Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro

  Bonnie gave Del one of her soft, shy smiles. "We all voted. We gave you the highest rating. A ten. 'So hot, it sizzles.' "

  Del laughed, delighted. "Can I vote? Like ten thousand times?"

  Jud winked at him. "Only once. It recognizes your m-signature. But yeah, sure, you can vote for yourself."

  "It won't make much difference," Anne said. "The NorthAm Central Node gets millions of votes. They're the top counter for holo-rock stats in North America."

  It was finally sinking into Del what they were telling him. " 'Sapphire Clouds' never got on a national counter."

  Randall leaned forward. "They post the music charts at six a.m. We'll find out then how we did."

  "This is good, isn't it?" Del said. "Maybe we'll hit the top hundred!"

  Jud punched at the air with his fist. "That would be a wail, wouldn't it?" He put his arm around Bonnie and pulled her against his side.

  Del finally registered how close Jud and Bonnie were sitting. He kept his smile to himself, though. He would give Jud a hard time later. He liked them both, and it seemed a day for good things.

  It was hard to sleep after that, but Del dozed for a while. Cameron woke him up, shaking Del's shoulder.

  Del squinted at him. "Huh?"

  "Wake up," Cameron rumbled at him. "The new chart goes up in about a minute."

  Del smiled sleepily. "You're getting into this, too."

  "It's all right," his bodyguard allowed.

  "Come on," Randall called. "Take a listen."

  Del's anticipation was fading, leaving him feeling ready to throw up. To have his hopes raised and then find out "Diamond Star" was mired way down the charts would depress him. "Maybe I shouldn't listen."

  "Don't be a black hole," Jud said. "Show some spine."

  Del glowered at him, even though he knew Jud was joking. "I've never been a collapsed star. And if I reveal my vertebrae, I'll need an operation."

  Bonnie laughed, her voice like the ripple of a clear stream. She snuggled next to Jud, curled in his arms. "Stop teasing. Listen." She motioned toward the mesh screen. "They play a sample of each song as they release the list."

  "One at a time?" Del asked. That sounded excruciating.

  Anne answered. "The top hundred, yeah." She was across the table from Jud and Bonnie, slumped against the seatback with her head on a pillow, sensuously graceful. Cameron was watching her instead of the mesh.

  A woman's voice rose into the air. "Number one hundred: 'Shanghai Dream,' by Betsy Wong." Fast-paced music played while the holo of a beautiful woman in a gold dress sang about a dragon.

  When the thirty-second clip finished, the announcer said, "Ninety-nine. 'A Thousand Sighs,' by Masts and Sails." A fleet of holo ships appeared, cruising across Jud's mesh while several male singers harmonized about the sea, comparing it to the shoals of space.

  Del listened until the countdown reached seventy. By that time, his good mood had sunk. "Diamond Star" might have debuted in the nineties, but it wasn't likely to do better, especially given that the original version had entered the charts at three hundred. He slouched back in his seat and closed his eyes. When the announcer reached the fifties, he began to doze . . .

  "Wake up, you idiot!" Anne shouted.

  "What!" Del sat bolt upright. "Don't yell at me."

  Anne was laughing. Hell, so were Jud and Randall. And Bonnie, the traitor. Even Cameron had cracked a smile.

  "Stop laughing at me," Del said. Maybe he had been snoring.

  "You missed it!" Anne told him.

  "I can't believe he slept through it," Randall said. "I cannot believe it."

  Del's pulse jumped. "Slept through what?"

  In the background, the woman said, "Number twenty-one: 'I'm Still Here,' by Jenny Summerland."

  Bonnie's expression softened. "Twenty-three, Del. You debuted at twenty-three."

  At first he couldn't say anything. When he finally opened his mouth, all that came out was, "That can't be true."

  "No, she made it up," Jud said, laughing. "Of course it's true, you dolt."

  Del tried to absorb it. Twenty-three. Gods almighty, he had a hit. The big names usually debuted in the top ten, but hell, twenty-three was no slouch.

  "I wish Mac was here," Del said. Business had kept his manager from coming on this first leg of the tour.

  "He's joining us in West Virginia, isn't he?" Anne said.

