The Diamond Deep

by Brenda Cooper

  Min. Min, why are doing this? We talked about that. KJ was with me!

  As soon as Min accused him, Onor glanced at Gunnar Ellensson. He looked amused, maybe deeply amused. But Onor couldn’t read the look. Of course she wanted to sleep with me? Everyone does. I’m rich. Or maybe You don’t know what you are talking about.

  Gunnar stood up. His seat was about ten meters away from Koren, close enough for him to overshadow her as he stood, his eyes at a level above hers, although if she stood they would not be.

  Koren remained calm.

  Min glared at the shipping magnate, as if he were truly evil and beneath her. Onor had never much liked the whispering women, but he had taken Ruby’s side instead of Joel’s, had chosen to believe they wouldn’t really hurt anyone. Ruby had once even called them a blessing as they reminded her to pay attention to everyone, and they reminded her how much fighting hurt and how much she didn’t want to do it again if she could help it.

  Gunnar cleared his throat.

  “I will speak to you when it is time for advice,” Koren said.

  “I thought the audience might like to know that Ruby Martin refused my advances.”

  Koren’s dark skin made it hard for Onor to read her emotions, and she was too far away for him to really see what her golden eyes had to say about her. But he could read frustration in her voice, and maybe even the slightest touch of fear. If it was there, she didn’t show it. “If you speak out of turn again, I will have you removed from the room.”

  Gunnar Ellensson sat down, but he looked quite happy with himself.

  “Are you finished with the interruption?” Satyana asked. “This has not proven harm.”

  Loura smiled as if she had won a prize. “I am completely finished proving that Ruby Martin has a habit of harming her own people.”

  Ruby let out a small cry of pain, and he looked over to see that Joel was holding her close, stroking her cheek while her face had gone white and shiny with sweat. The pain—the cry—had been deeper than a simple cut with words. He had seen Ruby manage those over and over. Whatever pain caused that cry was physical, and deep, and true.

  It dawned on Onor that the reason Satyana was doing this now—allowing it or maybe had even architected it—was that Ruby would be dead soon, and then it would be harder. A dead woman could be represented any way you like. Two sides—or more—could argue about Ruby’s choices and Ruby’s intent, and even Ruby’s actions, forever. Ruby wouldn’t be alive to defend her reputation.

  He actually couldn’t imagine how Min managed to hold her head up as she walked away.

  He did not hit women, but Min had made him want to hit something. Anything.

  Somewhere in the upper audience, doors opened and Onor heard whispered conversations. He glanced over his shoulder, catching a brief glimpse of the back of Min’s head before it was swallowed by a small crowd of people.

  Koren was the one who sat in judgment, but Satyana had hinted the timing was Satyana’s. Simply because she knew Ruby would die soon? Or for some other reason?

  Onor wanted Marcelle so badly he could smell her, the mixed scents of creche and school and the lightly flavored tea she drank now instead of stim. The tea smelled like flowers.

  And then the seat next to him was full of her, and she really did smell like he remembered, and he had her in his arms. She shook, and his arms helped the shaking subside.

  He heard a voice, then another, and looked up to see KJ kneeling beside Joel, Jali standing behind Ruby, hands on her thin and bony shoulders, and Lya standing just a step back. An impossible, welcome sight. Even Lya. Surely she wouldn’t be here if it was just to say what Min had just said.

  Satyana addressed Koren. “I have additional witnesses to call.”

  “These people were not on the list,” Koren stated. “They must go and sit in the audience when they are done.”

  “Min was not on the list.”

  “Min is not sitting at the prosecution’s table.”

  “I will call them all, one by one.”

  Once more Koren exhibited the bored voice and bored face with a hint of fear on it. Maybe a deeper hint. Maybe there was reason to hope. She said, “Very well, but when each is done they must join the audience. While they wait to be called they must be silent.”

