Diamond Star (35 page)

Del waited. When Staver had nothing more to add, he almost said,
That's it?
They put him through all this for nothing? But he bit back the words. They were being careful.

Staver stood up. "Are you steadier?"

"Sure." Del rose to his feet. He had thought his vision was still blurred, but he felt all right. The room was just dark.

"We should get back to San Francisco," Staver said.

Del would have insisted on an antidote, except he didn't want to risk taking unfamiliar drugs twice in one day. Instead he frowned at Staver. "I shouldn't go anywhere with people. I might spill all sorts of embarrassing stuff the next time someone asks how I feel about being Prime-Nova's pretty boy."

Staver smiled. "The teracore should wear off in about thirty minutes. It will take longer than that for us to get back if we take the scenic drive up the coast."

Scenic indeed. Staver wanted to extract more information from him. Del had to admit, though, the view from that cliff-side road was spectacular. He had never seen an ocean so close before. It astonished him that humans had once taken vessels of wood, metal, and canvas out on that endless water. Starships seemed safe in comparison.

So he went with Staver and struggled to be patient. If they wanted his help, they would contact him.

The New Filmore didn't seem new to Del; the building was at least sixty years old. Mac told him it had been built on the site of something called Filmore West, so "new" came from that. Regardless, the acoustics were a dream, and his voice filled the place. The audience liked him from the moment he came on, after a warm-up from a local band. People filled seats and thronged the floor, dancing or standing, with girls sitting on the shoulders of their boyfriends so they could see over the crowd.

"It's great to be here in San Francisco!" Del called out. The audience shouted their agreement. Randall was morphing his guitar, coaxing out waves of music. Anne had turned on the echo engine for her drums, creating a resonance that gave them an incredible, rich, powerful sound. Jud sat in the center of his morpher like a fighter pilot in a cockpit.

Jud glanced at him with a questioning gaze. Del knew what he wanted to do. "Carnelians." Del never intended to perform it in public. But tonight he did sing "Starlight Child":

When the forever snows
Tightened their embrace
While my dreaming thoughts froze
You rose with newborn grace
Nothing ever will compare
Nothing ever will come close
Your eyes, your skin, your shining hair
Starlight child, my heart knows

He moved around less than usual because the song was more difficult than his others. The words were birds taking flight, soaring out of him with joy and pain, rising into the crystalline night of Earth until they found their way to the glittering stars.

XV: The Perfect Virt

The Los Angeles Coliseum was the largest indoor venue Del had played, and tonight people swarmed the place. The crowd poured into the lot behind the Coliseum as the band's hover-van pulled up.

"Are you sure the security guys will meet us?" Del asked for the third time. "They didn't in Chicago."

Mac was sitting across from him in the circular seat. "They'll be there."

"We should have used the underground tunnels," Del said uneasily.

"I thought you wanted to see your fans," Randall called from a seat up front.

Del felt trapped. "I didn't know it would be so many people."

Jud looked up with a start as the van jerked. "What the hell was that?"

The craft settled on the ground, and its turbines powered down.

"Van, why are you stopping?" Mac asked.

"If I keep going," it said, "I could injure someone out there."

"I'm glad we sent the instruments earlier," Anne said. They had learned their lesson at the Chicago Sports Fields.

Del stood up. "Let's just get it over with."

"I dunno," Randall drawled. "Could be rough out there. All those women might want to kiss you."

"Ha, ha," Del said. Although he did want to connect with his audience, it was no longer flattering when people pulled at his clothes, his hair, his body. Sometimes it had sexual overtones, especially with women, but often people just wanted to
touch
him. Maybe it all had subliminal sexual messages; he didn't know. He just wished it would stop.

The Coliseum was a mammoth circular structure that filled a city block and towered above them. Holos morphed up and down its sides, splashes of color mixed with giant images of Del's face, of Del leaping in the air, of Del shouting into the mike. Too much Del. He wanted to escape himself.

