The Diamond Deep Read online

  There were suits near the garage the carts were kept in. “Should we put these on now?” Onor asked.

  Colin hesitated, holding up the suit he’d chosen. “I could leave the helmet off.”

  “Ix can talk through the speakers in the suits.”

  Colin nodded. “We’ll do it your way.” He still held the suit awkwardly. “I haven’t done this since I was twenty.”

  “So why are you going in? You usually send people.”

  Colin grinned. “Call it a little challenge between me and Ruby.”

  Onor helped him, and then put his own suit on. It was kind of endearing that there was anything Colin needed help with. It wasn’t like him at all.

  Ruby paced around the map table, nervous energy keeping her from stopping at all. She should be writing a song about this, a composition driven by the awfulness of waiting. Except she was sure they were almost out of time. For everything.

  Ix had locked up command, but Ellis and Sylva and their small avenging army was almost there. Even if they couldn’t get in, she didn’t like her worst enemies this close.

  The approaching ships were a far bigger worry, but Ruby couldn’t shake the feeling that Ellis and Sylva might burst through the door any time.

  As she came around to Joel, he reached an arm out and snagged her. “Stop. You’re driving me crazy.”

  SueAnne wrung her hands and kept her eyes on the table, where the image of the small ships that had detached from the larger one grew inexorably closer to the skin of the Fire.

  Ix’s voice. “They’re turning.”

  They were. They changed orientation, a series of tiny shifts that looked a little jerky. Something even smaller left the small ships. Ruby tried to adjust her thinking. The Fire was huge, the ugly ship almost as big. “Ix? How many people can those smaller ships hold?”

  “Probably a hundred each.”

  Joel asked, “Do we have a closer view?”

  The table switched from what was essentially an illustration of all of the ships—Fire, ugly ship, three smaller ships and three even smaller ships—to a camera view of the smallest ships coming in to land on the surface of the Fire. They were rounded vessels with small eyes all over them—portholes perhaps. Kind of like the small, strong windows in the train cars.

  SueAnne gasped. “I didn’t know you had cameras on the outside.”

  Ix replied, “They are not as clear as my star cameras, and some are broken. They were meant for use while orbiting a planet.”

  Something that looked like metal claws began to descend from the round ships. “Where exactly are they—what part of the hull?” Laird demanded.

  “On the outside of the cargo pod in C.”

  “Why there?” Ruby asked.

  Other questions piled on hers. KJ asking, “Can they get in?” and Laird wanting to know, “Do you see anything that looks like weapons?”

  Ix didn’t answer any of them. “Ellis and Sylva are outside the door to command. They are discussing how to get in, in spite of the fact that I’ve locked them out.”

  Laird glanced at Joel. “Can we just take them? I have some force on hold.”

  Joel frowned. “Keep them ready.” He glanced at the table, and the approaching ships. “They’re neutralized right now. I trust Ix’s locks. Ix—tell me if they seem to develop any plans that might work.”

  “I will.”

  Ruby looked back down at the table. From this angle it looked like one of the clawed feet was going to step right into the center of the table.

  Then the view went dark.

  The suit stank of both Onor’s own fear and the stale sweat of generations. He grumbled at having to push the legs to move; if it didn’t smell so bad he would have sworn the suit had hung stiffening in the closet for generations. He panted. “Sorry Colin, I’m trying to keep up. This thing’s not responding the way it’s supposed to.”

  “Want to change it out?”

  He didn’t. It would cost time. “It’ll be okay. It’s not like it’s leaking. Maybe it will loosen up.”

  Two others had suited up, Par and one of the women. Most people in Colin’s employ had experience in the shifting gravity of the cargo bays. The four in suits would go in; the others would stay near the airlock and guard.

  Colin spoke to Ix. “Open the outer door.”

  Onor’s gloved hand was on the latch, so he felt the release even though he couldn’t hear the metallic click or the warning bell through his helmet. He pushed the door open and waved Colin in. Two was a tight fit. Ten minutes of cycling later, they were on the far side, waiting for the other two to join them.

