Diamond Star (41 page)

Dehya sat down at the table and rubbed her eyes. "I don't know. I say, just leave him alone."

That gave Windar pause. He hadn't thought
I don't know
was in his aunt's vocabulary. She always had ideas.

Eldrin sat next to her. "Are you all right?"

Roca was also watching her. "Dehya? What is it?"

"I'm just tired," the pharaoh said.

Kelric wasn't buying it. "There's more than that."

"You know," Dehya said wryly, "this business of living in a family of empaths has its drawbacks."

Eldrin regarded her, and she met his gaze. Although the two of them were guarding their minds, Windar caught the hint of a silent conversation between them. Something private, so he mentally withdrew and waited.

Then Dehya spoke to Eldrin. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, his face drawn. "Yes."

"What is it?" Roca asked.

Dehya looked around at them. She said, simply, "I'm pregnant."

Windar froze.
What?

"Saints, Dehya," Roca said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Dehya said.

Windar didn't believe it, and he doubted the others did.

Dehya gave Windar a wry look. "Nor does the Assembly."

His face heated with a flush. He hadn't realized she was picking up his thoughts.

"You're just telling us?" Kelric rumbled. "But the Assembly already knows?"

"The Inner Circle, yes," Eldrin said. His fist clenched on the table. "Our doctor told the First Councilor before he told us."

Roca stared at him. "He had no right!"

Eldrin's voice tightened. "I put it far less diplomatically."

Kelric was watching Dehya. "The Assembly ordered you to abide by their decision about this pregnancy, didn't they?"

"And I told them to go to hell." Steel glinted in her gaze. "The days when they can force us at gunpoint to marry or do their bidding are over. We control half the government now."

Kelric's mind blazed with power. "And the entire military."

Roca spoke gently to Dehya. "What do the doctors say?"

At first she didn't answer. But finally she said, "The fetus is missing most of both legs. Some organs are in the wrong place or malformed." Her eyes were glossy with tears, the only time Windar had seen her cry. "But his brain is fine. His beautiful Ruby brain." She rubbed her palm over her eyes. "The doctors hope they can heal him. It will take years.
If
he survives. He could die when he's born. He could die
any
time. I could miscarry. It's--" Her voice broke, and Eldrin took her hand.

"Gods," Kelric said in a low voice.

"What are you going to do?" Roca asked.

Dehya met her gaze. "Whatever hells the Assembly forged by forcing our marriage, this is still our child. We're already linked to his mind."

"To end the pregnancy would end part of ourselves," Eldrin said.

"You'll go through with it?" Windar asked. It sounded torturous, yet he also wanted his nephew to survive.

"Yes," Dehya said in a subdued voice.

"I'm sorry," Roca murmured.

Kelric scowled at Dehya. "You should have goddamned tossed out the entire Assembly when you overthrew the government."

"The thought occurred to me," she said dryly. "But it's a good government, Kelric, despite everything. Without them, we would weaken ourselves. And we can't afford that with the Traders at our borders, waiting for us to stumble."

"Like hell it's a good government," Kelric said. "I would have pitched the whole contentious lot of them. Look at what they've done to the two of you. It never ends, even when they can't control us any more."

Roca spoke as if she were picking her way through glass. "Why would they pressure you into this? They know the danger, with you two related. If your children are so impaired they can't be heirs to the Kyle-mesh, it defeats the Assembly's purpose."

Windar wished he could help. A child should be cause for rejoicing, not grief. But they all knew the truth; Dehya and Eldrin should never have children. Years ago, a desperate Assembly had forced Dehya to obey an ancient law requiring the pharaoh to marry her own kin. It hadn't been because they cared about that obsolete decree. They wanted more Ruby psions. The scientists didn't yet know why they could neither create nor clone a Ruby psion; they knew only that a Ruby mother had to carry a Ruby child. But the recessive genes also carried devastating mutations. It could kill this child.

"Denric." Eldrin was watching him. "It's our choice. They haven't forced us."

It was startling to hear Eldrin use his real name, Denric, instead of his nickname, Windar. Eldrin did that when he wanted to emphasize his words.

Windar spoke quietly. "Then you should do it."

