Diamond Star

by Catherine Asaro

  Right. His first life was hard enough to deal with. He couldn't imagine what he'd do with a million of them. He smiled, thinking a million Dels would give General McLane heartburn at a level he couldn't even imagine.

  He lifted his hands in surrender. "Okay. Let's go."

  The Baltimore waterfront seemed astonishingly real. But a real what, Del didn't know, because this sure as blazes wasn't the Baltimore where he lived.

  He stood with Cameron and Tyra in a plaza surrounded on three sides by boutiques and cafés. Water bordered the fourth side and lapped against the piers there with a soothing, hypnotic sound. The bricks that paved the plaza were also somehow water, green and blue, with seaweed waving below the surface. Except it wasn't wet. Del's feet went in up to his ankles, and things swam lazily by his toes. A neon-bright fish sailed out of a brick, into the air, circled his knees, and dove back into the ground.

  Del tried not to gape. Neither Tyra nor Cameron seemed fazed, and he didn't want to look like a rube, but honestly, who had thought up this place? Some of the shops glistened as if they were painted with sunlight. Strange, but pretty. He had a soundtrack, too; upbeat music played in the background, a fiddle and drums, just the way he liked. In fact, it fit his mood so well, he suspected the bliss-node was tailoring it to him.

  The aroma of steak drifted past, delicious and inviting. Del wondered if he would feel full if he ate in a virtual café. Even more distracting than the smells were the people. They walked along, browsed shops, and flew in the air as if that were perfectly natural. A man strolled by Del wearing a translucent robe sewn from . . . starlight? A cat-woman covered with yellow fur ambled past, her ears cocked forward and her tail whipping back and forth across her shapely behind.

  "Hey," a man said behind him. "Another Del Arden."

  Startled, Del swung around. A man with black hair and an impossibly perfect physique nodded to him.

  "That's a good Arden avatar," the man said. "Looks authentic."

  "You think so?" Del even asked it with a straight face. He had come into the sim looking exactly like himself.

  The man studied him. "The hair's not quite right."

  Del blinked. "It isn't?"

  "I have an Arden avatar, too. That's why I noticed yours. Here, I'll show you." The fellow blithely morphed into . . . Del. Except he was bigger, and his hair had more gold. Del had been inside so much lately, his hair was losing its sun streaks.

  "Uh, yeah," Del said. "I see what you mean."

  "You can get great two-tone work from Sean Cinquetti and Carolhyn Wijaya Shops Unlimited." The man blurred into his previous form as easily as if he were donning new clothes. "They're top-notch."

  "Sure. Thanks." Del considered the man, who was half a head taller than him and a great deal more muscular. "I didn't think Del Arden was that big, though."

  "Yeah, I know. I prefer this build." The man nodded. "Nice to meet you."

  "See you." Del lifted his hand in farewell, and the guy went off.

  "That was surreal," Tyra said, laughing.

  "What?" Del asked. "You like the new, improved me better?"

  "I prefer the original," she assured him.

  "It's flattering," Del said. "Strange, though, that people want to look like me." He wondered what they did with their Del avatars, then decided he was better off not knowing. He motioned at the scene around them. "And all this. I like it, but it's odd. It's almost as if it was tailored for me."

  "The basic sim is the same for everyone," Cameron said. "But if you have a good VR setup, its AI will mold what you experience to your personal tastes."

  "I'd wondered," Del said. "What music do you hear?"

  "Just the public feed," Cameron said. "Some Jupiter Heavy Hop thing."

  "Is that what it's called?" Tyra asked. "I had no idea."

  "I'm getting—" Del cut off as a holo formed in front of him showing city towers rising from an idyllic lagoon.

  A female voice said, "Welcome to Life Million, Mister Arden. Extropia would like to extend you this invitation to join our community."

  Del stopped, bewildered. He looked around to see if anyone else had cities floating in front of them. All the exceedingly beautiful people, animals, and cyborgs continued on their business as if nothing had happened. One man walked through Del's holo, then realized what he had done and apologized. No one else paid attention to the floating invitation, though one person did smile at Del, a female android with a dazzling figure, purple skin, and a blue harem outfit.

