Diamond Star (7 page)

Mac stared at him. "Is
that
why you didn't want our doctors examining you more?"

Del shifted his weight. "Yes, partly."

"Aren't those treatments dangerous? They might deactivate a chemical your body needs." Mac hesitated. "I thought it was only done for drug addicts."

"I wasn't an addict," Del said. At least, he hadn't been then, though gods only knew where he might have ended up. "It's more dangerous for me
not
to have the nanos." He stared at his hands where they rested in his lap. "All these medical wonders we put in our bodies--they backfire sometimes."

Mac's voice went quiet. "What happened?"

It was a moment before Del could answer. "When I was younger, I experimented with tau-kickers." He looked back at Mac. "I thought they would make me a better artist. Expand my mind." In a brittle voice, he added, "I was stupid."

"Tau-kickers? What are those?"

Del wished he were anywhere but here, telling Mac his past. "Hallucinogens manufactured in mesh-slums on the world Metropoli." He almost stopped, but then he said, "Do you remember the glitter in the air on Lyshriol?"

Mac paused at the change of topic. "The pollen?"

"That's right. It's everywhere, the ground, air, water. You can't always see it, but it saturates the biosphere. That's why the clouds look blue. It's sort of like food dye."

"Ah. Yes, I remember." Mac smiled wryly. "My people had to get treatments so we didn't get sick from drinking the water."

Del had guessed as much. "Those of us who live there are born with protections. We have self-replicating molecules in our bodies to deal with it, like tiny chemical laboratories. A mother passes them to her child in the womb." Bitterly, he said, "I also carry nanomeds in my body that keep me healthy. Hell, I could live two centuries."

Mac was watching him closely. "I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me."

Del took a breath. "All these molecular wonders we put in our bodies--they're designed to work together. So they don't interact in a bad way and harm us."

Mac waited. Then he said, "But?"

Del stared at the back of the driver's head. "Sometimes even the best medicine doesn't work." He shrugged as if he didn't care, but he doubted he fooled Mac. "When I took the kickers, they kicked all right. They had some bizarre reaction with the nanomeds in my body. Once it started, it cascaded. My lungs, blood vessels, lymph, neural, hell, my breathing--it all went wild. Then everything shut down."

"Good Lord." Mac stared at him. "How did you survive?"

Del met his gaze. "I didn't."

Mac blinked. "You look alive to me."

Del turned to stare out the window next to him. "The doctors revived me. Eventually."

Silence.

Finally Mac said, "And they gave you new meds to counter any drugs the doctors thought could kill you?"

"That's right." Del watched the city glitter below. "Alcohol makes me more susceptible, so they took care of that, too." The doctors couldn't remove his nanomeds; their interactions with his body had become so complicated, it was impossible to take them out completely. And without them, ironically, he would no longer have protection against side-effects from the treatments that countered his susceptibility to drugs.

"You seem so healthy," Mac said. "So unaffected."

"I am healthy." Del couldn't say he was unaffected. It had been a horrific time in his life. Although his family was the royal dynasty of Skolia, the government had controlled their lives until just recently. Del had learned the hard way how those with power could exploit the vulnerabilities of people they sought to command.

Mac spoke gently. "There's more, isn't there?"

Del shook his head. He couldn't talk anymore. He was also aware of the general's men in the flycar. He doubted Allied Space Command cared about his personal hells; they wanted secrets that would impact their balance of power with Skolia. And he did know a few "little things," such as, oh, how far his brother the Imperator would go in negotiating the presence of Earth's military forces in Skolian space. Del would never tell the Allieds. So instead they knew he had been treated for drug use. That would fit right in with General Fitz McLane's low opinion of him. Del wished he had kept his mouth shut. He closed the memories away, trying to hide them where they couldn't hurt him.

"Just be careful," Mac said. When Del glanced at him, Mac smiled ruefully. "It's hard for me to imagine a Ruby prince in the holo-rock industry."

Del laughed without humor. "I'm sure for my family, it's hard to imagine anyone paying me to do this."

"Really?" Mac seemed genuinely surprised. "They know how you sing."

