The Diamond Deep

by Brenda Cooper

  Aleesi whispered in his ear yet again. “Give me voice.”

  It took him a while to manage a full subvocal sentence in a way he could hope no one noticed. “Maybe we can get you back to the Edge.”

  “I am already there,” she said. “Now give me a voice.”

  If only he understood more about what was going on. With everything. The Court. Aleesi. Ruby. Damn it. He leaned over and whispered into Satyana’s ear. “Aleesi wants to talk.”

  Satyana’s eyes widened a tiny bit, and under the table, her hand touched his thigh, squeezing it. Telling him something. Yes-but-not-now he decided, although he didn’t know her well enough to be sure. It had been a message and not a caress, though; his thigh hurt.

  Loura Pillar stood after the clips ended. Pale and tall, she had dark hair that hugged her shoulders and shimmered with purple highlights. Her clothes were dark and modest, even down to long sleeves and full-legged pants over dark shoes. Black lace gloves covered her hands. “So you see, Ruby Martin and the people of Ash knowingly brought a being they knew was illegal into the Diamond Deep, breaking court precedent and putting the entire station at risk. A being that she kept alive even after it proved harmful on Ruby’s own ship, The Creative Fire. This being is from a class of intelligences outlawed at the Deep long before anyone in this room was alive.” She stalked in front of the Councilor’s table and the other table, back and forth, her voice loud enough that everyone in the room could undoubtedly hear. Onor imagined her face being broadcast throughout the station. Surely, with Ruby here, the proceedings were being watched.

  “This being is not an AI; it is an enslaved human. Slavery is common at the Edge, used by pirates and thieves. Enslaved humans are copied over and over and over, losing fidelity with each copy. Losing sanity. Losing what made them human in the first place. This practice creates beings that are abominations. They are not human, not machine intelligences, not robots. This one is a danger to us.” She turned and stared at their table, looking first at Evie and then at Onor and then stepping close to Joel and Ruby.

  Aleesi continued to demand to speak.

  “Quiet,” Onor said,

  “Give Satyana an earbug.”

  He did have one. He had thought briefly about giving it to Ruby but she looked too tired to manage one more thing. No, too utterly exhausted. He fished in his pocket and palmed it.

  “These people showed nothing but contempt for us. They are not the people who left here, they are the great-great-great grandchildren of those people, and they never learned the lessons of the Age of Explosive Creation. We owe them nothing.” The woman was actually sneering and her voice had risen. “We gave them and their unschooled and undisciplined people a chance. We let them into our home and that very day, when they swore to obey our rules, they knew they were willfully breaking them.

  “We call for the imprisonment of Ruby Martin and Joel North, for the death of the abomination they brought into our midst, and for penalties upon all of their people.”

  Ruby stood. Ruby stood in spite of how weak she looked. Joel stood beside her, stoic and furious. Ruby spoke loudly enough for her voice to carry. “No one in Ash except me knew of that rule.”

  Loura Pillar ignored her.

  Murmurs and noise came from behind them, and one or two people clapped. Onor forced himself to look behind them to assess the threat. Most of the people sat in their seats, unreadable. A few looked positively feral, like the worst of the reds used to look before they beat someone when he was small and nothing had yet changed on the Fire. Once more he felt surrounded by enemies even though he was sure that many of these people must have come to hear Ruby sing, watched her on their slates, or known about her.

  “Sit down,” Koren snapped. “You’ll have your opportunity to speak.”

  Ruby protested as Joel almost forced her back into the wheelchair.

  If only they had never come here. Onor bumped Satyana’s leg with his and fumbled the earbug into her fist.

  Loura Pillar sat back down, her face once more a mask.

  The mouthpiece spoke. “The defense may now address the advisors.”

  Satyana stood and walked around the table. As she did so, she brought a hand up to her ear.

  Onor smiled.

  “Thank you,” Aleesi said.

  At least she could now bother Satyana directly. He wasn’t at all sure Aleesi would get her way, or how such a thing might happen, but the problem was no longer his.

