Diamond Star (47 page)

"I don't know anything about Aristos." The only person in that stratum of power she had dealt with was Del, who probably had as much in common with this conglomerate king as a harp had with the cry of a banshee.

"Tarex is coming to Earth," Zachary said. "I want you to meet him. Tell me what you think."

Well, hell's pails. She could imagine how Del would react. Maybe she should send him on another tour.
Fast.
"When will Tarex be here?"

"I'll let you know as soon as we do." He stood up, brushing nonexistent wrinkles out of his jumpsuit. "We'll do dinner with him. You can bring a guest. And yes, that means Del. I'm sure Tarex will be looking at our other acts."

Ricki couldn't envision a bigger disaster. "Looking for what? To
buy?
"

"To sign. And no, they don't expect to own an Allied act. Just rights to sell the work, same as with the Skolians." He lifted his hands as if to say,
What can I do?
"It's a lucrative market, Ricki, bigger than the Allied and Skolian combined."

She didn't want to imagine the furor if Tarex tried to sign a Ruby Heir. What a nightmare. Realizing how odd her horrified reaction would seem to Zachary, she forced out a smile. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks."

After Zachary left, Ricki went to the mahogany bar in her office and poured herself a glass of good, strong whiskey.

By the time Del submerged into the virt session, his mind was twisted into knots. He had spent four days without the bliss. He couldn't think straight, couldn't concentrate, couldn't eat. He had trouble rehearsing. Headaches and disorientation plagued him, and he felt as if he were balanced on the edge of a convulsion.

The session took him to Lyshriol--his version, the home he created out of his longings. Except he had no home. His family would never accept him. They condemned him for not letting them know about his life, but why would he? They would just tell him that he would fail. Or die. Or screw up. Because of course he was inconsiderate, immature, and irresponsible. Nothing he did would ever be good enough unless he became exactly like them. Even if he hadn't hated the idea, he didn't have the intelligence to be what they wanted. He
couldn't
do it.

Del had figured out how to program the node, though. He had to focus on what he wanted, directing the thought rather than letting his mind relax. He also had tags, like thinking "walrus" to alert the node he wanted to alter its code.

Today he deleted his family.

He took out his mother, who had told him here in his foolish fantasy that she appreciated his music. He took out Kelric and Dehya and Windar and his other siblings. He even took out Chaniece and the boys, because it hurt too much knowing he could never be a true father, for he could never join his life with their mother the way a man should with the woman who bore his children. When he finished erasing them all, he lay in the rippling plain beneath the soft sky and cried.

"It's a relic," Cameron said.

Tyra considered his comment. "More like a museum," she decided.

"Naw," Jud said. "A mausoleum."

Del ignored them. To him, the bookstore was exquisite. In the three months since he had taken Ricki to the Moon, he had looked everywhere for a real store like this. It evoked a simpler life, a time when people wrote songs with pencils, before the world became too complex to hold on a piece of ordinary paper. Everywhere he turned on Earth, people streamed their lives to consoles, picked it out of the airwaves, or lived in a virt. Only a few antique stores existed that sold that rare commodity, a book with printed pages. Permanent printing. No holos, changing fonts, living ink, hypertext, supertext, ultratext, or pretext.

Del loved the Almond Bar Book Shoppe in Baltimore. He loved holding the tomes with leather covers and gilt-edged pages. He listened to the AI guide on each shelf describe the texts and then picked out four:
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy, because it was huge and sounded like it applied to almost everything in human existence;
Plato's Republic,
because the sample the guide read impressed him;
The Rake
by Mary Jo Putney, because it was about a misbehaved playboy who straightened out his life and found love; and
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne, because it sounded fun. Jud wandered down another aisle, and Tyra and Cameron walked with Del, surveying the store and pretending they weren't bodyguards.

"I've never seen so many of these things," Cameron said, scanning the crammed shelves.

Jud rejoined them. "They cost too much. You pay all that money for something so crude, you can't even change the font."

"They're antiques," Del said. "Historical. Claude reads to me all the time from old texts. I like Shakespeare."

