The Diamond Deep (39 page)

“You are too beautiful for that.”

She thought about cussing at him, but it didn't seem worth the effort. She had never sung with someone else managing the events, and she hated it.

Jali and Ani stood on her other side. Jali had finally stopped adjusting Ruby's outfit—a soft swirling dress with a low-cut front and a high hem over the softest boots Ruby had ever worn. She had settled for whispering small reminders instead. “Keep your head up.” A few moments later, “Shoulders back, spine straight.”

Cussing at Jali crossed her mind as well. Instead, she touched her friend's shoulder. “Thanks for being here.”

“How do you feel?”

“I'm okay.” She really did feel better; prestage adrenaline always drove away stress and fatigue, always strengthened her.

Min stood to the side, alone, looking over the crowd that had gathered in the huge theater. Ruby hadn't found time for a private conversation with her yet, and so far Min had hardly said a word to anyone. Unlike everyone else in the group, she had never left Ash, not even to visit the Exchange. If Ruby felt overwhelmed, how must Min feel?

The concert hall reminded Ruby of the cargo bars. Like the bars, the hall had been created inside the bay of a spaceship. Lights flicked playfully along the ceiling, as if making a little preshow for the audience. There was a flat area at the foot of the stage and beyond that, seats climbing up an incline. The walls were decorated with pictures of birds and dragons, almost like the old parks from home.

Naveen had explained that the
Star Bear
had been turned into a concert venue so the owner, Satyana Adams, could raise credit to fix her broken ship or buy a new one. He'd said, “When the concerts-on-a-ship succeeded beyond all of her hopes, Satyana decided it was cheaper to stay. She'd found what she's good at—making large groups of people happy.”

In the meantime, the stage was big enough for a hundred people, and Ruby felt tiny. “How many in the audience?” she asked Naveen.

“Physical? There's ten thousand seats and they've sold out.”

More than all the people from the
Fire
. If her cut was two credits from every one of them, she could buy two days for everyone, plus a little more.

“Virtual?” People could pay to watch from wherever they were. A credit for each of them. “How many?”

Naveen shrugged. “We're at seven thousand, but eighty percent of a virtual audience tunes in right on time.” He pointed at a screen on the wall, angled so that no light from it fell onto the stage. Numbers counted up too fast for her to see. When she looked back at Naveen she could tell from his face that he liked the numbers.

Another day of life, and more. And she hadn't opened her mouth to sing here yet. She closed her eyes for a moment and vowed to be fantastic.

The light in the big bay dimmed.

Naveen left her side and strode onto the vast stage, a light following him and elongating his shadow, as if it reached for the back of the stage.

“Thank you, thank you for being here. I'm pleased to introduce the newest star of the
Diamond Deep
, a part of our past returned to us in absolute glory . . .”

Ruby half-listened as Naveen talked her up. The virtual count passed the ten thousand of the physical count, doubled it.

Her stomach gave her fits in a way that had never happened to her before. Sharper and more full of bile, so her mouth tasted of fear. What if they hated her?

Naveen beckoned.

Jaliet's hand landed in the small of her back, propelling her toward the stage.

Ani whispered, “Good luck.”

She took three steps.

The stage felt huge, just like she had expected it to. No, worse.

Lights blinded her. Naveen had warned her to shut her eyes and blink them open and she did so, fast. She held her head up and looked out at the audience.

Naveen had not warned her the audience would be almost invisible. She could only see the faces closest to the stage.

She took a deep breath, two. There was no microphone. Two small dots had been fixed to her face, and two thin wires hooked over her ear, all of it far finer and lighter than Fox's equipment for the
Fire
. Naveen had promised they would send her voice through all of the space here and out to the rest of the station.

Below her and above her, positioned in a variety of places, a live band hid and waited for her signal.

Joel would be watching. The others would be, too.

Onor led Marcelle toward the door to the bar. “Close your eyes.”

“Really?”

“Really. I'll lead you.”

Allen had saved them a front table. Joel and SueAnne were already seated. It took a few moments to steer Marcelle safely through the crowd and sit her down. He made sure she was oriented to the large projection wall that was the biggest single feature of the bar. “Open your eyes.”

He watched her eyes widen. The picture in front of her was so clear that Onor felt he could reach out and touch the huge black curtains on each side of the wide stage.

At the moment, no sound went with the picture.

Marcelle looked around at the rest of the bar while Onor watched her face for approval. They had new wood-grained tables and chairs, with higher tables near the back wall so that spectators could see over the heads of the other patrons. The painting wasn't all done, and since Onor knew where to look, there was an unfinished feel to the whole place. Not that it mattered; the bar was full.

Haric and Allen and a few of the old bartenders from the cargo bars filled orders and dropped multicolored drinks onto the robot's trays as they finished them, moving so fast they never stopped, almost like a dance.

Most of the patrons were from the
Fire
, but there were Deepers there, and even a few sentient machines scattered amongst the tables. The concert must have drawn them, or maybe Naveen's advertisements about the bar. As far as he knew, they neither ate nor drank anything, much less got intoxicated. He shivered when he noticed that one looked exactly like the machines that had accompanied Koren when she stole the
Fire
from them.

