The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song)

by Brenda Cooper

  Heads nodded. Most people said, “Yes.”

  “Good. Think about her name. She wasn’t one of us.” Ruby paused for a breath, letting it sink in. She noticed a new face on the outside of the circle. Marcelle had changed enough that Ruby failed to recognize her at first. She looked strong and fierce, smiling over the heads of the crowd at Ruby and Onor. It gave Ruby even more hope, made her more sure she was right and that she needed to join these people. “Lila Red came from the inner levels. Yet she fought for us. For just a moment, think of the reds as people who manage the place, who keep things safe.” Before anyone could protest, she lifted a hand. “I know. That is not what they are here and now. Not usually. We’ve all learned to hate most of them.”

  Murmurs of assent pulsed through the circle. Ani, near her, drew a deep inward breath.

  Ruby kept going. “But it is what they were meant to be, and probably what they once were. Some still are. A red named Ben helped me grow up safely, and two reds whose names I don’t know killed my best friend. So it goes both ways. Never forget the reds are our enemies, but never forget they are also our friends. Good and bad is more complex than the color of a uniform.”

  She let a few moments pass, looking at faces, noting that many people appeared willing to agree with her even if others looked set against her. It would do.

  “Think of the blues as organizers and managers, like the people who run the crews you work on, only with different worries. Responsible for the whole garden at once rather than just that day’s tending crew.”

  She glanced at Ani and then recalled the way Ani’s voice shook when she first came in. “Just like in Lila Red’s time, people are working together from all of the levels. I am proof of that. I’m here now, and I’ve been there, and I will go back there. We will all be able to do that. We will all be able to do that without fear.”

  A slender blond woman who had introduced herself as Gerri said, “How do we know who we’re fighting?”

  There. That was the question she’d needed. She pointed to her necklace again. “Watch for blended colors.”

  Three people pulled out the sign, one in cloth, one in beads, one a set of strings that had been braided together to make a necklace. Only a few in the circle looked surprised.

  “So you know,” Ruby said. “You already understand. What you also need to know is that we need to win now. The Fire’s bringing us home, and we need to win before we get close, so we have a voice in decisions when we get there. We need our fair share of the cargo and the decisions. We need what we’ve worked for.”

  Gerri snorted. “Why now? We never had any of those things before.”

  “Yes, we did. When we left Adiamo, we had them all. We had a voice, an equal one to logistics and the peacekeepers—the reds. That’s what we’re fighting to get back. To have control over what happens to us when we no longer live inside the Fire.”

  Lya spoke up, her voice knotted and miserable. She addressed the crowd rather than Ruby. “People will die,” she said.

  The crowd’s eyes didn’t waver from Ruby. Good. She couldn’t afford to let fear intrude. “Lila Red died for the same thing. But we’re better prepared and there are more of us.” She didn’t know that, not really. But it was what people needed to hear. “I’ve been inside, and we have a lot of support. We have so much support that you need to look for the sign on everyone you see in a red or blue or green uniform. A lot of times it’s going to be there. And those people are our friends, no matter what color they’re dressed in.”

  A male voice said, “Lila’s dead.”

  When Ruby turned to look, no one met her eyes to admit they’d been the speaker. “I might die, too. But at least I won’t die being raped to death or beaten in a back corner of lockup, and I won’t be assigned dangerous work and die in an 'accident.' If any of us die today, we’ll die for each other.”

  A man who didn’t identify himself asked, “What will happen when we go out there and fight?”

  Good. He’d said when and not if. She’d done enough, and she could feel Conroy’s agitation beside her. “Ask Conroy. I came back to you today, to be here on the right side of this. To support the fight, to be part of it. Not to lead it. I don’t know the details of what your leaders want you to do. I do know Conroy, and he’s good.”

