Diamond Star

by Catherine Asaro

  Del's smile faded, replaced by a pensive look. "I'm still working on the lyrics. Tabor did the music for me."

  "Tabor? Who is that?"

  "Mac! You introduced us. Jud Taborian."

  "Oh. Jud." Mac vaguely recalled running into Jud at some over-priced cocktail bar in Washington, D.C. That had been the first time Mac wrangled permission to take Del off base, so he had shown the prince around town. Mac barely knew Jud, though. The young fellow was a composer in the undercity music scene, which hadn't even dented the more lucrative planetary venues or bigger offworld markets. Many of its artists were mediocre or actively rotten, but a few were brilliant, and they all challenged accepted norms. Some tried to evoke the rock of earlier, less civilized eras. Although privately Mac agreed that present day music had become so "civilized," it was suffocating in its own conservatism, he couldn't sell musical anarchists to the conglomerates.

  "I've been talking with Jud over the mesh." Del put his beer on the table and rummaged in a blue box he had left there. "He sent me this tech-tick." He pulled out a silver oval the size of his hand and squinted at it. More to himself than Mac, he added, "If I can just figure out how to use it."

  "You've never used a ticker?" Mac knew Del had the device because Jud had sent it to Mac. The security people at the base didn't want Del giving out his address, so Mac let the prince use his for correspondence. Security had to clear any packages Del received, anyway. In fact, when Mac took Del off base, he acted as his guard and carried monitors that continually analyzed everything around them.

  "I'd never even heard of a ticker," Del said. "Not before Jud gave me this one."

  That surprised Mac. "Then how do you compose music?"

  "At home, I'd hum the melody I wanted for a drummel player," Del said. "He'd figure out how to accompany me. Or I'd tell him the lyrics and he'd come up with something."

  Drummel? Mac thought back to the instruments he had seen in Del's village. "You mean you've only played with those harp-guitar things?" Although Del had grown up in a rural community, he had mesh access to the resources of an interstellar empire. "No other media? No morphers?"

  "Why bother?" Del shrugged. "I didn't really listen to offworld music. It's too much to sort through, and I haven't liked what I heard." His smile flashed. "Though if I'd picked up the undercity, that I would have listened to."

  "I can imagine." No wonder Del sang so well. With no media enhancement, he'd had no choice but to learn real technique.

  Del studied the ticker. "Jud says I can edit the music he put on here. But I have no idea how." He tapped a button, and music played, slow and haunting, in a minor key, lyrical but with a raw edge, as if it were strumming under a violet moon.

  "I like that," Mac said.

  "The melody is right . . ." Del sat listening, his head cocked to one side. "The drums are too heavy, though."

  Mac liked the driven quality of the drums, but he was curious to hear what Del would do. "I can show you how to edit the song."

  Del let the music fade away. "You know how to do that?"

  "It's my job."

  Del blinked at him. "I thought you were an agent."

  "I'm called a front-liner," Mac said. "I get auditions and contracts for my clients. To sell their music, I need to understand what they do. I can't sing or compose, but I'm pretty good with the technical side."

  "Then, yeah." Del grinned. "Show me."

  They sat together at the table while Mac taught him how to use the ticker. When Del achieved the result he wanted, the instrumentals for the song had a beautifully eerie quality.

  "It's good," Mac said. "Better than the usual undercity work."

  Del shot him an annoyed look. "Just because you don't like undercity music, that doesn't make the musicians hacks."

  "Oh come on. It's the quality I'm talking about."

  "Why?" Del demanded. "Because they don't follow the boring mainstream?"

  "No," Mac said. "Because a lot of them can't sing, play, or compose worth shit."

  Del waved his hand as if to brush away the comment. But he didn't deny it. He was too accomplished a musician not to realize that for some, going undercity was little more than an attempt to define a lack of talent as progressive. The scene had produced some remarkable music, but they had also put out some of the worst dreck Mac had ever heard.

  "You can sing circles around them," Mac said.

  Del made a disgusted sound. "I doubt it."