Dehya looked around at them. "We damn the Assembly, yet at the same time, we talk about forcing Del to leave his dream." She let out a breath. "He'll never be like us. Instead of pushing him into a mold he'll never fit, maybe we should let him alone."

Roca spoke with pain. "I won't watch my son kill himself."

"We can send him a bodyguard," Dehya said. "A Jagernaut."

"You know how he'll react," Kelric said. "He'll turn into a supernova."

"Have Chaniece talk to him," Windar suggested. Even when Del refused to acknowledge the rest of them existed, he always had time for his twin sister.

"She won't do it if she thinks we're intruding on his life," Eldrin said. Wryly he added, "She'll be the one urging him to tell us where we can put our ideas."

Roca glared at him. "Chaniece would never be so crude."

"Sure she would," Kelric said with a rumbling laugh. "She'd just do it with impeccable courtesy."

"She won't, though," Windar said. "She doesn't want Del in danger any more than we do."

"I hope so." Kelric considered the holo of Del. "Because if he refuses, I'm bringing him back no matter what, even if it convinces him I've become the greatest tyrant alive."

Del was lying on his bed, fully dressed but half asleep, when Jud sauntered into the doorway. His roommate leaned on the frame and grinned. "Haven't learned your lesson yet, eh?"

Del rolled onto his side. "What?" He squinted at Jud. "Why are you smirking? I cleaned up." It irked him that Jud thought he lived in a mess because he expected someone to pick up after him. It bothered him even more to realize Jud might be right. He had cleaned his room from top to bottom to prove he was perfectly capable of doing it himself.

"It looks great," Jud said. "I didn't mean your room, though." He waggled his finger at Del. "Don't you know yet to watch it with the women? It's karma, sent to you by Ricki. Mess around, and you get in trouble."

"What women?" His esteemed producer had been a block of ice since he had woken up in the hospital. "Ricki is ignoring me. I'm not seeing anyone."

"Yeah, well, the someone you aren't seeing is gorgeous."

Curious, Del sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. It had been two days since he had come home, after three in the hospital, but his body was still recovering from the theta-kickers.

"Did she give you her name?" Del asked.

"It was hard to understand," Jud said. "She has an accent like yours. I think she said Chaniece."

Del jumped to his feet and strode out of the room. Or tried to stride. Dizziness hit him, and he stumbled into the doorframe.

"That certainly got a reaction," Jud said, laughing as he grabbed Del's arm to steady him. "If she's not your girlfriend, will you introduce me?"

Del glared with his my-eyes-are-daggers look and yanked away his arm. "No. Never. Besides, what about Bonnie?"

"She can't make up her mind if she likes me or not." Jud lifted his hands, then dropped them. "I wish she would. She's the one I want."

"Good," Del told him. "Because if you look cross-eyed at my sister, I'll break your face into a hundred little pieces."

"Wow," Jud said. "That's your sister? Your family has some genes."

Del felt like growling that Chaniece never wore jeans, but he knew perfectly well what Jud meant. He pushed off the doorway and stalked into the living room. But he wasn't really angry, not if Chaniece had commed him. He missed her so much. When he had been in Allied custody, they hadn't let her contact him. Although he and Chaniece did talk now, he never mentioned his new life. If the rest of his family pressured him to quit singing, he could resist, but if she asked him to stop, he could never say no.

Del stopped a short distance from the console, where he could just make out a woman's silhouette on the screen. If he went closer, she would see him.

Jud came up beside him. "What's wrong?"

"What if she wants me to come home?"

A stillness came over Jud. "Will you?"

"I don't know." Del walked to the console and sat carefully, as if that could change how the conversation went. It was truly Chaniece. She regarded him with large eyes, violet like his, her eyelashes sparkling. Although her hair was lavender, it had so many sun streaks, it looked gold. The curls framed her face and spilled over her shoulders. Del felt as if he had come home.

He spoke in Iotic. "My greetings."

"Del!" Her luminous smile shone. "My greetings.

"It's good to see you." He was the prince of understatement today.

"How are you?" Her smile faded. "You look tired."

"A little. It's this weird twenty-four-hour day." Lyshriol days lasted twenty-eight hours. "
You
look great, Chani."