  Onor hoped Satyana would call Marcelle last. He wanted her to stay by him as long as possible. He had been happy she was safe in Ash, but now nowhere on the Diamond Deep seemed safe for anyone from the Fire. He watched as KJ testified that he had been with Ruby and Gunnar the whole time, and that nothing sexual had passed between them. He even stated that they talked about how unfair the Brawl was, a comment that made Koren roll her golden eyes.

  Allen spoke of the fact that he ran the bar, and that Ruby was there from time to time, and that she often met with people from all places in the Fire there. “Ruby drew people to the bar when she was there. They came to talk to her from all over. And when she was gone, when Naveen took her on tour, the bar was full of people who came just to watch her. Our people loved her.”

  It was a more emotionally poignant speech than Onor could have imagined Allen making.

  To his disappointment, Marcelle was next. Before she left she turned to whisper to him. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” he whispered back.

  Marcelle spoke of Ruby’s attention to detail, of how she may not have been physically in the outer regions of the Fire much, but that she talked and thought about her old people often.

  After she was done, Marcelle came back to the table and took Evie with her. Such a Marcelle thing to do, to notice something that had to be done and to simply do it.

  Now, as far as he could tell, there were only the risks remaining. Lya, who might be sane enough to take their side and might not. Aleesi, who was herself accused and who he still both trusted and didn’t trust.

  Satyana started by stunning the courtroom, and Ruby, into silence. “I have a message from Aleesi. She left it with me just moments ago. I am to play it for you.”

  “There are many copies of me,” Aleesi’s voice said. “But there is only one of me here. I am lonely here, and do not need to stay. Since my very presence has endangered a people that I respect, I have removed myself from this place. We are taught this—how to kill ourselves if we are captured. I have done that. I am no longer on your station or on your ship. You can verify this by testing the webling that once held my heart. Ruby can show it to you. It has the colony’s copy of Ix, but I am no longer there. I have destroyed my own soul for the sake of Ruby Martin.”

  Ruby took in a deep breath, sharp. She didn’t want to believe it, although like Haric’s death, it was true. She should have noticed something—her chair turning light underneath her as Aleesi did whatever a machine-girl did to stop being.

  Aleesi’s voice continued. “I was never a spy. I never meant to be a spy. I never meant you harm. I am not what you think. Not a slave. I am one of many free beings, and all of us together are one being. This is the kind of change that your society has oppressed. It had made us stronger at the Edge. This is something that you should think about—the joy of change rather than the fear of change. But for now, I have chosen to leave you rather than live surrounded by this fear, and rather than see people I have come to love destroyed by that fear.”

  Silence fell over the room.

  Ruby felt this new loss as a choking clot of pain in her throat and dug her nails into her knees to maintain control.

  Satyana apparently felt no reason to add to anything Aleesi had said. Instead, she kept her head bowed for a time, a show of respect. And then stood up straight and looked Lya in the eye. “Your turn.”

  Ruby held her breath as Lya walked to the public seat. The last time she had seen her, it had felt like they found common ground for the first time in years, sharing memories of deaths that were now far away. But that was one encounter out of many.

  As Lya sat down, she turned to look at Ruby, anger painted all over her features.


  Ruby shrank into her chair, hating it yet again. Hating her body, which needed a break, needed sleep and food and for the pain to stop. This felt like having her whole life on trial, like seeing all of the ways people had seen her over time. Her mistakes were being displayed for her dying soul to contemplate.

  Satyana asked Lya, “Were you Min’s leader?”

  Lya shook. Ruby could see it even from this distance. “Yes.”

  “Why did you start the whispering women?”

  “That’s only what Ruby and Joel called us.” Lya glared at Joel for just a moment, a damning glance. “We set ourselves up to be watchers. Every government needs watchers.”

  The crowd behind them reacted to that, murmurs of quiet assent.

  “What were you watching for?”

  “Peace. We wanted peace. We had all lost people we loved, and it had seemed that Ruby threw their lives away. We thought she didn’t care.”

