Diamond Star (51 page)

"What's the problem, Aunchild?" Zachary asked coldly.

"I have to talk to him," Staver said.

"I'll be back," Del said. "I just need some air." A year ago, he hadn't understood why people on Earth said they needed air when they were obviously breathing, but now it made perfect sense.

Staver tried to protest, but Zachary maneuvered Del away. The crowd parted for Prime-Nova's tech-mech king and closed behind him, blocking Staver's way.

"Over here," Zachary said. Although he smiled, unease leaked from his mind. "It looks like you may hit an even bigger market."

"Great." Del took a breath, trying to calm down. If this was a potential buyer, he wanted to make a good impression.

Zachary called to a tall man standing by the bar, surrounded by people. One instant passed between Zachary's call and Del's recognition of the name he spoke.

Lord Tarex.

An Aristo name.

Del went ice cold. In that moment, the man at the bar turned around. Del met his gaze and wanted to scream. Tarex's eyes were red--pure, crystalline red. Like rubies.
No, not rubies.
Never rubies. Carnelians. Like the Carnelian Throne of the Trader emperor.

Then Del and Zachary were in the midst of Tarex's retinue, surrounded by Traders. The slave lord was a big man, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with the shimmering black hair so distinctive of an Aristo. Del felt trapped, panicked, unable to breathe.

"Lord Tarex, let me present Del Arden." Zachary used the formal phrases expected for a dignitary. To Del he said, "Lord Tarex is the chief executive officer of Tarex Interstellar. He came here tonight to meet you."

Del stared at the Aristo, and Tarex met his gaze, his own as cold as interstellar space. Del felt as if he were falling into the void of Tarex's mind, plummeting, suffocating. Nor did Tarex miss that instant of comprehension. He stared at Del with a dawning realization of the hunter sighting his prey.

"Ah, yes," Tarex said. "I knew, when I saw you perform."

"Knew?" Del could barely speak.

"You're an empath," Tarex said.

Del backed away. He wanted to break into a run.

"Come on." A man grabbed his arm.

He looked up at Staver. "Get me out of here," Del whispered.

As Staver hurried him through the crowd, everything became a blur. The exec cut off anyone who tried to talk to them. At first Del didn't understand why people moved aside so easily; then he realized Tyra and Cameron were with them, clearing a path, had probably been there all along. Then they were in another room, an empty bedroom. Del collapsed against the wall and heaved in a breath. "Gods. It was like--like--"

"Like dying?" Staver asked. He dropped into a chair by the bed.

Another voice registered on Del. Tyra was talking to a console nearby. "--open a Kyle link. I'll give you the codes."

"No!" Del strode over to her, nearly tripping in the process, he was so shaken up. "Don't do that!"

Tyra stood up and swung around, facing him. She pointed her arm straight at the door that led back to the party. "There's a goddamned Silicate
Aristo
out there."

"Tarex doesn't know squat about me except that I'm an empath," Del said. "Which is probably obvious to any Aristo who sees me perform. Why the hell do you need to contact my brother?"

"This isn't some fan pushing you against the wall," Tyra said. "That Trader could turn your life into a nightmare."

"Only if you blow up the situation!" Del tried to calm his voice so she would listen. "If I leave, Tarex will be offended that I walked out, but I'm probably not the first person on Earth to react that way to him. So he's insulted and doesn't buy rights to my work." He took another breath and let it out slowly. "If you bring in my brother, it
could
become a major incident."

"I have to report this," she said.

"Tyra." Frustration strained his voice.

"I'm sorry." She looked past him to Staver. "I'll have to ask you to leave."

Staver stood up. "You want me to go out there?" His voice shook on the last word.

Alarm swelled in Del. "Staver is an empath! He can't go."

Tyra nodded, her face pale, and indicated a door by the bed. "That leads to another bedroom. You can wait in there."

"I don't understand." Staver came over to them. "Who is your brother?" he asked Del. To Tyra, he said, "What did you mean, report?"

"She's my bodyguard," Del said. "My brother hired her."

"Do
you
want me to leave?" he asked Del.

Del had no desire for Staver to see him humiliated by Kelric. "Maybe it'd be better. I'm sorry."

The door to the party hummed, and the room's AI said, "Ricki Varento would like to enter."

