The Diamond Deep (44 page)

Ruby stood up, tested her strength, shook her head. “I want to clean up, and eat.”

Ani said, “Maybe we should bring one of our doctors over.”

Jali stood next to Ruby, encourage Ruby to drape an arm over her shoulder. “I'll ask KJ about it.”

“No,” Ruby said. “I'll be fine. I'm sure I just wore myself out. I haven't really stopped since we got here. Maybe since the robot spiders. That's got to be it.”

An hour, a shower, and a few pieces of bread later she did feel better. “There. Maybe you can buy me a day's time to keep resting? I have some songs I need to write.”

Ani laughed. “Maybe you do feel better.”

Onor lay beside Marcelle, one hand on her swelling stomach and the other propping his head up. She looked exhausted. He'd tried to get her to do less, but she'd simply looked at him with a “who would do this better?” look and he'd known not to press his luck.

“Are all of the children all right today?”

“Yes. We let two go home, in fact. But there's three women in with something strange. They're exhausted, I think. The worst is one of Lya's whispering women. She came in, claimed she was exhausted, and then passed out. Luckily she was sitting on the bed when she fell over. Lya made sure someone sat with her the whole time. When it was Lya's turn to watch over her, I visited with her. She looks so haunted still. Her hands shook. It was really weird. I asked her if she knew what was wrong and she told me no, she doesn't. She babbled about Ruby making sure they all stay locked up in here so they can't go out and about. It's as if just being stuck in Ash is killing her.”

“Could they be working too hard?”

“Sure. Maybe I'll pass out next. Get one or two days of sleep in.”

“Don't you dare. Pass out. You could do the sleeping bit, though. You could use it.”

“You're not exactly well-rested.”

He didn't answer that. “How is school going?”

“I overheard a group of the teenagers talking about figuring out how to go find their fortunes on a spaceship.”

Onor chewed on his lower lip. “They need to make their fortunes doing something.”

Marcelle rolled over to face him. “They need to help support us all.”

“Ruby told me once that her biggest fear is that we won't all stay together. That the people of the
Fire
will scatter and get absorbed. I remember her face when she said it—she was fierce.”

“What did you tell her?” Marcelle asked.

“That for now, she's right. If we want everyone to survive, we have to work together. But in the long run? If we learn enough to get along here, we'll go off into the
Deep
or off on other ships. We'll mix up with the people here.”

“Yeah.” Marcelle didn't sound happy. “The hard part is getting the kids to know the difference between now and in the future. It will really hurt if we lose all of the teens.”

“Are they studying hard?”

“As hard as we were when Ruby demanded we learn how to pass Ix's mythical test to get us into the other levels.”

“I'll talk to Joel about it if I can.”

Marcelle looked dubious. “Aren't you guarding him?”

“Sure. Today we went over the books with SueAnne. Then we met with Haric to get him ready to go out into the world and search for bits of our cargo. But I wasn't alone with Joel once, and the meeting with SueAnne had five people in it. I stood against a wall and listened.”

“How does Joel look?”

“Like he's missing half of himself. Like he's distracted. Sometimes. Other times he's focused as hell.”

Marcelle touched Onor's cheek. “He is missing half of himself.”

Onor winced.

Marcelle put a finger over his lips. “You are too, I can see it. You miss her.”

“I'm worried about her.”

“Of course you are. We all are. But it's working, right? People are paying to see her? The last time I saw SueAnne she actually had a smile on her face.”

Onor nodded. “SueAnne still talks in time. She said Ruby gained us all two weeks in one concert. But the next one's not for two days and it's been two days, so we'll have lost almost a week of that before she sings again. She can't do this forever.”

“I know.”

The community had enough days of credit to get through the rest of the pregnancy. Marcelle would give birth in two months. But if they all ended up in the Brawl, the
Deep
would take the baby. They'd take all of the children.

Every day, he managed to go about his tasks and to keep learning, but under his determination there was always an uneasy fear, and below the fear, a sense of being unmoored.

He rubbed his fingers lightly along the soft skin of Marcelle's cheek and tucked a stray dark curl behind her ear.

Her stomach bounced against him. He whispered. “Kicking?”

“Kicking.”

He sat up so that he could put both of his hands on her tummy. He held them still there for a long time, waiting for another kick.

Marcelle watched him with wide, soft eyes peering up from a face that had grown thinner with her pregnancy. “If you wait long enough, it will kick again.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It tells me the baby is alive. It reminds me why I have to keep going.”

“It helps me, too. Not just the kicks. The baby at all. It keeps me going.”

The ends of her mouth quirked up. “Really? Are you happy about it?”

No. He wished they hadn't created such a fragile thing right now. “I'm scared for it. I want to make sure we give it a future. It keeps me working to understand this place, to try and find out how to get back some of what is ours. It gives me something more to care about.”

“More?”

“More than you. More than all of us.” The look on her face made him realize he needed to say more. “I want us all to be safe. I love you.”

As if it agreed with him, the baby kicked.