As Cameron opened the van, people surged forward. Four guards stepped out of the crowd, armor glinting, faces hidden by helmets. When Del and the band jumped down, the guards formed a bulwark around them. Their armor reflected faces from the crowd: a girl calling, a man tossing a crumpled paper, a youth craning to see. People pressed in, and the guards held them off as they escorted Del and the band forward. They couldn't stop every touch, not without getting rough, which would defeat the whole point of "meeting fans." A hand slid through Del's hair, another person brushed his lips, a third scraped his legs. He pushed away someone pulling his belt,
undoing
it. Someone else shoved a guard and knocked him against Del. The guard grabbed Del's arm, holding him up.

"This is too much," Del said under his breath.

"No kidding," Jud muttered next to him, pushing a dreadlock out of his eyes.

Then they were under the overhang of the Coliseum, in its shadow, the entrance looming before them. An airlock membrane slid across Del's skin as he went inside. The last guard stepped through behind him and flicked his gauntleted hand across his belt. The air shimmered, and when Del turned around, he saw the crowd pressing forward against an invisible barrier.

Del set his palms against the barrier while he looked out at the people. They stared back as if he were an exotic creature they had trapped. Then a girl at the front smiled shyly. Like the release of gas through a valve, Del's tension flowed away. He smiled at her and waved. A ripple of approval went through the crowd as people waved back at him.

"You all right?" one of his guards asked.

Del looked up. The giant had taken off his helmet, revealing a man with a rugged face and sandy hair.

"Yeah, sure," Del said, trying not to sound shaky. "Sure. I'm fine."

Submerged within ghostly holos that rippled throughout the giant Coliseum, Del crooned into his mike:

No answers live in here alone
No answers on this spectral throne
Nothing in this vault of fears
This sterling vault, chamber of tears

But his tears had never been steel, for he was vulnerable in a way his sterling vault would never know:

Tell me now before I fall
Release from this velvet pall
Tell me now before I fall
Take me now, break through my wall
No answers will salvage time
No answers in this tomb sublime
This winnowing crypt intertwined
This crypt whispering in vines

He sang, mourning the time he had lost in cryogenesis, in his life, in his soul, but he sang also with joy for his rebirth:

No answers could bring me life
Yet when I opened my eyes
Beyond the sleeping crystal dome
Beyond it all, I had come home

The audience listened and danced and tried to climb on the stage, but Del didn't think anyone really understood the song. Who among them had lost nearly half a century of his life while the universe went on without them? He had no answers because there were none. It had just
happened.

Death had called his name, but by a fluke of luck, he had escaped its summons. Cryo had kept him alive, and if that rebirth had been a form of hell, at least he had survived. He had no answers for why he should have survived, but gods willing, maybe he would live long enough to find at least one.

After the concert, Del helped the stage crew take down the light amplifiers. Why, he didn't know; he was no tech or light expert. But he liked the manual labor. Princes weren't supposed to, but he was more farm boy than royalty. So he did whatever tasks the bemused techs gave him. When they finished, he walked back to the green room with Cameron at his side, his bodyguard silent, respecting his need for the privacy of his own thoughts.

The band had left a hover-car so Cameron could drive Del to the hotel. Mac surprised Del by approving of his staying late. He considered it even better than sneaking Del out of the Coliseum. People would believe Del was long gone, probably to a party, which was what everyone seemed to think he did all the time. What he really wanted was his bliss-node. He needed to untangle his mind.

Del had spent most of the night since the concert lost in thought. He kept wondering if he should talk to his family. He just didn't know what to say.
Look at me.
He had achieved his heart's goal, to have his music accepted. And it felt wonderful. But when he thought of telling them, it seemed trivial. They were making history, literally changing how humanity existed among the stars. And what did he do for a living? He yelled into a mike he didn't even really need.

As the Imperator, his brother Kelric was the greatest defense the Imperialate had against the Traders. For all that Del found it humiliating to have the "little" brother he had once babysat treat him as a defiant youth, he knew perfectly well Kelric offered far more to their people than Del would ever have to give.

Del longed to do something his mother admired. He wanted her to be proud of him. He knew she loved him, but he also felt her disappointment. Maybe it hit her so hard because he had turned away from the life of the Dalvador Bard, which had defined his father.

