* * *
"You're late," Zachary said as Del entered his office with Jud, Bonnie, and his bodyguards.
People packed the room: Zachary was sitting in a leather chair, holding a glass of amber liquid; Ricki was leaning against the wall with her half-filled glass; Mac was seated near Zachary, reading a holofile; and Rex Montrow from Mind Mix, of all people, was on one end of the couch with a glass of the drink, probably rum from the smell. No one, however, caught Del's attention as much as the man who sat behind Zachary's mahogany desk, someone Del rarely saw in person because the man worked in New York: Lantham Marksman, Zachary's older brother, Chief Executive Officer of Prime-Nova.
"Some fans chased us," Del said. "We had to hide."
"Just as long as they keep buying your vids," Zachary said, then laughed as if he had made a joke.
Del gritted his teeth, remembering Raker and his laser carbine. Mac stiffened and set down his holofile. Although Lantham chuckled, his smile had a predatory quality. A Roman nose dominated his face, and silvered hair swept up from his unlined forehead. He looked forty, but Del knew the CEO was over eighty.
"Good to see you, Del," Lantham said, rising to his feet as Del reached his desk.
Del shook his hand, aware that Lantham didn't acknowledge the others with him. He hated it when Lantham treated his friends as if they were nothing, but he didn't want to antagonize the CEO any further after he had turned down the lucrative offer from Tarex. If Lantham had called this meeting because he expected to change Del's mind, they were going to have a problem.
"You know Rex, don't you?" Lantham said.
"Yeah, sure." Del nodded to Rex. "How's it going?"
Rex lifted his glass. "Great." As always, his smile flashed, ready and polished. And fake.
"Have a seat," Zachary said, indicating the couch.
Jud and Bonnie pulled up chairs, but Del felt like he had to sit on the couch; otherwise, he'd look as if he were deliberately going against Zachary. So he sat on the opposite end from Rex. The Mind Mix singer nodded in a friendly manner, but his gaze could have frozen ice.
Tyra stood by the door, monitoring the room, and Cameron took a post by the wall. Lantham and Zachary both glanced at Tyra, but neither asked why Del had a new guard. Del would have hired additional protection even if Kelric hadn't insisted. He still had nightmares about Raker and Delilah.
Zachary came over and gave him a glass of rum. Del took a sip, then set it on the table after Zachary turned around to go back to his chair. Lantham stayed put, relaxed behind Zachary's desk, watching them all as if they were chess pieces on a board he had set up for his entertainment.
"Your most recent tour was quite a success," Lantham said.
"Thanks." Del hoped they didn't want him to do another. The last had exhausted him. And why was Rex here? Del had no intention of opening for Mind Mix again. He had two anthologies in the top five and Rex only had one. Yeah, Mind Mix had two decades of solid sales behind them. It would be a long time before he could match that, if ever. But damn it, he shouldn't be their opener.
"Maybe we could do some virtual concerts," Del said. He was stalling. Artists gave virtual concerts all the time. It was easy to set up. They wouldn't call in the big guns for that.
"Yes, of course," Lantham said with a hint of irritation. "I'm sure our techs can take care of it."
Del bit his lip, feeling foolish. Mac shot him a warning look and tilted his head just slightly, which wasn't any help, because that particular nod could mean either that he approved of whatever Prime-Nova was cooking up or else he didn't like it at all.
Del eased down his mental barriers. Both Mac and Ricki were uneasy. Rex was pissed. Zachary was worried and feeling aggressive, which was one of his worst moods, the type that led everyone to avoid the tech-mech king. Lantham was cooler, sizing them all up, especially Del and Rex. Del felt about as comfortable as if he were rolling naked in a hill of stinging ants. His head began to ache, and he raised his barriers.
"If this is about Tarex—" Del began.
"No, not that." Lantham waved his hand. "We want you to do another concert."
Damn. "For my Starlight vid?" If the tour was for him, he wouldn't have to worry about Rex.
