He’d been after her for that for a long time. “I can’t. I need time to write songs.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“I’m tired.” Ruby yawned, as if finally released from the tension of the rather odd breakfast. Dayn put an arm around her and she leaned into him. The last thing she heard was Naveen mumbling, “Maybe we need a medical bot today.”
Onor and Marcelle shared a table at the far end of the bar. Marcelle sipped fizzy water with a hint of fruit in it, and watched him contemplatively. “What are you trying to figure out?” he asked her.
“If you’re happy.”
Pregnancy had changed her. He loved this Marcelle better than the younger version he’d known, although it was a mystery to him how such a natural process could make a woman so much more centered on emotions. If she had cared about feelings before, she hadn’t shown it. When they were teenagers, she’d teased him relentlessly. These days, he often felt unsure about how to react to her so he just said, “I’m worried. We should have heard from Haric.”
“I’m worried, too,” she whispered. “About almost everything.”
He reached across the table and cupped her face. She was so thin her cheekbones rose like ridges under his fingers, as if the baby was eating everything she put into her system. “Don’t worry about the things you can’t control, anyway.”
“And you can control what happens to Haric?”
“I might be able to do something about it.”
A frown creased her forehead. “I knew you were thinking of leaving.”
At least she didn’t object. Not that he’d call the tone he heard in her voice happy. “Haric would come to save any of us.”
Marcelle pointed toward the door he had been trying to watch. “Is that the couple you’re looking for?”
He turned to see the tall woman and the shorter man inside the doorway, looking around. “Yes. Send Joel a message?”
She bent to her slate.
He held up a hand and waved.
They came over and sat, and Onor introduced Marcelle.
Once more the man and woman remained anonymous. Onor looked at them and said, “Why don’t you just make up names?”
“Misrepresenting yourself is illegal here,” the woman said.
“We need your help,” Onor said.
They looked curious but waited for him to speak.
“We have . . . something Naveen helped us with. A situation.” He was having trouble with words. Fear that a situation Koren already knew about would backfire? “We have two AIs sharing a single webling. It was the only place we had for them. We want to separate them, so one of them can be carried with us. Can you help us set that up?”
The man’s eyes had narrowed. “It could be risky. Why is it important?”
They’d asked about exposing Koren, and they needed Ix to help with that, and this would protect Ix. “We . . . it will help with what you want us to do. To expose Koren.”
The man stared at him for a long time, measuring. “I can call someone.” He stepped away from the table, touched his slate and then his ear, and in a moment he was talking in tones too hushed for Onor to hear.
“What would you like?” Onor asked as he called Evie over.
She gave a mute look that implied desperation and he shrugged to let her know that he had no word from Haric.
Evie looked as if Haric’s absence had scraped something vital from her, but she turned away with their orders.
Perhaps their relationship was more intense than he had thought.
Joel appeared, making a hole through the crowded floor by moving chairs aside to get SueAnne’s wheelchair through. They sat down and greeted the woman, accepting her return smile. Allen noticed them and came over.
As soon as the man finished with his phone call, he sat back down. “Ruby says hello.”
“You saw her?” Onor asked.
“How is she?” Marcelle asked.
Joel leaned in. “When did you see her?”
“Recently. She’s okay, but she looks weak.”
“Who was with her?” Joel asked.
“Dayn.”
Joel’s eyes narrowed. “Not KJ? Have you seen KJ?”
“We know who he is. He was off proofing the next place Ruby is supposed to sing.”
Joel sat back, brow furrowed. “What do you mean, weak?”
“She says she’s just tired. That she misses you and will see you soon.”
“I want her home.”
“We’re not in control of that,” the man said. “But we did order up a medical bot examination for her.”
Marcelle leaned in, clearly interested. “What can a medical bot do? I’m in charge of medical here, and we have some of our own from the Fire, but all they do is help lift people or help with simple surgeries. They can’t tell, for example, why someone is tired.”
The man answered Marcelle. “The kind of bot we ordered her time with should be able to tell that for Ruby.”
“Can I see one? Can you send one here?”
“You can order one,” the man said. “I’ll see that someone sends you information.”
“Thank you.” Marcelle put a hand over her belly, and he saw it jump slightly as the baby kicked.
SueAnne frowned. “What will that cost us?”
“We’re paying for Ruby’s exam.”
“We have another thing to talk about,” Onor said. “We sent someone out to look for cargo, like you asked us to, and they seem to have disappeared.”
“You sent one person out?”
Onor nodded.
“We heard Koren knows you’re looking. She found Ruby at a party and told her to tell you to stop it.”
Onor sat back, suddenly worried. “So they’re both in danger.”
“I want her home,” Joel repeated.
Marcelle was stroking her stomach, as if danger to Ruby meant danger to their child.
“You got from her to us in one day. Can we go?” Joel asked. “We can pay you.”
SueAnne glanced at Joel with a sour look on her face but Joel ignored her.
“Maybe. But first we need to find the person you sent for proof. They’re in immediate danger.”
“I’ll go,” Onor said. “I sent him.”
“Who do you want to take with you? One of the dancers? Chitt?”