Tyra glanced at Del. It was an unspoken question: did he want Ricki to come in? Tyra had no idea how much that one gesture meant to him. His previous bodyguards would have decided whether or not to admit Ricki without asking him.

"Let her in," Del said.

The door slid open, bringing a wave of noise. Ricki stalked inside in her high, high heels. Her red dress glistened with holos, left her shoulders bare, and was slit up the side from the floor to her hip. Any other time Del's pulse would have gone into overdrive at the sight, but right now even Ricki at her most devastating couldn't affect him.

As the door closed, she came over and spoke softly to Del. "Are you all right?"

"What the hell?" Staver said.

Ricki frowned at the Skolian exec. "What?"

"I expected you to be furious," Staver said. "We just insulted your biggest client."

Ricki studied him. "You knew how Tarex would affect Del."

"Staver is an empath," Del said.

"Staver's right, babe," Ricki told him. "You pulled a major drill out there with Tarex. He's not saying anything, but I can tell. He's pissed enough to launch off a lune."

Del wasn't sure what she had just said, but he got the gist of it. "I can't talk to him. I can't be in the same
room
with him."

She considered him and Staver, then turned to Tyra. "It gets to you, too, doesn't it? You just hide it better."

"If you mean, does Lord Tarex exert a negative effect on the neurological physiology of my cerebral cortex, the answer is yes." Wryly Tyra added, "That translates as 'He scares the blistering hell out of me.' "

Ricki didn't look surprised. "I have to tell him something. I can't leave it like this."

"Tell him the truth," Del said. "He knows I'm an empath. Say I was so shaken up, I panicked. He's probably seen it a thousand times from his providers." With disgust, he said, "Tell him that his magnificent presence overwhelmed me."

Ricki frowned at him. "Sarcasm doesn't help, babe."

"I'm not being sarcastic. That's how slaves talk to Aristos. It's what Tarex expects." Del had to make a conscious effort not to grit his teeth. "Tell him, and he'll believe you."

Ricki pushed her hand through her long hair. "I don't claim to understand all this. But he scares me, too."

Del touched her cheek. "Don't go anywhere with him alone. He can't take you by force with so many people around."

She stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

"You're so pretty. You look like a provider." Del's voice hardened. "To Tarex, we're all slaves. If he got you into Trader territory, he could own you."

"Why would he?" she asked. "I'm not an empath. And I'm sure he can bonk all the sexpot slave girls he wants. So why piss off a major Allied conglomerate he hopes to do business with?"

"If you offend him, he won't care who he angers with his actions," Del said. "Aristos are the ultimate narcissists. They think they're gods. Don't even hint to him that you might defend my actions. Convince him you're on his side."

"Don't worry," Ricki said. "I've been in this business a long time, as your hard-assed brother so rudely pointed out when we were on the Moon. I can calm down drilled-off clients."

Del smiled. Any woman audacious enough to call his overpowering brother names was worth the pyrotechnics in their relationship. He pulled her close and bent his head as he kissed her. "Just be careful, okay?"

"I will."

After Ricki returned to the party, Staver raised an eyebrow at Del. "I didn't know kissing was part of the producer-artist arrangement at Prime-Nova."

The AI in the console spoke, saving Del from having to answer. "I have a Kyle link."

Tyra turned to Staver. "You'll have to go."

He hesitated, but when Del just waited, Staver nodded and left the room. Cameron took a post by the door after it closed and checked his wrist gauntlet, monitoring Staver.

Tyra sat at the console and set up the link to Kelric. Del stood behind her, his hand resting on the back of her chair. He didn't realize he was gritting his teeth until a stab of pain shot through his jaw. He rubbed his neck and tried to relax.

It wasn't Kelric who answered, though. In the strange universe of Del's recent communication with his family, of course the person they called didn't come on. This time, his brother Eldrin appeared. He looked exhausted. Dark circles showed under his eyes, and his face was drawn. The elegant furnishings of his living room gleamed, light gold wood with blue and white accents.

"Your Majesty." Tyra reddened. "Please accept my apologies for disturbing you. I must have misentered a code. I was trying to contact your brother."

"No, you didn't make an error." Eldrin rubbed his eyes. "Kelric is working in the Kyle web. He set your codes to contact my wife if you set up a link while he was unavailable."