Dayn walked in front of Naveen and Ruby, looking left and right, alert. He had taken on a shepherding role since the tour began. From time to time he looked back at Ruby, as if making sure she was still there. He was so serious it made her feel warm and a bit odd; Dayn had been her watcher since she was essentially Fox's captive years ago. KJ walked on her other side. Ani, Jali, and Min all followed close behind. She felt surrounded, enclosed. Almost suffocated.

Naveen put a hand on her arm. “This will be the best after-concert party ever. You'll be amazed. The man who put it on for you—Gunnar Ellensson—owns the biggest cargo operation between here and Mammot.”

“What do they take back and forth?” She remembered the game. “Mammot doesn't have as much as Lym.”

“There are precious metals which are more easily mined than made.”

“I thought your invisible machines could do anything.”

“They can. Some things they do better than nature. Others, not so much. Remember, we can live on food squares, but we thrive with real food.”

“Where are we going?”

Now Naveen grinned even wider. “The party is in one of the secret bubbles.”

She didn't think secret was the right word. More like hidden in plain sight, like a taunt. Satyana had showed her the outside of the bubble homes of the ultra-rich. Ix had shown them the whole outside of the station.

His excitement was riding high, his eyes shiny, his breath already laced with a tinge of alcohol. Ruby didn't like him in this mood, didn't appreciate him being so sure of himself. It made her nervous. But for now, she needed him. She took his arm and smiled.

They boarded a small train of cars that had clearly been designed to carry people and cargo along a single wide corridor that passed between bubbles. The seats felt soft and looked as if they had just been recovered. Silver handholds flashed as the car passed under bright lights.

At the end of a fifteen minute ride, the train doors opened and a lighted floor led them into a thin corridor that forced them single file. KJ stayed right in front of her. He looked as calm as anyone approaching a new place for an exciting secret party might, but she smelled his anxiety. Naveen followed Ruby, with Dayn looming behind him. The entire time they walked the corridor, Ruby felt as if there were eyes on her, like when she was in a crowd and turned to find someone staring intently at her from close range.

They rounded a bend and a door swung open, washing the corridor in laughter and music, transforming it into a party.

Ruby put on her best meet-and-greet smile and stepped into the room. The scent of fresh-cut fruit and vegetables mixed with sweet desserts and the tang of alcohol. A band played stringed instruments and hand-drums on an ornate stage that jutted out from a wall so the musicians stood above the crowd, looking down.

A tall and perfectly proportioned man stood in front of her. His skin was as black as Ani's, accentuated by the white and gold clothes he wore. Sparkling golden eyes that were as odd as Koren's eyes matched the gold piping on his sleeves and the gold chains spilling down his chest in a tangled river. “Hello, beautiful Ruby the Red, woman of fire. I am Gunnar Ellensson, and I am pleased to offer you the honor of joining me at a party thrown . . .” he let an exaggerated pause go by, “for you. Come in.” He bowed and held out his hand expectantly.

Ruby managed not to react to the overly-effusive greeting, but to just hold her hand out and let him take it. “I don't deserve such honor.”

“Oh, yes, you do. You saved your people once in the past, and they love you. You are saving them again, and they still love you. It is rare for a leader to be so good and so bright.”

She had to work to withhold her gag reflex. “Show me and my guard around?”

“You have no need of a guard here.”

She gestured toward KJ. “Think of him as my friend.”

There was no obvious sense of resentment as Gunnar smiled and held a large hand out to KJ. “Pleased to meet you.”

She wondered what KJ thought of the excesses surrounding them. He didn't look happy.

Gunnar said, “I cannot leave my post as greeter just yet. Perhaps you can enjoy the riches of the feast prepared for you, and sip from a refreshing, cold drink?”

“I would like some fresh juice,” Ruby said, “And a piece of fruit.”

Gunnar looked away and whispered something, as if into thin air, and then turned back to Ruby. “I will find you soon.”

Ruby almost succeeded at getting her entourage to one of the tables that practically dripped food before a threesome of tattooed men hailed her and blocked her way, holding out hands, murmuring of her success. Others recognized her, and surrounded her quickly. The fashion here was the most exotic she had seen, as were the modifications to the human form. Size varied widely, as well as strength and color. A pink woman with pink hair and baby blue eyes half the size of her face pushed through the crowd to congratulate Ruby on her concert. She was followed by a near-albino woman with the wide shoulders of a man and large breasts that nearly spilled out of a tight-fitting black dress.

Satyana slid through the crowd, dressed plainly compared to the exotics that surrounded her. Here, her simplicity stood out even more than it had on the
Star Bear
. She winked at Ruby. “Thank you for the workers. I have started training them.”

“You're welcome, and thank you. I'm sure they'll do well. We're used to hard work.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I must have been very tired. I'm sorry for any inconvenience.”

“You need to protect your health. I want you to come to the
Star Bear
to sing again. Do you know when you'll be back?”

“I have five more concerts booked. I plan to go back home afterward. I'll ask Naveen to book you.”

Satyana managed to look both proud and irritated at once, which made Ruby think she'd gotten her answer right. The
Diamond Deep
was so full of undertones that she usually felt like she was tripping over them. Ruby planned to protect her demand to go home. She'd told Naveen how much it mattered to her, but he'd been drunk when she did that, so she had no idea if he remembered.