“No. The Jackman.”
Joel frowned. “Really? What about Chitt?”
Marcelle spoke. “The Jackman loves Onor like a son, and he’s smart.”
Onor glanced at the man. “We need to move the AI first.”
“It’s as good as done.”
Onor waited in the bar for The Jackman, Marcelle yet again beside him. It had taken three hours to prepare, and Marcelle looked exhausted. “You should go lie down.”
“I might not see you again.”
“Of course you will.”
“You don’t know that.” She didn’t flinch or turn away.
Evie plopped down at the table. She wasn’t wearing her waitressing uniform.
Onor blinked at her. “You’re not going.”
“Try to stop me,” Evie replied calmly.
“Haric wouldn’t want you to go,” he told her.
The Jackman elbowed his way through the door.
Onor picked up his pack. Aleesi hadn’t exactly been copied, but a secure connection to the webling existed in a two-inch by two-inch wafer in his pocket, and he had a fistful of small round nubs made to fit inside ears.
Evie stood.
Onor opened his mouth to tell her no, but Marcelle put a hand on his arm and gave him a look he’d come to dread. “I would go if it was you.”
Onor glanced at The Jackman.
He shrugged. “If it were Marcelle or Ruby we wouldn’t be able to say no. I bet Evie won’t listen to us either.”
“You’re getting soft, old man,” Onor said.
“We might need her help.”
Evie practically glowed.
Onor leaned down to
hold Marcelle, and she whispered in his ear. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “Don’t have that baby until I get back.”
“Then you had best hurry.”
The day after the odd breakfast, and only two hours before Ruby’s next concert, Ruby and Jali stood in the dressing room, laughing. Jali’s fingers flew through Ruby’s hair, braiding in long strings of shiny thread that would look a tiny bit like flames under the stage lights.
They had left the door open. KJ came in, leading a silvery beast that looked as shiny and malleable as the ones they had first seen on the Fire. “It’s not from Koren?” Jali asked.
“There’s a note from Satyana. She says it’s in appreciation for your help.”
“A bribe?”
KJ shook his head. “I doubt she can force you into anything. I would like to see the bot in action.”
Ruby stared at him for a long moment, fear rising in her throat for no good reason. She was fine. “Put it in the corner and I’ll mess with it after the show.”
“You only have it for an hour,” he said.
She and Jali looked at each other, and Jali sighed. “I can do fewer ribbons than I planned. Give me five minutes to adjust the design.”
KJ gave Jali such a stern look that she took a step back from Ruby. “I’ll finish as soon as it’s done.”
The robot looked at Ruby. “Strip please.” The robot sounded human and female, almost like SueAnne.
Ruby stared at KJ.
He backed out of room. “I’ll be right out here.”
“And don’t let Dayn in either.”
Jali stayed, glaring at the machine as Ruby stripped. She felt far more vulnerable naked in front of the silver doctor than she ever had in front of a man. “We don’t have time for this.” Ruby struggled not to grab her clothes and throw them back on. After all, she could reach her clothes. The room was small.
“I don’t even know how to send it away,” Jali whispered.
Ruby still wasn’t completely sure she should trust Satyana. Or anybody for that matter. But she had to trust someone. She’d done it with Naveen.
The robot reached for her arm with more dexterity than she expected, although to be fair it could probably do surgery. Its grip was cool and slippery. It was also too firm and precise for her hand to actually slide free when she tested it. “Hold still,” it told her. Its other “hand” came up, not in a gripping shape but rounded. A needle poked free and slid smoothly into her arm, blood flowing almost immediately and faster than Ruby wanted. The robot doctor seemed very capable. The part of Ruby that used to repair robots wanted to know how it worked.
“Stand still.”
It made a slight whirring sound as it snipped a tiny bit of her hair, and then it scraped some skin from her hip with a cold metal blade. At that she moved away, just be to be told again to “Stand still.”
Jaliet braced her, and she gritted her teeth and let it keep touching her, once behind her knees, once at the wrist. Then it withdrew and said, “Stand away,” which could only have been a command for Jali.
“Close your eyes.”
Ruby obeyed.
“You too,” it said to Jali.
Ruby forced herself to take a deep breath and trust.
She heard a hum, and a faint warmth passed from her head to her toes.
“You may get dressed again.”
Ruby opened her eyes to find that the robot had changed shape and was parked against a wall, ignoring them.
“Let’s just put on your clothes for tonight,” Jali said.
Ruby tugged her underwear up and fastened her bra before saying, “Yes.” She felt better just for being that covered.
Jali went right back to finishing Ruby’s hair, her fingers pulling tight across Ruby’s scalp from time to time. She tugged hard enough to apologize twice, a sign that she was as disconcerted by the machine as Ruby.
Jali poured a blue-gray dress with colored fringe over Ruby’s head and tugged it in at the waist with a cinched strap. She used the small Fire pin to hold a flame-colored scarf across Ruby’s shoulders. Jali herself wore the other one, and the third had been given to KJ.
Ruby kept glancing at the machine. Surely the hour had passed. It made her feel fretful. “Is it a bad sign that it’s been here so long?”