  Del watched the android walk away until she went behind a building. Wow. Then he mentally shook himself and turned to his bodyguards. "Do you guys see that, too?"

  Cameron grinned at him. "What, the hot android?"

  Del flushed. "No. This." He waved his hand through the holo invitation.

  "Sure, we see it," Tyra said. "It must have been queued to activate if you came into Life Million."

  "You rate high with someone," Tyra said. "Everyone wants to live in Extropia. It's so much in demand, it's impossible to buy land there now. It doesn't matter how famous or rich you are."

  Del gaped at them. "You buy virtual land?"

  "Sure." Cameron indicated the thriving harbor scene around them. "Baltimore has eleven harbor sims you can join."

  "Oh." Del tried to get his mind around the idea of digital people living in digital land. "How does Extropia know about me?"

  "I'll see what I can find." Cameron's gaze took on an inward quality. After a moment, he refocused on Del. "Their records are confidential. But if you accept their invitation, you'll be a member. Then you can ask whatever you want."

  Del was going into overload. He rarely interacted with real people in his sims. He didn't feel ready for more, at least not until he knew more about who had offered the invitation.

  "Let's just walk for now," he said.

  Neither Tyra nor Cameron looked surprised. When he asked the display to store itself for later, it disappeared from view.

  Del strolled with Cameron and Tyra along a path by the water. They were in a historical area, with ships and an old submarine in the dock. When Del focused on one vessel, a small holo of it appeared to his left and offered to transport him there. He was about to ask the holo to go away when he heard someone singing to herself.

  "Hey." Del stopped. "That's 'Diamond Star.' " The girl was on a bench several yards away, reading a virtual paper that changed its view every few minutes.

  "It's on the public stream," Cameron said.

  Del focused on his bliss-node. Public feed, he thought. The acoustic music faded away, replaced by "Diamond Star."

  "That's one of my favorites," Tyra said.

  "You like my music?" Del asked, astounded.

  "Sure." She smiled at him. "Shouldn't I?"

  "No other military officers I know do."

  "Maybe they just didn't tell you," Cameron said. "A lot of guys at the Annapolis base listen to it."

  "I'm an empath, remember?" Del couldn't pretend the reaction from his previous bodyguards hadn't bothered him. "I could tell they wanted me to be quiet."

  "Were you practicing," Tyra asked, "or doing the full song?"

  "Just practicing. But it was the same music."

  "It's different when you practice," Cameron said. "It drives me crazy, too. You experiment, change things, stop and start. You'll hit a part I like, and just when I get into it, you do something else. It can sound off-tune, too, if you're working on the melody."

  "Huh." Del had never thought about it that way.

  "It's the result of all that genius that matters," Tyra said.

  Del gave a startled laugh. "I'm a hack!"

  Tyra looked annoyed. "Cut the false modesty."

  "It's not false modesty," Cameron told her. "He believes it."

  "How can you think you're a hack?" Tyra asked Del. "Don't you listen to what people say about your work?"

  Del had never forgotten his miserable first reviews. "Not much. I mean, even the good ones just call it pop.
Only the undercity considers me a serious artist, and they're starting to say I've sold out." With a wince, he added, "You've never heard what Fred Pizwick has to say about me."

  "Freddy is an idiot," Cameron told him.

  Del couldn't help but smile. "You're a good bodyguard."

  "Who is Fred Pizwick?" Tyra asked.

  "I'll show you," Del said. "If I can find a public console."

  The holo from the ship, which was still at Del's side, spoke up. "I can transport you to one."

  Del squinted at the holo. At least it talked, so it didn't matter that he couldn't read. "Okay."

  The world went dark. Just like that. Before he had a chance to wonder if he had agreed to something stupid, the scene re-formed, except now they were in a plaza on the other side of the Inner Harbor, across the water. A public console stood next to them.

  "Wow." Del blinked at the console.

  "Will it work?" Cameron asked.

  Del bent over the console. "I think so." It looked normal—except for the fish swimming in its water-filled interior. It worked fine, though. He searched the mesh until he found some reviews of his work. He was about to bring up one of Pizwick's old pieces when he saw a new one. Damn! Pizwick had done him the "honor" of reviewing his anthology, a rare occurrence for a critic whose bailiwick was live shows.