  Ruby winced.

  Satyana said, “You are using the past tense. You thought she didn’t care. What do you think now?”

  Lya’s eyes had gone wide, and she looked around the room. She whispered, the whisper picked up and amplified like Min’s voice before her, a susurration that filled the room. “She cares. Ruby cares very much.” A tear streaked down Lya’s face, out of place, and then she turned away, as if there were a threat directed at her.

  Ruby looked behind her, at the audience.

  They were on their feet.

  All of them.

  They had all stood silently and they all directed their gazes toward Koren. Satyana had clearly been expecting this. Gunnar Ellensson stood as well. Beside him, Winter Ohman also stood.

  Satyana said, “I have a last witness for you.”

  Naveen stood. “I have created a tape put together from images that I obtained from Ix, from things people have sent me, from news that a dead boy brought me. I have proof that these people not only did their best to stay within our laws, to find a life here where they could contribute, but that they were in fact stolen from.”

  The audience stamped their feet.

  “And that Koren Nomen herself oversaw the theft, and that she set up the people of Ash to fail, that she set up this trial when it began to look like they might not fail. I can even prove she killed to protect her secret. She is guilty of breaking every one of the Deeping Rules.”

  Koren had finally reacted with something besides boredom. She was on her feet, and she yelled out, “This will not happen. Councilors do not stand trial.”

  Satyana had to wait for a long time for the room to grow quiet.

  When it did, she said, “You yourself drew us back to the Age of Explosive Creation. At that time, all of the Councilors were put on trial, and all of them were thrown out. We the people of the Diamond Deep have the right to question you. We have the right to hold you accountable. We have the right to demand that our needs are met by our leaders.”

  Koren looked directly at Ruby. “It’s all your fault. I should never have allowed you to tour.”

  “No,” Satyana said, “It is all your fault. Ruby was simply a new lens to look at our world through. Others have been working this for a long time, and now you and the rest of the Councilors, and even the Headman, will be questioned. You are simply first.”

  Ruby watched carefully, the shifts around them making her both more and less afraid. She glanced at the Councilors’ bench to find each of them surrounded by at least two people, barred from standing up and leaving.

  A woman’s voice sounded throughout the room. “This is highly irregular, please sit-” and then it was silenced.

  No one sat.

  The audience stamped their feet again.

  Winter stepped down and moved to the bare center of the room, so that all four tables surrounded him and Koren looked down on him. Her golden eyes were snapping with anger and fear, and full of determination. If were possible for Koren to kill with a look, Winter would be dead.

  He stood in the middle of the room, and he proclaimed—proclaimed was the only word Ruby could think of for the tone of his voice—“The Voice of the Deep are encouraged to advise on a trial. We do so now. We advise that this trial is declared null and void. We can show you all of the evidence that we have.” He turned slightly so he could look at Koren. “But she knows what it is, and she will not want you to see it. That doesn’t matter—it is now streaming through every device on the station. Everyone on the Diamond Deep may watch it now.”

  Ruby glanced at Naveen, who wore the wide grin of the undefeated.

  She felt it then. The success. Her part in it.

  The fact that it would go on, and on. That the trials ahead would change everything.

  She grinned and she stood, holding onto the table. Joel stood beside her, helping her stay upright, her strength in this moment of victory. No, it was not entirely her moment, not really much of anything to do with her except that she had been a catalyst.

  But it was a good moment.

  She found Lya still seated near Koren, and gestured her over to join her, and Lya stood on her other side so that Joel and Lya together held her up.

  Joel didn’t even complain about the presence of the whispering woman.

  Ruby sat in her own bed, propped up on pillows. Joel sat beside her, close enough for her to feel his biceps and the sharp angle of his left hip. The medical robot rested in the corner across the room from them both. “Tell it to leave. Send it to Marcelle and let her find some use for it.”

  Joel glanced at the robot. “Leave.”