"Not exactly," Zachary said. "Just one performance." He nodded to Rex. "Mind Mix is the lead in the July Fourth show in the Capitol Mall in D.C. We'd like you to play as well."
Well, hell. They did want him to open for Rex. Sure, the concert would be huge, bigger than anything he had done, over a million people. Mind Mix was one of the best-established bands in the business. Of course they were headliners. But damn it, Del didn't want to play second fiddle as if he were a raw new act. Even worse, he would have to cancel his trip home. Again. He needed that vacation.
Unfortunately, his refusal to deal with Tarex had ticked off Prime-Nova big time. If he refused this concert, it would do even more damage. They put up with more from him now because he was making money for them, but he could only push it so far.
Del spoke carefully. "I wasn't invited to do the concert."
Lantham leaned back in his big chair and steepled his fingers. "Well, that's the thing, Del." He nodded toward Rex. "Mind Mix was invited. Top billing. But it seems their morpher can't play."
"Tackman?" Del asked. He could feel Rex simmering. "Why not? He's a good musician."
"He's a fucked-up musician," Ricki said flatly. "He went on a very public neuro-amp binge three days ago, tore up a restaurant, smashed a wait-bot, and shoved around several well-heeled patrons who are now threatening lawsuits. We put him in detox, but he is not going on stage next week for the July Fourth concert."
"Is he going to be all right?" Del asked.
Lantham shrugged. "Eventually. If he stays in treatment."
"The hum on the meshes is bad," Zachary said. "Some virt worlds are saying Mind Mix should be kicked off the Capitol lineup. We don't want that to happen. We need to bring in someone fresh, with no bad press. Someone new and popular."
"I can't play a morpher," Del said, bewildered. "I don't know anything about keyboards."
Ricki motioned to Jud. "But you have one of the best in the business."
Jud gaped at her. "You want me to do it?"
Del could have fallen over. The way Ricki always complained about Jud being undercity, he had thought she couldn't stand his playing. Maybe that had been yet another tactic. He had finished his two vids, so Prime-Nova had to negotiate a new contract if they wanted more. And he had a lot to bargain with this time.
"That explains why you asked Jud here," Del said. "Not me."
"You're going to sing with Rex," Lantham said.
"Damn it!" Rex burst out. "I told you. I won't sing with him. Put him on before me." He looked furious, but what Del felt from him was fear. It came through even Del's raised shields.
"Del isn't opening for anyone," Mac said. "Most of those acts you have playing should open for him."
"We aren't asking him to," Zachary said. "He and Rex will sing together."
"No," Rex said. "I won't do it."
"You really find me that offensive?" Del asked. It bothered him a lot, because he liked Rex. Sort of.
Rex clenched his tumbler. "If we sing together, Arden, I'll sound like a fool."
That he hadn't expected. "That's nuts. You're great."
"Yeah, I sound good," Rex said. "But I can't come close to what you do. The comparison will drill my career. Everyone will talk about how Prime-Nova's two male stars match up. Your voice is eons better than mine, you're twenty-five years younger, you can dance, and you could go for hours after I would have to stop." He turned to Zachary. "You want to kill my commercial value? Then sure, put me up there with him."
Del felt as if they had knocked out his breath. Rex thought Del would make him look bad? It was nuts. But Zachary just shifted his weight and looked at Lantham, then Ricki. None of them disputed Rex's words.
After the silence became strained, Rex pushed his hand across his close-
cropped hair. "All right! Put him on after me. Just fix it so I don't look like I'm opening for him."
Del stared at him. He didn't know how to absorb the concept that Rex Montrow, one of the biggest stars in decades, would rather let Del headline a concert than risk the comparison of their singing together.
"You'd let Del go last?" Mac asked.
"Yeah." Rex sounded as if he were gritting his teeth.
Lantham looked Del over with an appraising stare. "Can you do it? You only have a week."
"Of course I can," Del said, irked.
"The last time you told us that," Lantham said coldly, "you plummeted. Miserably."