  The C bays were completely null-g, and had been null-g since C-pod was closed down.

  Onor had been in them, of course. He’d practiced null-g maneuvers using the myriad traverse lines that criss-crossed the wide open spaces in the center of the bay. It had been a long time though, and for now he clung to the handholds on the ledge and tucked one foot under another handhold, trying to control his slight nausea with slow breaths of awful-smelling suit air.

  Lights had been turned on. A few of them didn’t work, so there were spears of light that went all the way through the cavernous space, and dark places that the light barely touched. The bay held many of the biggest cargo containers: Five times the height of a typical man and longer than they were high. They lined the outer wall, the one closest to space. “What’s in those?” Onor whispered.

  Ix answered. “Ballast and shielding in some, minerals and dried samples of biology in others, trash in one.”

  “Trash?”

  “Medical waste. Had to go somewhere.”

  Ix had sent them in after one of the strange ships landed on the outside of the cargo bay and began giving instructions to the outer locks. Onor couldn’t tell from Ix’s calm voice, but he felt certain that this was not supposed to happen. Random ships should not be able to breach the Fire, and shouldn’t do it even if they could. This was no welcoming delegation of visitors, it was an attack force.

  It pissed him off. No one had invited them to touch the Fire.

  The lock behind them opened and the other two climbed out.

  Can you hear anything from the ships?” Onor asked Ix. His own ability to hear was muffled to near-zero by the helmet and the whirring processors and servos in the suit itself.

  “Not exactly. When you’re ready, traverse the pod. Other people will meet you.”

  Onor clung for a few more minutes, waiting for Colin to get his own null-g sense about him. Colin breathed out, “Ready,” and pushed off, arms stretched toward the nearest traverse line.

  As soon as Colin got a good grip on the cable and fumbled his safety hook onto it, he looked back to check on the others. Onor was right behind him, and the line vibrated as each of the other two landed and attached their hooks.

  Colin led the four of them across the bay, pulling in and out of beams of light. New lights kicked on near one of the entrances on the far side when they were about half-way along. They stopped, clinging. “Ix? Is that who we’re supposed to meet?”

  “Yes. Can you go faster?”

  “I can.” Colin sped up and Onor worked harder, pulling hand over hand. He went so fast he fumbled once, floating away from the line, the hook holding him on. Colin gripped tightly with one hand and used his free hand to pull Onor back. Onor gritted his teeth and worked on precision as he tried to be even faster to make up for the short delay. Every pull felt like work. A spot on the inside of his arm felt seared as it chafed against a seam in the suit that should have been soft but felt like a dull knife.

  He glanced toward the other door. Three suited figures. He had no sense of whether there should or could be more of them, but it felt there should be more.

  As they reached the far side, hands pulled him in and helped him unhook then handed him along the wall. At the far end, he passed the third person, who gripped his hand as tightly as possible, glove to glove.

  Marcelle.

  He chilled, seein
g her here. Whatever was about to happen was going to be bad. He felt that, felt it deep.

  Her features were distorted by the scratched helmet glass, but he could make out a welcoming smile below eyes wide with wonder and fear. He held onto the wall with his left hand, a slight push setting him to floating 90 degrees from the wall. She did the same, using the other hand. It set them floating belly to belly. They touched free hands. A null-g hug they’d learned as youngsters when they were first taught how to suit up.

  They exchanged looks of pleasure at the success of the small joint maneuver.

  Ix. “Watch the far side.”

  The skin of the Fire. Onor braced, made sure Marcelle was braced. Everyone looked ready, and awkward. They bulked against the wall of the cargo bay. Onor felt naked without a weapon, but they had nothing that would work well in the awkward gloves.

  The outer locks were designed to allow the biggest cargo containers in and out of the ship.

  Lights showed through one of those locks.

