The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song) (7 page)

He’d expected that.

“No marriages will be allowed for a year. No pregnancies.”

He looked around at the dismay on people’s faces. If they knew they’d be home in a year, would they feel differently?

8: Ix’s Explanation

Ruby tried to walk the park path fast enough to outdistance her nerves. Her belly tightened, the way she felt just before she sang for a crowd. She’d staged her conversation with Ix in the emptiest public place she knew.

Besides, public places meant cameras, and she wanted a record of the conversation.

The park was as empty as she expected it to be. Only one pair of reds, two serious men walking side by side deep in conversation. They might be a threat, but they hadn’t noticed her so far. Reds at home knew her; in this new place she wasn’t watched as much.

She walked a long time, keeping an eye on the reds, trying to look like she was there for exercise. Waiting for the others.

The last-years had been given two weeks of alternate work assignments in place of going to class. Ruby had been assigned grunt work in bot-repair. She recognized most of the pieces she was given to clean up as having come from C-pod. Onor and Lya worked on the C-pod reclamation. Air had been blown back into the pod after the initial repairs, but they had to wear pressure suits and face masks the whole time in case of failure. Marcelle helped with elementary classes in the crèche. Hugh chafed because medical kept him on rest.

Setting aside the idea of looking for her Aunt Daria, Ruby had returned to Owl Paulie four times in ten days, slowly pulling details out of him. The second time, Hugh had shown up to stand like a ghost in the background, his black eye and bruises goading her. He’d become a silent partner in Ruby’s talks with his grandfather, bringing them water but adding neither comments nor questions.

This park was the same size and shape as her old one, but the controls refused to respond to her. The default breeze felt soft and warm. The flocks of birds and the fake flowers were more stylized and brighter, as if a different artist had worked on them. On the far edge, the orchard’s branches hung heavy with bright yellow-gold and fully ripe breakfruit, half a season away from the orchard at home.

“Rruuuuuuby.”

Marcelle, calling her. Loud as a three-year-old, as always. Ruby waited for her to catch up. “How did it go?”

Marcelle grinned. “The kids are damned cute. The extras put a stretch on lessons.”

“Still got the five-year-olds?”

“Seven-year-old boys. It’s a promotion.”

“It’s ’cause you know how to say no.”

“Are you ready?” Marcelle asked.

“If Onor would hurry up.”

“He’s always here when you don’t want him.”

“And never here when I do.” That wasn’t really fair. “He’s been my friend forever.”

“He follows you around.”

So do you
. Ruby almost said it out loud. Nerves? That was probably what was getting to her stomach, too. The fluttering of her dreams. No, not dreams. Needs. “They’ll be here soon.”

“I heard about your story at work today. From one of the regular B-pod teachers. A little bit of a thing, shy as anything. She sidled up to me and almost whispered, wanting to know if I knew you.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said yes. She wants to know if you’re really going to get us a better life.”

“Tell her I’ll try, but I need help.” She eyed the reds, still some distance away, and still not noticing her.

Marcelle grinned. “It has to be Hugh and Lya, or that old man. Spreading stories about you.”

“Lies, too, from the sound of it.”

Marcelle pointed. “Speak of the devil.”

The ravages to Hugh’s face had subsided to a red scar and the yellowed ghosts of bruises. He and Lya held hands. Onor walked on Lya’s other side. All three looked tired and worn out, and Lya had a fresh red scratch across one cheek. Behind them, a couple of runners came up and then passed, moving easily right next to each other and talking in low tones. By the time the runners were out of earshot, the others all caught up.

Ruby wrinkled her nose at Onor, who stank of stale shipsuit and sweat.

Her pacing had taken them a bit away from the grouping of three benches she’d chosen for them to use, so she started back, the other four following her.

“I still think it would have been easier to use Kyle’s place while he’s at work,” Onor said.

Ruby ignored him. The park and common were always recorded, and the recordings were kept for a long time, maybe forever.

She sat and gestured for the others to sit, making a circle on the fake grass. She took out her journal and balanced it on her knees, screen off private, mic open. Then she sat up straight and took a deep breath.

“Go on,” Marcelle whispered.

Onor and Kyle and Lya watched her silently.

“Request to speak with Ix,” she said, enunciating with care and maybe a bit too loud.

All journals were programmed to pass messages to Ix. The trick was getting real answers.

