The Diamond Deep (9 page)

“Not exactly. When you're ready, traverse the pod. Other people will meet you.”

Onor clung for a few more minutes, waiting for Colin to get his own null-g sense about him. Colin breathed out, “Ready,” and pushed off, arms stretched toward the nearest traverse line.

As soon as Colin got a good grip on the cable and fumbled his safety hook onto it, he looked back to check on the others. Onor was right behind him, and the line vibrated as each of the other two landed and attached their hooks.

Colin led the four of them across the bay, pulling in and out of beams of light. New lights kicked on near one of the entrances on the far side when they were about half-way along. They stopped, clinging. “Ix? Is that who we're supposed to meet?”

“Yes. Can you go faster?”

“I can.” Colin sped up and Onor worked harder, pulling hand over hand. He went so fast he fumbled once, floating away from the line, the hook holding him on. Colin gripped tightly with one hand and used his free hand to pull Onor back. Onor gritted his teeth and worked on precision as he tried to be even faster to make up for the short delay. Every pull felt like work. A spot on the inside of his arm felt seared as it chafed against a seam in the suit that should have been soft but felt like a dull knife.

He glanced toward the other door. Three suited figures. He had no sense of whether there should or could be more of them, but it felt there should be more.

As they reached the far side, hands pulled him in and helped him unhook then handed him along the wall. At the far end, he passed the third person, who gripped his hand as tightly as possible, glove to glove.

Marcelle.

He chilled, seeing her here. Whatever was about to happen was going to be bad. He felt that, felt it deep.

Her features were distorted by the scratched helmet glass, but he could make out a welcoming smile below eyes wide with wonder and fear. He held onto the wall with his left hand, a slight push setting him to floating 90 degrees from the wall. She did the same, using the other hand. It set them floating belly to belly. They touched free hands. A null-g hug they'd learned as youngsters when they were first taught how to suit up.

They exchanged looks of pleasure at the success of the small joint maneuver.

Ix. “Watch the far side.”

The skin of the
Fire
. Onor braced, made sure Marcelle was braced. Everyone looked ready, and awkward. They bulked against the wall of the cargo bay. Onor felt naked without a weapon, but they had nothing that would work well in the awkward gloves.

The outer locks were designed to allow the biggest cargo containers in and out of the ship.

Lights showed through one of those locks.

Ruby chewed at her lip as the invading ship that had stepped on the camera attached itself to the outside of the
Fire
with a wobbling movement, as if it were testing its stickiness. The camera angle Ix had found was fairly clear, but even zoomed in, details were tough to see. A second ship did the same thing. “They are landing over airlocks,” Ix said.

The third ship failed to get a grip on the
Fire
's silvery skin and ripped away so fast it seemed as if the ship vanished in an eyeblink. Ix replayed the bit of grainy footage. It was impossible to tell why this ship's feet didn't stick to the
Fire
, but in slow motion it looked more spectacular that it had when it happened. One of the legs ripped off and tumbled away. The other three feet held on, flexing, and then lost their holds fast, like a zipper, and the ship disappeared from between frames.

Ani put a hand over her mouth and no sound came out, although her shoulders heaved.

“Is it going to try again?” Ruby asked.

“I'm sure it's gone. It did not appear to have enough power to catch us.”

She stared at the place it had been. “Were there people inside?”

“I don't know.”

The invaders
—that's how she thought of them now—
the invaders
looked small against the big generation ship's outer skin.

The sheer surprise of them clung to Ruby. “Those are the ones over C?”

“Yes,” Ix replied.

Onor and Marcelle were there. Ruby wanted to be with them. “Can they know?” Ruby asked. “That the habitation section on C is empty?”

“I do not believe it is possible.”

Ani had dropped her hand from her mouth and it joined her other hand at about waist level, fingers twisting tight.

“I've never seen you so nervous,” Ruby told her. “It'll be okay.”

“Really?”

“It has to be.” Ruby spoke to Ix. “No one from the Fire could have sent them information?” she asked.

“I would know.”

Ruby believed. “So it must just be dumb luck.”

Joel stood just far enough away that Ruby couldn't hear the details of his whispered conversations. She slid over by him and curled her hand around his arm, wanting to be close when something happened.

“Look!” KJ commanded their attention.

An even smaller pod had detached from one of the bigger ones, or maybe been let loose. It looked like it came through a door, although between the graininess of the picture and the angle, it was hard to tell. Whatever it was that came out, it had emerged from the invading ship's belly. It grasped the ship's landing legs.

“How many are there?” Joel asked.

“At least two,” Ix said. “I cannot tell yet.”

The smallest of the ships bent down—that was the only way Ruby could describe it—and clutched the feet of its mother ship. The center of the cluster of legs moved down and attached itself to the outside of the
Fire
, just above one of the locks.

No one spoke until Ix said, “It looks like it will be able to get in without hurting us. Like they have the right codes. This should not be possible.”

KJ spoke the worst conclusion. “If they know how to open the locks on our ship, then they could have found a way to talk to us.”

