The Diamond Deep

by Brenda Cooper

  There had been a time when Marcelle was better with a crowd than Ruby. But Jaliet and Fox and necessity had made Ruby stronger. Now, in times like this when she wanted to make a difference, she not only changed a room, she commanded it.

  Marcelle groaned and rolled over, her hand bumping up against him. She startled awaked, propping herself up on one elbow. “I didn’t dream.”

  “Maybe you were too tired.”

  “No. I didn’t dream . . . you and me.”

  He reached over and touched her cheek. “No.”

  She got up out of bed and visited the privy. When she came back, she sat beside him, watching the silent Ruby. “She looks good.” Marcelle mused. “But she has to be as scared as we are.”

  “Maybe.” He remembered being chased, which prompted him to put a grateful arm around Marcelle’s shoulders and to ask Ix to turn on the volume.

  “What else is happening?” he asked.

  “We’re attacking the other ship.”

  “Wow. Can we win?” Onor asked.

  Marcelle snuggled in closer to him, skin to skin. She smelled of sex and soap and sweat.

  “It is possible.”

  Onor kissed Marcelle’s cheek. “What about Ellis and Sylva? They were going after Ruby. Did you stop them?”

  “I did not.”

  A fresh resentment of the machine jarred him more alert. “But Ruby’s okay?”

  “Ruby is fine. You were just watching her.”

  Oh. Right. “So what happened to Ellis and Sylva?”

  “They died.”

  “How?” Marcelle asked. “Who killed them?”

  “They died of lack of oxygen. That’s all the information I have for you.”

  Ani sat on the back of the stage, leaning against the wall with her journal in her lap. She was so focused on her journal—propped against her knees—that Ruby had to repeat her question. “What’s happening?”

  “They’re just now going into the cargo bay.”

  “Really? I was sure I’d missed it all.”

  “KJ made them practice.”

  Ruby laughed in spite of the tension, maybe because of it. “The hammer of an enemy hangs above us, and KJ demands a perfect, practiced pose.”

  Haric had left one of Kyle’s cookies each for Ruby and Ani. Ruby bit into hers. It tasted like warmth and friendship, and smelled of the fresh herbs Kyle grew in his tiny galley. “Have you ever kissed KJ?” she asked.

  “No. Get your journal. They’ve climbed into the airlocks.”

  “How many?”

  “There’s ten going in. From five directions.”

  Ruby peeled her journal off her belt and opened it out. “KJ will beat them. He has to. I can’t imagine flying home with rogue robots in one of the bays.”

  Ani’s entire body tensed, her face a mask of resolution.

  It must be torture to love someone who barely noticed you. Ruby was furious with Joel, but had no doubt that they would be together tonight. He needed her, and he would remember that.

  The small screen was much harder to watch than the map table. She took another bite of the cookie.

  All four robots had gathered on the ground floor of the cargo bay, or what passed for a ground floor in null-g. They huddled close together almost as if they were talking.

  KJ and his people cycled in through the airlocks.

  Ruby expected the robots to attack them as they came in, but instead they scuttled into four separate positions.

  The humans were less than a quarter of the size of the robots.

  KJ spread his people in two groups of four and one group of two, keeping as much distance between the people and the bots as possible.

  “It’ll be okay,” Ruby whispered back, even though Ani hadn’t been talking to her. “It has to be.”

  “Be careful,” Ani whispered to her screen. “They’re fast.”

  Ruby glanced away from the image. People were coming in with blankets and pillows and snacks. Parents had children by the hand, some looking like they never intended to let go. A few stood by the stage, watching her and Ani gravely.

  Haric came by and spoke softly to her. “They’re frightened but they’re all okay. No one seems mad at you right now.”

  “No. This is bigger than me. Do you need a break?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  Haric disappeared back into the crowd.

  “Ix, what about the ships? Are they there yet?”

  “No.”

  Ruby returned her attention to her journal. Something had happened—the configuration was different. There were lines and chains wrapped around one of the bots. Two people were tying the chains tighter. One of the bot’s forelegs got a good grip on a line and snapped it and then waved it very close to one of the humans. Another human sailed by and dropped a thicker line over the freed limb. KJ’s people were far more fluid in null-g than Colin’s had been, than Onor or Marcelle or even Colin himself. They must practice.

  One of the figures approached the bound robot. She would be willing to bet it was KJ, even though she couldn’t have said what subtle clues she was getting from the way one figure moved differently than another when they were all in bulky environment suits. He held something out in his hand and fired it at the bot.

  It convulsed once and then all of the legs relaxed as much as they could inside of the chains and lines that bound it. That was it—a touch and the thing had stilled.

  “Ix. What is that. What did KJ do?”

  “It’s called electromagnetic pulse. EMP. It destroys circuitry.”

  “A robot stunner?”

  “Worse. A tight-beam EMP gun.”

  “It won’t wake back up?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Good. The camera shifted. A second bot had already been tightly bound. She watched it struggle and then go completely limp, shift from alive to dead.

  She’d never thought of robots as something that could be alive before.

