Diamond Star (17 page)

"Great." Del pulled two beers out of the icer and came over with the drinks in one hand and the cube in the other. He mimed throwing the beer, but when Mac glared, Del grinned and handed it to him. Then he dropped into a nearby chair.

"Do you think Jason Mulroney really wants to interview me?" Del asked.

"Sure. You'll need someone to set it up." Mac flipped open his beer, which cooperated this time. "You need a publicist. Someone to field requests for interviews, send out promotional materials, all that."

"Ricki said something about Prime-Nova looking into it."

Mac snorted. "Ricki won't do anything for an undercity news service. She wants to separate your image from them." Wryly he added, "She'll say it's because they aren't commercial, but I think she just doesn't like them. They don't scrape and bow to her."

Del tilted his bottle back and forth as if suddenly fascinated by the condensation on its surface. "Have you heard from her?"

"Not since Philadelphia." It was three in the morning now, so technically Del's Philadelphia concert had been two days ago.

"I guess she's busy." Del glanced around restlessly. "You know, these hotel rooms all look the same."

"Don't let Ricki get to you."

Del glanced at him like a deer caught in a glare of laser-light lamps. "It's just--I didn't think I hurt her, but now I wonder."

"I'm sure you didn't." The only person Mac saw getting hurt was Del.

"I would know," Del said, more to himself than Mac. "I was upset about the concert, and maybe it came out in how I treated her. But I
felt
it, Mac. She likes me edgy. I don't understand why she's acting like this."

Mac took a long drink of his beer, cold and frothy. "Men have been trying since the beginning of human life to figure out why women don't act the way we think they should. If you manage it, you'll win a Nobel Peace Prize."

"I can't even understand half of what she says," Del grumbled. "Like what is 'dom' and 'sub'?"

Mac choked on his beer and sputtered out froth.

"What?" Del regarded him with curiosity.

Mac suddenly wished he were elsewhere. He was no innocent, but this was more information than he needed about Del and Ricki.

Del laughed, watching his face. "I've never seen you blush. Come on, give. What does it mean?"

Mac cleared his throat. "It refers to a type of, um, sex play."

"Really?" Del looked even more intrigued. "Like what?"

"You know. Dominance. Submission."

"Dominance and submission of what?"

"For crying out loud, Del. Of the people doing it."

"You mean sex?"

"Yeah, I mean sex."

Del tilted his head. "Dominant how?"

This was excruciating. "One partner is, uh, the dominant one. He, or she I suppose, does things to the other person." He wished Del would start getting it, so Mac could stop saying it.

"What things?" Del asked.

Mac took a big swallow of beer. "Like, uh, tying up someone. Discipline. Um. Spanking. Like that." He squinted at Del. "This isn't really my thing. Maybe we should change the subject."

Del was staring at him. "Oh.
Oh.
" Then he smiled. "You know, if Ricki doesn't--"

"Enough!" Mac's face was definitely heating. "I don't want to know what that smile means."

Del regarded him innocently. "What, I can't smile?"

"So," Mac said too loudly. "Did you have a good dinner tonight? I haven't tried the hotel restaurant yet."

Del burst out laughing. "All right. Yeah, dinner was fine. Some weird thing called a tuna-tish melt."

"You mean tuna fish?"

"I have no idea." Del's smile faded. He fell silent, lost in thought, staring at the floor. After a moment, he said, "I wonder sometimes if they aren't in all of us a little."

"Who?" Mac asked.

Del raised his gaze. "The Aristos."

It took Mac a moment to reorient. Startled, he realized Del was comparing himself to the leaders of the Trader Empire that the Skolians had fought during the war.

"Good Lord," Mac said. "That stuff with Ricki's crowd is just games. A consensual form of play. She wasn't comparing you to an Aristo slave lord."

"I know." Del got up and paced away, then swung around to face Mac. "But the drive to hurt people didn't just appear in the Traders. They may have magnified it to horrific proportions, but it's always been in us."

