The Diamond Deep Read online

  Oh my. This was so much worse than fighting humans through the Fire. So much scarier. Colin again, his voice choppy. “Good luck.”

  “I’ll try.” Colin. Colin afraid. There was no way to know what he faced, no way Onor could slow down.

  “Can you follow us?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  Ix, very brief. “Go to the airlock. Get out.”

  Now Onor could only hear his own breathing. Marcelle’s had silenced as much as Colin’s. The machine had cut them all off from each other again. He cussed.

  His breath came fast and uneven. He knew better. He took two deep breaths, tried to recenter.

  Looking ahead wasn’t too hard. The lock was further away than it should be. He took even more control of his breath, paid more attention to the way the line slid between his gloved fingers.

  He couldn’t tell if he was faster or not.

  It seemed surreal, the two of them moving along the line, Colin catching up. Every once in a while he could feel the pull of Colin’s arms, a tightness in the line that disappeared and reformed. He only heard his own sounds, the way he moved in his suit, the small grunts of pain he couldn’t help any more when his arm scraped across whatever was cutting him.

  He glanced below. There were two holes where spider bots had taken cargo containers.

  The line in his hand jerked.

  The claws on the spider bots were strong enough to cut the straps on cargo containers; they were strong enough to cut the traverse lines.

  “Ix?” he queried.

  “Yes?”

  “If we tie on, will gravity stop them? Should you turn on the gravgens?”

  “I have been running calculations. You might be harmed more than them by sudden gravity.”

  Marcelle’s boots receded and he chased them.

  “It might be bad for the ship as well. Nothing in this bay is used to real gravity. The gens should be ramped up slowly with handlers available.”

  Stupid machine could talk through anything.

  Time dragged. Focus shrank to the feel of the line across his gloves, to the way his suit didn’t move as fluidly as it should, to the cut on his arm, to keeping the same distance between his helmet and Marcelle’s boots.

  Marcelle grabbed the far wall, one hand on a handhold, then the other, then she was vertical to his horizontal, helping him.

  He wanted to cling to the wall beside the airlock with his belly but he had to turn.

  Colin was more than half-way to them.

  Onor’s biggest fear wasn’t true; no spider robot swarmed up the line behind them. Perhaps they were too bulky to balance.

  Two of the robots were by the airlock they’d come in through, one of them on the wall opposite them, and another down by the cargo containers. At this moment they all seemed to be stopped.

  Onor looked for the other crew-members. There should be two other humans even if two got out.

  He didn’t see them.

  He was back to only being able to talk to the machine. “Where are the others?”

  “Two have died.”

  “And?”

  “Two escaped.”

  So five of them and four robots, and Ix.

  Beside him, Marcelle inched toward the airlock and pushed the button to release the door.

  Opposite them, on the far wall, Onor glimpsed a robot’s claw slide over the line and close.

  The traverse line—complete with Colin on it, slackened.

  Onor braced himself, tucking his feet into two of the handholds. He pulled. The spider that had cut the line started to jump. It stuck to the walls, avoiding the open spaces. Coming for them.

  Spiders had been a hazard to avoid in the game of Adiamo. In the game, they had been the size of his thumb.

  Onor kept pulling.

  Something moved down below and Onor risked a glimpse, saw a bot headed toward them from there. Closer than the one that had cut the line.

  He pulled harder. He couldn’t leave Colin and he needed to get Marcelle out.

  Breathing hurt, his shoulders hurt.

  Ix’s voice in his head. “You can make it. Keep going. The airlock is open, behind you. Up and to the right.”

  The bot was half-way to them. It must be doing the same calculation, and it must think it could get to them.

  He gave a last hard tug and extended his hand, letting Colin float into it. He grasped Colin’s arm with his glove and twisted, pushing Colin toward the open door.

  His feet should have stayed locked into place, but when he twisted one of them came free. The stiff suit hadn’t let him move the way it should have.

  He still had Colin’s hand, and he couldn’t turn back.

  Colin flexed his arm, trying to pull himself into the wall. The movement pulled Onor all the way free, the two of them floating near the airlock, just out of reach of anything. The momentum they had went the wrong direction.

  Something bumped him from below, startling him. He expected to feel the edges of a claw, but it was a gloved hand, holding him.

  Marcelle had kicked off the wall with the line in one hand. She’d grabbed him with the other.

  Now she had no free hand. Onor held onto Colin’s boot with his right hand.

  Marcelle tugged him toward her, clasped his waist with her thick, suited legs.

  The fingers of his right hand slipped, the movement changing the angle of his head so he could see how close the other bot was, the one that had been below him. The claw loomed large as it came toward him.

  He flinched, even though it was too far away—barely—to actually touch him.

  Marcelle started pulling.

  Onor reached toward Colin, trying to get a two-handed grip on him.

  Just as his hand came around, Colin kicked free.

  The movement pushed Onor and Marcelle toward the wall.

  Ix whispered to him. “Colin knows that three won’t fit in the lock.”

  He felt the hard stop as they reached the door, Marcelle twisting to get purchase and grab a handhold, her other hand coming around under his shoulder and lifting him up and in.