  Conroy glared at her but did his job and stepped back up to address the crowd. He told them, “Capture anyone you can. Ix won’t support killing anyone unless it’s in self-defense. As far as I can tell, it’s on our side, but it won’t do anything to help or hurt us unless we threaten the Fire.” He paused and glanced around, as if making sure of everyone’s attention. “But that could happen. You should know that. We can die as well. At Ix’s hand or the hand of the people we’re trying to overthrow. So be careful of each other. And be careful not to get hot and do anything that damages major ship systems. If the Fire’s hurt, we all lose. Do you understand?” He waited until the crowd responded to him with affirmations. Then he added, “We’re in the right. We’re fighting for our voice, our say, our freedom, our safety. We deserve to win, and if we’re clever and good and brave, we can win. But the outcome depends on you, and me, and all of us. On our strength and our bonds.”

  Ruby approved.

  The tall man who had led them here helped Conroy distribute stunners. There were enough stunners for about half the people, and Conroy briefly reviewed how to shoot them. Ruby didn’t even try to get Conroy to give her a stunner, but she watched carefully. The people who took them already knew how to use them. Marcelle took her stunner as if it were a journal, handling it comfortably.

  The people in gray were always fit because they worked hard, but still, she spotted extra muscle and leaner bodies and set jaws and heard resolve in most of the whispers between warriors. Only a few of the voices were laced with fear, like Lya’s.

  Onor stood beside her, mute, watching her watch.

  During a short break in the conversation, she said, “I had to do it.”

  “Did you?”

  She nodded at Conroy. “I’m proud of Conroy and what he’s made here. And you were part of it, I know you were. I could never have trained people like this.”

  He smiled, but his smile carried anger in it, and more steel than she was used to seeing in him. Onor had changed as well.

  50: Ruby’s First Fight

  An hour and a half later, the group slid through the same doorway that Fox had first taken Ruby through. She walked in the middle of the single-file column, but nonetheless, when her turn to cross the threshold came, she tensed, expecting a welcoming committee.

  Instead, the hall was empty.

  They snuck through corridors, Conroy in the lead, Marcelle just behind, Hugh in the back, and Lya just in front of Ruby, so that Ruby had to hiss at Lya to keep up from time to time. Conroy’s idea of a joke, maybe. Ani and Onor walked right behind Ruby, crowding her whenever Lya slowed down.

  She kept expecting to see or hear people, to find a fight.

  Instead, she heard their own footsteps and breathing, and from time to time a whispered command from Conroy. She wanted to go check on her hab, to see if it was even still registered to her. Surely there hadn’t been enough time for that to change, but she couldn’t abandon the group or risk being alone. If she did anything that stupid, Colin would have a reason never to let her out of his sight again. She dragged her focus back to her breathing and to the corridor and to the immediate moment and place.

  A sound came from behind them, a woman, calling Ruby’s name.

  She turned, calling back, “Lanie!” Next to her, Harold. A tall blond man and a short blond woman, both in blue with multicolored necklaces she could actually see from a distance.

  Ani and Onor and Hugh stood between Ruby and her friends, Hugh with his stunner up and pointed at Harold. “Hugh, no!” Ruby called.

  Hugh dropped his stunner a few inches. Ruby piled out of line and hugged Lanie. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  Lanie shook her head.
“I don’t know. We were told to watch for grays out here and to report anything we saw.”

  “You won’t, will you?”

  Harold laughed. “Obey? Lanie? She’s so happy, you’d think we’d already landed and she was playing under the sky. But you’re lucky it’s us you found. They’ll kill.”

  “Kill?” Ruby swallowed. “What do you know? Where can we find people?”

  Lanie looked at Conroy, who had shown up just behind Ruby. “They tell us you’re going to kill people. But you’re not, are you? You wouldn’t?”

  Ruby swallowed and shook her head. “Not if we can help it.”

  Conroy answered from over her shoulder. “Not unless we’re threatened.”

  Lanie stiffened. “If you kill people, we won’t keep helping. You have to promise to do your best to be nonviolent.”

  Conroy pointed at Hugh’s scarred face. “He got those marks for being late, for putting himself in danger. Maybe someone could have just helped him instead of beating him for it.” He pointed at Onor. “His parents were killed for getting reds in trouble when they broke their own rules.” He looked down at Lanie. “We’ve all got stories like that. We’ve all lost friends or family or had them beaten up or locked up. We’ll do our best not to hurt anyone, but you just told us they’d kill. Do you really expect a bloodless change?”