"I didn't mean to disturb you at home," Tyra said. "The message should have gone through to her office."

"She's not there," Eldrin said. "She's here, asleep."

Del stiffened. Why would Dehya set up her system that way? He leaned over the console. "Eldrin? What happened to her?"

"Del!" His brother smiled. "My greetings."

"And mine," Del said. "Is Dehya all right?"

His brother's smile faded. "This pregnancy doesn't go well."

"She's
pregnant?
"

"Yes." Eldrin spoke quietly. "Her doctors fear the baby won't survive if he's premature. We've almost lost him twice."

"I'm sorry." Gods, how could Dehya be pregnant, apparently for months, and he hadn't known? They criticized him for not telling them about the singing, yet he knew nothing about this?

Stop it,
Del told himself.
You've avoided them for months. Why would they seek you out for something so painful?
If her doctors couldn't keep a premature baby alive even with all their modern medicine, the fetus's condition had to be terrible.

Eldrin was watching his face. "It's good to see you, Del."

Del hoped so. He had only been two years younger than Eldrin in their childhood, and they had been close as boys, but they had drifted apart in adolescence, and Del had seen little of him since he came out of cryo.

"It's good to talk to you," Del said. Gods, he sounded so stiff.

"I watched your concerts," Eldrin said. "I've never seen you sing that way before. It was interesting."

Interesting.
Del smiled wryly. "They have a curse here. It's used when you wish truly noxious things on a person. You say, 'May you live in interesting times.' "

Eldrin smiled, his face lightening. "I didn't mean it that way. You look happy when you sing. That is good."

"It is." Del hesitated, unsure what to say. His brother sat on the Ruby Throne now as consort to the pharaoh, and Del no longer knew how to talk to him. "I wish I could do something to help Dehya."

"Knowing that will mean a great deal to her." Even exhausted, Eldrin sounded regal. "It's the baby we're most worried about."

"Those doctors can do anything," Del said. "Hey, they even kept me alive."

"That they did." The thought did actually seem to give Eldrin comfort.

"Your Majesty, I'm sorry to intrude," Tyra said. "But I need to talk to Imperator Skolia as soon as he's available."

"I'll tell him," Eldrin said. "Can I help with it?"

"I don't know," she said. "There's an Aristo here, Lord Axil Tarex, who is interested in licensing Prince Del-Kurj's music."

Eldrin sat up straight. "Del! You have to leave Earth."

Del made an exasperated noise. "That would be subtle, to drop all my commitments and run off the week my latest release becomes the most popular anthology on Earth."

"It doesn't matter," Eldrin said.

"I already went through this with Kelric." Del wished he could make them see. "If I were a test pilot, like Kelric used to be, I would be putting my life in far more danger every time I went up in one of those fighters. Yet none of you would tell me to stop."

"This is different," Eldrin said. "You don't have to do it."

"No, it's
not
different. It's my job."

"What, singing like that?" Eldrin started to say more, then caught himself.

"Like what?" Del said.

Eldrin hesitated. "Live. Can't you give virtual concerts? When I sang those operas, I did it here on the Orbiter, in a mesh studio, with verification protocols that my voice wasn't enhanced. Billions of people watched. The virts have trillions of downloads. You wouldn't have to give up your singing."

"It's not the same." Del struggled to let go of his anger, for he understood the unstated pain beneath his brother's words. "You're the Ruby Consort. One of the most valuable people in three empires." He felt small. "I'm nothing, Eldrin. I'm no good to the Traders. I'd die if they tried to use me in a Kyle web. No reason exists for ISC to constrain me unless I ask for it. And I'm not." He hated saying that to his brother, who had been forced into his title. It was a mercy Eldrin and Dehya had fallen in love; otherwise, their situation could have been a nightmare.

Eldrin's gaze never wavered. "Don't say you're nothing. Those of us who love you don't feel that way."

Del had prepared many arguments for the next time someone in his family told him he should stop his singing here. He had been ready for any angle of attack--except
We love you.
He just stood, at a loss for words.

Eldrin suddenly looked down at his console. "Dehya's medical alarm just went off. I have to go." He glanced at Tyra. "Do you want Admiral Barzun?"