She got in three breaths before an answer came back. “Yes?”

Ix’s voice. Or at least the computer voice that most often represented Ix. “Yes, Ruby Martin?”

She plunged right in. “I want to talk about rites of passage.”

“Such as marriage or the birth of a child?”

“Passage inward. Passage between. I want to test to pass inward.” Obtuse machine. Ix knew what she wanted, but it was as good at avoiding direct requests it didn’t like as The Jackman was at avoiding orders from reds. “Ix, I demand to know about rites of passage.”

“Laws,” Hugh whispered.

Yes, that’s what she’d said wrong. Ix was often literal when it wanted to be obstructive. Ruby felt sure Ix pursued its own goals within the rules that constrained it. Just like she did.

Ruby rephrased her request. “Laws of Passage. Tell me about the Laws of Passage.”

“Laws of Passage apply to full adults.”

She twitched. No fair!

Hugh spoke louder this time. “Ix, I am a full adult. So is Lya. The other three will be in months.”

“The Laws of Passage are not currently in effect.”

Hugh frowned. “Why not?”

“They aren’t needed right now.”

Ruby sighed. “So what makes them needed?”

Ix read from something. “The Laws of Passage may be invoked in times of need, when populations are at risk, and in war.”

Hugh furrowed his brows. “Surely the accident on C-pod has unbalanced the population.”

How? Ruby hadn’t seen anything but a robot die. An inconvenience. There was another possibility. “Going home. Doesn’t
The
Creative Fire
—don’t you—need more people who know more? To prepare to be at Adiamo?”

“The Laws of Passage cannot be opened from the gray areas.”

Ruby wanted to scream. She settled for digging her nail into her palms. “But they’re there to let us in. Why else have the laws at all?” Another thought came to her. “You need us. They need us. Without us, the
Fire
won’t run for long.”

Lya elbowed her and made a shushing shape with her lips. The reds were walking by them, looking
at
them this time. Ruby gave them her brightest smile and waved. They couldn’t get them in trouble for talking to the ship’s computer. It was allowed.

The reds kept going, not waving back, but not questioning them either.

Ix, who had also been quiet while the reds went by, asked, “Why do you care where you work?”

Sometimes Ix was as bad as her mother. “Look, you’re a machine. You live and work everywhere. You don’t get hungry or cold or feel bad when someone you love gets killed. You don’t fear death and you don’t need life like we do. We need to make a difference. We need to matter.”

“Every crew member on the ship matters.”

“Not equally,” she shot back. “We deserve our share of whatever good happens when we get home.”

“And bad?” the machine queried.

“And bad.” Of course. She repeated it. “Good and bad. We want our share.”

“There are no Laws of Passage to govern movement into the gray levels. Blues may visit you anytime they want.”

“Fox? Fox can come here?”

Onor gave her a sharp look.

“Fox has no reason to be on the gray levels.”

Ruby’s whole body felt tight, like an instrument string. Ix was being even more obtuse than usual. She must be on to something important. “How do we study for the test? Whether the laws open up or not? If we just want to be ready?”

“First, you have to finish your last-year studies and do well. You have to be a full adult. The logistics section must authorize the potential for movement. And you must pass a test.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “What kind of test?” Ruby asked.

“All of the things that you learn in your ten years of study matter. They will all be tested. So will your knowledge of the planets and people of Adiamo and the history of
The
Creative Fire
, and the power hierarchy of the ship.”

Onor whispered in Hugh’s ear, and Hugh spoke. “We don’t have access to that data. All we know about power is what happens here, in gray.”

“The information has been classified.”

Crap. Ruby broke in again. “What are the reds planning for us when we get to Adiamo?”

“That information is classified.”

If Ix were sitting beside her instead of being air and sound and everywhere, she’d launch herself at it and wrestle it to the ground. She spoke loudly. “Ix. Consider me on record.” Keywords to make the conversation publicly available. “I want to test into the inner levels. I am going to do exceedingly well on my last-year exams. So will my friends, and everyone else who wants to join me.”

She closed her eyes and centered on her breath so she finished strong. “We want to know how to learn about the ship’s structure and history. If you won’t help us, we’ll figure out how to help ourselves.”

Ix said, “I cannot help you.”

Nothing about it acted like a human. She could force it with more questions, but instead she turned her journal off. Damned machine.

