The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song) (22 page)

A hand fell on her shoulder.

She turned.

Ellis.

Okay. She needed to pretend it was just fine to see him. “Hello, Ellis.” Jaunty. Or as jaunty as she could make it.

He looked like he was alone. His blue uniform was perfect, his hair neat and short. He closed a hand over her arm. She had to look down into his eyes. Chances were good she could throw him through the crowd if she had to. But Ellis still radiated power, and people started stepping around them as though he were a familiar fear. “Can I help you?” she asked him.

“Come with me.” The hand on her arm tightened.

She pulled away, stumbling into a stranger dressed in red. The man put a hand out to steady her. “Ruby! Ruby Martin!” He looked really happy to see her. “Hey, I love your singing.”

“Back off,” Ellis said, “I’m talking to her.”

“Does she want to talk to you?” The stranger’s voice rose enough to catch the attention of a couple of women who had been deep in conversation. They stopped, blocking the people right behind them.

Ruby looked gratefully at the stranger. “Thank you. What’s your favorite song?”

Ellis grabbed her arm again.

The two women’s eyes grew wide, and they sidled around and disappeared into the crowd.

Her original protector stuttered. “I . . . I like ‘The Owl’s Song.’ The way you did it first, before you got here.”

“Really? The sound is cleaner on the one Fox helped me with.”

Ellis jerked on her.

Ruby jerked back and turned around to stare at Ellis. “I’m talking to someone here. I’d rather talk to him than to you.”

Ellis was staring at the stranger. “Give me your name,” he demanded.

The man gave Ruby a plaintive look.

She swallowed and stood on tiptoe, still in Ellis’s grip, trying to spot someone else she knew. Anyone. When she turned back, her protector had gone.

She snapped at Ellis. “Let go of me.”

“No. Fox promised he’d keep you under control. I see he hasn’t succeeded.”

“I’m on my way home.”

Ellis started walking, not letting go of her, clearly trying to get out of the thinning crowd.

Ruby wanted to kick him and get free. But then she
would
be in trouble.

“I’m here.”

Fox’s voice, behind her.

Ruby turned, grateful. She jerked free and went to Fox’s side. She smiled sweetly back at Ellis. “Nice to see you.”

Ellis ignored her, giving Fox a withering look. “The next time I find her wandering around, I’m going to take her, and I’m going to get her into the trouble she deserves.”

Fox managed to look calm even though Ruby felt his biceps tense under her fingers. “I keep my word.”

“And I’ll keep mine.” Ellis turned and faded into the crowd. He was short enough to get lost quickly, although Ruby could see the wide swath of distance people made around him for a few moments.

Fox started off in the other direction, pulling Ruby along with him.

It didn’t feel very different from Ellis’s attempt to jerk her down the corridor.

Fox pulled her close to him and kissed her head. “I know you don’t like doing what I say. But that was a close call. Do you understand now?”

She remembered this morning. “I want full rights to my house.” She felt a little tease slide into her voice. When he was this close, she could barely control her reaction to him, the smell of him and the way he felt turned her soft. “I want to set my own alarms and control my own doors.”

“You don’t understand the dangers here yet.” His hands roamed her back, a gentling rather than a caress. “I know it felt dangerous on gray, but in the game we’re playing, the whole ship is at risk.”

“So then tell me more,” she whispered into his shoulder.

“When I can. It’s not time yet.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Until it’s safer.”

She hadn’t been safe a day in her life. “Maybe until you’re tired of me?”

He stopped midcorridor and turned her to face him. “I am not tired of you. I will not become tired of you. You, Ruby Martin, are the most beautiful woman in
The
Creative Fire
and I will keep you safe.”

She heard the lie in his voice. And again she heard Dayn telling her that Fox was already bored of her. The memory burned in her chest, and she kept walking because that was what Fox expected, but she swore to get away from him before he abandoned her.

33: The Last Baby

Onor was the first one up, as usual. Even though the ship’s temperature was always even, this morning he felt cold. Probably tired. He held his hands in front of the stim as it steeped in the warm water. When it was ready, he poured a cup and took it to the big empty table, meant for ten, and sat down with his journal. Since there was so little to do down here, he’d started reading the news the reds posted to journals every morning. He suspected it was partly lies, but there was fact in it. What crops had been harvested. Who had died in the night, or been born.

Today, there was one baby to report, a girl. The last one on gray for a long time. Even though he did not want children, and had no one to marry, it bothered him this morning.

Maybe because right now, in the big empty kitchen, he felt utterly alone.