  Beside him, a single tear streaked down Evie’s face from time to time. He wished there was something to be done with her, some way to put her someplace safe and let her cry her pain out. But they were far from Ash. He whispered to her. “Was Aleesi talking to you, too?”

  “She told me it would all end up all right.”

  “That’s all?”

  Evie nodded.

  Satyana’s words drew his attention. “We will call a number of witnesses. Our argument is simple on its face. First, Ruby spoke correctly if out of turn. She made this choice alone. Second, the Deeping Rule that Ruby is accused of breaking has not been broken: there has been no harm done. Our legal system allows for this.”

  Loura interrupted. “At a lower level of infraction.”

  Satyana stared at Koren.

  Eventually, Koren gave the tiniest of nods.

  “Third, Ruby Martin has followed all three of the Deeping Rules. She has taken responsibility for herself and for more than herself, for the collective of the people who came with her.” Satyana pointed at Joel. “Along with Joel North, they have started to succeed when they themselves were harmed seriously by those who greeted them.”

  Koren’s only reaction to Satyana’s words was a bare and desultory nod, as if to say, “Go on, I’m bored.”

  Satyana herself had gone quiet, and he was willing to bet she was listening to Aleesi.

  Perhaps Koren didn’t think they had enough to prove her wrong, or maybe she was sure that her position as judge would protect her. They had Satyana and Winter Ohman and Naveen all on their side. Maybe. Hopefully. Winter Ohman had set this up. He glanced at their table from time to time, but he never looked directly at Onor. Afraid to give away that he had met with them?

  “Fourth, the being Aleesi poses no danger to us.”

  Even though something in the hushed tone of the audience’s reaction and murmurs at this last proclamation of Satyana’s turned up his sense of danger, Onor kept watching in front of him. The Councilors’ faces remained stoic. The Voice of the Deep showed slightly more reaction: Ferrell Yi turned to the head of Defense, her face touched with surprise and worry. Gunnar Ellensson looked thoughtfully at Ruby, almost as if there was a game they played together and she had just produced an unexpected move.

  Onor wondered if Gunnar was friend or enemy.

  Onor was once again reduced to watching as Satyana pulled her first trick out: she called Naveen as a witness. Naveen established that he had, in fact, copied Ix from the Fire. Satyana called on Ix, pulling up a version that Naveen stated was exactly as he had copied it, with no interaction with the people of Ash after the exodus. So before Onor had been given a copy to carry about in his pocket like gold.

  This Ix verified that Ruby didn’t publicly share the knowledge that bringing Aleesi here was illegal, even with Joel. It also verified that Ruby was not entirely truthful: KJ knew what Aleesi had said about the law. It did show that when Onor carried the webling up and away from the spider body, he had not spoken to it.

  Gunnar and Ferrell Yi both looked at him then, their faces solemn and cold. He did his best to look quiet and confident.

  It was good to hear Ix’s voice, to feel comforted by something so familiar. But the real Ix, the Ix that had been at all of the morning meetings and shared the webling with Aleesi, would be in true trouble.

  Ruby’s accusers had not called witnesses; they had played media. Ix could be questioned in this context, and Loura Pillar asked, “Ix, were you allowed to repeat or play private conversation f
or others? Conversation behind the closed doors of people’s own habs?”

  “No.”

  “And you are designed to do what?”

  “Protect The Creative Fire.”

  “Including her crew?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you are unwilling to tell us what Ruby Martin may or may not have shared with Joel North or KJ may or may not have shared with others?”

  “I can relay anything they said to each other in public. They did not speak much of Aleesi at all, and never told others that it is an illegal being.”

  “Nothing further.” Loura sat down again, looking pleased.

