Diamond Star (37 page)

"Damn," Mac said under his breath. He flicked a panel on his wrist mesh. A woman answered, her words indistinct. Then Mac said, "General McLane. Code Em-four."

Jud thought he must have heard wrong. McLane? As in General Fitz McLane, one of Allied Space Command's top commanders? It couldn't be. Even Jud, who paid little attention to military matters, had heard of McLane. No reason existed for a rock star's manager to contact one of the most influential commanders alive.

Another voice came on the comm, a man it sounded like.

"That's right," Mac said into his mesh. "We may have an incident." He waited, then said, "He might have just spent the night with someone and overslept. No, I agree. I'd rather anger him than risk leaving him undefended. Can you locate him?"

Find him? Just like that? Jud didn't see how, unless they had a tracking device on Del. Or more likely,
in
Del, so no one would notice, not even Jud, who lived with him. Which was so crazy it might be possible in this suddenly bizarre situation.

"That's in the Sierra Nevada mountains!" Mac said. "Hundreds of miles from here." He listened. "I'm at the hotel. Yes, they have a flyer pad on the roof. I'll be waiting. We need someone to see to Cameron, too. Del's trapped him in a virt. His brain is hard-wired into it. Yeah, one of those." He paused. "Good. We will. Out."

Jud stared at him. "What the hell is going on? Why would Allied Space Command send a flyer for Del?"

Mac came over to him. "I can't force you to keep what you just heard to yourself. I have no authority over you. But I ask you please, for Del's safety, tell no one."

Jud was getting scared. "All right. But what's going on?"

"It's up to Del what he wants to reveal." He turned and headed for the door. "Stay here with Cameron," he called back. "Annapolis is sending an expert, but I don't want to leave him alone."

"I'll comm Anne. She'll stay with him." Jud came around and blocked Mac's way. "Take me with you. To help Del. I know him better than anyone else."

Mac spoke quietly. "Jud, you have to understand, if you get deeper into this, you'll be involving yourself in interstellar politics on a level you probably can't even imagine."

A memory came to Jud of Del kidding around with the band:

"Well, you know," Del said with mock solemnity. "I'm Skolian."

"Yet here you are," Randall said, "living in Baltimore."

"Actually," Anne said, "at the moment, he's in a van."

"
Allied Space Command brought me here," Del said. "To Earth. To keep me in custody. Except they had to let me go because I hadn't done anything wrong . . ."

"My God," Jud said. "He wasn't joking."

Mac blinked. "About what?"

"He told us he was Skolian, that ASC brought him here."

Mac's gaze never wavered. "No, he wasn't joking."

"What could Del possibly have that the military wants?"

"Call Anne down here," Mac said. "Then walk with me up to the flyport. We can talk then."

Jud stood restlessly with Mac at the dark green doors of the lift to the roof. "Even if he is Skolian," Jud said, "that's no reason for a five-star general to notice him."

Mac spoke carefully. "Del is a member of a prominent family."

Jud found it hard to believe. Del acted neither rich nor important. "Would I recognize their name?"

Mac regarded him steadily. "The Ruby Dynasty."

Jud scowled at him. "Don't shit me."

"I'm not."

"Del isn't a Ruby prince." Jud was getting angry. What stupid game was this? "We both know that."

"No," Mac said with that oddly quiet tone. "We both don't know that. Del is the third son of Roca Skolia, Heir to the Ruby Throne."

Another memory came to Jud, the words to "Rubies":
Hiding deepest vulnerabilities / Cursed by your mind's abilities / For within you lies the hope for all days / Rubies must give their souls in all ways.

"My God," Jud said. "He's a Ruby
empath.
No wonder he went catatonic his first time onstage."

Mac said, simply, "Yes."

The lift doors hummed and slid open. As they stepped inside the blue-carpeted chamber, Mac said, "That's why we never took the interview request from that undercity reviewer. We were afraid he would ask too many questions about the lyrics of 'Rubies.' "

"I don't get it," Jud said. "Why come to Earth?" Of all the places for a Skolian rock singer to make his name, he couldn't imagine why the home of the Allied Worlds would be on the list.

"Allied Space Command gave protective custody to some members of the Ruby Dynasty during the war," Mac said as the doors closed. "Except after the war, ASC wouldn't let them go. They're afraid the Skolians and Traders will go at each other until they wipe out the human race."