"They think I'm just making noise. They've never heard of rock, and I doubt they'd care if they knew about it." Del shook his head. "I'm not like them. I'm no prodigy or great fighter pilot. I'll never have a degree in anything. I can't teach or do scholarship or be a delegate in Assembly." Such simple words, and they hurt so much. "All I ever wanted was my music. And maybe even to have people
want
to hear it." Softly he said, "You gave me that today. Let me enjoy it while it lasts."

Mac's gaze never wavered. "You don't have to be a genius or world leader to consider your life worthwhile."

"Try living in my family," Del said with a bitterness he didn't want to feel. "Try being the only failure out of all those extraordinary people. Then tell me that."

"Del--"

He lifted his hand to stop Mac. He couldn't take any more. With a jerk, he indicated a gold tower below them. "Why are we circling that?"

Mercifully, Mac let go of his other questions. "That's the Star Tower. We're in a holding pattern to land on the roof flyport."

"Oh." Del set his hand down.

In moments, the flycar was descending. As it landed on the roof, Mac said, "I had quite a talk with General McLane tonight."

Del winced. "I'm afraid to ask about what."

Mac didn't tiptoe around the subject. "We'd like you to keep your identity a secret. The fewer people who know, the easier it will be to protect you."

The request didn't surprise Del. Nor did he object, even if it did come from the authoritarian McLane. He had no desire to have his name associated with his famous kin. If he had some small measure of success, he wanted it to come from his singing, not because he was a member of the Ruby Dynasty.

"I hadn't planned on telling anyone," Del said.

Someone swung open his door, and he looked up to see his bodyguard standing outside. The man had no uniform, just casual slacks and a holo-mesh shirt, but he had
military
emblazoned all over him, from his buzzed hair to his rigid posture.

Del glared at Mac. "He's not coming with me."

"You can't go alone," Mac said. When Del scowled, he added, "No, he won't be on your date with Ricki. He'll escort you into the Sheraton. After they take you to Ricki, he'll join the guards in the key-room for the penthouse Prime-Nova keeps here." Dryly he added, "Prime-Nova has better security than we do at the base."

"What for?" Del asked, intrigued.

"Entertainment is a huge business," Mac said. "And Prime-Nova is one of the largest conglomerates. A lot of people want to be where you are right now."

Del wasn't sure what to think about that, but it reminded him of the idealized fantasy so many people had of Ruby Heirs. They had no idea. Those fantasies had nothing to do with reality.

He stepped out of the flycar and stood next to the Marine. Looking up at the large fellow, he said, "Hello." He would have expected Fitz to choose someone less obvious, but then, he knew so little about life here, he had no idea what was obvious.

"Good evening, Your Highness," the man rumbled.

"You better not call me 'Highness' once we're inside," Del said.

"I won't," the Marine assured him.

Del hesitated, not wanting to feel intimidated by his own guard. "What's your name?"

"Sergeant Cameron."

Del nodded awkwardly to the giant. Then he turned to Mac, who was still in the car. "Thanks for talking to me."

Mac scooted over to Del's side. "Just remember what I said."

Del grinned. "Aren't you worried about Ricki, stuck with a reprobate like me?"

Mac smiled. "Call me tomorrow, all right? We need to talk about your contract."

"Sure." Del lifted his hand in farewell.

Then he headed into the Star Tower.

IV: Tower of Dreams

Ricki saw him in the window first. She was sitting in her tall chair, facing the glass wall, looking over the glistening city. And there, reflected in the glass, was an even more appealing vision: Del, walking into the room.

She turned around as the wall behind Del re-formed, leaving them alone in the Sky Room. He had looked good earlier today, but that was nothing compared to now. His tailored leather jacket was deliciously sinful, fitting his lean frame perfectly. He had left it unfastened, revealing a white shirt open at the neck just enough to show a triangle of chest hair.

Careful,
Ricki thought. She never let people affect her too much, even just by noticing them. It gave them control, which meant the power to hurt her. She was a cool operator, smooth and unruffled, and she ignored the misguided poets who claimed they saw past her icy exterior to a lonely soul. She wasn't affected by the way those black leather pants clung to Del's legs. And that belt made out of starship ring fittings that rested so low on his hips, hugging his anatomy--goodness. His boots had just enough heel to shift his hips forward, accenting his sensual build. His hair, well that was just protein . . . gleaming, luxuriant protein that framed his face, his pouting mouth, and those huge eyes, as if he were some beautiful, wicked angel who could snarl like a devil.