Nia had been allowed back to her family two weeks ago.

He ached for Ruby. Nia had known her, but not Penny, not anyone he worked with on the cleaning crew.

He stretched, his back muscles sore from yesterday’s work, needing to be warmed before they got sore from today’s work. They let him work on his own now; they even sometimes let him take a bot. Today was the second half of a long project to remove old supplies from the medikits and replace them. At least he would be upside, where the ceilings weren’t so low and the lights were brighter.

The scrape of hinges alerted him to Penny opening the door and sneaking in, still wearing rumpled sleep clothes. He smiled wearily at her. “Saved you a cup.”

She filled her cup and walked around him, sliding under the table on the far side, sitting opposite him. Her lined face looked a bit softer than usual this morning. “I’m sore this morning,” she said. Code for we worked hard underground with Aric. They didn’t talk about that work here, just about cleaning and about simple things. Or in codes.

“Me, too. I want to go back to reclamation.”

“They’ll never let you.”

“Did you dispose of all of the trash from yesterday?” That was code, too, for
did the old supplies all get saved for us?

“Mostly.”

So she had felt like she needed to deliver some to the recycler like her orders said. It was like that down here, instinct and balance.

Penny was as passionate as a wall; the only real emotion he ever saw on her face was the strange determination that fell over her like a cloak when they and the others followed Conroy or Aric through drills at night. Right now, her eyes focused on a dark blemish on the table, and one hand stroked her cup while the other one curled around the edge of the table.

“How long have you been here?” he asked her.

“On this level or in this barrack?”

“Either.” He sipped his stim, knowing from the past that it took the old woman time to gather her thoughts up and prepare them to come out into the world.

It took her so long this time he nearly emptied his cup. He was about to get up and make more when she said, “I was born here. Not in this barrack, but in this place. In this hab. I’ve never been anywhere else like you have.”

“It wasn’t my choice.”

“Still.”

“The ship’s the same everywhere.”

“Really? Even where your Ruby went?”

“I don’t know
that
.” He didn’t want to talk about Ruby. “Do you have family here?”

“I only had a mother, and she died.” She looked up from the table and at him, her face serene. That was how she got through the day, by being even. “Long enough ago that I don’t think about her much anymore.”

“My mom and dad are dead, too,” he offered. “They were killed for . . . disobeying.”

“Does that make us alike?”

“It makes me do what I do.” Code for work out every night to be one of the people who would help take back
The
Creative Fire
.

Penny gave him a measured look. “I’ve been doing exactly this my whole life. Waiting for change. Be sure you develop patience.” She stood up and walked slowly all the way around the table. He watched her progress. Pain showed in her lurching walk and the way she carried one shoulder slightly down. When she got to the kitchen, she picked up the empty stim pot and rinsed it, then reached for the herb pack to start the next pot.

Sitting there, he felt struck by the immensity of it all, by how they were an egg flying through stars, tiny beings inside a small shell inside a big galaxy inside a bigger universe. No matter what choices they made, there were forces that could crush them, and only luck and planning had let them live through so many human lifetimes. It made him get up off his seat and go into the kitchen and reach his arms around Penny from the back, hugging her, and whispering, “Thank you,” into her ear.

She stiffened, and when he let her go, she whispered, “For what?”

“Existing.”

“I’m a bit happy about that, too.”

Two hours later, he handed Penny the perishables from the first kit he’d done—water and syringes of medicine and gel tubes full of energy. She nodded placidly at him as she turned and walked down the corridor. He worked his way quickly through the replacements on his cart, checking the totals for everything against a list that had been sent to his journal.

At the next place, he left the medikit cabinet neat and full, twisted the door shut, and pushed his cart, one wheel clicking as it went.

A door opened just as he walked past it and a familiar voice hissed out, “Onor!” He jerked the cart to a stop, rattling the contents.

“Here.”

Onor could barely keep the wide grin off his face long enough to make it into the door. He didn’t even mind when The Jackman tugged too hard on his arm helping him inside and stepped on his toe getting the door shut.

A light clicked on, illuminating The Jackman’s scruffy beard. His cheekbones were visible.

“Damn. There’s less of you. What happened?”

The Jackman grinned and patted his half-sized belly, which still poked out above his belt, although it no longer sagged over it. “Been running. You too. You look like a man.”

“Been one awhile.”

“Nah. Not so long.”

“Too bad you didn’t lose your attitude with the weight.”

“Too bad you got an attitude.”

Onor could feel his face expanding, all grins. They did both look good. “What pod are you in, anyway?” he asked.