9: The Festival of Changes

Common had been transformed to a feast of light and scent. Children’s pictures and digital artists’ work covered the walls. People perched on benches and low walls, scrolling through the new stories and songs that had been released to journals for the festival. Gold and green cloths covered tables. Flowers had been grown and picked, fruit ripened, and the fermented leftovers from the previous harvest canted into large clear bowls. Tables ringed the edges, laden with food and drink all along one side, clothing and jewelry on another.

A small crowd formed around Kyle’s table as he arrived, reaching for cookies while Kyle laughed and held his platter out of reach.

Onor, Marcelle, and Ruby each cradled heavy decanters close to them. Onor’s smelled sweet, Marcelle’s tangy and salty, and Ruby’s was filled with musky spices so good she inhaled repeatedly.

Ruby felt happy enough to hand the still over to Kyle. She’d have a cup later, when it was time, but for now she preferred a clear head.

Kyle took a handful of cookies and distributed them in bite-sized pieces.

Ruby heard her full name called and turned to find a woman who could only be her Aunt Daria. She had aged more than Ruby’s mom; her hair had gone the color of her uniform and been cut short and a bit ragged. Her eyes were dark green, almost unnaturally green. The shape of her face was so close to Suri’s that Ruby almost cried out at the sudden realization that she did, after all, miss her mother.

Daria smiled thoughtfully. “You do look like her.”

“Not as much as you do.”

Daria looked serious. “Suri asked me to look after you until she gets here.”

“Mom’s coming here?”

“There was more room for people to go from D to B than anything else. Besides, I’m here, too.”

She was going to lose her freedom.

“I’ve room for you.”

Ruby nodded, stiff with resistance.

“We can get your stuff after the festival.”

“I’m settled now. I was going to look for you.”

“Today,” Marcelle added unhelpfully.

Daria didn’t look convinced.

If only Ruby’d asked someone—anyone—before Daria found her. Now she didn’t have any proof that she hadn’t just been hiding. “Look, I’ll visit you. But I can stay where I am.” She pointed at Kyle. “We’re staying with him, me and my friends.”

Kyle turned toward them as Ruby pointed. He nearly dropped his tray of cookies as he leaned over and caught Daria in a great big hug. “Have you met Ruby?” he asked her.

“She’s my niece.”

He stepped back and eyed them as they stood side by side, then lifted an eyebrow. “Could be.”

Daria told Ruby, “I cleaned out some space for you until your mom gets here. There’s an abandoned hab on my row, and you can help me stake it out for Suri. She’s afraid you’re living with that boyfriend of yours.”

“Onor’s a
friend
.”

In front of her, Onor tensed visibly.

No help for that. Ruby put a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward Daria. “Onor, this is my Aunt Daria. Daria, my
friend
, Onor.” She grinned at Marcelle. “And my other
friend
, Marcelle.”

Daria didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “I told your mom I’d get you today, and recorded the move with the reds on my way in. It’s approved. I’ve got custody until Suri gets here.”

Ruby didn’t respond, afraid that anything she said would show her anger.

Daria noticed anyway. “Look, I have to go meet some people. I’ll see you at the end of the evening, at the front gate, if I don’t see you before.”

“How about tomorrow morning? My friends can help me bring my stuff.”

Daria glanced at Onor again. “Tonight.” She kept her gaze on Ruby until Ruby nodded, and then she softened her voice and said, “It will be good to see you.”

Ruby forced a smile. “Sure.”

Daria nodded and took Kyle away to chat with him. Ruby let out a long trembling breath. She’d liked feeling like an adult.

Music spilled out of speakers and mingled with the background chatter. Ruby turned to Onor and Marcelle. “Let’s go find Owl Paulie.”

Hugh had found a place to pull Owl Paulie’s wheelchair up to a little table so that well-wishers could stop to visit. Surrounded by healthy people, the old man looked even more insubstantial than usual, his face whiter, his eyes bluer, his shoulder more hunched inward and shrunken. Ruby stayed with him while the others wandered back for more of Kyle’s cookies.

Owl Paulie took her hand in his thin one and leaned in near her. “I hear you’re making no progress with Ix.” He took a sip of water, then another, drinking like a bird and swallowing in little bits. “The ways between here and the other parts of the ship weren’t always closed.” A pause while two children came up to hug him and ran away, their faces sticky with something pink. “My grandmother told me it wasn’t always that way, but she never explained.”

