The Diamond Deep

Published 2013 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

The Diamond Deep.
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Cooper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover illustration © 2012 John Picacio
Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht

 

Inquiries should be addressed to

 

Pyr

59 John Glenn Drive

Amherst, New York 14228–2119

VOICE: 716–691–0133
FAX: 716–691–0137

WWW.PYRSF.COM

17 16 15 14 13    5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

 

Cooper, Brenda, 1960–

The diamond deep / Brenda Cooper.

pages cm. — (Ruby's song ; bk. 2)

ISBN 978-1-61614-855-3 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-61614-856-0 (ebook)

1. Teenage girls—Fiction. 2. Revolutions—Fiction. 3. Social classes—Fiction. 4. Space ships—Fiction. I. Title.

 

PS3603.O5825D53 2013

813´.6—dc23

2013022361

Printed in the United States of America

This story was inspired by
Evita
, the musical about Eva Peron. It is not an account of a life exactly like Eva's although I watched documentaries about her and read books about her and by her as I prepared this novel.

This is simply the story that Evita's legend teased out of me. Since I am a science fiction writer, I placed this story of love and revolution in the future. In this novel, the culture is a mix of old and new. I am grateful in advance to all of the modern women who will forgive me for the way this story is told. I could set the story far into the future, but I could not remove the patriarchy or the story would not have felt possible. But after all, the patriarchy remains in many places on Earth today.

 

 

 

 

To women everywhere who have fought for rights and freedoms.
And to Katie Cramer, who still has all of her choices before her.

Ruby sat on the edge of the bed, as silent and still as possible. Now, more than ever before, she felt all of the generations that had been born and died in
The Creative Fire
. Their work, their hope, their dreams, and their pain seemed to float around Ruby like a fog of intent.

Joel's quiet breath filled the room, punctuated with the creaks and groans of the great ship around her, the sigh of machinery that filled the space inside with air and delivered water to grow food, to drink, and to clean. Living so near the center not only sounded different, but it felt different; as if the entire mass of
The Creative Fire
centered here on Joel's room.

On their room. It was their room, and she would stay in it. She would share his power, and she would do it well. She had earned it. She would find a way to fit here.

Beside her, Joel rolled over and stretched. She put a hand on his shoulder, kneading softly to work at his stiff muscles. As her fingers worked, Joel's breath lost the even rhythm of sleep.

He pushed himself up on his elbow. “You might as well be pacing.”

“I can feel the ship around me. At home,” she gestured outward, toward the working habitats, “at home there would be robots going by and children laughing and bells for shift change.”

“Isn't your home here now?”

“Of course.” The tone of her whisper was a caress to match the hand that trailed along his back. “You worked out hard yesterday.”

“Winning has given me more enemies.” He touched her hair, stroking it. “You have them, too. You should start working with KJ again. It's been five weeks since the last actual fighting. Get back into routines. I'll send two guards with you.”

Ruby laughed. “No guards.”

He turned her face toward his. “It's not a request. You don't know who hates you yet. It's a risk of being with me.”

“I'll take friends. Like Ani and Dayn.”

“Good thing there isn't a stubborn bone in your body.”

“Or yours.” She fell back onto the bed against him. “Ix!”

“Yes, Ruby.” The ship's AI chose a soft female voice.

“Bring up the Adiamo system.” She loved having a display in the bedroom. A luxurious manifestation of Joel's power as captain of
The Creative Fire
. The screen sprang to life, presenting a view of a single brilliant sun with two gas giants, and cradled between, two inhabited planets. Tiny lights blinked for the orbiting space stations. “Is that real yet?” she asked Ix.

“It's still the game view. I can see the sun, Adiamo, but we aren't close enough for the cameras to pick up planets or stations.”

She frowned and whispered into Joel's ear. “What are we going to find there?”

One hand roamed her torso. “Our home.”

“Our destiny.”

She closed her eyes. Change. She loved change, she had made change, created it with all of her being.

So why did she feel so unprepared?

Onor had to work around small crowds in the park on B-pod as he searched for Marcelle. He finally spotted her walking so fast it was nearly a jog, her dark curly hair bouncing against the shoulders of her blue uniform shirt. Onor's face broke into a grin he wasn't really expecting. After all, it had only been a few weeks since they'd last been on a patrol together. She sped up and reached him, smelling like sweat and stim, and punched him in the arm. “Long time.”

“Not so long.”

“Long if you're me.”

He shook his head at her. “Joel wants a report about how dangerous it is out here.”

“And you?”

“Wanted to say hi to you.”

“That's better.”

He felt awkward around her even though she was his next-to-oldest friend. The fighting had changed everything. The different places they'd all ended up had changed them more. The three of them had been inseparable once, but now he was standing next to Marcelle for the first time in weeks. “You could live near us. Ruby's offered to find you work in command.”

“She needs me out here more. Someone has to remind people Ruby cares about them.”

“She'll be doing that herself today or tomorrow. I overheard her and Joel talking about it.”

“Good.” Marcelle plucked at his sleeve. “Let's go.”

Something above them groaned and the floor gave a slight shudder. Marcelle stopped and turned to look at him. “The Fire knows she's going home,” she whispered. “Only I don't think she wants to get there.”

Onor laughed louder than he meant to.

“Well,” Marcelle started walking again. “She seems to be falling apart a little more every day.”

“We'll make it.”

“Too bad I'm almost the only gray who believes you.”

“There are no grays.”

“Being able to wear blue and red doesn't make people forget who they really are.”

“Do you really believe that?” he asked her. “Isn't it better now?”

“You are so naïve, Onor Hall.”

They hit the end of a corridor and Marcelle consulted her journal, sending them left. She stopped and he ran up against her, her back and shoulder suddenly tucked into his body. Warm. She whispered, “How long until we get there? You should know.”

“I don't.” He forced himself to step slightly back.

“Doesn't Joel tell you anything? Or Ruby?” A slight edge in her voice made him wince.

“No one knows,” he replied. “We know how far away Adiamo is, and Ix is working on calculating the other orbits now that it's found one of the gas giants.”

“We're close enough for Ix to see the planets?”

“Just Mammot so far. Not Lym.”

“So we'll get home this year?”

“Ix will tell us when it knows. I'm as anxious as you are to see a sky.”

“I can't imagine it. Nothing above you. What does nothing look like?”