The Diamond Deep Page 25

  “If the people here have enough to live well and not work, they will do that. Such an experiment was carried out on another station, and the whole station became less competitive.”

  So the idea of competition happened between stations as well. You competed, or you ended up here. “Why else are people here, besides not paying?”

  “People who get caught breaking rules but who aren’t violent can be sent here. We have a lockup for big crimes, and banishment for others. They can’t get out until their time is done, and they have to also make the life payment.” He paused and they were all silent. She glanced away from the window to check Naveen’s expression. He looked closed.

  She stared back down at the crowded expanse, watching a man thread through the crowd while an enforcer followed him, like a slow dance. She couldn’t quite tell if the man was being chased, but a way was opened for both, one at a time, as if the crowd below wanted the man to escape and yet couldn’t block the enforcer.

  “It’s not pleasant,” Naveen said quietly, “but this system works. For each of the people you see down there, there are a hundred who are either pulling their weight and doing the work of the station, or earning credit with entertainment—like me. Some are simply taken care of by others.”

  “You sound defensive. But you wanted us to see this.”

  “Not because the Brawl is a good place. It’s not.”

  Below her, the man seemed to be getting ahead of the enforcer.

  She felt puzzled. “But you approve of it?”

  “It keeps civilization going.”

  “I don’t approve.” Here and there, she noticed the flickering lights of video screens. “They have slates?”

  “Of course. And group entertainment. I’ve even sold a few of your songs in to them. They like them.”

  She stiffened against the glass, staring down at the people below, looking for the man who had been running from the enforcer. “Sold?” It some ways it was less horrible than she had imagined, in other ways it was more. She hated the idea of it, of segregating people and watching over them with machines. “You sold my songs to people who have nothing?”

  “Of course. It is to help keep you from having nothing.”

  “Give them away here. All of them. Even the future ones.”

  Naveen frowned. “You have to have credit to make a difference.”

  She ripped her attention from the window and turned to him, speaking too loudly for the small hallway and not caring. “This is my work, not yours. I will have it given to these people.”

  Naveen maintained his composure, although his jaw was set tight and his eyes looked harder and more determined than usual. “And will you have it given to all of the downtrodden on the Diamond Deep?”

  “Are there worse places than this?”

  “Of course there are. The Brawl is one place we send our indigent. There are others, some for criminals or the incompetent. Here, people have food and air and entertainment. Some even choose to be here. After all, the rules are simple.”

  Ruby frowned. “You said people die here?”

  Naveen looked slightly surprised at the question. “They do. I showed this to you so that would understand Koren’s hope for you. So you would see what could befall you if you don’t learn our ways fast enough.”

  They needed this man. Ruby wanted to shout at him, to explore her rage at the whole idea of the Brawl, but it wouldn’t help her people. Besides, Naveen didn’t create the custom. She put her hands back on the glass to hide the way they had started shaking and looked out over the crowded living quarters below. “For now, give them away here. I will think about other places later.”

  “Very well.”

  Ruby found the man the enforcer had been following. He was on the ground, splayed, with one hand up as if in defense. The enforcer loomed over him, and he fell back, limp. There was no way to tell from here if he had been stunned or killed, but whatever had happened was cruel.

  She said nothing.

  SueAnne changed the subject. “You mentioned that people choose to go here. Why?”

  “Survival means work. If you do work you like, or you do work well, survival on the Deep is good. The Deep has more opportunities than most other places—room for more people who believe more things. I’ve been to all the stations, and to Lym. They’re all like this—cruel and hard on one end, and quite wonderful on the other. I’m trying to show you the best and worst that could happen to you.”

  Naveen, Allen, and Onor sat at one of the empty bar tables, a bottle that Naveen had brought in standing empty in the middle of the table, and another one half-empty. Onor had taken to lifting the glass and letting the cool, slightly minty liquid touch his lips without actually drinking any more. Allen hadn’t displayed the same self-control; he listed in his chair.

  A bartender should know better.

  Naveen looked unaffected, although Onor had learned that he tended to look that way right up to the point that he could barely walk or speak. “We’ll give you five percent.”