Ruby’d felt that for a long time, like the world was too unfair to be right. “So do I give up on the test and look elsewhere?”

His headshake was the barest of movements. “You need to know those things anyway. Find the information.”

She pursed her lips, still stinging from being found by Aunt Daria. “It shouldn’t be so hard. It’s not fair. This is our history, right?”

“We do remember. A little. That’s why I’m talking to you.”

She sighed. “So many people aren’t even curious.”

“Keep digging. You’ll find it.”

As if she could stop. She was going to figure this out and make things better, or die trying.

Owl Paulie’s hand went limp in hers, and when she looked, she saw that he had leaned back in his chair and fallen fast asleep, as if an off-switch had been pressed. She set his hand down carefully and pulled the thin blanket across his chest. He was a sweet old man. Maybe she should have started spending some time with old people a long time ago. Maybe they were more important than she’d thought.

A few hours later, it was time to feast and drink the glasses of still. She and Marcelle and Onor had made their way back to Kyle. He was out of cookies, but he held a glass in each hand. She was going to miss seeing him every day, not to mention the best food of her life. “I’ve got to get ready to go to Daria’s.”

He raised an eyebrow and said, “That’s good news, I presume. She’s most excellent.”

“Maybe.”

Kyle took one sip out of each glass. “You must not know her. Daria’s a good person. Creative.”

Ruby smiled. “You’ve been great.”

“You’ll come back and see us for breakfast sometimes?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

He filled her glass extra full of the spicy still, winking. “In celebration.”

She took a long, slow slip. She’d been allowed still since she turned fourteen, but like everyone, just at festivals. There were cheats, of course, but the penalty was lockup, so they were very, very careful cheats. She never drank much of it; it tasted funny.

She had been half expecting Ix or the reds to make ship-wide announcements. Instead, the music grew louder. Musicians showed up on the vid screens, laughing and playing and singing, their faces bigger than Ruby was tall.

She tapped her feet to the rhythm. This was what she wanted for herself. To be there, singing for everybody to hear.

She and Marcelle and Onor danced a bit sloppily to the band Fire Dream, an E-pod band that got play across all of gray for festivals, and the singer Heaven Andrews, one of the musicians she was sure really lived inside. Even though Ruby’s voice felt rusty from lack of practice, she sang along with Heaven on the choruses.

Almost everyone else did, too. A whole pod and more singing, the sound not exactly harmony, but with its own magic.

When she stopped for breath after belting out the lyrics to three songs as loud as Heaven’s voice in the speakers, maybe louder, Kyle handed her a glass.

Expecting water, she drank deeply, and then coughed and sputtered.

Strong still. Clear like water, but with a bite.

She grinned up at him and he grinned back.

Good Kyle. He not only made better cookies, he made better still.

She took a long and much slower sip.

She sang the next song even louder, feeling the still in her blood. The singer in the speakers, Kiya Kiya Too, had a tinny voice that Ruby wanted to drown out.

Three little girls who had been singing and holding hands stopped and watched her, their eyes big and their mouths open but silent. Their mothers stopped, then two women next to them, then the tenor behind her, whose voice she had been using as a harmony. Seeing so many people watch her shocked her into missing a beat, but Kyle put a hand on her shoulder, steadying. She smiled thanks, then plucked his hand off and sang louder.

Before she finished the song, everyone else in common had stopped singing or even talking. They were looking at her, making her cheeks flush red. She gave a little bow.

Kyle handed her a glass of actual water and a damp cloth to wipe her sweating forehead. The room spun a bit before settling down, most of the faces still watching her.

When the next song started, she didn’t sing. Kyle leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You sound like good food tastes, like herbs and flowers and gardens. Thank you.”

She grinned at him. “And you make things that taste good.” He looked almost handsome in the shifting festival lights, and she forced herself to look away. He was not as handsome as Fox, and he was way too old for her.

Onor and Marcelle materialized as if from thin air and sat beside her, Onor babbling something about how everyone was watching her, and Marcelle looking worried.

By the time the festival was over, she decided that Ix, or the reds, or whoever, had been right to leave the day just a celebration, a marking of time. Nothing would really change because of it, nothing ever did. Except maybe, this time, a little bit would change for her.

A lot of people had stopped to listen to her sing. She would remember the bright, happy looks on their faces.