  Ruby chewed at her lip as the invading ship that had stepped on the camera attached itself to the outside of the Fire with a wobbling movement, as if it were testing its stickiness. The camera angle Ix had found was fairly clear, but even zoomed in, details were tough to see. A second ship did the same thing. “They are landing over airlocks,” Ix said.

  The third ship failed to get a grip on the Fire’s silvery skin and ripped away so fast it seemed as if the ship vanished in an eyeblink. Ix replayed the bit of grainy footage. It was impossible to tell why this ship’s feet didn’t stick to the Fire, but in slow motion it looked more spectacular that it had when it happened. One of the legs ripped off and tumbled away. The other three feet held on, flexing, and then lost their holds fast, like a zipper, and the ship disappeared from between frames.

  Ani put a hand over her mouth and no sound came out, although her shoulders heaved.

  “Is it going to try again?” Ruby asked.

  “I’m sure it’s gone. It did not appear to have enough power to catch us.”

  She stared at the place it had been. “Were there people inside?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The invaders—that’s how she thought of them now—the invaders looked small against the big generation ship’s outer skin.

  The sheer surprise of them clung to Ruby. “Those are the ones over C?”

  “Yes,” Ix replied.

  Onor and Marcelle were there. Ruby wanted to be with them. “Can they know?” Ruby asked. “That the habitation section on C is empty?”

  “I do not believe it is possible.”

  Ani had dropped her hand from her mouth and it joined her other hand at about waist level, fingers twisting tight.

  “I’ve never seen you so nervous,” Ruby told her. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Really?”

  “It has to be.” Ruby spoke to Ix. “No one from the Fire could have sent them information?” she asked.

  “I would know.”

  Ruby believed. “So it must just be dumb luck.”

  Joel stood just far enough away that Ruby couldn’t hear the details of his whispered conversations. She slid over by him and curled her hand around his arm, wanting to be close when something happened.

  “Look!” KJ commanded their attention.

  An even smaller pod had detached from one of the bigger ones, or maybe been let loose. It looked like it came through a door, although between the graininess of the picture and the angle, it was hard to tell. Whatever it was that came out, it had emerged from the invading ship’s belly. It grasped the ship’s landing legs.

  “How many are there?” Joel asked.

  “At least two,” Ix said. “I cannot tell yet.”

  The smallest of the ships bent down—that was the only way Ruby could describe it—and clutched the feet of its mother ship. The center of the cluster of legs moved down and attached itself to the outside of the Fire, just above one of the locks.

  No one spoke until Ix said, “It looks like it will be able to get in without hurting us. Like they have the right codes. This should not be possible.”

  KJ spoke the worst conclusion. “If they know how to open the locks on our ship, then they could have found a way to talk to us.”

  The light that shone from the hatch illuminated nothing. It had been designed for people in the airlock. All that Onor and Marcelle and the others clinging to the insides of the cargo bay could see was the light surrounding the door, limning it, making the door itself look even blacker than the surrounding metal.

  It seemed to take forever for the lock to cycle. Onor’s breath rattled inside of his helmet, full of fear and stomach acid.

  He braced for the people coming through the door, for unfamiliar weapons.

  The inner door of the lock opened, pushed out by . . . he squinted, drew in a breath: Pushed out my metal claws. Behind the claws, metal arms. Behind the metal arms, small metal bodies with thick legs attached. Four? No, six legs plus the two front ones with the claws. The thighs were thicker than a man, maybe much thicker.

  Strength and flexibility. He quickly saw that he should add speed to the words that the robots brought to his mind. That’s what they had to be. Bots. There didn’t seem to be room anywhere for a human unless there were humans in each leg, and that made no sense. They were all leg and claw. All machine.

  The first one jumped, moving impossibly to latch itself to the wall at least twenty meters from the airlock door.

  Onor pressed closer to the wall.

  Ix spoke into his helmet. “Don’t move. Yet. They don’t know you are there.”

  Onor tried not to move his lips much as he asked Ix, “What are they?”