  Satyana acted as though Ix’s interview was no setback at all. “The ship’s AI has confirmed that Ruby knew this, as Ruby herself confirmed. The ship’s AI has not confirmed that anyone else knew, simply that it is possible others knew. This is hardly damning. Of more immediate importance—and here I will put together what I listed as second and fourth—of more immediate importance, the rule ‘do no harm’ remains unbroken. There is no reason to be here at all. There is no record of the being interacting with any of our AIs, our people, our systems, or our robots. There is no trace of the being inside of our system.

  “It is doing no harm.”

  Satyana stood in silence for a moment, facing the dais, hands behind her back and tugging on her long brown braid, giving people time to think about what she had just said before she continued. “I have no witnesses to call on the point of whether or not Ruby has done any harm. I would have to call the whole ship to prove no harm was done to anyone, so I ask you to call someone who can claim that Ruby’s bringing this being on board has done anyone any harm at all.”

  A moment of silence ensued, a moment that Onor felt sure was full of Koren and Loura speaking together in the same way that he and Aleesi could talk to each other. Oddly, Aleesi had been completely silent since he had given the earbug to Satyana.

  Loura spoke. “It is not necessary to a conviction in this case. The rule of no human enslavement is core to our protection of humanity aboard this station. Ruby Martin has violated that rule by allowing a human slave to enter here and even worse, by allowing one from a place that is known to be an enemy of the Diamond Deep, a nest of pirates who have attacked our ships time and time again, a warren of melded humans and machines that have allowed and fostered change until they are unrecognizable.”

  Ruby and Joel whispered together, Ruby’s voice the louder of the two. She stood again, something Satyana couldn’t see since Ruby was behind her.

  Koren spoke to Satyana. “In your role as Councilor, I believe you are doing a poor job of controlling your client.”

  So much rage coursed through Ruby that it was easy to stand, to face this woman who had done irreparable damage to her people. Joel had exacted a whispered promise that she would let Satyana choose whether or not she spoke, so she watched Satyana closely, trying to look far calmer than she felt. Enough time passed for the room to quiet before Satyana turned to her and said, “Please feel free to speak on your behalf.”

  Some magic of the room made her words come out amplified when they hadn’t before, as if this time she was being allowed to talk. Her voice shook. “You cannot judge regarding slavery while you have the Brawl. It was described to me as a place of economic misfortune, a necessary deterrent to unsupportable growth, but it is enslavement. I have had Ix look up the numbers, and 95 percent of the people who go to the Brawl die there. One in twenty lives and comes back to create a useful life. One of my friends was killed there this morning.”

  She paused as much to regain strength as for effect.

  “I did not enslave Aleesi—the being you are accusing me of harboring. If that is what happened to her, then that happened long before I came here. I simply chose not kill her, to show mercy.” She paused for breath. “You must look deeply at yourselves and your choices.”

  Loura Pillar interjected, “We are not on trial.”

  Ruby took a deep breath and tried to center herself. “Everyone is always on trial. Leaders in particular are always on public trial. Entertainers are watched by fans. What we do matters.” She stood still, then, her arms shaking, her thighs beginning to shake. She should be in Satyana’s place, defending them all, defending Aleesi. She had just lost Haric, and she wasn’t going to lose anyone else.

  She had to wait now, she could tell from the look on Satyana’s face, mixed amusement and warning.

  Satyana was playing for a bigger game than Ruby. She had never hidden that fact.

  Loura Pillar interjected. “May we rebut?”

  Murmuring from the table where the Voice of the Deep sat suggested this was an irregular request.

  Koren inclined her head to grant it.

  A low murmur rose from the audience, subsiding slowly.

  Satyana looked furious, but made no move to stop them from whatever they were going to do. “We call Min Carson.”

  Ruby sat back down, her breath exhaling in a long slow bout of pain. Beside her, Joel whispered, “Those lying women,” so softly that she barely heard him above her own breathing. When she could lift a hand to put on his arm, he was so stiff he might as well have been made of metal.

  A few moments passed while Min walked stiffly to the dais, a man in uniform following her like a mix between an escort and a guard. She sat down and looked around the room, her face pale.