Oh my.

"Hello," Ricki purred.

Del stalked over and slid into the other chair at the table. Tilting his head toward the window, he said, "That's quite a view." Without taking his eyes off her, he added, "Spectacular, in fact."

Ah, sweet seduction.
She smiled at him. "That's why Prime-Nova keeps this suite."

A hum came from a glimmering mesh on the table, followed by the voice of the human bartender who served the penthouse. "Would your guest care for a drink, Ms. Varento?"

Ricki raised her eyebrow at Del.

"Orange juice," Del said.

Ricki laughed softly. "You may look like a lethal weapon, but I think the farm boy is still in there." She spoke into the comm. "Jack, bring him up one like you did for me, double time."

"Right away, ma'am."

"Like yours?" Looking disconcerted, Del tapped her cut-crystal glass. "That drink is
blue.
"

"Blue as a Night Dazer, which is what it's called." It was such a dumb name, it sounded like something she would come up with. "Mostly it's Southern Comfort."

Del laughed in his rumbling voice. "Whose comfort?"

"Haven't you had whiskey before?"

His smile vanished. "Yes."

Huh. What caused that reaction? "But not lately?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I not remember."

"You'll like this one."

He didn't answer, he just looked restlessly around the room. His gaze came to rest on the spectacular view outside the tower. "Nothing is like this where I live."

"You come from a place called Lyshriol, right?" When he didn't answer, she said, "I looked it up on the mesh. I couldn't find anything about a colony with that name."

"It is small place, not much." His gaze softened as he turned to her. "I translated another song tonight."

"Oh. Good." It relieved her that he hadn't objected when they told him the songs had to be in English. A lot of her acts sang in Chinese or Spanish. If he had been doing fusion, he could have sung in any language, even one he made up. But for holo-rock, labels wanted English, mainly for historical reasons, because it had started in English-speaking countries.

Curious, she said, "What language were you singing before?" Maybe talking about his home would relax him.

He smiled slightly. "It's called Trillian. From offworld."

Huh. That sounded made-up. "I've never heard of it."

"It's an old language."

"It can't be that old," Ricki said. "The earliest offworld colony has only been around a hundred and fifty years."

Del considered her as if she were a decision he needed to ponder. Then he said, "I don't come from an Allied colony. Lyshriol was one of the lost colonies from the Ruby Empire. Your people found it about a hundred years ago."

Ricki gaped at him. "You're
Skolian?
"

"Earth found us. Not the Skolians." Although guarded, he wasn't avoiding her gaze. "Some resort planners from Texas started to set up hotels there, but it didn't work out. So they left."

Ricki had always had an internal detector for when people lied to her, an intuition that proved invaluable in her business. She thought Del was telling the truth. Still, it sounded weird. "So you're saying you come from an offworld settlement that's five thousand years old."

"That's right." He was watching her closely. "Does that bother you?"

"Well, no." She had no idea what to make of it. "I've never understood this business about the Skolian colonies. I don't see how they can be five thousand years old. Humans lived in caves back then."

Del shrugged. "Some race took humans from Earth and left them on another planet."

Although Ricki had heard the story, she had never believed it at a gut level. "Why would a bunch of aliens take humans from Earth thousands of years ago and strand them on some other world?"

"We don't know. They vanished."

Ricki couldn't help but laugh. "So your ancestors, a bunch of Stone Age primitives, set up an interstellar empire? Come on."

"Not right away." Del didn't seem offended by her questions. "It take a thousand years. Even then, they manage only because they have libraries." He stopped, then said, "I mean, they
managed
because they had libraries. The beings that kidnapped them left behind libraries that describe the science. Described, I mean."

It amazed her how fast he was learning English. And what a deliciously odd development in her new act. "So this interstellar empire they set up thousands of years ago--that's what Skolians call the Ruby Empire?"