Diamond Star (26 page)

"It's been done."

"Not for years. People don't even remember what was hot two minutes ago." She gave him her most reassuring look. "And don't worry, I'll deal with Del."

"Yeah, well, I hope so."

So did Ricki. She wasn't anywhere near as sure about Del as she claimed. He had an odd attitude toward the song, as if he wanted to hide it from everyone. Those light, pleasing lyrics meant something different to him, she just didn't know what.

Someone shook Del's world. Literally. He lay sprawled on his back in a meadow with his arms thrown wide. Bubbles floated above him. They were supposed to pop and release glitter, which acted like pollen, but it didn't happen. He needed to learn how to reprogram this virt. He wished he could connect his mind straight into it, so it could take what he wanted from his brain.

The land vibrated again. Puzzled, he lifted his head. Nothing looked wrong. Bagger-bubble plants grew all around him, stalks tall and thick, sacs blue or red. He got up and walked through the field, enjoying the breezes. Home. He missed it. He would go for a visit. It wasn't going to be easy, though. His family would ask how he spent his time. He could hear them.
Holo-rock? What is that?
He wasn't even successful. No, damn it, he wasn't a failure. "Sapphire Clouds" was almost in the top hundred. Almost. Not that they'd care. They didn't know holo-rock charts from geology-rock charts.

The crops around him suddenly wavered and shook. Del glared at the fields. "What the blazes is wrong?"

The fake Del appeared. "Someone wants your attention."

"So why not send me a message?" Del asked. "Through you."

"You locked out communications," his sim-self told him.

"Oh." Del had forgotten about that. "End sim."

Blackness descended, and he slowly reoriented. He wasn't standing, he was lying in a recliner. Lifting off his helmet, he squinted in the brightness.

"Thank God!" Jud was leaning over him, his hands gripped on Del's shoulders. "What the hell was wrong with you?"

Del blinked up at him. "I was just in the virt."

"For
two
hours. We were going to rehearse, remember?"

"Rehearse," Del mumbled. "That's right." Sitting up slowly, he set the helmet on the console. Then he rubbed his eyes.

"Ricki left a message," Jud said. "We're going on tour again."

"We are?" Del pulled himself out of the recliner. He felt sluggish. Tired. He wanted to go back into the virt.

"Come on." Jud tugged at his arm. "You need to get dressed so we can meet Randall and Anne."

"Oh. Yeah." Del walked toward his room. Then he stopped and looked back. "Jud?"

His roommate smiled, his face framed by dreadlocks that brushed his shoulders, with silver beads in them today. "You look like a little kid when you're half awake."

Little kid. If he only knew. "Do you know how to get a bliss-node?"

Jud's smile vanished. "Damn it, keep away from that garbage."

"Why?"

"You could get hurt. You can't take chances like that."

"I can take care of myself." Del clenched up inside. Jud sounded just like his family, suffocating him. He strode to his bedroom and tripped over a pile of clothes. Frustrated, he scooped them up and tossed them onto his bed.

"Hey." Jud came over to him. "I didn't mean anything." He watched Del as if he were a combustible substance about to ignite.

Del raked his hand through his hair. His arm was shaking. Lowering it, he stared at his trembling hand. What was wrong with him?

"You need to eat," Jud said.

Food. As soon as the thought registered, hunger pangs stabbed at Del. "I can't believe I forgot to eat." He rubbed his eyes. "Okay, so maybe I'm spending a little too much time in the suit."

"A 'little,' yeah." Jud's grin came back. "Come on. Let's rehearse. We're going back on the road!"

Del knew he should be glad Prime-Nova was giving him another chance. But he didn't feel up to traveling. It also meant he might not see Ricki for weeks at a time, and he had never settled matters with her. He felt guilty about his ambivalence, especially given the way she was supporting him with Zachary. But sleeping with her was easier than the proverbial "relationship talk."