  "Comm him," Randall said. "For this, he'll wake up early."

  "He's always up this early." Del grimaced. "It's inhuman. He comms me at ridiculous hours. Like ten in the morning."

  A grin quirked Jud's lips. "Yeah, that's absurd. Expecting you to be awake at ten a.m. How more inconsiderate can he be?"

  Del glared at him. His sleep habits were a never-ending source of amusement for his roommate, who seemed to think waking up at seven in the morning was normal. "Can it, Tabor."

  "Can what?" Jud asked innocently. "Tomatoes or sardines?"

  "Oh, stop you two," Bonnie said.

  Randall was peering at the mesh screen. "Maybe Mac knows. We have a comm from him. It's been waiting about twenty minutes."

  "Huh." Jud flicked holicons, and Mac's voice rose into the air. "Del, if you get this in time, listen to the North American Countdown for holo-rock this morning. Then comm me."

  "Hah!" Anne said. "He knew."

  "How could he?" Del asked. "The count tallies keep changing right up until six a.m. The announcement is live."

  "Yeah, right," Randall said. "Just like the Atlantic City-Time Hour is live."

  "I've heard the big companies usually know an hour ahead," Anne said. She socked her pillow a few times and settled herself back, sleek and slender in her black mesh-jeans.

  "But how would Mac know?" Del asked. "Claude, can you connect me to Mac Tyler's office?"

  "Connecting," Claude said. It was the version of Del's EI that he had uploaded to Jud's mesh.

  "You know what this means," Jud said. "We can ask for more on this tour. Like a flyer instead of a van."

  "Tour costs still come out of our royalties," Del said. "If we ask for more, we just have to pay it back out of what we earn." He had gone over the details with Mac. Finances used to bore him silly, but when they were his finances, they turned out to be a lot more interesting.

  "I have Mister Tyler on audio," Claude said.

  "Mac!" Del said. "Did you hear? We're twenty-three!"

  "I heard." Mac sounded pleased but oddly guarded. "Prime-Nova found out an hour ago. Ricki commed me."

  Del's good mood faded. "She could have commed me."

  "She's not supposed to tell the artist," Mac said. "Unwritten rule, I guess. No one is supposed to know, but execs at the conglomerates usually get the list before it's announced. She wasn't supposed to tell me, either."

  Del's smile came back. "What do you think? Can we get paid more?"

  "Yes." Mac still sounded guarded. "Del, how do you know Staver Aunchild?"

  "Who?" The name sounded familiar, but Del couldn't place it.

  "The buyer for Metropoli Interstellar. It's a Skolian media conglomerate. He's been on Earth, scouting talent."

  "Oh. That's right." Now Del remembered. "I met him at a party Ricki took me to. Then I saw him after my Atlantic City-Time appearance. He said I should send him some of my stuff. But we never heard back. I figured he wasn't interested."

  "He may have changed his mind," Mac said. "He contacted Prime-Nova this morning."

  Randall let out a whoop. "We're going interstellar!"

  "Don't celebrate yet," Mac told him. "Just because he expressed interest doesn't mean you'll make the sale." Then he added, "And you all have to want this."

  "Why wouldn't we?" Anne asked.

  "Del?" Mac's tone remained guarded. "Do you want your music going to the Skolians?"

  Del inhaled, realizing what Mac wanted him to consider. His family might see all this. He hadn't wanted them to watch him fail, but if this worked out, they would see him succeed. If they noticed. Yes,
sure, the Skolian military was undoubtedly monitoring him here with covert bots or agents. But their main concern would be that he was safe. No one in his family listened to holo-rock. It was funny trying to imagine his Aunt Dehya, the Ruby Pharaoh, rocking out to his songs. Or his mother, gods forbid. They wouldn't understand what it meant that he had a hit, but if his music became big among their own people, they would see that others considered him a success. And that mattered to him.

  Del just said, "Sure."

  "You're positive?" Mac asked.

  "Yes," Del said. "I'm sure."

  "All right. I'll let you know what Aunchild says."

  After they signed off, Anne studied Del. "Why would Mac think you didn't want your music with the Skolians?"

  Del shrugged. "Maybe he always has to check."