The Jackman glanced at the door and pulled Onor back further into the office, where he gestured for Onor to sit on a chair bolted in front of the desk. He settled his still-wide bottom on the surface, his legs hanging over. “I’ve swept this room, but not the corridor,” he explained. “So here’s the deal. Me and Marcelle, we’re in E-pod. We’re doing what you’re doing. A bunch of us. Practicing for our day. Also Jinn.”

“So how’d you get here?”

“Anybody that knows their way around the maintenance catwalks can move between pods if they have a little oxy. I’m a messenger, sometimes.”

“Cool. Is there a message?”

The Jackman laughed. “Always have wanted to run without learning to walk. But I’m proud of you. Conroy says you’re doing good, and he trusts you. We flipped to see who went with you. But I do have things to tell you as well as him.”

Most of the loneliness from this morning had fled with the sight of just this one face. “Go on. Tell me.”

The Jackman leaned forward. “First, tell me about you. I been keeping my ear to the ground, but I wanted to see you for myself.”

“I hate my job. Well, mostly.” He would miss Penny if he got to go back home. “I’m glad for the workout every night. I’m glad there’s more people wanting things to be different. But some say it’s been like this, all working out and nothing really happening, like getting ready forever and never being ready. I want to know there’s a plan.”

“Oh, there’s a plan.” The Jackman sat up a little straighter. “You and your friends either ruined it or helped it, but you moved it along.”

“How is Marcelle?”

“She’s good. She’s liking exercise like you do, now. Looks better, and she’s even getting the kind of attention she always wanted from the men. So I guess nothing like bad news and discipline to make a fighter.”

“Marcelle’s always been a fighter.”

“You’re all still kids,” The Jackman said, his voice sharp. Then he stopped and took a breath. “Sorry. Not really. But there’s plans we’ve been working on for years, and we don’t need another whole mutiny full of people who aren’t old enough to understand the cost.”

“I lost my parents.”

The Jackman stopped a minute and went quiet. But he stayed stubborn. “I told you we’ve been planning a long time.”

Onor tried to imagine what Ruby would say. “And you need our help. You must.”

“You sound like Marcelle.”

And then Onor couldn’t help himself anymore. “Have you seen Ruby? Heard from her?”

“No one down here’s seen her. Friends on the logistics level say she’s split the place in two. Half the world up there loves her and thinks Fox is the luckiest man in the world for being her lover, and half think it’s all a plot.”

The Jackman had never liked Ruby. Onor had already known she was with Fox, had sometimes imagined them together in the dark of night when sleep failed him.

The only new information was that some people didn’t like her. But that had always been true here, too. So he looked his friend in the face and just asked him, “What do you think?”

“Fox isn’t lucky. But maybe we are. She’s making more of the people up there curious about us. Bringing them to our side. She sings stuff, like she did down here, only everybody listens.”

“Can I hear her? Here, I mean?”

The Jackman looked like he’d just swallowed an unripe orbfruit. “That’s part of what I wanted to tell you. Her songs are to be coming down here starting tomorrow. You need to help us get people to listen.”

“Did I hear that? You want me to say good things about Ruby?”

“Sure.” The Jackman looked miffed, overdoing it a little, as if trying to pretend it didn’t bother him at all. “I’m not the boss of this operation. There’s people thinking she’s making a difference.”

“Joel?” Onor asked.

The Jackman laughed. “Not that high up.” He looked uncomfortable. “Maybe Ruby’s singing is a way to get messages out, to tell people what they need to know. I’m not sure she’s doing it on purpose, I kinda think she isn’t. But she’s got the message we need to get out, the one that says people shouldn’t be happy just doing what they’re told. We’re going to be at Adiamo soon, and whatever happens there will take everybody’s attention. We need to change how
Fire
’s run before we lose the time to do it in.”

“When do we run out of time? Joel was here, telling us something would happen soon. How soon?”

The Jackman slid off the desk and walked around behind it. “When we tell you. Stay ready. That’s what I came to see. If you were ready. I think you are. So just stay that way and be patient. And don’t get killed.”

Onor swallowed. He’d known all the training was for something big, but The Jackman’s words made him a little afraid. He sat up straighter. “I’ll be careful.”

“And you didn’t see me, of course. If anyone asks, you came in here to use the privy.”

So the visit was almost over. “You’ll like seeing Conroy. He looks good.”

“I already did. Go on.”

Onor stood up. “Thanks. For stopping by. I needed a friendly face.”

The Jackman’s voice came out a soft whisper. “Go on, now.”

Onor went.