  It wasn't the first time Mac had heard Del make derogatory references to his own singing. He didn't understand why the youth felt that way. Del had no sense of his own talent. He was probably Mac's greatest find—and Mac couldn't do a damn thing with that discovery.

  Well, almost nothing. He could listen. "So how does the song itself go?"

  Del drummed his fingers on the ticker, set the oval on the table, then picked it up again. "I can't sing without something to hold."

  Del wasn't the first vocalist Mac had seen who didn't know what to do with his hands while he sang. Mac almost laughed, thinking that some did have ideas, but they couldn't get away with it. The censors would come down on them like the proverbial ton of plutonium.

  "Sing into the ticker," Mac said. "It'll record you. Then you can listen to your voice."

  "Oh. All right." Del flicked on the ticker, looking self-conscious. "This is only a rough cut of the vocals."

  The music began with an exquisite and simple melody played by only a harp, from what sounded like a Gregorian chant. When it finished, the guitar riff played that started the music Mac had helped Del edit.

  And Del sang.

  His lyrics weren't the formulaic doggerel expected in the modern day universe of popular music. He varied the syllables more per line, sometimes drawing out words, other times rushing them. He used repetition to deepen the song rather than following a formula, and he gave the verses a freer form than current mainstream work:

  No answers live in here,

  No answers in this vault,

  This sterling vault of fear,

  This vault of steel tears,

  Tell me now before I fall

  Release me from this velvet pall

  Tell me now before I fall

  Take me now, break through my wall

  No answers will rescue time

  No answers in this grave

  This wavering crypt sublime

  This crypt whispering in vines

  He stopped, staring at the ticker, his lashes shading his eyes. "It's still rough," he said, as if apologizing.

  "I like it." Mac wondered at the dark edge to the lyrics. Del wrote in a range of styles, from danceable tunes to ballads to hard-driving blasts. Sometimes he came out with these eerily fascinating pieces. Although the major labels probably wouldn't consider them commercial, Mac thought they had a lot more to them than the pabulum produced for popular markets.

  "I've no idea what it means, though," Mac added.

  "I suppose it's about never knowing answers even after you die. Or maybe that's what kills you." Del tapped his fingers on the ticker. "I don't like the third part. The first line is too long. 'Rescue' clunks. And 'Wavering crypt sublime' is idiotic."

  "Why?" Mac asked, intrigued. "The sounds fit."

  "The sounds, yeah. But the words are dumb. Crypts don't waver." He tilted his head. "Winnowing. Winnowing crypt sublime."

  Mac smiled. "Crypts don't winnow, either."

  "Sure they do. They winnow you out of life." Del pointed the ticker at Mac. "You can live for decades and never find answers." He lowered his arm. "Until death winnows you out of humanity and makes room for someone more useful."

  Mac spoke quietly. "I hope you don't see yourself that way."

  Del just shook his head. He had that far-off look that came when he wanted to practice. "I need to work."

  "Would you like me to go?"

  "I don't mind if you listen," Del said. "But it can get pretty boring when I'm working on a song. I just go over and over the same par
ts."

  "It's not boring for me," Mac said. "I'd like to stay."

  "Well sure, then." Del got up and walked around, holding the ticker. And he sang. He kept changing words, pacing like a caged lion. He sang a verse fluidly, then snarled the chorus. Yet somehow it all fit.

  Although Mac liked to watch him sing, he knew it made Del self-conscious. So he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, enjoying the music. It was easy to submerge into Del's rich voice. The youth had trained his entire life, using techniques passed through generations in his family. Although Del could sing opera exquisitely, he preferred a far different style. He could croon one line, scream the next, wail and moan, then stroke the notes as if they were velvet, all without harming his voice. No one did anything that commercially risky in the mainstream, but undercity artists threw in all sorts of noise. Mac knew why Del had fascinated them that night in the bar; he easily achieved what they struggled to attain because he had the technique they lacked. To break the rules, they had to master them first.

  Del wanted nothing more than to sing. He didn't care about the politics surrounding him. Although no one had physically hurt Del, Mac knew he had suffered emotionally. His people were torn by hostilities that had begun long ago, when humanity splintered into three civilizations: the Allied Worlds of Earth; Del's people of the Skolian Imperialate; and the Trader Empire. The Skolians and Traders had just fought a brutal war that had nearly destroyed them both and ravaged Del's family.