  “I’m sorry Min,” Loura said, “We were hoping we would not have to call you up here. Surely it will be hard for you to speak against one of your own.”

  Min didn’t respond. She wore the white of the whispering women, the same white as the cloak tucked around Ix and Aleesi. It made her look small and plain among so many powerful people, almost like a child. Perhaps too plain; almost pure. Ruby willed Min to look at her, to give Ruby even a tiny chance to make eye contact and convince her that whatever she was about to say could not possibly benefit Ash.

  The chance didn’t come.

  Ruby struggled to sit as still as possible, her hands clenching and unclenching under the table to provide a channel for her anger. Loura’s black dress and lacy black gloves looked like quite a contrast as she interrogated Min in her white on white outfit, with the visible red scar on her face. Loura: “Ruby was one of you once. In the same social class as you?”

  “Yes.”

  “A class of workers who earned air and food by doing what they were told to do.”

  “Yes.”

  “A place perhaps more cruel than the Brawl.”

  “I have never been to the Brawl.”

  “People are afforded air and food without having to work. Does that sound easier than the outer levels of The Creative Fire?”

  Because there is no work! No opportunity! But it was not up to Ruby to answer. Min took a moment, but she said, “Yes.”

  “Ruby broke the laws of The Creative Fire and started a revolution to change things. And you followed.”

  “We did. That’s how I got the scar on my face.”

  “Once you arrived here, why didn’t you fix the scar on your face?”

  “Because all of our credit goes to the collective.”

  “That sounds like slavery to me. What do you think?”

  Did you ever ask? Ruby had no recollection, although she could guess how SueAnne would have answered.

  Min’s voice came out thin and small, amplified enough for everyone to hear the touch of sadness in it. “I would have liked to fix my scar.”

  Min had never told her. She had even seemed proud of the scar.

  “And how did Ruby treat you? After the revolution?”

  “She didn’t. We hardly saw her. She was Joel’s lover, and derived all of her power from him, and took charge of many things.”

  Ruby stiffened. Min had seen Ruby act on her own, seen Ruby argue with Joel, seen Ruby in a thousand roles. Wasn’t that what the whispering women did—witness Ruby?

  “Sometimes she came down to sing, to talk to us, to greet us. But she was nev
er one of us again.” Min finally looked at Ruby and Joel. “We followed them. We wanted to hold them accountable and to be sure that we all knew what was happening to us in on the Diamond Deep. Joel was cruel to us and kept us out of many places, and Ruby almost never talked to us. We might have been invisible.”

  Satyana glanced at Ruby as if to ask if any of Min’s words were true.

  That depended on how you chose to interpret nuances. But there was no time to have a conversation with Satyana, or with anyone. Beside her, Joel remained stiff. Although she knew his iron control would keep him from doing it, she could feel how he wanted to stand up and rebuff Min. He had always hated the whispering women.

  He didn’t understand them at all.

  “Who is us?” Loura said, “you keep referring to an us. To more than just you.”

  “All of the women who lost people in Ruby’s war.”

  Ruby hadn’t quite put that together. Min had never mentioned a loss. Hugh’s death drove Lya’s decisions, her loss of sanity, her hatreds. She should have made time to understand what drove Min.

  “And you accompanied Ruby on her tours.”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened on those tours? Did Ruby represent Ash’s needs?”

  Min had stopped looking at any of them from the Fire, had fixed her eyes on Loura.

  Satyana spoke. “It is unclear what the prosecution is trying to establish or how it affects their case.”

  “I have allowed it,” Koren snapped.

  Min answered. “Ruby chased power on her trips. She spent time with Naveen, who sponsored her and who has a significant following. Without him, her concerts would have meant nothing. No one would have come.”

  Ruby froze.

  “And she followed Gunnar Ellensson out of the room at the party he threw for her. She protested her innocence, but I have no way of knowing what she may have done with him.”

  Joel flinched and withdrew his arm from under her hand, leaving her cold. Ruby glanced at his face. He didn’t look back, and he was so still he could be stone or metal.