any.” The whole thing was beginning to sound worse than hard.

  Naveen interrupted. “Not everyone can find work at manual labor. There are other ways to earn credits.”

  Onor looked at Naveen. “I told them about selling Ruby’s songs.”

  Naveen sat up straight and looked serious. “I want to help you.”

  “Why?” Joel still sounded stiff about the idea. “What’s in it for you?”

  Naveen offered a small, genuine smile. “I, too, need to stay out of the Brawl, and better, to have the credit to live where I live. It’s a nice place. I make credits telling people about things, and you are a unique new thing that will interest the station. Particularly Ruby.”

  Joel was still frowning. “We’ll consider your offer. What can the rest of us do?”

  Ruby had a sudden image of Joel shifting boxes of cargo from place to place. He was a fighter and a military leader.

  Naveen pulled a flask of some kind from his belt and drank from it. She couldn’t smell it, couldn’t tell if it was still or stim or maybe even just water. “You need a structure. One set of people need to go look for work. Exchange Five is as good a place as any, and it’s where Koren will expect you to be since she showed it to you. Another group needs to focus on learning.

  “What should we learn?” Ruby said. “I want to see the birds. Is everything else between the Exchange and the Brawl? I mean, is that the best and the worst of it?”

  Naveen paused a moment before answering her. “That’s middling-bad—the Exchange—and the Brawl is the worst thing except maybe the jail. There a lot of the Deep that regular people don’t know about, that we barely glimpse. Some is bad, but most of it is riches beyond our imagination.”

  Whole areas being hidden from her. Hardly a surprise. She knew there were people watching her though Naveen’s camera. Right now. This very moment. She forced herself to curb her tongue.

  All of her life, people had been trying to hide riches from her. Or worse, to show her the bottom of a world and claim it was the top.

  Onor felt uncomfortable at Joel’s reticent response to Naveen’s offer to sell Ruby’s songs. But he had something good that had come from Naveen. He pulled the dull silver-colored ball that held Ix out of his pocket and put it on the table.

  Ruby’s face grew curious. She picked it up and stared at it, turning it around and around, holding it up and squinting at it.

  Naveen watched Ruby. He looked expectant. “It is a copy of Ix. It still holds your history.”

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed and she held the object up higher. “Really? This is Ix?”

  Naveen said, “Ix is stored in the ball at the moment. It isn’t anything physical; it does need a physical home.”

  “Koren gave it to you?” Joel asked.

  “No.”

  A beat of silence passed. When Naveen offered nothing else, Joel pressed him further. “Will we get into trouble for having it?”

  “By law, it is yours.”

  Ruby asked, “So why didn’t Koren let us have it in the first place?”

  Naveen grinned. “Perhaps she forgot your rights. I doubt it is in her best interest for you to succeed.”

  Joel’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing I can prove easily. But what was your cargo worth, and did you really get 10 percent of the salvage?”

  “Why didn’t we get it all?” Ruby looked irritated, but then she’d looked irritated ever since they were forced off the ship.

  “Well, the crew isn’t the owner of a ship. Not usually. On the little miners and the family ships, and sometimes of ships meant to get around the Deep. But not on the big cargo liners. Salvage rights can be called on any ship that is drifting and cannot be fixed. It’s old rules, started way back on Lym around sailing ships.”

  “The Fire did work!” Ruby exclaimed.

  Onor didn’t call her on her near-lie. Joel just sat with his face stoic, but he was clearly thinking hard.

  “And you could prove that now?” Naveen asked mildly.

  “Maybe with Ix?” Ruby still held the ball of Ix in her hand. “Does it know?”

  Naveen shook his head. “I looked. Ix does have all of the maintenance records, but that alone doesn’t exactly support your case. The Fire was never designed for in-system travel. The best you could have done was park it in an orbit. As soon as you stopped in the system, the Fire was effectively derelict. You may be lucky you landed here instead of being boarded by pirates.”

  Joel gave a bitter laugh. “We were boarded by pirates at the Edge. Surely you saw that.”

  Naveen looked thoughtful.

  Ruby put the ball with Ix in it down on the table, propped on a napkin so it couldn’t roll off. She glared at it. “How do we use that? Ix was as big as the ship.”

  Naveen lost his smile. “I’ve looked. When Koren built this place, she didn’t put a design spec in for an AI habitat. We’ll have to acquire one.”

  “Which will cost credit,” Joel said.

  “Yes.”
<
br />   “What is an AI habitat?”

  “Well, not that ball. You might think of that as a place where Ix is sleeping, waiting for a home complex enough for it. Onor and I poked around this morning. You do have a communications network here, and a standard base operating system, but an AI needs a certain speed and range of processing power.”

  Getting Ix to work mattered. “What would it cost to get one?”

  “A third of what you have.”

  Ruby’s face fell.

  She would never do that, not now while there was so much they didn’t know, and children and old people to feed. She licked her lips and twisted her hair in her fingers. “It wouldn’t really help us anyway, would it? It doesn’t know the station. It can’t.”

  Naveen said, “It does. I taught it a few things before I compressed and copied it. It knows how to access the station’s maps and schedule.”

  “Could you use the spider’s webling?” Joel asked.

  Ruby gave him a Don’t talk about that look, which Joel ignored.

  “Is your camera off?” Ruby asked Naveen.

  “Yes,” Naveen said. “I know your history. The law Aleesi is scared of is real. It’s still enforced, and if she gets caught existing she will be destroyed.”

  Onor felt startled. “I thought you couldn’t kill beings. That’s what the Brawl is all about, right? You can’t kill, so you lock people up and let them kill each other?”

  Naveen looked offended. “The Brawl isn’t that simple. And the stationmasters can kill illegal beings. Aleesi is illegal.”

  “She doesn’t seem that different than Koren’s robots,” Ruby said.

  “Didn’t you meet her as a pirate?” Naveen reached for more stim. “It’s like the salvage laws. Old stuff. At one point, early in the days of AI and before the sundering, soldiers were captured and their brains scanned into robots and turned against their own people. It kills a human to do this—to take the essence of them and pour it into metal. The story is more complex than that, but the law is old and stable.” He sighed. “And probably good. From your conversations with Aleesi, she was a slave.”

  “But why not kill the people who made her, instead of her?” Ruby objected.

  “Because hybrids had to be outlawed to stop the business.”