For the past year, since the Allieds had taken Del away from Lyshriol, no one had acted as Bard. Del was supposed to ask one of his brothers to do it, but he considered Chaniece a better choice. She was the best singer of their siblings still on Lyshriol, and she enjoyed the Dalvador music. She also served as guardian of the Valdoria estate and lands, and she had no desire to leave them, which was perfect for the Bard.

Del knew his family wanted him to assume the title. He had acted as Bard those first months after his father's death. He wished he could bear the thought of going home and carrying on his father's legacy. But if he forced himself to kill his dreams, he would die from a starvation of the spirit.

The voices of two women floated from behind a curtain by the stage, interrupting his thoughts.

"--don't see why everyone thinks he's so cute," one said. "He's not."

"I think he is," the other said. "I've always liked guys with brown hair. And he has a nice nose."

Del smiled, wondering if the subject of their attention knew he had a nice nose.

The first woman snorted. "He looks like a girl."

"What, a guy has to be Mister Blocky Chin to turn you on?" the other said, laughing. "I like his pretty face."

Del was about to joke to Cameron about the poor fellow under discussion when the first woman said, "That would make a great ad. Del Arden, the prettiest man in rock."

Del stopped smiling. Pretty?
Pretty?
He was not
pretty.

Cameron laughed at his side. "Don't take it so personally. Not everyone has the same tastes."

Del glared at him. "Flowers are pretty. Not men. And my hair is red."

A woman came around the curve of the hallway. Startled, Del stopped stock-still, blocking the way. She was blond and buxom, dressed in a lacy pink dress that clung to her voluptuous curves. She looked like a younger version of Ricki. He didn't recognize her from any crew, and she shouldn't be here otherwise, but he doubted he had met every stagehand.

The girl smiled at Del. Remembering what the other woman had said about his masculinity, or supposed lack of it, he just tensed. Maybe this one thought he was too pretty, too.

"Hello." She sounded uncertain. "Is something wrong?"

Del mentally shook himself. "No! Not at all." He flashed his best smile. His best
masculine
smile. "I was trying to figure out why I hadn't seen you. Because I know I'd remember."

"I remember you," she said softly. "You sing like an angel."

"I've no halo, believe me," he said. He wished Cameron would go away.

"Oh, it's there," she teased. "A little tarnished. They're more interesting that way, don't you think?"

Del couldn't help but laugh. "What's your name, mystery girl?"

"Delilah."

"Are you on the stage crew, Delilah?" Gods, she was sexy in that flimsy lace. "Taking apart sets is a dull business."

She pursed her mouth. "Did you have something else in mind?"

Del knew he should say no. He thought of Ricki. Then he thought of waking up alone and how it hurt so damn much. She wouldn't talk to him about it. He questioned whether she would ever let him close enough to understand. He wasn't certain they even had a relationship.

"Well, I don't know--" Del started to say.

The girl stepped closer. "You don't?"

Del met her gaze and thought,
Why the hell not?
He was lonely, and she was lovely and willing. But gods, he was tired of Cameron knowing his private moments. He had to get rid of the Marine.

"Meet me here in half an hour," Del murmured.

"If you're not afraid to come back," Delilah said.

He smiled at her. "Come back, and I'll show you."

Her lashes lowered seductively over her eyes. "Promises, promises." Then she sashayed on, down the hall.

Del watched her go, her hips swaying, her long legs round and firm. Letting out a breath, he headed the other way, wondering how he would ditch Cameron.

It took Del too long to give Cameron the slip. When he finally returned to where he had asked Delilah to meet him, she was gone. Oh, well. Maybe she wouldn't have liked him anyway.

A rustle came from a side hall. Puzzled, Del went over and looked down it. Someone in a pink dress was going around a distant corner. It was hard to see because it was dark except for a spillover from this hallway.

"Delilah?" Del went down the hall. At the junction where it turned left, he stared down a new corridor. It was even darker, but he thought he saw a woman in a pink dress.