  The Allied government had remained neutral, safe in their isolationism, but they agreed to shelter Del's family on Earth. When the war ended with no victor, Earth had feared the Skolians and Traders would send their world-slagging armies back out, again and again, until they wiped out humanity. So they refused to release Del's family. It did no good; the Skolians just sent in a commando team and pulled them out, all except Del, who happened to be apart from the others. So here Del remained, while Earth's government argued over what the blazes to do with him. Some thought having Del gave them a bargaining point with the Skolians. Others wanted to let him go and be done with the whole mess. Personally Mac didn't see the point in keeping him. What would they tell his family, the Ruby Dynasty—that if they started another war, they would never see their youngest son again? The bellicose Skolians were more likely to attack than bargain . . .

  "Hey!" Del said. "You awake?"

  Mac opened his eyes drowsily. "Just drifting."

  "Admit it," Del said, laughing. "I bored you to sleep."

  "Never." Mac stood up, stretching his arms. "I do have to go, though. I have a client who is auditioning today."

  Del regarded him curiously. "What sort of audition?"

  "It's with Prime-Nova Media, for a holo-vid cube."

  "Oh. Well." Del squinted at him. "Good."

  He smiled at Del's attempt to look as if he knew what the hell Mac had just said. "You've watched holo-vids, haven't you?"

  "Not really. I see people playing them, but I don't stop to listen." Awkwardly Del said, "I don't want to intrude."

  "You should see one. You'd enjoy it." Mac thought for a moment. "Would you like to watch the audition?" He had wrangled permission to take Del off the base by arguing that it reinforced their claim Del was a guest rather than a prisoner. He wanted to give Del at least those limited excursions; he felt like a cretin treating this youth as a prisoner when Del had never done anything to anyone.

  He motioned at Del's ticker. "If we can get some mesh-box space, we could tech up a few holos for your cuts."

  Del laughed, his eyes lit with interest. "I have no idea what you just said, but yeah, I'd like to go with you."

  Mac grinned. "Come on. Let's go show you what I just said."

  They headed out, into the freedom of a late morning turning red and gold with autumn.

  II: Prime-Nova

  Del had never seen even one mesh-media studio, let alone a whole building of them. The Prime-Nova offices were on Wisconsin Avenue across from the Washington Arts Center, which had begun as the Washington Ballet in the twentieth century and grown until it devoured several city blocks. Mac enthusiastically informed him that the area was "a vibrant media hub rivaling New York and L.A." Del had no clue what that meant, but he liked the place.

  No ground traffic bothered them; the "streets" consisted of plazas and gardens designed for pedestrians. The widely spaced buildings sported glossy sides that projected holos of landscapes, clouds, abstract art, or gigantic images of celebrities. A few blocks south, the gold arch of a mag-rail curved against the blue sky, and a sleek bullet car whizzed along it. Farther down Wisconsin Avenue, the National Cathedral rose elegantly above a plaza lush with trees.

  The lobby of the Prime-Nova building gleamed with gold and bronze metal. The receptionist at the circular counter was an artificial intelligence, or AI. He initially presented as a man, but when Mac spoke, the holo rippled and re-formed as a beautiful woman with hair the color of marigolds.

  "Go right up, Mister Tyler," she said in dulcet tones. "You're expected." She turned her laser-light smile on Del. "Welcome, Mister Neil. Good luck with your audition."

  "Neil?" Del asked. It was weird talking to an image. He wondered what sex it turned into if both a man and a woman came up to the counter, or how it guessed a visitor's sexual preferences.

  "This isn't Craig Neil," Mac told the holo. "Craig should be here soon. Please send him up when he arrives."

  "Of course." Her voice was so well modulated, Del couldn't read any emotion from it. "I'll need the name of your guest."

  "Valdoria," Mac said. "Del Valdoria."