Maybe Mac was right about the playboy thing. In his youth, Del had been drowning in his own insecurities, stupidly intent on proving his manhood. The strains of "Emeralds" drifted through his mind:

They waited in whispering reeds
Green within, predators without
But my brother intervened
He answered my crying shout

His brother. Althor. So many decades had passed since that night Althor had protected him. When Del had been fourteen and Althor fifteen, his big brother had saved him from being beaten senseless and gods only knew what else. Del clenched his fist and kicked a soccer ball by his door. It rolled across his bedroom into the opposite wall. Althor was
dead,
a casualty of the war, tortured by the Traders and then executed.

Jud was still watching him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Del couldn't confide in him. He couldn't confide in anyone. How could he have friends when his life was a lie? He spoke softly. "I want to go home."

"You should, then," Jud said. "Take a break after the tour, before your next vid."

"Yeah. After the tour." He couldn't leave yet. He just had to make it through a few more months.

Just a little more time.

XII: Diamond Rise

In its eleventh week on the North American charts, "Sapphire Clouds" dropped to one hundred and twenty-four, never breaking into the coveted top one hundred. The original version of "Diamond Star" moved up ten places to number two hundred and ninety-three.

"I don't understand," Del told Ricki. "Why change the song? 'Diamond Star' hit the charts without even an official release."

"You don't want debuts at three hundred." Ricki lay with him in her sumptuous floater bed, with fluffy white quilts bunched up around them. Even in the dim light, the white furniture in her room shimmered. So did the white carpets and white walls. It was a gorgeous room for a gorgeous woman who was, at the moment, pissed off. Del had no idea why, and she thought she was hiding it, but he knew. She wanted to slap him across that glossy room of hers.

"If you cut up the song," Del said, "it takes out the most interesting parts."

"We don't want interesting." Ricki turned with her back to him. "We want it to sell."

He stretched out behind her, his front to her back, and put his arm around her waist. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." Her body remained stiff. She had responded when they made love, but now she was like a board. Even when she stayed in bed with him, she seemed to leave.

"You're mad at me," Del said.

"No, I'm not." She rolled onto her back. "Let's watch an m-cast."

"Here?" On Lyshriol, he kept tech out of his bedroom. Sure, they had it for comfort, warmth, all that. But it was discreet. Then he had come here and discovered what he was missing. But he didn't want it invading their private time. He could think of better things to do in bed with Ricki than watch an m-cast.

She was already touching a panel on the nightstand, though. A wall across the room glowed, and a holo appeared in front of it, the image of a woman with metallic blue streaks in her blond hair.

" . . . see my latest holo-movie," she purred. "Tomorrow night, right here, on the Midwest Channel."

"That ought to be your channel," Ricki said sourly. "You could commune with all the other small-town boys."

Del was getting angry. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong or what?"

She ignored him. "Jacques, give me the Northern Baltimore chat channel."

"Certainly," a sensual male voice answered.

"Who the hell is Jacques?" Del said. He knew perfectly well it was her EI, but he could do without Jacques in bed with them.

"What?" she asked, all innocence. "You don't like my house EI? What a pity. He's such a
good
EI."

"For flaming sake, Ricki."

"Oh, look at that," she said sweetly. The holo across the room re-formed into a cozy cafe with two young women seated at a table. Two very familiar women.

Talia and Kendra.

Oh, shit.

"I was strolling through the m-verse to see if you were getting play," Ricki said. "And golly, farm boy, look what I found. Seems you've been
playing
a lot."

Kendra's voice rose into the air. " . . . one of Baltimore's hottest new singers. But don't let that rock star reputation turn you away. Del Arden is a sweetheart."

"He took us to dinner," Talia said, her dimples in full force. "What a night!"

Kendra laughed sensuously. "Talia, you're the innocent one. That's why you just watched."

Talia's cheeks reddened. "Watched
what?
"

"Nothing much," Kendra admitted. "But his kiss is dynamite." She looked out of the holo with satisfaction. "What a dream. Del Arden. Pick up his latest cube. It's called
The Jewels Suite.
"

"A dinner date with
two
of them," Ricki murmured. "With you for dessert. How charming."

Del's face was flaming. "They asked me to sign my vid. So I took them out to dinner."