“I doubt it.”
“I think so,” Ruby replied.
“Maybe it’s in awe of you.”
She shook her head. A small part of her had been afraid of her weakness for a long time, had been hiding it from herself as much as from Joel and Jali and KJ and Onor and everybody else.
“It’s almost time to go on.”
The expected knock came on the door.
“Coming!” Jali called. She snatched up a brush for last minute touches and took Ruby’s hand. “Let’s go.”
The door opened to reveal Satyana instead of the stage hand.
Onor sat next to Evie on the train. Her dark hair reminded him of Marcelle’s, but otherwise she was less angular than Marcelle and even thinner. The look on her face drove out any sense she might be fragile, though. In fact, she looked so intense he felt glad she was with them.
He glanced around the slightly swaying car. Two men were deep in conversation near the front. A robot sat three seats away, its only movement to rock with the train. A pretty woman wearing a deep red jumpsuit snored two seats behind him, blue hair hiding half of her face. No one paid any obvious attention to them.
Onor dug into his pocket and pulled out three of the small round objects the technician had handed to him. He handed two to Evie and watched her pass one to The Jackman. He spoke softly. “Put those in your ear. They’re called earbugs. Then we can talk to Aleesi.”
The Jackman narrowed his eyes.
“We need her. That’s how we even knew what train to take.”
“What else do we need to know?” The Jackman stared at the earbug, making no move to bring it near his ear. “Didn’t you write down where we get off the train?”
The Jackman always accepted new things slower than most. “We need Aleesi. Think of having her help as a silver lining for getting attacked.”
“I don’t like it.”
“We do need her. Or some AI. Everyone around us knows more than we do.”
“Which ear?” Evie asked.
Onor shrugged.
Evie lifted her right hand and tucked a black curl behind her ear. She showed him an empty hand, and then her face screwed up in an odd way.
“Are you okay?”
She said “Yes,” but her face stayed so tight she looked like she was in pain.
The Jackman shook his head ever so slightly. A refusal.
Onor leaned his head onto his hand, trying to look natural in case the robot actually was watching them. He used his index finger and his thumb to push the earbug into his ear canal.
It burrowed, warmed, and seemed to spread out. It felt alive. Nothing had ever moved so deep in his ear, and for a second he wondered if it was going to pop his eardrum. Even though it didn’t actually hurt, it felt strange enough that he understood the look on Evie’s face.
“I was wondering if you were ever going to talk to me.”
He whispered as softly as he could. “Hi, Aleesi.”
“You don’t have to make any noise at all. Just think you’re talking.”
“What?” He could still hear the word. He tried again. “Like this?”
“Yes.”
Evie’s voice, only in his ear and not from beside him at all. She wasn’t even looking at him; her head was turned toward The Jackman. “Yes.”
“She’s got it,” Aleesi said. “Try again. You don’t even have to form the words.”
He glanced over at the Jackman, who still had his fist closed over the earbug. “Do it,” he said out loud.
“That’s worse,” Aleesi said into his ear. “Softer.”
Damned machine, he thought.
“Better.”
He laugh
ed.
The train stopped, and the doors opened automatically. No one got on or off.
The Jackman still looked dubious. But then, he hadn’t spent any time with Aleesi. If Aleesi hadn’t started out chasing Onor with intent to kill, he might actually like her. She felt more human than Ix ever had.
It took almost half an hour for all three of them to be able to talk to each other and to Aleesi. He subvocalized the way Aleesi had taught him. “This is like on the Fire, when we could all talk to Ix, only then we had to speak out loud.”
“You can still talk to me.” Ix’s voice. “Through Aleesi.”
Onor hadn’t realized it would work like that. “That’s great.”
“Can Ix talk to its copies?”
Ix answered. “I cannot.”
“Ix is old,” Aleesi elaborated. “It wasn’t designed to do that. So let’s get on with restoring your riches.”
The Jackman spoke, loud enough Onor could hear his whisper as well as the sound of his voice amplified through the earbug. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t like the way that you’ve been treated. Koren should not have been able to get away with what she did. Out on the Edge, we have morals.”
“And your morals are why you attacked us?” The Jackman said, again too loud.
“Subvocalize,” Aleesi said. “The only way that my masters at the Edge can get new resources is to capture them. We’re forbidden to go into the inner system. If they opened trade, we wouldn’t be pirates.”
The Jackman made no response, although Onor had the feeling he was intensely uncomfortable.
Evie spoke. “Didn’t your masters capture you?”
“The usual captures were asteroids or comets or derelict ships. Let’s get on with this. Exchange Four is bigger than Exchange Five: in addition to nearby habs, it serves one of the main ports where ships bring goods into and out of the Deep.”
The Jackman said, “Okay.”
“I’ve downloaded a map to all of your slates. I’ve noted the places Haric stopped and the people he talked to. I recommend that you start with the last people he saw before he disappeared. Ix and I will send information to your slates as we get it. I’m going to be watching you, so if whatever happened to Haric happens to you, I may be able to record it.”
“How are you going to watch us out here?” The Jackman asked.
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