Jud grimaced. "They aren't the only ones."

"Skolians blast my mind," Mac said. "After that brutal, crushing war with the Traders, what's the first thing they do? Recover? Heal? Rescue people? No. The Ruby Pharaoh overthrows her
own
government. What the blazes was that about?"

"Hell if I know." Jud thought back to what he had heard about the coup. "I thought that takeover didn't work."

"Sure it worked," Mac said. "She just gave half her power back to the Assembly. They rule jointly."

"Why?" Skolian politics had never made much sense to Jud. Or, he suspected, to most people, including Skolians.

Mac spoke dryly. "You and every military expert we have would like that answer. She claims it's a better government. Maybe she's even right." He exhaled. "Afterward, Imperial Space Command sent a special ops team for the Ruby Dynasty on Earth. They were in Scandinavia, but we had Del here. So he didn't get pulled out with the others. Then Ricki saw him sing. The rest you know."

Jud couldn't put it all together. "Then why haven't I heard of this place Lyshriol where Del says he lived?"

"We have a different name for it."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Mac met his gaze. "Skyfall."

"
What?
" Jud couldn't process it all. "Are you trying to tell me that Del's father is the flipping King of
Skyfall?
"

"Actually," Mac said, "his father was a farmer and historian. When he married into the dynasty, the media dubbed him the King of Skyfall." His voice quieted. "He passed away a few months ago. Del's oldest brother left home, and the son next in line died in the war."

"Then who's the King of Skyfall?"

"Well, uh, Del, actually."

This was really too much. "Del. My sloppy, surly, don't-wake-me-up-until-noon roommate."

"Yeah." Mac smiled wryly. "That Del."

"So if he's a Ruby prince, why is he always broke? No, never mind." Jud knew Del well enough to answer that question. "He doesn't want to touch his family's money. Except for buying that damn bliss-node." Even that made sense. Being on stage had to be hell for a Ruby psion.

The lift suddenly opened onto the roof, and wind ruffled Jud's clothes. Far above them, a dark flyer was circling the tower, descending to pick them up.

Del ran.

The landscape buckled, black and glassy, a psychotic world with a red sky and distant volcanoes. This race was insane. He wasn't really running, he was strapped down in a virt suit and trapped in this sim, but if he didn't do what Raker wanted, the madman shocked him with electric jolts.

Until Del met Raker and Delilah, he hadn't really known what the term "virt-head" meant. They were addicted to bliss. Both were also virtisos, fans who followed an artist, trying to know him better so they could intensify the sessions they created about him. As far as Del had seen, most virtisos were harmless, like Talia and Kendra, the girls he had taken to dinner. But Raker and Delilah took it to a terrifying new level.

Sooner or later, Mac would realize something was wrong. But by then, it might be too late. Cameron wouldn't surface from the node until morning. He probably didn't even know he was in a sim. Del had told him that he had decided not to meet the girl after all. When Cameron asked if Del intended to do a virt session, Del said the suit was off-kilter and he didn't know why. Cameron had even offered to check it out without Del asking. Del had activated it while Cameron had it on, running a session that started with Cameron taking
off
the suit. Anne had come in, or at least Del's rendering of her, and things took off from there. All Cameron would know was that he and Anne had a great night together.

Del had thought he was so clever. Now he sincerely hoped he hadn't been anywhere near as smart as he thought, that Cameron had figured it out and found a way to contact someone from within the sim. The longer this went on, the less hope Del had that someone would find him before Raker decided he had enough material for his virt and disposed of the messy, imperfect Del Arden.

Del climbed into a cluster of black spears and collapsed in a pocket hidden within them. Breathing hard, he rubbed his eyes.

"You tired?" Delilah asked.

Del looked up with a jerk. She was leaning over a notch in the crag that hadn't been there before, watching him curiously. She was all in black now, from her boots to her skin-tight catsuit.

"Delilah, listen," Del said. "I can give you a much better time if you don't keep me trapped here."

"But I like it here." She waved her hand at the sky. "Isn't it dramatic?" Her smile dimpled. "And you look so cute, running for your life."