The light that shone from the hatch illuminated nothing. It had been designed for people
in
the airlock. All that Onor and Marcelle and the others clinging to the insides of the cargo bay could see was the light surrounding the door, limning it, making the door itself look even blacker than the surrounding metal.

It seemed to take forever for the lock to cycle. Onor's breath rattled inside of his helmet, full of fear and stomach acid.

He braced for the people coming through the door, for unfamiliar weapons.

The inner door of the lock opened, pushed out by . . . he squinted, drew in a breath: Pushed out my metal claws. Behind the claws, metal arms. Behind the metal arms, small metal bodies with thick legs attached. Four? No, six legs plus the two front ones with the claws. The thighs were thicker than a man, maybe much thicker.

Strength and flexibility. He quickly saw that he should add speed to the words that the robots brought to his mind. That's what they had to be. Bots. There didn't seem to be room anywhere for a human unless there were humans in each leg, and that made no sense. They were all leg and claw. All machine.

The first one
jumped
, moving impossibly to latch itself to the wall at least twenty meters from the airlock door.

Onor pressed closer to the wall.

Ix spoke into his helmet. “Don't move. Yet. They don't know you are there.”

Onor tried not to move his lips much as he asked Ix, “What are they?”

“They are not in my library. The claws are sharp. They appear to be strong.”

“Understatement.” Onor hissed.

The first of the robots scuttled along the wall, using the hand-holds and the traverse lines to move quickly down to the cargo pods. It seemed to know exactly where it was, to belong in the deep holds of the
Fire
. This alone—the familiarity—was enough to give Onor shivers.

Three more came through. One waited by the hatch. Two of them followed the first robot and fanned out. All four moved in different directions.

The first one that had come through snapped the straps on a cargo pod and lifted the entire structure of the bin away from the wall.

“What should we do?” Onor whispered.

Ix didn't answer.

The fourth clawed robot started moving along the wall toward them.

“What do we do?” Onor repeated. In just two jumps it had come a quarter of the distance.

When Ix remained silent, Onor bit his lip to make himself think. Pain drove his fear deeper inside, opening up his airway and giving him more ability to talk.

They were attacking his home.

“Ix. How do I hurt it? That one's almost here. How do I hurt it?”

“Don't move yet.”

“It's coming.”

“You have no weapon.”

It took one more hop toward them, stopped. With no visible eye, he couldn't tell how it saw. Yet he felt sure it watched them, knew they were there.

“Can you jam the airlock closed? Block them in?”

No answer.

They were all linked to Ix and not to each other. By design. So there would be one set of orders, and so Ix could control the conversation. It was a price they often paid for talking to the machine.

Ix would protect stability and not individuals. Onor heard Colin's earlier words inside his head, a truth he'd resisted.
But it was true in this case
. The machine would sell them for the
Fire
's future if it had to.

“Stay quiet,” Ix told him.

Ix must be telling them all to be quiet. He needed a human. Colin. “Patch me through to the others.”

To his surprise, Ix did so. He could immediately hear Colin swearing, and the hard, fast breath of five other people full of fear.

“Stay calm!” Onor commanded. “Ix is going to lock them in if it can. Get out. Then we can plan.”

Colin immediately backed him up. “Joe, Lisle, use the lock closest to you.”

That was the lock closest to all seven of them. It would only hold two at a time, and the two Colin had named were the closest to it. They were also the closest to the robot.

“Marcelle,” Onor hissed.

“We could go across to the other lock.” Her voice was shaky and high, but brave.

It was a better idea than waiting. Only one machine was focused on them. Splitting up felt right. “Now,” he urged.

Marcelle pushed off, a stiff humanoid form with a bubble head and nothing like the powerful legs of the machines that had entered their space. Even though he knew her as a warrior, in this moment Marcelle looked vulnerable. Prey.

Onor bent down, crouching sideways against the wall, and followed her through nothing.

She didn't stop to attach her hook but just grabbed the line and started pulling along it.

“Hook in,” he urged her.

“No. It might follow us.”

Colin's voice. “She's right. You might need to float free. Good luck.”

One mistake could leave them untethered.

Onor's arm hurt all over again, heating as it chafed. He drove forward with it anyway, the whole motion like swimming. His helmet bumped Marcelle's boot. “Sorry.”

“It's okay.”

Heavy breathing sounded in their helmets, fear breathing from the four who hadn't followed them. A scream stopped all other sound, strangled, then stopped abruptly. Ix had cut the voice off.

Onor's fear grew.

It was almost impossible to look backward in the bulky suit. It would slow him down. “What's happening?” he whispered through his teeth as he pulled along frantically after Marcelle. “What just happened?”

Colin's voice sounded high. “It ripped . . . ripped—”

Onor took another long pull along the line, felt blood running slowly into the arm of his suit, hot and wet.

Silence went by for so long Onor was afraid whatever happened to the screamer had also happened to Colin. Onor pictured a suit cut in pieces, pulled harder. Colin's voice vibrated in his ear again. “It . . . we lost two. Just go. Don't look back.”

Oh my. This was so much worse than fighting humans through the
Fire
. So much scarier. Colin again, his voice choppy. “Good luck.”