"Horrific?" Mac raised his eyebrows. "Isn't that a bit melodramatic? I've heard what your people claim, but--"

"We don't
claim.
" Del punched at the air with his fist. "All you Allieds, you sit here satisfied with yourselves while the Traders hack away at my people. Oh, you're safe. Our civilization is so much bigger than yours, you hide in our shadow. And the new Trader emperor is only seventeen. But give him time. He'll turn into a monster just like his predecessors." He pointed at Mac. "One of these days, the Traders will come after all of you. And it'll be too late then for you to listen to us."

That had certainly hit a nerve. Mac pushed up out of his chair and walked over to him. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?" Del asked angrily. "About the slavery of billions? Brutality on a scale you can't imagine?"

"I've seen Trader cities," Mac said quietly. "Their people have the highest standard of living among any of our civilizations."

"Of course they do," Del said. "There's over a trillion of them. Owned by several thousand Aristos. How do so few slave owners subjugate so many people? Make their lives pleasant. As long as they obey, they live well and the empire thrives."

"I agree that owning people is abhorrent," Mac said. "I've no love for Aristos. But what you're describing is hardly horrific."

Del met his gaze. "You think a nice house is worth constant oppression? If they step out of line, they die. It's called genocide, Mac. The Aristos can't risk defiance when so few of them control so many people." An edge honed his voice. "So what if you kill a few billion? There's plenty more where they came from."

Mac had heard similar from the Skolian military, when they sought Earth's support in their war against the Traders. They called the Aristos masters at propaganda. Yet Mac had seen a great deal of evidence for how well the Aristos treated their people and very little proof of the Skolian claims.

"Have you actually witnessed any of this?" Mac asked.

Del spoke tightly. "You don't want to go there."

"I want to understand. I'll listen, but not to propaganda."

"
Propaganda
?" Del looked ready to explode. "We
underplay
the truth with your people, because your damn government is always accusing us of overreacting. You have no flaming idea."

"Then
tell
me."

Del ground out the words as if they were broken glass. "They killed my brother Kurj. They tortured my brother Althor. He died. They tortured my brother Eldrin. He got free, but he still hasn't recovered. They shattered my father and fed off his agony. They caught my mother and--and--we got her out, but at first she couldn't even talk."

An image jumped into Mac's mind of the golden woman he had so recently witnessed scolding her son across interstellar space.

Del went on, relentless. "My sister's squad discovered that the Aristos planned to destroy the atmosphere of the world called Tams Station, to crush a rebellion on that planet. Her squad helped the colony evacuate. They got a third of the people out.
One third.
Think about it. Two thirds of a world
died.
It's all imprinted in the brains of the squad EIs." His voice cracked. "Yes, I've seen it."

Good Lord.
"I'm sorry about your family. I had no idea." Mac knew the Traders had killed Del's sister, the previous Imperator, and his half-brother Kurj, the Imperator before her. The rest of what Del was telling him about his family had never been made public. "I've heard stories of how they destroyed the atmosphere of Tams, but I've never met anyone who saw EI records of it." To say the EI brains of a Jag fighter squadron were classified was akin to saying a beach had a few grains of sand.

Del just shook his head. He walked away, then stopped when a table blocked his way. Sitting down, he stared at the table. "My father lived for years, but he never fully recovered. It's only been a few months since he died."

Mac went around and sat across from him. "It's been a rough time."

Del looked up. "It would be easier if the Aristos just wanted to kill my family. But they want us alive. So they can hurt us."

It wasn't the first time Mac had heard that claim, but before it had been from Skolian officials. Hearing it from one of the people who would suffer at the hands of the Traders was different. "Why would they target you that way?"

"I suppose you could say Aristos are anti-empaths." Del's voice was brittle. "They came out of something called the Rhon Project."

"I thought that project was meant to help empaths."

"It was." Del took a breath. "Being an empath is like--I don't know the word. Like living with this constant, endless pressure. Last night, when I felt how much people liked the concert, it was good.
Great.
But when you pick up anger, grief, anything like that, it's painful. If we couldn't shut it out, we'd go insane."

Mac thought of the dossiers he had read on the Ruby Dynasty. "Wasn't the purpose of the Rhon Project to help psions create mental shields? To protect yourselves."