Cute?
Cute?
She was as crazy as Raker. But they wouldn't kill him until they completed their virtual Del Arden. He had to convince them they needed him alive.

"If I get out of breath," Del said, "I can't sing my new songs for you."

"I've heard all your songs," she purred. "I love them."

"Not these. I haven't sung them for anyone yet."

She straightened up. "You must sing them for me! We need everything."

They needed everything--except the real him. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing away the sweat. "Delilah, listen. I'm always thinking up songs. They're never like the old ones. I can sing them to you forever."

Her face twisted. "You'll get old. Corrupted."

"Not in the virt."

"Sing to me," she said. "That strange song about a lagoon."

Del regarded her uncertainly. "Lagoon? I don't . . ."

Her face contorted into a hideous mask. "Sing it!"

Del jumped up, banging into the crag behind him. The sky darkened, and one of the volcanoes spewed ash and flame. Fortunately, he realized what she meant before she decided to flood him with lava. The verse in "Emeralds" about the lake.

"I'll sing!" Del waved his hand in front of his face as ash sifted over them. "Whatever you want."

"Good." Her face turned angelic.

Del took an ashy breath. "Night darkens the secret h-hollows /
Within the silvered lagoon / Body rising from the water / Streaming under the s-silent moons . . ." His voice trailed off. He didn't want to remember that night, especially not now, when the person who demanded to hear it also wanted to hurt him.

"Your beautiful body, all wet and sleek," Delilah murmured. "Sing more."

Del could only stare at her, feeling ill.

"I can't hear you," she said in an ugly voice. "I like that part about how you didn't desert her. Sing that."

He sang dully. "I didn't desert you / Despite what they crowed." His voice cracked as he stumbled on the words. "Y-You still believed I was true / They learned what our love knows."

Delilah's voice took on an edge. "Who was she? Someone prettier than me?"

"No," Del lied.

"Your lover?"

"No. It wasn't that kind of love. I meant my sister."

"Oh." Her hard expression eased. "What does she look like?"

"She's skinny and plain and dull," Del said, though none of it was true. He didn't want a song about the killing effects of jealousy to end his life because of Delilah's jealousy. "Nothing compares to you." The words felt like sawdust in his mouth. He meant them, but not in the way she wanted.

"Good." She threw back her hair, and the volcano stopped erupting. Then she climbed into the hollow with Del and put her arms around his waist. "Hug me."

Del didn't want to touch her. It was all he could do to keep from shoving her away.

"Delilah, get the fuck off him," a voice said.

Del froze, then slowly lifted his gaze. Raker was standing behind the notch where Delilah had been leaning a moment before.

She pouted at the large man. "You're the one who wanted us sexing it up for the virt."

Raker ignored her and motioned to Del with his carbine, which had suddenly appeared in his hand. "Get out here."

Del had no idea what would happen if Raker shot him while they were in a simulation. In a normal virt, being shot would just throw him out of the session. But with his brain wired into the node, the experience could become so realistic, he might die even if Raker hadn't actually done anything.

Del didn't have to move Delilah; she vanished. Rattled, he climbed out of the pocket. Raker stood back, the carbine gripped in both hands. With no warning, he fired, blasting the crags where Del had hidden. Instead of turning to ash, the residue bizarrely ran across the ground and hardened into glass.

"You told Harriet you had new songs," Raker said.

"I told who?" Del asked.

"Me." Delilah appeared at Raker's side dressed in red lace panties and a little red top. "Harriet is my real name. I picked Delilah for you. Del. Delilah." She smiled. "It fits, don't you think?"

"Yeah." Sweat was gathering on Del's hands. "Sure."

"Sing something we've never heard before," Raker told him. "Something powerful."

Del stood with his hands at his side, instinctively poised to protect himself. He couldn't think of anything they had never heard except "Carnelians." He didn't want to give it to them, but he wanted even less to die. So he sang:

I'm no golden hero in the blazing skies
I'm no fair-haired genius hiding in disguise
I'm only a singer; it's all that I can do
But my voice is rising; I can sing the truth

"Oh, that's strong," Delilah said. She sounded as if she wasn't sure she wanted to approve or censure it. In the virt, Del couldn't pick up their emotions, probably because they were actually at consoles well separated from him. But he didn't think Raker liked the verse.