  Naveen narrowed his eyes. “I thought I was negotiating with Allen.”

  Onor laughed, struggling to be as good-natured as possible, to sound as naïve as he could. “You’re negotiating with the People of the Fire.”

  “Fancy name,” Allen said. “I like it.” He burped. “Go, Onor. Make a deal.”

  Naveen looked slightly disgusted. “I want ten percent. I’ll be able to negotiate prices that are at least fifteen percent lower than you could get yourselves. You don’t lose anything.”

  “Five percent on anything we sell here, to our people. Ten percent on anything we sell to people who come to us from the outside.”

  “Why would they do that?” Naveen asked. “We have bars.”

  “Because you’re going to encourage people to come. You’ll earn more credits from outsiders.”

  “It’s going to be a great bar,” Allen said, taking another drink. “We know how to make good bars.” He raised his drink. “You said so yourself.”

  “You’ll have to pay to transport the food and drink into here.”

  “We’ll split it with you?” Onor said.

  “Who’s teaching you, anyway?” Naveen grinned. “You’re supposed to be naïve.”

  “That could be true.” Onor sat back and this time he took a more noticeable sip, the liquor warming his belly again. People would need to have some of the credit they’d earned to spend it here. Ruby would hate that. But the credit would stay inside of the community mostly, and maybe—just maybe—they could bring some in from outside.

  Jali stood beside Ruby, pinning up the shoulder of a pale gray dress she’d decorated with red, blue, and gray beads unstrung from some of the many signal necklaces that Ruby had accumulated over time. The dress flowed all the way to the floor, and when she moved the beads clicked softly against each other.

  Just outside of the open door, but never coming in, three of the whispering women sat and watched. At least they were silent at the moment. Lya, an older woman named Justina, and Min, with her disfigured face. It hurt Ruby that Min had chosen to become a whispering woman; she remembered how proud she had been of the knife scar that marred her cheek, of fighting for freedom. What had made her choose to follow Lya?

  Ruby didn’t say anything to her. She was developing a plan, but so far her plan didn’t include engaging in conversation with her white shadows.

  The women acted like furniture. This bothered Ruby deeply, but they were creating the situation, not her. Forcing them away would only make matters worse.

  Ruby returned to admiring the dress, which fit snugly at the waist and flowed over her hips to end just at the floor in her bare feet. “What did you make this one for?” Ruby asked. “It’s beautiful, and soft, but it’s too heavy to perform in.”

  “Dinners, I suppose. I’ve finished everything you need for performances. But there will be regular days, and important events you don’t know about yet, and you will need to look your best for all of them.”


  Ruby leaned in and gave Jali a slight hug. “I’m so glad you’re coming with me. Your work is fabulous.”

  Jali grinned at the complement. “Now I need to make me some clothes. And at least two outfits for everyone else who’s coming. Is it all final?”

  “Yes. Six of us. You, me, KJ, Ani, Dayn, and one more. And Naveen of course. Not that you’ll have to dress him.”

  “No, but I’ve been stealing ideas from his outfits. Joel? He’s staying?”

  “Someone has to run things.”

  “Who’s the one more?”

  “I’m choosing.”

  “Joel is letting you pick?”

  “He assigned KJ, Ani, and Dayn.”

  “Well, Dayn is good for you, he keeps your head from getting big. I suspect Joel knows that.”

  Ruby laughed. “It is hard to be stuck up with Dayn around to stick a pin in you.” She looked back at the dress, which perfectly set off her pale complexion, hid her freckles, and added sensuality even though it covered almost every inch of her. “Dayn must be along to balance you. You make me so beautiful my head expands.”

  “You’re keeping a secret.”

  “Maybe.” Ruby shrugged and looked in the long mirror one more time. “Should the collar be a little lower?”

  Jali frowned. “No.”

  “Okay. Get me out of this.”

  Jali undid the pins she’d used to close the dress. By the time Ruby put it back on, there would be buttons there. “When do you need to know the sixth person?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Ruby sighed.

  “Soon,” Jali said. “I’m shopping again in the morning. There’s a good sale going on at the ColorMe booth, and I want to get there early.”