Del flushed. "I didn't know what I was doing. I do now."
"You think you'll play for a million people," Lantham said.
"Isn't that the projected number?" Del asked.
"In D.C., yes." Lantham leaned forward. "They won't fit into the mall. The show will be broadcast all over the city. And not just the city. It's the only concert we broadcast live. It will go out to the North American continent on our feeds. Mesh-media will pick it up and send in all over Earth. And offworld. Not just to Allied Worlds, either. The Skolians and Traders are going to pick this one up, too. If you bomb, you can't fuck up much worse than that."
Del's anger sparked. Lantham sounded like Kelric. He spoke coldly. "Thank you for the vote of confidence."
Ricki raised her eyebrows. He ignored it. Damn it, he had proved himself on this last tour.
"Right now, you're the hottest boy on the market," Lantham told him. "But you could go down as fast as you went up. The newer you are, the easier it is to fall."
Del remembered the last time he had said, sure, one week, no problem. They had reason for their doubts. And they were already angry over Tarex. He made himself speak with respect. "I won't, sir."
Mac blinked, and if the atmosphere hadn't been so tense, Del would have laughed. He doubted Mac had ever heard him act deferential, especially with an authority figure like Lantham.
The CEO rose to his feet. "Then we're decided."
"You have my word." Del said. He stood up as well. "It'll be a concert like none you've ever seen."
XXIII: A Country Home
Del lay on his back on the marble floor of the crypt. A domed roof arched above, and a haze of motes drifted in a beam of sunlight that slanted past the open marble door. His voice drifted in the background:
No answers live in here alone
No answers on this spectral throne
Nothing in this vault of fears
This sterling vault, chamber of 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
His voice wound through the air, full of grief, but also hope:
No answers could bring me life
Yet when I opened my eyes
Beyond the sleeping crystal dome
Beyond it all, I had come home
Del rolled onto his stomach and rested his cheek on his hands. The marble floor was smooth under his palms. Although many people considered the lyrics of "No Answers" dark, to Del they were as much about his return to life as his death. Usually the crypt in his virt had a sense of serenity, but today it felt suffocating. Yet no matter how hard he concentrated on changing the scene, the virt wouldn't respond. He couldn't get out of the simulation. He was trapped, trapped—
Stop it, Del told himself. Take a breath. Concentrate . . .
The building rippled and wavered, then blurred into grey mist. Bewildered, he sat up—into brilliant light. He was in a cave. A crystal cave. Light bounced around the crystals, reflecting and refracting, too bright.
"No!" Del shouted. He struggled to hold down his panic and change the sim. He had to flee the crystal cave. The cryo womb. No, not a womb. The tomb.
His cryo unit had always looked like this when he awoke. The doctors brought him out when they took his DNA for Delson, then put him back when his body shut down. Ten years later, when they took him out again, Chaniece had been waiting. Hers was the first face he had seen. She had held him while he shook uncontrollably, terrified he would be paralyzed, mute, and helpless for the rest of his life.
Gradually he had healed. His body hadn't been stable at first, so they had put him back in cryo for a few months. It had gone that way for several years, until he no longer needed stabilization. That had been six years ago. He had been normal since then, at least as normal as he could be after he had lost nearly five decades while life continued without him.
Del had gone into cryo just months after the Traders brutalized his parents. Not long after he came out, his half-brother Kurj had died in the battle that started the Radiance War. The Traders had tortured and killed Althor, the brother who protected Del that night at the lake. Del's sister Soz became Imperator and went to war, bringing two empires to their knees. She captured the Trader emperor—and his own people blew up her ship, killing him as well as her. They captured Eldrin and interrogated him for months before he gained his freedom. No one knew what had happened to Kelric, who had vanished for years and only returned home in the chaotic aftermath of the war, ravaged by age and illness.
