The Diamond Deep (46 page)

They squeezed two chairs in from a nearby table, the bulk of the two bigger men making Onor feel cramped in spite of how happy he felt to see his old mentors. Haric flagged Evie back over and The Jackman said, “I heard you were part owner of this little venture.”

Onor laughed. “A small part. I did some work for Naveen and invested what I earned.”

The Jackman looked approving. “Smart.”

“How's Daria?”

“Good. She's making jewelry to take to the exchange, and people are buying.”

The Jackman had kept the trimmer figure he'd developed preparing to fight for Ruby and Joel back on the
Fire
. He'd grown back the beard, now a scraggly long white river of hair flowing from his chin almost to the middle of his chest. “I hear you're still managing drills.”

“Yeah—running for nothing. I liked it better when there was a cause we could put our fingers on.”

After Evie took their orders, Conroy made a show of looking around. “The bar's changed.”

“What do you mean?” Onor asked.

“More people. More strangers, mostly.”

“It's Ruby's popularity.” There were at least four tables—no, five—of Deepers. “They come here because this is where she comes from.”

The Jackman shook his head. “So she's still making trouble.” But he had a smile now when he talked about her.

“More like saving us from starvation. Strangers coming in means we're making credits instead of just moving pieces around.”

“Could be. But every good thing comes with its shadow consequence.” The Jackman pointed at the table of outsiders furthest from them. Three men, all decked out in Deeper finery. And with them, three of
The Creative Fire
's young women, leaning on their hands, looking completely star-crossed at the handsome Deepers. “I don't like seeing that,” The Jackman said. “We're losing our girls.”

Haric frowned. “Two of my friends left yesterday. They haven't come back. Not girls. Boys. They say it's too restrictive here.”

Conroy asked, “How did they get away?”

“They kept half their earnings. No way to tell, you know. People have to self-report to SueAnne, and hardly any grays trust her.”

“You should,” Onor snapped. “She works hard. She's trying to save us, just like Ruby.”

“Maybe we don't want to sit around and let the women do that for us. Maybe we need to make our own names.”

After two hours of practicing the voice and visual cues needed to make native
Deep
technology respond well to him, Onor felt drained. Haric held his fingers at his temples and frowned. Onor leaned back in his chair. “We're done for now,” he told Aleesi.

“All right.” The voice was female. The two AIs had agreed to standardize on one voice each—Aleesi's that of a young woman, and Ix's a male voice.

“Did you learn something?” Onor asked.

Haric nodded. “I still don't know that it would be enough for me to pass one of the damned work tests. But I think I could at least access the systems now, and maybe read the questions.”

“Well, that's progress. I'll order some food, and then we need to work on your trip.”

Haric raised an eyebrow. “I was thinking of going to the bar.”

“And looking for Evie?”

“And having a drink.” But Haric's cheeks turned red.

“We can't talk with the AIs there. If the Deepers find Aleesi, and take her, they'll also have the copy of Ix we've been retraining. And Ruby will kill us for losing her pet. Besides, Joel's going to join us here.”

Haric leaned back. “All right. Order me a glass of wine, then.”

Onor felt like a miniature version of Joel when he said, “Water and a sandwich.”

“I wish our food in here was as good as the food outside.”

“Maybe we'll open a restaurant after we get the hang of the bar.” Onor used his slate to order the food and let Joel know they were ready, then took a closer look at Haric. He must have been working out with Conroy and the others. Or maybe he was just growing up. His shoulders were wider than Onor remembered, and earlier, Onor had noticed he was only a tiny bit taller than Haric. He was sure Haric had been much smaller than Onor on docking day.

They sat in congenial quiet until Joel and the food arrived simultaneously. “So,” Joel said. “Tell me about getting to the next Exchange. Why?”

“I heard a rumor that there's cargo from the
Fire
there.”

“Who did you hear that from?”

“One of the merchants. He recognized me, said he knew I was from the
Fire
by the way I talked.”

Joel pursed his lips. “That's not good news.”

Onor took a bite of his sandwich, the bread gritty with seed and nuts and the protein paste on it thick and creamy. It actually wasn't bad.

“So he said that there was a booth in Exchange Four that specialized in rocks and minerals. Which we had a lot of, so it makes sense. He said he was there and some of the stuff is labeled as coming from us.”

“So she's not even trying to hide that she stole from us,” Onor muttered.

Joel leaned forward, a quiet, contemplative look on his face. “Or she's underestimating us.”

Aleesi spoke. “Koren underestimated Naveen. The
Deep
is huge, and your arrival wasn't actually a very big deal. It also wasn't publicized much. Koren tried to block Naveen from being the other one chosen to greet you, but she was unable to do that. Since then, she's been trying to destroy his reputation by suggesting he's a drunken lush and that he's not telling the truth about Ruby's past.”

Joel frowned. “How do you know all that?”

“It's in the comment threads all over the station. The current prevailing attitude about anything can be parsed by reading and evaluating comment logs. This is also true on the stations at the Edge, even though those are smaller.”

“Why didn't you tell us this earlier?” Onor asked.

“You didn't ask.”

“I thought you were more human than machine,” Onor said.

“That doesn't mean I can read your mind.”

Onor laughed. Sometimes he almost liked the killer robot girl.

“Ix? Did you know this?” Joel asked. “About the logs.”

“No.”

Onor sighed. “Aleesi, can you teach Ix about the comment logs? And me, too?”