  Ix’s voice said, “Get out. Now.”

  With Marcelle in the lock behind him, he turned to grasp the door and close them in, looking for a last minute way to grasp Colin and jam him into the tiny spaces left between him and Marcelle and the walls of the lock.

  He would need to grasp pieces.

  Ruby had stayed glued to the shifting pictures Ix displayed on the table during Onor and Marcelle’s long pull down the traverse line.

  She watched when the robot dismembered Colin.

  Now, not long afterward, her stomach still felt flipped and her mouth tasted dry and metallic.

  There wasn’t much to see. The spider-like robots moved silently around the bay, and from time to time they stopped by a container as if pondering, but went on.

  Marcelle and Onor were out and safe. That was the only good thing. That, and the strange robots hadn’t been able to get the cargo out—Ix had found a way to jam the electronics on the outer locks and trap them inside.

  Thieves.

  All of her illusions of a grand welcome to the world of the video game Adiamo felt like a child’s daydreams.

  Thieves and murderers.

  Colin.

  Damned machines.

  Colin.

  The robots gave her pause.

  Maybe the ugly ship would talk to them now. They had captives.

  She hadn’t seen Joel since shortly after they got their first good look at the robots. Laird and SueAnne and KJ and Dayn were also gone. And others. Surely it was a grand meeting somewhere. Without her.

  Not that she’d have missed seeing what just happened, no matter how awful it was. Surely Joel had seen it too. He’d know how violated and empty she felt. Even though the room was still full of people, the simple fact of Joel’s absence made it feel empty.

  Ani stood beside her, stiff and still. From time to time she gasped or pointed at a particular sce
ne on the table, even though there was nothing to see but the robots moving around, and occasionally a piece of a person or a suit.

  Haric brought Ruby a cup of stim. His face had gone completely white and he looked awful. He had just seen Colin killed. His old boss. A man he had loved deeply, had looked up to. A man who had taken care of him. And yet he was thinking of her. Doing his duty.

  Ruby couldn’t force herself away from the table, but she took the stim from Haric and spoke softly to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why did he go?” Haric asked. “The last thing he said to me was to run away and stay safe, but he wasn’t safe at all.”

  Ruby whispered, “I challenged him to lead from the front.”

  Ani shook her head. “Colin never delegated the really hard stuff. I’ve known him all my life, and while he had minions for almost everything, he handled the real deals, the tough negotiations.”

  Haric pointed at the map. “Something’s happening.”

  A view of the outside of the ship had appeared, showing one of the locks. There were no strange ships attached to it, so it was somewhere else.

  “Ix,” Ruby said. “What are you showing us?”

  “The best answer to aggression.”

  Damned machine. She watched. “It’s not a cargo lock,” she said.

  “No,” Haric sounded more alive. Interested, at least. “It’s where we keep the landers.”

  “How do you know?” Ruby asked. She hadn’t know that.

  “Colin made us tour the whole inside of Fire’s skin and learn everything inside it. I’ve been in every cargo bay, and every ship’s bay. There are three ship’s bays. Three ships in every bay. One is too broken to ever use again.”

  “A ship, or a bay?”

  “One of the ships. How did you think we got down to planets and brought up cargo?”

  Haric’s voice had taken the tone of a lecture. Ruby laughed softly. “I don’t know everything. Perhaps you can tour me around some day.”

  “I’d like that.”

  The lock opened. There was no shot with an angle that allowed her to see what was inside. Light brightened and then three ships floated out of the opening in the Fire’s skin. They were almost the same shape as the biggest of the ships that had come off of the ugly ship: cylinders.

  The Fire’s landers floated long enough for Ruby to finish her stim, put away the cup, wash her face, and come back to watch.

  “Ix? What is in those?”

  “Explosives. Things meant to blow holes in the surface of planets or moons to see what’s there.”

  She crossed her arms and thought. “You want to blow up the ugly ship?”

  “If possible.”

  Haric almost squeaked. “It could blow us up, then, couldn’t it?”

  As always, Ix did not sound worried. “It can probably blow us up now.”

  The landers drifted backward alongside the Fire.

  “Ix. Are there people on those?”

  “No. We have no trained pilots at the moment.”

  Ruby only had the vaguest idea of what they carried in the Fire’s holds. Dead animals and chipped rocks and minerals. None of the places they’d been to had been civilized. Still, whatever they carried, it was the reason the Fire existed.

  “Maybe we’re going to have to fight for our cargo,” she said.

  “Well,” Ani said, “that’s what we’re doing now.”

  “I mean all the way. After this. Even when we get home. I thought we’d be heroes.”

  “You are a hero,” Haric said.

  The machine contradicted the boy. “You are naïve.”

  Joel and the others rushed in and went directly to the side of the table closest to the door. They focused immediately on the landers, and since they asked no questions they must know of Ix’s plans. As if they had been waiting for Joel and the others to come in, the three ships stopped floating and moved. Ruby gasped at the quickness of the change. Clapping erupted all around the table.