  Del hesitated with his finger above the holicon of a diamond. Pizwick probably hated the anthology. Then again, Del's first concerts had been disastrously raw, whereas The Jewels Suite was as polished as anything Prime-Nova could produce.

  "Del?" Tyra watched him with that curious smile she gave only him, as if he were a fascinating enigma.

  "I haven't heard this review," Del said. "This guy doesn't usually like my work."

  "Maybe he's changed his mind," she said. "It's a great anthology."

  "You think so?" Del asked.

  He didn't know how he looked, but it made her laugh, not in a way that hurt, but with a fondness he hadn't expected. "Yes," she said. "I think so."

  Del grinned at her. Emboldened, he flicked the diamond.

  The plaza vanished. Suddenly they were in plush chairs in a darkened auditorium. The stage had only one person, a handsome man with silvered hair sitting on a stool. A light shone on him from above, and the rest of the area was dark.

  Del was getting seasick from all the zipping around. "That's not Pizwick," he grumbled. "He's nowhere near that good-looking."

  Pizwick spoke with a deeper voice than he had in real life. "Hello, my friends. Welcome to Fred's Favored Review."

  Friends, indeed. Del felt queasy, waiting for the ax.

  "I don't usually cover prepacked material," Pizwick went on, his face sincere. "I prefer live concerts where you experience what the artist is really doing. But I made an exception in this case, given all the hum about Del Arden's debut. I figured with the entire mesh-tech services of Prime-Nova at his disposal, his anthology had to be an improvement over his live shows." Pizwick paused. "Unfortunately, I was wrong."

  "We don't need this garbage," Cameron said. "Let's go."

  "No." Del had a grisly fascination with Pizwick. "I want to know."

  "In The Jewels Suite," Pizwick continued, "Arden still fails to hit the right notes. If you think a conglomerate can create talent where none exists, think again. Arden can't even properly rhyme his songs. He doesn't count the right number of syllables per line, and he depends too heavily on assonance. His music doesn't fit any accepted mode, either commercial or classical. This anthology is a mishmash of styles and who knows what else. My recommendation: don't bother."

  Pizwick mercifully stopped then and went on to a Baltimore band. As much as his comments bothered Del, it didn't crush him like the reviews of his first concerts.

  "He really doesn't get it," Del said. As he spoke, his bliss-node turned down Pizwick's voice. "Ricki once told me he was being malicious out of jealousy. I can't say; she knows him and I don't. But I think he just doesn't get what I do. It doesn't fit what he likes." Somehow that made it easier to take.

  Cameron made a noise that sounded like "Hmmph."

  "Cam is right," Tyra said.

  Del smiled. "It's okay about the review." He realized why it bothered him less than Pizwick's previous slams. Before, Pizwick had ridiculed Del. This time, he said he didn't like the songs. Some people might consider it a minor difference, but to Del it mattered. "No one creates music everyone likes. Some people don't even like Debussy."

  "Day who?" Tyra asked.

  "Debussy." Del warmed to the subject. "He was an Impressionist composer, though he hated that term. His music is amazing."

  "So quit acting surprised that we like what you do." Cameron gave Del an implacable stare. "We don't care if Freddy doesn't."

  "That's telling him," Tyra said. She looked as if she were trying not to smile.

  Del squinted at them, wondering how they had managed to turn around his doubts so that unless he agreed he had talent, he was offending their honor.

  Tyra's look softened. "Ah, Del, you're such a poller-pi."

  His face heated. "No, I'm not!"

  "Poller-pi?" Cameron asked. "What is that?"

  "It's a Skolian word," Tyra said. "For someone charming."

  "It is not," Del said. "It's what adults call cute little kids." Just what he needed, for someone to hear her call Prime-Nova's snarling bad boy the Skolian equivalent of a "fuzzy bear." It was difficult to be annoyed, though, given the way she and Cameron were supporting his work.

  "I still think you should join Extropia," Cameron said.

  After Pizwick, Del could do with someone who wanted him around. "You think it's safe?"