For Del, no decades had intervened in those events, though over forty years had passed between what happened to his parents and his siblings. The Aristos had taken so very, very much from his family. Usually he pressed down the memories until he no longer hurt, but here in the crystal cave of his own mind, he couldn't escape. He was helpless to do anything for the family he loved. And he did love them, deeply and desperately, despite the way he fought them, struggling like a wild animal in a trap.
His brothers and sister had been leaders, pilots, heroes. Dehya and Kelric were geniuses, using their formidable intellects to protect their people. Windar dedicated his life to teaching, for he believed education was the road to peace. Vyrl had led a planetwide protest that forced the Allied military to leave Lyshriol and return control of the planet to Del's family.
Del had none of the traits that made his family valuable, nothing except his DNA, which had left his grown son with the mind of a child and the younger one with Del's painful empathic sensitivity. He had slept for decades while his family weathered the brutality of the Traders. He could do nothing to help. Nothing. He didn't resent them so much as he hated himself for having nothing to give.
Rex worried about how he would look next to Del on stage, but he had no idea how brutal a comparison could be. Next to the rest of his family, Del felt worthless on a scale so huge, it was unbearable. The Ruby Dynasty—the ultimate prey of the Highton Aristos—defied the Traders on an interstellar scale. It infuriated the Aristos almost beyond imagining, and they retaliated by doing everything within their power to make the existence of the Ruby Dynasty a living hell. Del had escaped the long reach of their brutality only because they knew they had nothing to fear from him. He was nothing.
That was the greatest irony, that he, the weakest link of the Ruby Dynasty, was the one left standing, unscathed—except for his grief.
Jud's frightened face swam into view. "Thank God! I was about to call the hospital."
Del peered at him with bleary vision. After a moment, he realized he was holding his VR helmet. He must have taken it off, because Jud would never remove a brain-wired connection.
"What happened?" Del asked thickly.
"You've been in that bliss all night!" Jud said. "Eight hours. I thought you would never stop."
Del's voice felt creaky. "I wanted to . . . couldn't stop."
"You look like hell."
Del sat up stiffly and set the helmet on the console. "Why were you worried? You see me in the node every day."
"Not this long." Jud sat in the chair next to him. "Staver commed you last night. He sounded frightened."
Dismay swept over Del. Had he been trapped in his nightmares while something happened to Staver? He fumbled with the console, trying to
activate its comm. His mind wouldn't cooperate. Eight miserable hours of reliving his worst memories had wiped him out.
Claude, his EI, spoke. "Del, do you want some help?"
"I need to comm Staver Aunchild," Del said.
"I'm setting up the link," Claude answered.
Del tried to stand, then sank back into his chair.
"You have to stop," Jud said. "You want to be Prime-Nova's next meltdown? Tackman got hit bad, Del. It'll be a long time before Lantham works with him again. If ever." He shook his head. "The whole band got hit. Now we're the headliner on July Fourth. You could lose it just as easily as Mind Mix did."
"The virt helps me perform." But Del was no longer sure of anything. Bliss was supposed to untangle his mind after a concert. When had pre-concert trips become his routine? In everything he did, he was always planning his next session. It interfered with his music. How was that any different from Tackman needing his next neuro-amp fix? Del had thought of Raker and Delilah as the virtisos, but he wondered just how much—or little—separated him from them. He had promised to quit, yet he had just done his longest session ever, and it had been a journey into his nightmares.
"Staver Aunchild isn't home," Claude suddenly said. "His house EI says neither he nor his bodyguard have been in since last night."
Del climbed to his feet. "Why would it tell you that?"
"Staver left a message," Claude said. "He wanted you to comm him. He was supposed to stay home. But he left. His EI doesn't know when; Staver erased part of its memory, and it can't reach either Staver or his bodyguard. His AI posted an orange code."
Del tensed. Orange meant it suspected a risk to Staver. "Why did he erase its memory?"
"It doesn't know. Probably to keep his actions secret."
Del turned to Jud. "We have to find him."
Jud regarded him uneasily. "You think this is about that Aristo?"
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