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.”
Min smiled but said nothing.
Ruby dug out a white paper sack to spill tea leaves into, and then dunked it in the hot water, almost burning her fingers. “What did you think of the party?”
“I didn’t know what to make of it.” She looked slightly sullen. “It’s . . . all . . . it’s all so much. So different. I don’t even know how to talk to these people.”
“I think that’s what woke me up. All of this . . . richness.”
Min looked surprised.
“We need to learn how to live here.”
“I hate this place. It’s not home. It’s not friendly. It’s not safe.”
Ruby didn’t want to agree with her and make it worse for Min. “Is that why you started spending so much time with Lya?”
“No. It was the loss of the Fire. I can’t believe you lost the Fire.”
“Really?” Ruby smelled the tea, afraid to sip it yet, since steam still wafted from the cup. “I can’t believe it was taken from us.” The anger that had woken her edged her voice, and Ruby took a deep breath to calm herself. Min didn’t deserve it. “What do you think we did? Decided how to hurt ourselves the most and then did that to ourselves?”
Min looked up from her slate and stared at Ruby. “Can you think of anything worse?”
“If we had known what the Deep was like, we wouldn’t have come here. That doesn’t mean there was anyplace better to go.” She stared into her cup. “That’s not something we can ever know.” She glanced back at Min, who had gone back to staring at her slate. “But we have opportunities here. We need to take them when they come up.”
Min’s face resolved into a soft sneer. “I saw you leave the room with that stupid merchant last night. It woke me up, thinking about it. I’d almost decided Lya was wrong, that you really are trying to work for us, but then you disappeared with him for an hour.”
Ruby bristled. She also wasn’t going to let Min drive her back to her room. “He wanted to show me his gardens.”
“Your hair was messed up when you got back.”
She didn’t remember that. “We must have walked under some trees. Garden is the wrong word—it’s more like a forested paradise. We could have walked three hours and not seen it all.”
“Really? I don’t know why you say such things.”
Min didn’t believe her? “You were at the party. Don’t you think a man who can waste credit on a fountain of colored drinks as tall as four people could make a paradise garden?”
Min laughed. “Just what you’d want. Someone with real power. Look, you’re a rotten woman. We all know that now. You used to tease Hugh. You still tease Onor. You seduced the strongest man on the Fire just as it was certain he’d take power. You’ve slept your way to power all your life. When Joel finds out, you’re going to lose your golden man.”
“There’s nothing for him to find out.” Ruby blew on her tea, her breath making ripples that sloshed small against the far side of the cup. “You can’t talk about things you don’t know about. People will believe you. You’ll hurt Joel.”
“So stop doing it.”
Ruby shook her head. “I didn’t. I don’t. Ask KJ. He was with me the entire time.”
>
“Lya says he covers for you.”
Ruby took a deep breath, and finally a sip of tea. “Can’t you think for yourself?”
“I do.”
At least now she had something other than the excesses of Gunnar Ellensson to be pissed off about. “No. Really. KJ is Joel’s friend. He would hardly stand by while I slept with another man.”
“Even if it meant making more credit? Is all of what you make even going back to us? Look at how many people are coming to your concerts, listening to them. One concert has to make enough to feed us all for at least a year.”
“Don’t be naïve. Naveen takes most of it.”
“But not all of it. I know you use some. Look at how you dress.”
Ruby felt just too dragged out to face Min right now, unable to draw up the right words to defend herself. “I’m going to try and get some sleep. You should do the same.”
Min stared down at her cup. “I don’t sleep much anymore. I might not sleep well until we get on another ship and go somewhere else.”
“Where would you go?”
Min shook her head, and replied with a deep despair in her voice. “There is no place to go.”
Ruby hated despair as much as she hated an unwillingness to think. “I’m sorry I brought you out here,” she told Min. “Good night.”
She took her cup. As she left the galley, a shadow detached itself from the wall in the corridor. Dayn. He leaned down and whispered in Ruby’s ear. “Be careful. Nothing that you do is right, now. Not anymore.”
She stood still, unable to respond. She was angry with the Deep. Angry at the facts of existence here, angry at Min, and angry at herself for not using the opportunity to make some real headway with Min. Heck, if you wanted to count it up, she was angry with Koren as well, and with the robot spiders from the Edge that killed Colin. She hated the anger. Maybe she was even angry at Dayn for telling her the truth. After a while, she put a hand on his arm and spoke softly. “I know. But I have to do something. I have to make some choices.”
Dayn whispered again. “Choose carefully.”
Onor sat with Joel and SueAnne in the morning meeting room. After their conversations the night before, Joel had invited both SueAnne and Onor to share his breakfast time. Stim and half-finished plates of food filled the table.
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