  Lanie blinked back tears but stood her ground. “Do your best.”

  Conroy’s voice softened. “We will. And we thank you for your support. Do you know where we can find . . . the people who aren’t on our side?”

  Lanie shook her head. “I can’t give away my own. But I won’t report you.”

  Ruby swallowed. “Even Sylva?”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  “Okay.” Ruby gave her another quick hug, Lanie frail and thin in Ruby’s arms.

  “Okay, go on,” Lanie said. “We’ll go the other way, say we were scared and outnumbered if Ix pops up and shows that we met here.”

  Seeing friendly faces should have bled some of the tension out. But it didn’t get easier to slide through the eerily empty corridors. They took a shortcut through one of the big rooms that were usually full of people working in small segregated spaces. Ruby’s heart danced against her ribs. So many places people could hide. If Lanie was right, there was no one here, but what if she wasn’t? What if Sylva or Ellis had lied to Lanie and Harold, or changed plans, or had people tracking their progress through the level?

  Conroy didn’t like this place either. He’d gone dead quiet, every bit of him clearly alert. He started moving faster, not quite running.

  They were all in now, and they’d be through pretty quickly.

  A yell.

  A man in the back, not one of them. A red. Stunner pointed.

  One of the women behind Ruby fell, making a small, vulnerable sound and then a thud as her head hit the floor.

  Three people shot back, the stunner beams visible only as subtle changes in the air. The only sure signs of the short, fat guns working were flashes of light from the muzzles.

  All the shots missed.

  Two other people popped up from different workspaces, a blue and a red, firing their stunners, ducking again before Ruby could register who they were. Two more grays fell. A couple she’d met once but didn’t know well. She tripped over an uneven spot on the floor, bruising her shin.

  The return shots did no good.

  Ruby picked up a stunner from one of the people on the floor, holding it awkwardly.

  “Through the door. Out! Out!” Conroy barked.

  As she passed Conroy, following his orders, she saw him stand on a desk, hunting for a better view. He shot twice, and she heard someone yell. Brave. At least one of them could shoot. He’d be a target there, though. A glance back showed Hugh on a table, too, and a knot of people between her and him. Enemies. She recognized a few faces, no names.

  Lya stumbled in front of her and landed on her hands and knees.

  Ruby bent down, the heat of a stun beam passing where she had just been. She kept going, eating the floor, spreading herself flat, half on top of Lya. “Crawl,” she whispered.

  Lya whimpered.

  “Now.”

  Lya started pulling forward, way too slow. Ruby pushed her under a desk and followed her, the two of them huddling together.

  Onor stopped in front of them, Ani across from them, her face a darkness in the shadows. She watched Ruby with eyes bright and full of fear and reproach.

  Voices called. Conroy grunted once, then Ruby heard a thud. She glanced up, saw that he was still there after all. She knelt and stood quickly, checking for Hugh.

  She couldn’t see him. “Hugh!” she called, realizing her mistake just as Lya scrambled out from behind her and started heading the wrong way.

  Onor tried to block Lya, but Ruby grabbed him. “We’re going. Now. It’s just stunners. Nobody’s dead. I need to know if Hugh is okay.”

  Onor shook his head, his eyes wide and worried.

  She jerked her head back at the door. “How do you know it’s safe that way either?”

  His lips thinned. Lya was getting too far in front of her, crawling like a madwoman. Ruby launched herself after the fleeing woman. She heard Onor and Ani right behind her.

  They passed Conroy. He was unhurt, still ducking and rising and shooting. “Out!” he screamed at them.

  She glanced up and saw how angry he was. He wasn’t looking at her, and his anger was for far more than her. She fed off it, liking the anger. It fit a fight, felt good in her belly. “Lya,” was all she said to him, and then she put her head down and kept going. She heard a few whispered words between Onor and Conroy but couldn’t make out what they said to each other.