  The other two bots had moved as far away from humans as they could get. One inched toward the lock to the outside, perhaps trying to escape what was beginning to look like a sure fate.

  She watched the next capture. The humans met together in a group of six, some distance away from the target. They separated, five of them moving in five directions, making what looked like a net of chain and lines. They pulled the bonds out from a large bag held by a single suited figure.

  One bot was under them and one was over them. The one “above” them clung very near the door to open space. They moved the chain in the “up” direction. The bot tried to cut the net of chain that was surrounding it in slow motion. It managed to sever one line, but all of the chain and all of the other lines held.

  It looked like it was trying to stay alive.

  Ruby had grown up expecting to be a robot repair person. She’d apprenticed. She’d spent hours breaking fingernails on parts and getting grease in the cracks of her elbow. None of the robots she’d worked on had ever complained if she stopped them, parted them out, or put them away. Not one of them had thanked her for fixing a broken part. Come to think of it, none of them had ever killed anyone either, except one big cleaning robot that killed a child by accident when Ruby was five. And that was the fault of the creche worker, not the robot.

  “Ix.”

  “Yes, Ruby.”

  “Ix. Stop them. Stop them now.”

  “I cannot do that.”

  As she spoke, the next to last bot that they had tied up was stilled.

  She almost screamed, as if volume could make Ix understand. “Leave the last one alive.”

  “Why?”

  “I can learn from it. Tell them, now. It’s important.”

  “Now? You want to study it now?”

  “No. Have KJ tie it up and leave it. I’ll study after we beat the ugly ship.” Or not. It didn’t need to be said.

  Ix stayed silent for so long it must have been conversing with humans. She was pretty sure it was talkin
g to KJ and Joel and maybe also to Conroy, who was surely one of the suited figures in there.

  These were not the robots she knew how to repair, not the robots Onor had learned to run when he was working down below with Penny. These were more like Ix. Maybe the ugly ship was actually a ship full of sentient robots.

  That didn’t make sense.

  But still, she felt certain these robots had not only demonstrated thought, but also feeling. They might be clues about what else they’d find at Adiamo.

  Her journal screen showed that the fourth robot had been tied up. It twitched in its bonds, as if trying to stretch them so it could free itself.

  It hadn’t been killed yet. The humans were still in the cargo bay, still waiting. Her best hope was that Ix had really understood what she meant. That perhaps Ix had seen what she’d seen. Surely it would be curious about other machines that could think.

  Ani looked at her. “I hope it’s sorry the other robots died. When I think about Colin and the other two, I hope it knows that we’re three for three now. Is that right?”

  “Revenge can’t replace Colin,” Ruby replied.

  “Of course not,” Ani said. “That’s not what I meant. But I agree with you. Those things don’t look like people, and they don’t entirely act like people, but in some ways they reminded me of people. They chose like people.”

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed,” Ruby told Ani. She stood and stretched, looking out over the crowd. Some of the children and old people had dozed off. Soon, she’d stand up and have Ix display pictures of the dead robot spiders.

  She wanted the verdict on the life of the last one first.

  Kyle walked around the crowded common room, bending down to let people choose food from trays. A few children followed him around.

  Ruby stood beside the stage, watching. She had sung two rounds of songs, taken two long down times, and even managed to close her eyes and doze—but not sleep—for ten minutes. Some in the crowd had come and gone with the last shift change. The room felt thick with stale apprehension. Children played in the bare spots.

  Haric stood beside Ruby. He looked tired. Of course he was—she had interrupted his sleep in the map room after all, and brought him down here and given him a job. “Did you see anything?”

  “Maybe. Not see. Hear. I heard a little fight in a corner of the room. Loud whispers. Your name was in it. One of the people sounded angry.”

  “Thanks. Which corner?”

  “The far left if you stand in the doorway we came in.”

  Ruby glanced at Ani, who stood up. “I’ll do a round. It’s time for you to eat, Haric.”

  “We’re out of cookies.”

  “People have been bringing us food. I saved you some.” She handed Haric a fruit, a piece of candy and a small stack of crackers.

  “Any news?” he asked.

  “I think it will be soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  Ix spoke through the tinny speakers on her journal. “Ruby?”

  “Yes.”

  “KJ will leave the robot bound and functioning.”

  It hadn’t said alive. “Ix, are you alive?”

  “In what sense?”

  “Never mind.” Haric looked puzzled but she didn’t take time to explain the robots or the questionable life of AI’s to him. “Any news about the explosives?”

  “One of them was intercepted. It went off, and destroyed the part of the enemy ship that found it.”

  Ruby grimaced. “Now it knows to watch for bombs.”

  “It probably does.”

  “Why don’t you ever just say yes, you dumb machine?”

  “I say ‘yes’ when I am certain of the answer. The answer is likely in this case, but it is not certain.”

  She sighed.

  “You might consider standing on stage.”

  To tell them about the robots? “I might. Is it certain that I should?”

  “Yes.”

  She wondered if it knew she was teasing it. She obeyed, though, and stood on the end of the stage. There were at least a hundred people spread across the benches and floor, maybe more. Probably more. Some slept.