Her smile dimpled. "Guess what I did."

"I've no idea." She was always making him guess what she did or thought, which was easy when they were together but impossible across interstellar space. "Tell me."

"I watched
The Jewels Suite
vid." She beamed at him. "You look so handsome when you sing."

Del's face flamed with his blush. "I look like me."

"I know. That's why I liked it."

Homesickness surged in Del. "I miss you all so much. I was going to come home, but then my label sent me on tour."

She tilted her head. "Your what?"

"My label. Prime-Nova. They produce my holo-vids."

"Windar saw it in a store. He's the one who showed us."

Del felt as if the air suddenly left the room. "You mean
everyone?
Mother? Kelric? Eldrin?"

She gave him an apologetic look. "Everyone."

Del could guess how they reacted. "I'm not quitting."

"I certainly hope not."

Relief washed over Del. She understood. "What did Mother say?"

Chaniece laughed like a sparkle of water. "She thinks you look too sexy. She's afraid all those evil Earth women will try to compromise your honor."

"Hmmm." Del squinted at her. "So how are the boys?"

She pretended to look stern. "Changing the subject won't work. Just how many girlfriends do you have?"

"Only one." Del thought about the way Ricki was refusing to acknowledge his existence. "Maybe none. She's mad at me."

"What did you do?"

"It's a long story." He couldn't tell her. If Kelric found out, he would yank Del off Earth so fast, it would bust a hole in the fabric of spacetime. "It has to do with, um, another woman."

Chaniece sighed, but she didn't look surprised. "Oh, Del."

"I made a dumb mistake." To put it mildly. "I'm trying to convince her to let me atone for my sins."

Off to Del's left, Jud snorted. "Ricki Varento, let you atone? I doubt it."

"Hey!" Del swung around in his chair. Jud was standing in the doorway of his room, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, unabashedly eavesdropping.

"I should've never taught you Iotic," Del said. "Go away."

"Iotic?" Jud stared at him. "
That's
what you've been teaching me this last year? The language of Skolian nobility?"

"Del?" Chaniece asked. "Who is that?"

He turned back to her. "My nosy, rude roommate."

"Should I--?"

"It's all right. He knows who I am." He knew why Jud had spoken; he wanted to remind Del he could hear everything. The rooms had no doors on them, and the apartment was too small for privacy unless Jud went outside.

Jud spoke quietly. "I can leave if you want."

Del almost said yes. But maybe it was better if Jud knew about him. He was worn-out from trying to compartmentalize his life. Besides, Jud never asked him to leave when he commed people.

"It's all right," Del said. "Just go in your room, okay?"

Jud nodded and withdrew from the doorway.

When Del turned to the console, Chaniece was watching him with concern. "Kelric is worried," she said. "He wants you to come home."

"No!"

"He's convinced people are going to exploit you," she said. "Until, as he put it, 'they wear you out and throw you away.' "

"Prime-Nova wouldn't do that." Del wasn't actually so sure, but he remembered Mac's lengthy contract negotiations. "Besides, I have good representation."

"You look so tired."

"Just from traveling. I've been doing live concerts."

She hesitated. "In some of your vids, you look--"

Del waited, then said, "Like what?"

"Drugged."

It troubled him to see her upset, especially for no reason. "Just on the rush of people liking my music. Nothing else."

"I can tell something is wrong."

Damn. She knew him too well. If he didn't give her a reason, his family would keep at it until they dragged out everything. So he said, "I snuck out without my bodyguard and got roughed up by some crazy fans." When she tensed, he quickly added, "But I'm fine."

"I wish you would let ISC protect you. I don't trust ASC."

"They're all right." Del preferred Cameron to his brother's minions any day.

"They aren't us," Chaniece said.

"You'd like my bodyguard." Del felt a wicked grin coming on. "Besides, I can't fire him. He'd pine away. He's hot for my drummer."

Chaniece frowned at him. "He should be paying attention to you. Not some woman in your band."

"He does pay attention to me! Constantly. He lives next door. He goes everywhere I go. He monitors my flipping vital signs. I can't do
anything
without him knowing."

"Even so."