  “They are not in my library. The claws are sharp. They appear to be strong.”

  “Understatement.” Onor hissed.

  The first of the robots scuttled along the wall, using the hand-holds and the traverse lines to move quickly down to the cargo pods. It seemed to know exactly where it was, to belong in the deep holds of the Fire. This alone—the familiarity—was enough to give Onor shivers.

  Three more came through. One waited by the hatch. Two of them followed the first robot and fanned out. All four moved in different directions.

  The first one that had come through snapped the straps on a cargo pod and lifted the entire structure of the bin away from the wall.

  “What should we do?” Onor whispered.

  Ix didn’t answer.

  The fourth clawed robot started moving along the wall toward them.

  “What do we do?” Onor repeated. In just two jumps it had come a quarter of the distance.

  When Ix remained silent, Onor bit his lip to make himself think. Pain drove his fear deeper inside, opening up his airway and giving him more ability to talk.

  They were attacking his home.

  “Ix. How do I hurt it? That one’s almost here. How do I hurt it?”

  “Don’t move yet.”

  “It’s coming.”

  “You have no weapon.”

  It took one more hop toward them, stopped. With no visible eye, he couldn’t tell how it saw. Yet he felt sure it watched them, knew they were there.

  “Can you jam the airlock closed? Block them in?”

  No answer.

  They were all linked to Ix and not to each other. By design. So there would be one set of orders, and so Ix could control the conversation. It was a price they often paid for talking to the machine.

  Ix would protect stability and not individuals. Onor heard Colin’s earlier words inside his head, a truth he’d resisted. But it was true in this case. The machine would sell them for the Fire’s future if it had to.

  “Stay quiet,” Ix told him.

  Ix must be telling them all to be quiet. He needed a human. Colin. “Patch me through to the others.”

  To his surprise, Ix did so. He could immediately hear Colin swearing, and the hard, fast breath of five other people full of fear.

  “Stay calm
!” Onor commanded. “Ix is going to lock them in if it can. Get out. Then we can plan.”

  Colin immediately backed him up. “Joe, Lisle, use the lock closest to you.”

  That was the lock closest to all seven of them. It would only hold two at a time, and the two Colin had named were the closest to it. They were also the closest to the robot.

  “Marcelle,” Onor hissed.

  “We could go across to the other lock.” Her voice was shaky and high, but brave.

  It was a better idea than waiting. Only one machine was focused on them. Splitting up felt right. “Now,” he urged.

  Marcelle pushed off, a stiff humanoid form with a bubble head and nothing like the powerful legs of the machines that had entered their space. Even though he knew her as a warrior, in this moment Marcelle looked vulnerable. Prey.

  Onor bent down, crouching sideways against the wall, and followed her through nothing.

  She didn’t stop to attach her hook but just grabbed the line and started pulling along it.

  “Hook in,” he urged her.

  “No. It might follow us.”

  Colin’s voice. “She’s right. You might need to float free. Good luck.”

  One mistake could leave them untethered.

  Onor’s arm hurt all over again, heating as it chafed. He drove forward with it anyway, the whole motion like swimming. His helmet bumped Marcelle’s boot. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Heavy breathing sounded in their helmets, fear breathing from the four who hadn’t followed them. A scream stopped all other sound, strangled, then stopped abruptly. Ix had cut the voice off.

  Onor’s fear grew.

  It was almost impossible to look backward in the bulky suit. It would slow him down. “What’s happening?” he whispered through his teeth as he pulled along frantically after Marcelle. “What just happened?”

  Colin’s voice sounded high. “It ripped . . . ripped—”

  Onor took another long pull along the line, felt blood running slowly into the arm of his suit, hot and wet.

  Silence went by for so long Onor was afraid whatever happened to the screamer had also happened to Colin. Onor pictured a suit cut in pieces, pulled harder. Colin’s voice vibrated in his ear again. “It . . . we lost two. Just go. Don’t look back.”