  Ruby looked over the ten or twelve new outfits Jali had conjured up in just the past week. “Thanks for being so fabulous.”

  “The extra credits helped.”

  Naveen had shown up with a few thousand extra credits, mumbling something about her songs selling really well in advance of the concerts. He’d told her to use the extra for clothing, and she had. Half of them. The rest went into the community funds, and Jali had done such a good job that Naveen would surely never know she hadn’t exactly obeyed him.

  Ruby dressed back in her regular clothes, comfortable dark gray pants and a washed-pale blue shirt Jali had made her, way back on the Fire.

  “There’s only a week left, Jali said. “Are you scared?”

  “Never.”

  “You’re lying through your teeth.”

  “Of course I am. I’m terrified. But now,” she gestured at the dress Jali had just taken off her. “Now I’m excited, too. Are you?”

  Jali laughed. “I’m glad to be busy, and it will be an honor to go with you.”

  “You’re being way too formal,” Ruby laughed. She kissed Jali on the cheek to loosen her up and headed out.

  At the door, she stopped and addressed the whispering women for the first time in three days. “Lya—can we talk?”

  Lya looked startled at Ruby’s invitation. During the fitting, she had been in a boneless slump on the floor, one shoulder leaning into a wall. She had managed to scramble to a stand, but now her feet stood as if welded to the floor. Well, not-quite-right or not, she had succeeded in creating the women in white.

  “Come on,” Ruby said. “Allen’s serving up mint tea over in the bar. He’d love to have a customer or two.”

  “I . . .” Lya glanced at the other two women, as if lost for words.

  “Just us, please.”

  “Go,” Min said. “Go on.”

  Ruby assessed. Min looked good, still thin, but with clear definition in her muscles and color on her face. The cut had finished healing and become a puckered brown and red line from under her left eye, across her nose, and down her right cheek. Ruby smiled at her, testing, pleased to see Min return her smile, if only with a light uptick in the corners of her fine, small mouth.

  In spite of Min’s encouragement, Lya remained silent for an extra awkward beat before she said, “Very well.”

  Ruby frowned but let it go. She led Lya down two levels and found an empty table in the half-full bar. She made sure they sat close to a microphone. Naveen had succeeded in wiring Ix/Aleesi into the community’s speaker system so that the combined machines could hear. He had not been able to separate out the two machines in such a way that they had separate inputs and outputs; the webling had not been designed that way. Nor had they been given a voice except in the one small room where the webling lived. Nevertheless, they would hear the conversation and Ruby would be able to ask them about it later, or to use them to replay parts.

  Allen stood on a ladder, hanging pictures and lights with the help of two maintenance bots. The bots were about the size of his hand, and able to cling to the walls and even climb. He looked over as Ruby and Lya settled, waved, and commanded a serving robot to take their order.

  Ruby frowned as it neared. The robot had never seen the inside of the Fire. Something Naveen had provided? Or someone had spent secret credits on? The underground economy that had been the cargo bars seemed intent on re-emerging here where they couldn’t afford it. Something to talk to Ix about later. And Joel.

  How could she leave? Things weren’t settled here.

  Ruby turned to look at her immediate problem. Lya sat more normally now than she had in the corridor, and her face had gone into the blank, patient waiting posture she often used when she and her women were “witnessing” instead of “whispering.” Following Ruby around had been good to her in some ways. She looked stronger than she had when this first started.

  Ruby ordered tea for the two of them and watched the bot slide smoothly across the smooth floor until it had almost returned to Allen. Perfect. New. All of it. Surely the whole station wasn’t perfect and new. But then, the little she knew of their history suggested that the denizens of the Deep tore it apart and remade it regularly.

  She dragged her attention back to Lya. She must be too tired again; it was hard to focus her thoughts.

  Lya raised her head and met Ruby eye to eye. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

  “I’m going to leave soon for a tour.”

  “No kidding. In fancy dresses.”

  “I’ve always worn costumes to perform.”

  “No you haven’t.”

  “When I was on stage.” Ruby sighed and waited a long moment, then looked into Lya’s eyes. “This isn’t working for me.”

  A small smile crossed Lya’s lips, then disappeared.

  “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.”