“Yes.”

“There is something else you might want to know,” Aleesi said.

“What?”

“The merchant who helped Haric? The couple from the bar? They are not happy with how things are run here on the
Deep
. That's why they risked coming here, and why the merchant talked to Haric. The power structures here are stable, but all power structures draw people who hate them.”

And Aleesi's people—the people from the Edge—might hate the
Deep
's powerful people, too. The immensity of what he didn't know felt like knives held above his head. Before he could form a question, Joel asked, “So . . . what else do you know about Koren? Can you verify that she stole from us?”

“You must promise never to use me as a source of information.”

“I know.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes,” Joel said. “Now tell me what you can prove, and how we might prove it?”

“Will you promise me something else?”

“What?” Joel snapped.

“Can there be someone in here talking to me most of the time? I get lonely.”

Joel looked exasperated. “Sure. You can have a whispering woman. I'll find one for you tomorrow.”

“Maybe SueAnne can work in here more often? I've been helping her with research, but she's only here an hour or so a day.”

“I'll ask. What do you know?”

“You know Koren is the
Deep
's Chief Historian, right?”

“Right,” Onor said.

“That means she's on the Council. The Council is the group of people that runs things here—they can change laws, make laws, etc. The Council has . . . arguments. About who has power. Koren is the least of them. She has almost no power. My analysis suggests that she thinks gaining the riches from the
Fire
will give her more power.”

“Okay,” Joel said. “That fits with what the couple in the bar told us. But why all the intrigue?”

“Maybe that's just how they do things here,” Haric commented.

Onor laughed. “Don't be that cynical.”

“You're not getting out enough,” Haric whispered.

Joel gave them a look that demanded quiet. “What else have you learned?”

“You are inconvenient. She can't prove you don't own all of what came in the
Fire
. That's part of why the
Fire
itself is locked away. A true historian would have kept her intact and given tours or something.”

“So how do we prove that we own it?”

“You may not own it, at least not according to the rules these people honor.”

Haric had been quiet. Now he spoke a touch too loudly, his voice laced with barely-controlled anger. “If everyone in power is so cruel, than how do we actually change things? How could a court do us good if Koren has more power than we do?”

“Well, one way is to find a court that will listen to you. There are still rules, and if you can make the breaking of one a public thing, then even the powerful must pay.”

Haric's face showed his doubt. “Really? But who will listen to us? We have the least power of anyone I've seen here.”

“No,” Onor said. “You haven't seen the Brawl.”

Haric sighed and went quiet for a moment. “So it won't help if we find the stuff in Exchange Four?”

“Oh yes, it will help, “Aleesi said. “Physical evidence would be very helpful.”

“I still don't understand,” Onor said.

“Well, either you're crew, and you get a part of the value of the cargo. That's what Koren's asserting. Or you're owners, and you get it all.”

Onor sat back. “How would we prove we're owners?”

“Prove Lym isn't claiming ownership.”

“How do we do that?”

“Ix has records of its conversations.”

“So we have to protect Ix.” That was an odd thought. Onor was still used to Ix protecting them. But that also explained why Koren had stopped Ix early on, as soon as they got near, and why it had been hard for Naveen to get a copy of the AI. Even why Koren had stripped the group of most of their leaders. She was probably furious Ruby and Joel hadn't gone along with her plan to re-settle everyone in power fairly nicely. After all, wherever Laird was, he probably wasn't three months away from being thrown in the Brawl. “Maybe we should go talk to Naveen,” Onor mused.

Haric's face brightened.

“They are very far away,” Aleesi said.

“This doesn't sound impossible,” Joel said. “To prove this. If someone will be fair?”

“What about our mystery couple?” Onor asked.

“I have not been able to identify who they are.”

Onor looked over at Joel. “Too bad we can't talk to Aleesi from a distance.”

“Koren knows about me,” Aleesi said. “She could come take me any time. If you can find the technology to make me mobile, I will take the risk.”

Joel shook his head. “It's too much. That puts Ix at risk, and we need it.”

“If there's a way, it might make us all safer,” Onor said.

Joel looked like he was about to say no, but then he said, “Be careful,” instead.

Ruby woke in the early hours of the morning after the party at Gunnar Ellensson's, her head spinning with the various excesses of food and design and attitude. Gunnar could buy fifteen ships like
The Creative Fire
and outfit them for fabulous journeys. He probably spent more credit on his private estate in a day than she needed to feed thousands. What had woken her was an anger at that wealth, an anger that drove deep in her belly and sent it sour, that stiffened her, that forced her out of bed.

She wasn't angry at Gunnar. She'd actually rather liked him, in the odd way that one can like an enemy. He was affable and unruffled while he wasted credits that should be feeding people and stopping the Brawl. He wasted riches beautifully.

The
Deep
confused her in so many ways. She wished Joel were here, or she was at home. She wanted to be held and she wanted someone to talk this through with.

Their rooms were private, but there was a shared galley. She made her way there, intending to have a cup of tea and something to sop it up with up, some bread perhaps, or a seed cracker. To her surprise, Min was already at the table, alone, her face washed so pale in the light of the slate on the table in front of her that her scar barely showed. Her free hand was cupped around a glass of water. Ruby spoke softly, “Hi Min.”

Min startled slightly, as if jolted out of some quiet reverie.

Ruby poured a cup of hot water from a spigot. “All these little conveniences would have been nice to have back on the
Fire
.”