  She stood beside Joel. He looked haggard. It had been hours now since they slept and she wanted to take him someplace private and help him rest. But that wouldn’t be possible. And here, among all of his people, only the slightest and most occasional of touches was allowed.

  “What are our chances?” she asked him.

  “Ix says they are good. The explosives probably have to reach inside of the ship to do enough damage—they cannot simply get close.”

  “What do you believe will happen?”

  “It’s out of my hands. Only one of them has to succeed.”

  “How long until we know?”

  He frowned. “I think we could fail any time. Lose the ships. It depends on what kind of weapons they have, and what they think we can do. They know more about us than they should; they may have anticipated this attack.”

  “But if we don’t fail? When will we know that?”

  “It will be a few hours, I think. There are choices the machines will have to make.”

  “Don’t you mean Ix?”

  Joel shook his head. “Maybe you could think of the ship’s computers as pieces of Ix. But Ix won’t be making the decisions.”

  “What about the Ellis and Sylva? What are we going to do about them?”

  “I already did something,” he said. He looked away from her.

  “Are they in jail?”

  “They’re dead.”

  She went still. “What did you do? And what happened to their followers?”

  “They tried to kill you.” His spoke firmly, but she knew him well enough to hear the insecurity behind the strength. That didn’t stop her from being afraid of what she’d hear.

  “What did you do?”

  “I turned off the life support where they were.”

  Ruby felt gut-punched. “How many?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Ix allowed that?” It hadn’t allowed them to kill during the insurrection unless it was self-defense.

  “Even Ix knew that we couldn’t fight two battles. It picked the one that matters the most.”

  It was a hard death. When she was a child, she’d had nightmares about losing air and heat. They’d all been drilled in the creche about life support failure, told there were only moments to leave anyplace the air was rushing away from. The warnings from the drills ran in her head. Get out, get to a door, do it immediately. There’s ten or fifteen seconds before your heart stops.

  Ix must have actually done it. At Joel’s command. But Ix had turned off the air.

  Ellis and Sylva had tried to kill Joel. Had damaged his arm, if only for a while. Inches closer, and he might have been stunned completely, maybe killed. Surely that was what they meant to do if they got here. To kill everyone in the room.

  She remembered locking eyes with Sylva. Ruby’s shot had been wild, but she would have killed Sylva then. Even so, this felt different.

  She stared into Joel’s eyes, searching them. Was he sorry?

  Was this just part of leading?

  Even though it hurt inside, what she said to him was, “I love you.”

  Laird came up and clapped Joel’s arm. “Good to see the ships are away. What’s next, Captain?”

  Joel kept looking at Ruby in spite of Laird’s clear request for a conversation. He hadn’t yet responded to her whispered declaration that she could accept the horrible thing he’d done in spite of her own feelings about it.

  Her teeth worried her lower lip as she kept watching him, hoping for his face to soften. She thought she saw concern slip across his eyes, relax his mouth, give him warmth.

  But of course, now that Laird was here, he wouldn’t say it out loud. He did nod at her and give her a slight, secret smile before he turned and smiled—more broadly but not half as deeply—at Laird. “We need to decide what to do about the invaders. Make sure KJ rejoins us.”

  “I will.” Laird turned and walked off, and Ruby put a hand on Joel’s arm.

  He twitched it off. “Not now.”

  SueAnne an
d Bruce came up. SueAnne looked exhausted, while Bruce seemed excited about the danger, almost like an adult version of Haric. “Ready?”

  Joel started for the door

  Ruby took a deep breath, and followed. She could help.

  Joel held the door open for Bruce and SueAnne. The old woman hobbled through even more slowly than usual, her footsteps showing the strain of being part of command during the attack on the Fire.

  Ruby stepped up to take her arm, prepared to help her get to wherever they were going.

  Joel’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. He shook his head.

  “I can help. I know how everyone on our level thinks. I’ve been in the cargo bays.”

  She saw regret on his face, but it wasn’t audible in his sharp words. “Stay. You can see what’s happening here, and you’ll be safe.”

  “I don’t care about safe.”

  SueAnne turned. She looked almost apologetic, or at least empathetic. Her words, however, were clipped and iron. “Officers only.”

  Ruby glanced from her to Joel. Both looked resolute.

  Laird and KJ came up behind her. She was going to have to step through the door and defy Joel or step back for them to get in.

  She took another deep breath, used it to control her anger. Even though every part of her rebelled, she stepped back, and watched Laird and KJ and two others go through. The door shut. She stood and stared at it, furious and bereft all at once.

  Onor jerked so hard on the lever that secured the airlock door that he nearly lost his balance. His breath came in great foul gasps that stank of fear and his hurt arm screamed pain at him, but what mattered was that there were two sets of metal doors between him and Marcelle and the robot spiders.

  “I never want to see those things again,” he whispered. “Never.” Never an enemy like that, never the rending of a friend into parts. He’d seen death, but this was death covered in horror.

  Colin. Onor felt dizzy remembering. He peered back through the lock, but all he could see was light. “Ix?”

  “Yes, Onor?”

  “Where is it? Are we safe?”