  "It's a protected community," Cameron said. "They have some of the strictest security around."

  "Oh." Del considered the thought. "Okay. Let's go."

  "We can't," Cameron said. "Only you were invited."

  "But then I can't, either."

  "Sure you can," Tyra said. "It's virtual. You aren't going anywhere. So we can still protect your royal behind."

  Del smiled. "Only that part of my anatomy?"

  "Oh, go," Cameron told him. "Get out of here." It wasn't very intimidating, though, given that he was laughing.

  "But how do I—"

  "I can take you, Mister Arden," a woman said. It was the voice that had given him the invitation.

  "Oh," Del said. "Okay, you can—"

  The scene darkened so abruptly, he caught his breath. Then he was standing on a lush swath of grass bordered by a white path.

  "—take me to Extropia after I tell Tyra and Cam good-bye," Del added.

  The scene wasn't what he expected. The hexagonal lawn floated like a giant lily pad on water that extended in every direction to the horizon. So much! Before coming to Earth, he had never seen anything bigger than a moderate lake. This endless "sea" was pristine and clear, and as still as a lagoon. A city spread around him, its graceful buildings either floating or rising out of the water in gleaming towers bright against the sky. The lapping of tiny waves soothed him, and a pleasing scent of flowers tickled his nose.

  "This is gorgeous," Del said.

  "Welcome," the female voice said. "What can I do for you?"

  "Are you the person who gave me the invitation?"

  "I'm a mesh code. But I can put you in touch with the resident who invited you."

  "Sure—" He cut off as the world whooshed. Then he was on a balcony in one of the towers. A breeze ruffled his hair, and far below, the grass rippled in the wind.

  Bemused, Del turned and found himself gazing into a bedroom. He started to enter, then paused, wondering if he was about to get himself into trouble again.

  "Hello?" he said. "Is anyone here?"

  The female voice spoke. "You can go in, Mister Arden."

  "Noooo, I don't think so." Del stayed on the balcony. "This is somebody's private residence."

  "I'm sure the owner won't mind."

  "But I would."

  "Hell's pails," a n
ew voice said inside. "Del, is that you?"

  "What the—?" Del strode into the bedroom. "Ricki?"

  She was sitting at a blue table, relaxed in a chair that glowed with an inner light. A holofile lay on the table as if she had been reading. Now, though, she was gaping at him.

  "Where did you come from?" she asked.

  Del grinned at her. "Was it you who invited me here?"

  "Well, yeah." She stood up. "I didn't think you'd ever show up, though. You never seemed interested in the m-universe."

  He laughed with relief that it was her and not a virtiso. "You should have told me."

  Her face relaxed as she came over to him. "It's my getaway. I don't tell anyone. You're the first person I've ever invited." She laid her palm against his chest. "I'm glad to see you."

  Del drew her into his arms, and she felt just as good as in real life. "Yeah. Same."

  Ricki slid her arms around his waist. Laughing softly, she said, "That was poetic. Where are all those romantic lyrics?"

  "You're the poetry." Del down looked into her face. "Hey. Your eyes are purple."

  "Blue is so ordinary."

  "Not to me." He touched his eyelid. "I have violet eyes. Practically everyone where I come from does. Blue is exotic."

  She closed her eyes, then opened them—to reveal a vivid blue color. "Then that's what they shall be."

  Del felt his tensions melting. Gods, it was good to see her. "What else can you do here?"

  Her look turned sultry. "Anything you want, babe."

  A slow smile spread on his face. "Anything?"

  Her lashes lowered. "Anything."

  Del needed no more invitation. He bit at her ear and murmured, "I want to make love to you while we're flying. To sit with you on a crescent moon while I drive you mad because you want me so much." Crumpling her silk shirt, he pulled. Instead of loosening, it dissolved, leaving her torso bare. He cupped his hands around her breasts, then bent his head and kissed her. When he tugged her skirt, it dissolved as well, leaving her standing in his arms with nothing on but white stilettos with gold metal heels.

  "I want to go above the sky," he murmured.

  "I know a place." She kissed his cheek. "It's mine, just mine, made by me."

  He brushed his lips over hers. "Let's go."