Tyra regarded him curiously. "I wouldn't have guessed you had such a scholarly bent."

"I don't." Del gave a dry laugh. "You can't be illiterate and a scholar at the same time."

"You aren't illiterate," Tyra said. "You're--I don't know what. You input information differently than most people. You process it differently, too."

Process it differently.
What a euphemism. Del smiled. "You're a diplomat."

Tyra snorted. "I have the diplomatic skills of a fungus."

"Del, you have a good brain," Cameron said.

"Annoying sometimes," Jud said. "But smart, yeah."

"Huh." This was an odd development. It mattered a lot to him that the three people who spent the most time with him didn't consider him stupid.

Del went to a kiosk and gave his codes to its AI. While he waited for it to process his purchases, his wrist comm buzzed. He jerked, startled. He would never become used to wearing a mesh. On Lyshriol, he had mostly ignored the tech, but it was unavoidable if he wanted to function here.

He touched the receive panel. "Hello?"

"Del!" A familiar voice came out of the mesh. "Staver here. How are you?"

"Fine." Del glanced up as Tyra stepped closer.

"Zachary Marksman told me that you're working on a new vid," Staver said. "I was wondering if you would like to have lunch today and talk about it."

Del knew he should comm Mac to join them if they were going to discuss business. But he was starting to chafe at Mac's father thing. Del had enough authority figures in his life.

"All right," he said. "It'll be four of us, though. I'm with some friends."

"That's fine," Staver said. "Bring them along. Let's meet at the Sheraton in Columbia. They've an excellent restaurant on the lake there. It's quiet and beautiful."

Del glanced at Jud, who mouthed
Sure.
Tyra and Cameron, standing a few paces back, both nodded.

"I'll see you there," Del told Staver.

As Del left the bookstore, he ran into a group of people strolling down the street. They were chatting among themselves, but they stopped when they saw him.

"Hey," one of the younger men said. "You're Del Arden."

A woman smiled at him. "Hi!" She hesitated, then held up a holo-map she had been holding. "Could I--would you mind if I asked for an autograph?"

"Sure," Del said. "I mean no, I don't mind."

They crowded around him, about ten people. One of the women touched his hair. "I love all these curls."

"Hey." Del smiled uncomfortably as he pulled away his hair. He felt Cameron's hand under his elbow, drawing him back.

"You're the morpher, aren't you?" a woman asked Jud.

"Are you doing a concert here?" someone else asked. "I didn't see any advertised."

Del backed into the antique brick wall of the store with Jud, the two of them flanked by Cameron and Tyra. He felt trapped.

A youth offered Del a napkin. "Would you mind signing this? I really enjoy your music. No one will believe we saw you."

"Yeah, sure." Del didn't know what else to say.
Go away
would hardly sit well with anyone. He took the boy's napkin and the woman's holomap.

"Here." Someone offered him a pen, and he scribbled his name on the napkin, then traced his signature over a panel on the map, leaving a squiggle of light.

"What's going on?" someone asked behind the group.

Del strained to look over the heads of the people. Another couple had come over to see what had drawn the crowd. More people were coming out of a shop across the street.

"All right," Tyra said. "Enough." Although she didn't speak loudly, her voice carried.

"Who are you?" someone asked her. He sounded annoyed. Someone else asked, "Did they answer about the concert?"

Del was getting claustrophobic. Someone touched his arm and another person brushed his elbow. Tyra drew him to the side, but people blocked their way. There were too many, too close. Cameron grasped a man's arm and carefully pulled him aside.

"Hey!" The man jerked away from Cameron. "Back off, bud." The fellow did try to give Del more room, but someone back in the crowd pushed forward, making it impossible. Cameron stepped in front of Del.

"Don't hurt them," Del said under his breath.

"Who's that?" someone yelled from the back.

Someone else said, "Del Arden. He's signing autographs."

"Let him by." Tyra's voice snapped out with an authority Del had never heard her use before. A startled murmur came from the crowd as people moved aside.

Together, Tyra and Cameron escorted Del and Jud through the group. Del was having trouble breathing, and he inhaled deeply, trying to calm down. They were just fans. Nothing threatening. He should be glad they liked him.