He turned away from machine watching as a decidedly not-sentient serving bot trundled between their table and the one next to them, which was filled with the old leaders of the underground: Conroy and Aric and The Jackman. Onor stopped it and ordered a drink for himself. Marcelle asked for a flavored water.

Joel seemed to be lost in his own world, perhaps contemplating the tour and Ruby's absence from his side. He already had a half-empty glass of alcohol, which wasn't like him at all.

SueAnne let out a heavy sigh, and looked even more sour than he had been afraid Marcelle might. “We could feed five hundred people for a month on what it took to build this.”

“Or maybe save a few people,” Marcelle added. “We need play space for sick kids and a few more private rooms.”

Onor couldn't let them think this way. “The bar is making more than we're getting out of Exchange Five on any one day.” Their drinks arrived and he took a deep, long swig. Warmth filled him, a happy shock to his system. “I invested in it.”

Marcelle looked startled.

“I gave Allen a hundred credits to help buy the projectors.”

Anger edged SueAnne's voice. “So instead of putting wages into the central bank, people have been giving it to Allen? So we can starve sooner?”

Lights flickered on the projection wall, brightening and then dimming the view of the stage, reflecting in her angry eyes.

“No,” Onor said. “We won't starve. Some credit is coming in from outside.
And what's being spent inside is still here. It doesn't go away because it changes hands
. Naveen is teaching me how credit works, and it's not like you think. We don't need to worry about what gets spent inside Ash, among us. We need to be sure more comes
into
Ash than goes out.”

SueAnne looked entirely unconvinced, and Marcelle still looked slightly confused. Joel had no reaction at all. He watched the stage so closely Onor wasn't even sure he heard the conversation. The flickering light deepened and the wrinkles in his face, and stole the color from his cheeks. He sipped his drink.

A bright spot bloomed on the projection wall. Naveen strode out as if he owned the stage. He held his head high and it seemed that he looked at each individual in the bar even through the airwaves; surely a trick of camera angles. Onor expected the sound to come up as Naveen started talking, and turned to see Allen fiddling with a set of controls in his hand.

As the room quieted, the quiet from the stage became more noticeable. Naveen's mouth kept moving. Finally there were two loud crackles, and then Naveen might have been screaming in their ears, “Introduce Ruby the Red, the queen who burns with creative fire, the best new talent on the
Diamond Deep
.”

Ruby must hate that. Surely she'd force Naveen to be less dramatic next time.

Allen kept playing with the controls as Ruby walked across the stage.

Joel looked like he wanted to stand up and reach a hand out and touch Ruby.

She looked beautiful, and confident. Jali had done herself up proud.

Ruby stood in the center middle of the stage for a long moment.

Allen had gotten the volume right. When Ruby spoke, her voice sounded calm and smooth, like a good drink. “Good evening. I am so very pleased to be here. I know many of you have heard my music. This is the very first time I have sung live for the people from the
Diamond Deep
.” She paused to allow a light smattering of applause that was mirrored in the bar. “I'll begin from the moment our people learned we were coming home.”

Music swelled; the first high notes of “Homecoming” played on instruments Onor had never heard, higher and more haunting than their own. As Ruby's voice started right on beat, perfect, he let out a sigh of relief.

If only he was with her. He raised his glass and smiled at Joel, who touched his glass to Onor's.

They both drank.

As the last of the applause wound down, Ruby took a final bow. Sweat poured between her shoulder blades even though she'd only sung ten songs; five of hers and five traditionals from the ship. After each song there had been clapping and applause. In between, as she parceled out a few sentences about the
Fire
between songs, there had been respectful silence.

She had succeeded.

She ran to the wings, the stage lights flicking off as she left it, house lights coming up behind her. She turned to look: people stood, some still staring at the place where she had just been, others gathering their things. She glanced at the board. Virtual numbers clicked down as people logged off, but the highest amount was posted there in glowing orange letters. Eighty-seven thousand. The size of the audience hit her in the gut, and she turned away from it.

Jali plucked at her sleeve and Ani came up from behind and whispered, “You were magnificent.”

The dim light of backstage was enough to show how pleased Naveen looked. She glanced back at the gallery, still full of people. If you added it all up, there had been nearly a hundred thousand people, and all of them were people she had never met. She had no idea how she'd been brave enough to sing to them all.

“We have to go,” Jali said.

“Go where?”

“Time to change. We have a party to go to.”

Her whole focus had been on the performance, and now she wanted to sit and eat something and relax. Instead, she was rushed to a dressing room where Ani and Jali pulled her stage clothes off and put her into a short blue dress with her signature multiple colors lining the neckline and falling down one side in ribbons that tickled her elbow.

Naveen stood outside the door, shifting his weight and looking pained, but Jali fussed and whispered, “No worry, no hurry.”

“Just bring him a drink next time,” Ruby whispered. She closed her eyes and swayed. She shouldn't be this tired.

“Sit,” Jali said. She let the lock of Ruby's hair she was working on fall. “Was it that hard?”