Del nodded. "That's why we know how to do it. But Doctor Rhon also changed our genes. Not mine, my ancestors. He was trying to lower our sensitivity to painful input." He gave a strangled laugh. "It didn't quite end up the way he expected."

"The research didn't work?"

"Oh, it worked," Del said. "It created the Aristos. They can pick up empathic signals from psions.
Pain
signals, both physical and mental. Only those. And you know how the Aristo brain lowers its sensitivity to the signals? By rerouting them to its pleasure centers." His voice cracked. "They're a bunch of sadists, Mac. Hurting us makes them feel good. They call us providers because our pain 'provides' them pleasure. They're brutal and sick, and they think they're exalted, that they have a right to inflict whatever they damn well please because they're gods and we're scum."

Del's words felt like punches. Mac had never heard it this way, with a target of the Aristos looking him straight in the eye, telling it in his words rather than the careful phrases of diplomacy. "I wish my people understood yours better."

"We need each other." Del gave a wry grin. "That's why the Skolian military didn't zap you all for keeping my royal butt here."

Mac smiled slightly, relieved to see Del's mood improve. "You're learning our slang."

"Ultra swivel." Del laughed with a wince. "Like my hips, apparently."

"Sorry about that review."

"It's a lot better than what Fred Pizwick said." Del's smile turned into a frown. "I did
not
use a Roberts Enhancer."

"Michael Laux on the Atlantic City-Time Hour wants to interview you about that." Mac offered the subject more to take Del's mind off the Aristos than because it had any urgency. "He wants you to do the exercise live, to prove you don't use an enhancer."

"Good!" Del shook his head. "I don't see how Pizwick can get away with saying I used one."

"He won't," Mac said. "But hell, you couldn't pay for this kind of publicity."

Del smiled wryly. "To sell my nonexistent vid."

"We'll get you in the studio tomorrow." Mac glanced at his wrist-mesh. "You should get some sleep. It's almost four."

"All right." Del stood up and rubbed his eyes. "I'll see you." He went to the door, then paused to look back. "And Mac--"

"Yes?"

Del spoke softly. "Thanks for listening."

Mac nodded, wishing he could do more. Like change the universe so one part of the human race wasn't preying on the other.

Del sat down at the console in his hotel room and clicked in the virt cube Mac had given him. A female voice said, "Virtual reality simulation array loaded."

That sounded impressive. "What do I do?" Del asked.

"Your question is vague," the console said. "Please be specific."

"How do I listen to the virt?"

"With yourself or someone else in it?"

In
it? Del wasn't sure what that meant. "With me."

"Do you have internal biomech augmentation compatible with a Pacifica tri-media system?"

"Uh, no. I don't think so."

"You'll need a virt suit, then."

"Do you have one?"

"Check the lower drawer of this console."

Del investigated until he figured out how to click open the console drawer. A blue suit inside transparent packaging lay there with a visored helmet. He lifted out the suit. "So do I put this on?"

"That is correct. Remove your clothes first."

He laughed sleepily. "I'd rather hear that from Ricki."

Del changed into the suit and sat down, holding the helmet. With the console telling him what to do, he linked into the virt, then donned the helmet and settled back in the reclining chair. It was comfortable in the dark with the visor over his eyes. If nothing happened, he could get a few hours of sleep before the room AI insisted he get out of bed. Or chair.

The room lightened--no, not the room! He was standing in a rippling field that sparked under golden light. The sweet fragrance of the fresh grass tickled his nose, and a breeze tousled his hair. Insects trilled nearby.

"Hey," Del said. "Ultra."

A man was walking toward him through the field.

"Rex?" Del asked. It looked like the lead singer of Mind Mix.

"Hey." Rex came up and offered his hand. "Good to see you."

Del shook his hand, and Rex's skin felt warm and textured.

"Hi," Del said.

"Would you like a tour?" Rex asked.

"Sure." This was more than Del expected. His family had an entertainment center at home, but it was mostly books, because his parents had wanted their children to read instead of playing virts. It had constantly frustrated Del; out of ten siblings, only he had never learned to read. Sure, an AI could read to him. But he preferred music. His people used songs as their "libraries." In their distant past they had bred the Bards to create and remember historical ballads. Musical archives.