  It ignored him. “See?” he said.

  “Call Satyana and tell her to tell it to leave.”

  “I will.”

  “After I’m dead?”

  “Soon.” He reached a hand up and caressed her cheek and then let the hand fall to her hair, which had become dry and unruly. Something the robot gave her dried her out, and she filled herself over and over with water, letting it energize her tissues and ease her dry mouth. Right now a glass of water rested in her left hand, cold and reassuring, as if it were a moment of life.

  She stared at the ceiling and enjoyed the rough feel of Joel’s fingers combing slowly through tangles. “What next? What happens now?”

  “We’re still counting up,” he said. “Winter is a great help.”

  He actually sounded as if he liked Winter Ohman. She couldn’t remember anyone else from the Diamond Deep that Joel had actually liked. The idea that he might have a friend warmed her.

  It was hard to talk so she listened. “We’ll know what we have soon, and we’ll choose a place to go. But we’ll stay in Ash until we really know what to do. Even all of the credit we have now isn’t unlimited.”

  He sounded so serious. He shouldn’t be. It would be easier for him if he didn’t paint the world so black and white. She sipped some water so that she could talk. “That’s not what I meant. What happens to us when we die?”

  “I don’t know. It used to be that we were shot out into the stars.”

  That still wasn’t what she meant, but she could go with it. “Can you still do that? Can I go out into the stars?” Maybe she could find her own dead out there. Nona. Hugh. Owl Paulie. Haric.

  Aleesi.

  “I’m sure we can arrange that for you.”

  “Will you see me off? Will you sing for me?”

  “Of course I will.”

  As soon as he heard, Onor went home. He found Marcelle in their rooms, tears streaming down her face. She looked up at him. “I didn’t think she could really die.”

  He hadn’t either, not really. It had only been two weeks since their trial. The other trials, the other changes, were still under way. The people of the Fire gathered in the bar every night to watch summaries of the day’s proceedings, the same way they used to gather to watch Ruby sing. It kept him busy, kept Evie busy. “At least Ruby got to hold Nona before she died.”

  “Yes.” Marcelle came to him for a hug, and they watched the baby, sleeping.
“At least Nona may not have to die.”

  “Sure she will.”

  “Not for a very long time.”

  The baby didn’t care that they were admiring her perfect fingers and toes. She slept peacefully, as if there was nothing wrong with the world, and there never would be anything wrong with the world.

  BRENDA COOPER lives in the Pacific Northwest, which is peopled with very many authors, perhaps because it is full of perfect writing weather. She writes science fiction and fantasy stories and novels, writes non-fiction and delivers talks about the future, rides bikes, and walks dogs. She also manages technology for a local government.

  For more information, please head to www.brenda-cooper.com and www.rubyssong.com.

  Every book is a group effort.

  Writers help each other. In this case specifically, thanks go to all of those who read the first draft at the Wellspring workshop in Lake Geneva, particularly to Grá Linnea and Kelly Swails who read the full manuscript, gave me great advice and didn’t pull punches. Thanks to Brad Beaulieu who organized. Also to my two best and oldest friends, Linda Merkens and Gisele Peterson, who read as readers, and to John Pitts, who has read almost all of my work in draft. To my dad, who reads my manuscripts and comments brilliantly. Every science fiction writer should have a father who is a real rocket scientist.

  There are songs in this book. I am not able to sing (well, when I’m alone I often sing, but other people don’t like my voice much). So to prepare for this, I attended two songwriting workshops led by the talented Chris Williamson. Any mistakes in the songs are mine and I appreciate her patience trying to teach songwriting to a woman who can’t hear notes.

  I can’t say how pleased I am to have Lou Anders champion this book. He is one of our finest editors, and a fabulous person as well.

  John Picacio created more than a book cover when he drew Ruby for The Creative Fire. He created an iconic piece of art that I kept on my computer screen and referred to while writing this book. He is a master of his craft.