  It seemed to take a long time and a lot of crawling, and each movement was scary. Then Lya rounded a corner in front of her and screamed.

  Lya collapsed, still screaming.

  Ruby only hesitated a second before peering around the corner. Hugh was on the ground, face down, and a small man dressed in blue was hitting him with a stunner in repeated bursts. The man’s face was scrunched up and full of fear and hatred.

  Ruby screamed, “Stop!” Onor leapt in front of her, put his head down, and plowed into the man, sending him crashing into the floor. Onor landed on top of him.

  Ruby crossed the five steps between them and took the stunner from the man’s twitching hand, then stepped on his hand, hard. He grunted, partly from her ravaging his fingers and partly from the blows Onor rained on his side.

  Ruby turned to see Lya cradling Hugh’s face in her lap, his eyes sightless and staring. Lya’s head hung down, her hair covering her face, the ends of it sweeping across Hugh’s forehead.

  Ani was already kneeling beside Hugh, a hand on his neck, feeling for a pulse.

  Conroy and Marcelle rounded the corner. Others followed.

  “Onor! Stop!” Conroy commanded. Onor ignored him, slamming his fist into the man’s side with a desperation that looked completely wrong on Onor.

  “Stop!” Conroy shouted again, and this time Onor gave a final blow and stood up.

  “They’re gone,” Conroy said as he knelt on Hugh’s other side. “But we have to get out of here. This is a trap.” He glanced at Ani, recoiling at the stunned look in her eyes, and put a hand beside hers. “We have four down. We’ve just enough people standing to carry them.”

  He looked at Lya and shook his head.

  “I know,” she whispered so soft that Ruby could barely hear her. Lya had become a wraith in that short time, a stunned shell of a human being.

  “Stopped his heart,” Conroy said.

  Ruby choked back a soft, keening sob, earning a glare from Lya.

  “We’ve got to go,” Conroy said.

  Ruby stood up. “I have someplace closer. Trust me.”

  “Do you know it’s safe?”

  She hesitated. “I’m as sure it’s safe as I am that home is safe anymore.”

  Conroy gave her a wry smile and closed
his eyes for a moment before opening them and saying, “Very well. Don’t lead us wrong.”

  She swallowed. “I won’t. We’ll all fit where I’m going. I promise.”

  51: Foxed

  Ruby’s handprint still opened her door. She didn’t realize how afraid she’d been until it actually worked. She stood just inside the door and directed the pairs of people supporting groggy stunner victims to come in and lay them out on the couch and the bed.

  “Hey!” Dayn’s voice protested, sleepy and angry all at once.

  Ruby glanced up to see him coming out of her bedroom, shirtless, with his hair mussed from sleep. “It’s okay,” Ruby called to him. Then she told Conroy and Onor to put Hugh’s body on the floor. She’d have liked someplace more respectful for him, but the couch already held one person and both beds were full.

  Lya collapsed beside the body, her hands shaking, her face so white she looked physically ill. Conroy crouched beside Lya, talking in soothing tones.

  The hab was so full it felt almost like a twisted echo of the party on her debut night. The shock of fighting, of even being here, played out as wide-eyed stiffness in some, exhaustion in others. It set Onor pacing. She hadn’t thought past getting here, but now what?

  When she felt Dayn grab her arm, she turned on him, too tired to be handled. “Get them water,” she snapped.

  He stepped back, startled, and narrowed his eyes at her.

  “You told me to get a backbone. I got one. Get these people water.”

  To her surprise he went into the kitchen. Ani followed, and they came back balancing three glasses of water each. Marcelle and Onor helped deliver the water, both curious and a bit shocked. But then she surely didn’t look any better.

  Fighting sucked.

  After everyone had a place to sit and a glass of water, Ruby backed Dayn into the wall near the door and looked carefully at him. No colors, no way to really tell where he stood. Of course, he’d just woken up. He didn’t look like he’d been fighting, but rather—and incongruously—like he had always looked. As if nothing was going on at all. “Are you one of us?”