Del wasn't sure who pushed who, but several people stumbled into him. He staggered and lost his balance. As he fell, Cameron grabbed him. More people surged forward, pushing so he couldn't regain his footing even with Cameron's support. As he slipped to his knees, the crowd pressed in.

Tyra reacted with surreal speed, her motion blurring while she moved people aside and pulled Del to his feet. As murmurs went through the crowd, she and Cameron pushed forward, protecting Del and Jud. Whenever they had to move someone out of the way, they restrained their force with a gentleness Del hadn't expected in his military-trained bodyguards.

Then they were free and striding down the street, the guards flanking Del, each holding one of his arms, with Jud striding next to Cameron. Del had to run to keep their pace. He didn't look back, but he heard people following them.

They sped around the corner and waved down a hover-taxi. As they piled into the car, several women from the crowd knocked on the window and called out his name. Del blanched, but he waved back, because Harv had told him never to piss anyone off.

"Get us out of this crowd," Tyra told the taxi. "Fast."

"I can't do harm to anyone," the vehicle said.

"Just take us away from here," Tyra said. "We're going to the Sheraton Hotel in Columbia."

It wasn't until they had left the crowd behind that Del sank gratefully back into the worn seat. "That was weird."

Cameron surveyed the street. "It can't happen again."

Del knew what they were going to say. "Cam, I can't--"

"He's right," Tyra interrupted.

"I
won't
be a prisoner in my own apartment," Del said.

He expected Tyra to say he had no choice. Instead she said, "Then get your own transportation."

"I can't afford a car."

"Of course you can," Tyra said.

"It has to be on my earnings," Del said. The only exceptions he had made were the bliss-node and taking Ricki to the Moon.

"We should be getting our royalty statements soon," Jud said. "Ask Mac about it."

"All right." Del took a calming breath. Sometimes he could walk down the street and no one noticed him. But he didn't want a repeat of what had just happened. Probably no one would have hurt him or Jud, but it had felt too much on the edge of violence. "I don't get why people want to touch us so much."

Jud snorted. "It isn't me they want, Dello boy. When I'm not with you, I can go in public without worrying."

Del could tell he meant it; Jud preferred privacy to fame. Del exhaled. "I suppose it's better this way than if they forget me."

"Believe me," Tyra said. "You aren't forgettable."

Del hadn't expected that. His ISC bodyguards usually hadn't much liked him. Tyra said nothing more, just focused on her gauntlet as she monitored the area. Curious, Del eased down his barriers. He felt Cameron first; the Marine was tense but relieved they had done their job and avoided trouble. A sense of Anne underlay his mood, nothing specific, just that unrequited desire. Jud was thinking about music, an upbeat tune he was writing.

Tyra had a sharper edge. She perceived more danger than Del thought existed. He also caught traces of emotions she thought she had hidden. She saw why women found Del sexually attractive, and that response bothered her, because she hadn't expected to notice him that way. She considered it unprofessional.

Del smiled and raised his shields. He didn't mind Tyra noticing him, but his celebrity was no longer so flattering. What if he scarred his face, wore ugly clothes, or gained weight? He would still sing the same. As much as he wanted to believe only his artistry mattered, he knew that if he lost whatever it was about him that attracted people, his popularity would decline. He didn't know which bothered him more: that millions of people had virts of him they could program as they pleased, doing gods only knew what, or that he would lose his career if they stopped.

"It's funny," Del said. "Sometimes when you get what you want, it isn't what you thought."

"At least you got it," Cameron said.

Del had a good idea what had put his bodyguard in a bad mood. "Ask her on a date, Cam."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Cameron said.

"I know," Del told him. "But I still think you should ask her out. I'll bet she would go. She likes you."

Cameron glared at him. "You're talking nonsense."

"Well, I don't know for certain," Del admitted. "But her mood always improves when you're around."

"Her?" Tyra asked with curiosity.

Cameron sat back and crossed his arms. "It's nothing."

"How can you not know?" Jud asked Del. "You're an empath."