  She took the microphone and started to sing, letting her voice rise from low tones to slightly louder on each chorus of a popular Heaven Andrews working song.

  People stirred. Whispered conversations happened. Onor and Marcelle came in and stood in the back of the room.

  Good. A part of her released worry she hadn’t even realized she had been holding onto.

  The speakers in the room popped, alerting her just a few moments before Ix’s voice came on. “Watch.” Screens came alive, displaying a picture of the ugly ship.

  The AI wasn’t above creating drama.

  For most of the people in the room, it was the first view they had of the enemy. Ix fell silent, and Ruby waited a few beats before she raised her voice. “This is what we sent three ships to destroy. It is almost as big as the Fire.”

  Many people stood, as if that would give them a better view. Others stood to see around the people who had stood in front of them. She asked, “Please sit down, so everyone can see.”

  Most people sat, although a few in the back ignored her request.

  Ix’s voice. “I will show you the trajectories of all three flying bombs that we sent to destroy this ship.”

  Three orange dots showed up. They flew fairly far apart. One almost immediately connected with a similar-sized dot far outside of the enemy ship, and then disappeared. That must be the one she knew about.

  The other two made it half of the distance between the place the first ship blew up and their target before one of them, too, winked out of existence. Ix. “It will be success if the orange dot touches the ship.”

  By now, she knew it would. She had come to understand Ix that much. Even so, she held her breath, waiting.

  The orange dot impacted the ugly ship, moved into it—barely, but into it.

  Penetrated it.

  It seemed like a small thing, but a few people clapped. Ruby clapped. More clapped and then more.

  The orange flashed red and gold, a simulation taken from one of the games people played.

  A piece broke off of the strange ship and floated free. Some of the smaller ships that had hugged its outside tumbled away from it, as if pushed by a force that wasn’t visible on the screen.

  Everyone who wasn’t standing moved like one to their feet, whooping. People jumped up and down. Children screeched and found their parents, showed up on people’s shoulders, clapping.

  Ruby wished Ix were human so she could thank it properly. She did whisper, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  If Ix replied to her, the room was too noisy for Ruby to hear what it said.

  During the long time that it took for the room to quiet, Ruby wondered if humans had been hurt on the ship, or if instead they had simply damaged robots. Maybe Adiamo was populated by machines, and they were coming home to become the soft slaves of robots.

  Nothing else happened on the screen. The ship continued to hang in space, and no more pieces broke off. “Can it hurt us?” she whispered.

  No response.

  She spoke into the microphone. “Ix! Can it hurt us?”

  “I’m calculating.”

  Onor and Marcelle had come closer to her. Ani was with them.

  The screens went dark, as if to signal that the show was over. Ix spoke. “I believe we have damaged the other ship enough that we will be able to pass it and continue on our way. It may or may not be able to repair itself. For now, we are safe.”

  Ruby sat at the head of the bed, naked, her legs curled up close to her, her body a ball she held together with her interlocked arms. Exhaustion and relief warred in her nerves. They could have died. Winning felt like exhilaration and abomination all at once, like victory tinged with a feeling she couldn’t quite put a name too, but which was like the way she felt about what Joel had done to her enemies. Power used because there was no
other easy or comprehensible way to survive.

  Joel moved around the room, putting things away, organizing. His jaw was tight and stiff, his face unreadable. Usually he relaxed in here, with her. Even though he had refused her entry to his councils, it seemed like so much had happened since then that they were already different people than the ones who had started the argument that still lay between them.

  She forced herself to stretch, used breathing techniques KJ had taught her to let go of the fears and exhaustion gnawing at her. She spoke quietly. “I could add value to your councils.”

  He stopped and stared at her, his face softening a tiny bit. “You will not add any value if I am not able to hold onto my power. I may have disposed of one enemy, but there are more.”

  Ruby winced but kept her voice as soft as she could. “You need representation from my people.”

  “It wasn’t possible, not today. Save this fight for a time when it won’t distract us from more important things.”

  Ruby bit her tongue.

  “Besides,” he continued, “If you didn’t press in public, I wouldn’t have needed to turn you down in public.”

  Damn him. She held her temper and her hurt as far away from her heart as possible. “My people have good strong voices. They’re brave and they know how to work together.”

  “Are they your people?”

  Joel’s words made Ruby flinch.

  “Even now when you’re here, with me?” he added. “How long can that hold true?”

  The implications of his thought made her angry. “Of course they are. I grew up with them. I went to them when you wouldn’t let me join you. I sat with them in the common room and we waited for the ships to win, sure they might not. I sat with them, waiting to die.”

  His voice rose a touch and got more commanding. “If I had let you into our council, you wouldn’t have gone to your people. Maybe that was the right decision. For you to be there.”

  That stopped her for a moment. “Maybe so. But everyone needs a voice in your councils. If Ix had failed to blow up that ship, we would all have died.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her, still standing in one place, one hand on an open drawer. “What would have changed about the decision if you had been there? Or if more people had been part of it? A crowd makes a decision impossible.”