  Del was grateful Mac didn't use his complete name, Del-Kurj. He had been named for his half-brother Kurj, Imperator Kurj, the man who had commanded the Skolian military. That had been before the Traders assassinated Kurj and started the war. People had considered Kurj a de facto dictator and had begun to say the same about the current Imperator, Kelric, another in Del's multitude of brothers. Kurj and Kelric: hell, even their names sounded the same. Del had no interest in being associated with the draconian measures his notorious brothers used to maintain power.

  He rode upstairs with Mac in a bronzed lift. While Del looked around, intrigued by all the metal, Mac fooled with his wrist comm. Del had never understood why so many people were willing to carry mesh systems on their wrists, clothes, in their bodies, everywhere. It made him queasy, as if they were all turning into robots.

  "Craig should be here," Mac muttered. A blue light flickered on the wrist-mesh.

  "Maybe he's already upstairs," Del said.

  "Maybe. The AI should have known, though." Mac looked up. "No messages from him."

  The lift abruptly opened into a corridor with gold light for walls. Mac motioned Del forward.

  "This is pretty," Del said as they walked past the shimmering holo-curtains. "Bizarre, but attractive in its own soulless way."

  Mac smiled wryly. "Said like a true undercity cynic." He ushered Del through a light-curtain and into a small room. The upper half of the wall across from them consisted of a window. A control strip ran along its bottom edge, crammed with switches, screens, and lights, none of which Del understood. Mac ignored the wonderland of tech-mech equipment and strode to the window. Joining him, Del studied the room beyond. Set half a level below this booth, it had blue walls that glowed. More strange equipment was stacked or strewn everywhere.

  "Damn," Mac said.

  "You don't like the room?" Del asked.

  "I was hoping Craig would be in it." He glanced at Del. "I have to comm him, but I don't want the Prime-Nova producer who's going to audition him to overhear that he's AWOL. I'll be down the hall. If anyone comes in, just say I'll be right back."

  Mischief stirred in Del. "If you leave me alone, I could go to the starport." He would actually rather watch the audition, but he couldn't resist baiting his military-approved babysitter.

  "You can't sneak out of the building," Mac growled. "Not past me. But if you try, I'm damn well never taking yo
u anywhere again."

  "Go on," Del said good-naturedly. "I'll wait. I want to look at these panels."

  "Don't touch anything." With that, Mac strode out.

  Del wandered around, trying to figure out the equipment. He wished he knew more about music here. He wanted to leave Earth because he was tired of the aggravating people holding him in custody, but he had no huge desire to go home.

  He did miss his nephews. As much as he loved them, though, they were better off without him. He pushed away the thought, burying it with all the other painful memories he kept locked away within his heart.

  Ricki Varento was always prompt. As a top producer at Prime-Nova, she had no time to be late. Or sick. Or anything else that interfered in her immensely satisfying work. She molded platinum out of slag and did the best job in the industry. She created stars. Hell, novas. If the basic material didn't glow, well, by the time she finished with them, most blazed like flipping fire-poppers. And bah on anyone who laughed at the way she talked.

  Today Mac Tyler was bringing his latest slag. His clients sometimes even had talent. All too often, though, talent translated into temperamental. Ricki would break out in hives if one more petulant singer complained he was an arteest, thank you, and had no intention of "submitting to slick packaging" that cheapened his integrity or whatever. Well, hell. How did they expect the people who paid them to make money? For every pouting troublemaker, she had a hundred acts waiting for their chance. She had no time for boomallitic blasters, holo-funkers, or undercity divas. Mac knew it, and he played the game even when he didn't agree with the rules.

  Some people in the industry disliked Mac on principle, because of his military background. Ricki couldn't care less. In fact, she enjoyed his company, though she never let him know, because it might give away bargaining points when they negotiated. He was good at his job, met his obligations, and showed up on time. He never laughed at how she phrased things, either, though honestly, she couldn't figure out why other people did.

  If Mac brought her good prospects, she made money for Prime-Nova. More often than not, she had to turn down his clients because they lacked magnetism, beauty, or youth appeal. Beauty and youth could be arranged with enough money, though limitations existed on how much you could pretty up the slag. Talent could be faked with tech. Those acts couldn't tour worth beans, though, since their abilities consisted solely of technology.