"For asking you to scribble your name on a little box of glim-flex? Gosh, you're nice." She snapped her fingers and the holo vanished. "What else, Mister Sexpot Arden?" Her voice was no less dangerous for its silken tone.

"I didn't do anything," Del said. "Just one kiss. Then I stopped. Because I thought of you." Which was true. No wonder Mac had told him not to get involved with his producer. This could turn into a nightmare. "We left the virt after--"

"You were in a
virt
?" Ricki sat up so fast, the covers flew off her body. "You were fooling around with those two bee-brains in a sim? Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Del sat up, boiling. "I guess I'm stupid, Ricki. I can't imagine why you would bother with me. I should just leave."

"No! Don't you understand? The vid's recorded!" She looked as if she wanted to shake him. "Anything you did with those little groupies is in their cubes. You know what virtisos are?"

"I don't care." He yanked the covers off and started to get out of the bed.

Ricki pulled him back. "They could do whatever they want with those files."

He stared at her, jolted out of his anger. It hadn't occurred to him they might fool with his holos. They had seemed so nice. They
were
nice. Nothing he picked up from their minds had set off his mental alarms.

"What did you mean, virtiso?" he said.

"They're fans who follow around celebrities." She let go of his arm. "They try to get to know the star so they can build more realistic sims. They like real recordings because it's easier to crack the security on those. The images from a session you do with other people don't have as many protections as images we put in when we make the virt. If those girls figure out how to unlock their session with you, they could edit your images. Like take out your clothes. You want naked holos of you all over the mesh? Del Arden, the prince of prurience."

Del's face flamed. The Skolian Assembly would have collective heart failure if nude images of him showed up in public.
He
would have heart failure. He would die of embarrassment.

"Kendra and Talia wouldn't do that," he said.

"My God, you're naive," Ricki said.

"I really didn't do anything with them. Except one kiss."

"And next time?" she asked coldly.

"Who says there will be a next time?"

"You're a rock singer." She sounded like she wanted to hit him for something he hadn't even done. "There'll be a next time."

"Why are you so sure?" Del touched her lips. "I don't know what you want. A boyfriend? To own me? To mold me into something that isn't real? I don't think I can be what you want."

She sat, waiting. Then she said, "And?"

"And what?"

"The words that follow a statement like that are usually, 'Maybe we should take a break from each other.' "

A flush spread through him. "Is that what you want?"

It was a moment before she answered. "I don't think so." She had a stillness about her, but even with her instinctive mental shields raised, her apprehension leaked to him. He couldn't tell what it meant. He thought she wanted to say
no, it isn't what I want
and couldn't bring herself to speak the words, but maybe that was just his ego misleading him into believing she wanted him.

"And do you?" she asked.

His perception shifted.
Did
he want to end it? Knowing his family would disapprove of her didn't put him off. If anything, it made him want her more. Hell, he would like her even if they liked her. She understood him in ways no one else ever had. But he had no idea how to deal with her.

"I don't want to stop seeing you," he said. "But I can't handle things this way. You disappear in the morning. You try to control my life. I'm not your toy. I hate it when you treat me that way."

"I can only be myself," she said. "You may want things from me I can't give."

Disconcerted, Del said, "That's supposed to be my line."

She blinked. "It is?"

"I've used it too many times." It wasn't something he was proud about.

She actually smiled. "You're kidding."

"Why would I be kidding?" he asked, miffed.

"You seem . . . I don't know. More innocent than that. But maybe not. I don't know. You seem experienced and innocent at the same time." She made a frustrated noise. "Oh boggers, I can't figure it out."

Del couldn't help but laugh. "Boggers? What does that mean?"

"Stop trying to distract me," she growled. "What 'too many times' have you used that line?"

Del didn't want to talk about it, but he doubted she would show him any mercy until he did. So he said, "My girlfriends on Lyshriol were like me. Naive, I suppose. People marry young there. In a place like that, sure, I seemed experienced. But compared to your life, I'm not." He stopped, flushing. "If that makes sense."

"It explains a lot." She considered him with an unsettling scrutiny. "Why were you different from other people there?"