  Jud was watching him, too, with a scrutiny Del had noticed before, as if his roommate was trying to decipher him. "Skolians make you uncomfortable."

  Del laughed, trying to cover his unease. "No, they don't."

  "It just happened again," Jud told him.

  Del shifted his weight. "What happened again?"

  "You get that 'I don't want to talk' look whenever anyone mentions the Skolian Imperialate."

  Damn. He had to distract them. Make it look like a joke. "Well, you know," Del said with mock solemnity. "I'm Skolian."

  "That so?" Randall said. "Yet here you are, living in Baltimore."

  "Actually," Anne said, "at the moment, he's in a van."

  "ASC brought me here," Del told them. "To Earth. To keep me in custody. Except they had to let me go because I hadn't done anything wrong." He laughed. "So I decided to be a rock star. To improve relations between your people and mine."

  "Well, goodness," Anne said. "Aren't you important."

  "Yeah, he's a real ambassador," Randall said. "Hey, Allied Space Command liked him so much, they gave him a commission in the military."

  "A starship command!" Bonnie said. "Captain Del."

  Jud leaned back on the seat, his arm around Bonnie. "That would be one hell of a starship, eh?"

  "Where are you from, really?" Anne asked. "Your accent sounds Irish, a little."

  "I am actually from offworld," Del said. "A planet called Lyshriol. And it really is a rediscovered colony from the Ruby Empire. It's just that Earth found it before the Skolians. But I descend from those original colonists."

  "Heh." Jud laid his cheek on top of Bonnie's head. "That's weird. I thought you came from an Allied colony."

  Del wished he could share more with them. "Lyshriol looks like our virt. Except it's prettier."

  "Do you miss it?" Anne asked.

  "A lot," Del said. More than he had expected. "I'm going to go home for a visit after we finish this tour."

  "It might not be that easy." Jud lifted his head. "Prime-Nova will want to capitalize on the success of 'Diamond Star.' If it debuted this high, you've a good chance of breaking into the top ten. If that happens, they're going to pump you out to all the publicity venues. Talk shows, media appearances, all that."

  "Oh." Del hesitated. "Well, I'll figure out some way to get home."

  Surely they couldn't keep him busy all the time.

  Mac pulled his hover-car into the secured area behind the Skylight Arena and let out a relieved breath. He had an hour to spare, and a local band was set to play before Del. Although it wasn't a large concert, only two thousand people, the organizers had their act together. They had set up the backstage lot so only drivers with passes could get in. For acts larger than Del, it protected the musicians from being mobbed by fans.

  Just as important to Mac, he had a private pad for his car. He hated concert parking, with the crowded lots and jostling vehicles. Some lead-brained joker always tried to hover his car over someone else's. Sure, in theory, a hover-car could go that high. But who wanted tons of car blasting air down on their car, unstable and unsteady? It would take a gruesome accident, though, before the legislators passed that stalled bill making it illegal to hover one car over another. The powerful vehicle conglomerates made more money when people bought jacked-up models that could manage those wretched feats. So Mac was grateful for the private lot.

  Inside, Mac found Del and the others in the green room behind the stage at the arena.

  "Hey, Mac!" Del bounded over and whacked him on the back, sloshing wine out of the glass he held in his other hand. "You're the best."

  Mac smiled at him. "Hello to you, too."

  "Twenty-three," Anne sang across the room, dancing around with her glass of red wine.

  "And the concert is sold out!" Jud called. He and Bonnie were together on a sofa. He had his arm draped around her shoulders, and they both had glasses of whatever Anne was drinking. Randall was in a recliner, holding a glass of something clear, ouzo probably, his favorite.

  Cameron stood by the wall, watching the others, his arms crossed. The band had grown so used to his presence, they barely seemed to notice him. He lifted anything heavy that needed lifting and otherwise remained in the background.

  As Anne waltzed around the room, Mac scowled at them. "You're all drunk."

  "Oh no-oh, we're no-ot, Maaaaac," Del sang. "We're so-oh, we're ho-ot, Jaaaack." In a normal voice, he added, "We're celebrating. You should, too."

  Mac couldn't help but smile. "Not your lyrics." He took the glass out of Del's hand. "I thought alcohol didn't affect you."

  "It doesn't," Del said cheerfully. He motioned at the others. "But I feel what they feel. And it does affect them."

  Oh, great. Secondary empathic inebriation. "No more alcohol for any of you," Mac said. "Wait until after the concert."

  "All right," Del said, his boyish face flushed with good spirits. "But come on! Aren't you glad? People like my song!"

  His enthusiasm caught Mac. "I'm thrilled. You deserve this." In a quieter voice, he said, "I know you don't want me to worry. But I can't help it."

  Del pretended to punch him in the arm. "It's not like I'm the only person with an allergy who became a performer."

  Allergy seemed way too simplified for Del's health problems, but Mac saw why he used the word. It avoided awkward explanations. Mac wanted to be glad for Del. He wished the part of him that dreaded Del's success would shut up and go away. But the better he knew Del, the more he liked him. He wished the youth would adopt some safe, princely lifestyle, like playing croquet and going to staid dinner parties. Which was about as likely as the moon falling on Mac's head.

  When a stagehand gave the five-minute warning, they went to a curtained entrance of the stage. As Bonnie held up the curtain, they ran out in what had become their trademark entrance. Their equipment was waiting, and the AIs in the morpher, drums, and stringer had coordinated their setup with the human tech who oversaw the control boards. Green lights glowed on the instruments as if they were starships announcing their readiness to fly.

  A tech threw Del a mike, and he grabbed it out of the air. As the crowd screamed, he and the band launched into "Breathing Underwater," one of the few covers they did, a work by Hayim Ani and the band Point Valid:

  Just a little boy, left in a house of pain

  Wondering where all the ashes went

  Now I'm standing in a spotlight of shame

  Staring at my black and empty frame

  Yet when I close my eyes, I feel the warmth of the sea

  I fall into sleep, but you're there to catch me

  Your arms are outstretched, you're loving no other

  Together we'll learn how to breathe underwater

  Gone was the frightened youth who froze on stage; tonight Del moved with ease, striding back and forth, giving the audience what they came to see. His blue pants and white shirt were holoscreens, and blue light surrounded him in a halo. Abstract light-swirls in green, gold, and aqua glowed above the stage, over the audience, and in the aisles, rippling, shimmering. Blue and green light fountained up behind the band, and more holos washed the stage, submerging them in a sea of light. The stage it
self morphed subtly, adding to the wave effect, constantly analyzing Del's position so its ripples didn't knock him over.

  As always, Mac had a paramedic standing by in case Del had a convulsion. It had only happened once more, a few days after the first. The paramedic found nothing wrong, nor did the doctor at the emergency clinic where Mac took Del despite the youth's protests. They told Del to eat better and sleep more. So now Del always made sure to rest after a concert. Mac didn't know what to make of his using a virt to relax, but it worked. He had no more convulsions.

  And yet, watching Del sing, his eyes glazed in empathic ecstasy, Mac shuddered. The doctors claimed Del was fine, but Mac couldn't shake his sense of foreboding.

  After the concert, Del wolfed down several sandwiches a tech gave him. Eventually he and Cameron went back to the green room, where they found Randall talking to a blond fellow who looked like a graduate student at the college.

  "I can fix it however you want," the blond man was saying.

  Randall was easing his stringer into the velvet interior of its case. "I don't think so, Casper. But thanks."

  "I suppose I could find someone else." Casper's glance slid toward Del, then back to Randall.

  Del couldn't focus. His head hummed with energy, coiled and tight. It wasn't as bad as with the big concerts; two thousand people were much easier to deal with. And this crowd had been one of the best yet. After the show, Mac had stayed backstage and watched him eat instead of checking on the equipment. Del didn't know why. Well, okay he did. Mac wanted to make sure he didn't have another convulsion. But he felt good tonight, and after a while Mac had left him with Cameron while he saw to other business.

  "Hey." Casper nodded as Del wandered over to them. "That was a great show."

  "Thanks," Del said.

  "I gave him tickets," Randall said. "We went to school near here, at Virginia Tech."

  Casper gave a burst of laughter. "I went to school. Randy screwed off. Every now and then he remembered to come to class."