XVII: One Last Night
XVII
One Last Night
Mac Tyler had nothing to do while he waited for security to check the building, so he settled into an armchair in the VIP waiting room and read. He had the latest draft of the book a biographer was writing about Del. Mac knew the story backward and forward; he had been Del’s manager well before the prince had become famous—or some might say infamous—for singing “Carnelians Finale.” The biographer had done a more reasonable job with this draft, toning down the hyperbole. The story was still all there, how Prince Del-Kurj Arden Valdoria Skolia never used his full name. His billions of fans knew him as Del Arden.
The biographer rhapsodized at great length about how Del sounded as good if not better when he sang live as he did in recordings. He spent so much time describing how Del could sing without technological fixes that Mac wondered if the fellow realized vocalists were supposed to know how to sing. It was certainly true, though, that at first the critics hadn’t believed Del’s talent was genuine. It was only when his producers at Prime Nova brought them in and had Del perform for them live, up close and personal, that they acknowledged his astonishing virtuosity was genuine. His dazzling quality, depth, and six-octave range were real.
Those closest to Del knew he had grown up on a rural world that eschewed technology. Although he’d had access to such advantages if he wanted them, it had never occurred to him to enhance his voice. He simply trained, almost from birth, though he hadn’t realized he was doing it. He just sang all the time, doing exercises he made up. No one on his home world liked holo-rock, including his family, the Ruby Dynasty. It wasn’t until he sang on Earth, in their lucrative and cutthroat world of entertainment, that he discovered people actually wanted to hear him. His ancestors had been genetically engineered to develop their voices as instruments, but it was the years of never-ending training that gave him what critics called “the voice of an unparalleled rock angel.”
The biographer seemed more interested in Del’s charisma, however, than his talent. Like many youths on his home world, Del had learned a form of martial arts called mai-quinjo. It left him with a dancer’s lithe grace and musculature, which for him translated into an erotic grace, not only when he moved, but even in his still postures, his hips tilted, his body relaxed and lean, as if he were about to melt into a sensual dance. It mortified Del; he never wanted anyone to see him dance. But after Prime Nova had coaxed him into working with a choreographer, his sales had soared.
It was no wonder people fell in love with Del. He looked like a misbehaved angel, with large eyes fringed by ridiculously long eyelashes. When he sang, his face could go in a heartbeat from unbearably beautiful to the snarl of passion. In his black leather, he was the ultimate pretty bad-boy, the rock god everyone wanted in their bed.
“What are you reading?” a man asked behind him.
Mac turned with a start. Del was standing there, watching him curiously. Mac held up the holofile. “The latest version of your biography.”
Del winced. “I hope it isn’t as embarrassing as the last one.”
“He’s toned it down.” Mac set the file on a table by the chair and stood up. “Ready for your speech?”
“I’m trying.” Del paled, which accented the freckles across his nose. “How many people do you think are out there?”
Mac had wondered himself. He flicked through a menu on his wrist comm. “According to the latest figures, twelve thousand are gathered in the plaza and surrounding streets. Broadcasters are estimating the interstellar audience in the tens of billions.”
“Gods,” Del muttered. “Just to hear me stumble through a few words?”
Mac wished he could ease Del’s stage fright. The prince had long ago overcome his fear of singing in public; indeed, he thrived now on performing. But giving speeches still petrified him.
“You’ll do fine,” Mac said. “Just think of it as a song without a melody.”
“Just another live song,” Del said, with a self-deprecatory laugh. “That’s what got me into this mess, when I sang ‘Carnelians Finale’ live.”
“It’s one hell of a song,” Mac said. And apt. God only knew if the Hightons would ever stop in their single-minded urge to subjugate the sum total of all humanity. But they and the Skolians were finally trying to make peace and Del wanted it to succeed as much as anyone else.
Mac’s comm hummed. Glancing at its small screen, he said, “Security has finished their checks. We can go on in, if you’re ready.”
Del straightened his shoulders. “Yeah, let’s get it over with.”
The safe-room exited into a studio full of talk and commotion. Mesh consoles crammed with equipment lined the walls, all occupied by media techs or security people monitoring the room, building, city, planet, and offworld links. Del’s three bodyguards were standing around the water dispenser across the room, talking, ready to ensure that no one tried to attack, assault, assassinate, or climb up on the balcony and kiss Del while he was giving his speech.
Gerard, the senior mesh-tech, came over to them. His blue VR suit glinted with threads that carried more information in their hair-thin conduits than the combined memory of some entire towns. “We’re all set,” he said.
“Thanks.” Del fidgeted with the end of his belt, then realized what he was doing and stopped.
Gerard indicated a doorway across into the room. “That’s your entrance.”
“Yeah. Okay. Good. Thanks.” Del was talking too fast. He went where Gerard pointed them, flexing his fingers, curling them into a fist, relaxing them, flexing again.
Mac walked at his side. “You’ll be fine.”
“If I don’t screw this up,” Del said.
“You can’t screw it up. You have a recording of the speech in your wrist comm, right?”
Del glanced at his wrist, where the silver comm glinted. “Yeah, it’s there.”
“So no worries.” Mac filled his voice with reassurance. It continually amazed him that a man as successful as Del could have so many self-doubts. “If you forget, the comm can give you verbal cues over the audio-plug in your ear.”
The captain of Del’s bodyguards joined them at the balcony doors. A lanky woman sporting dark spiked hair, she was every inch the no-nonsense type with her standard-issue shirt, slacks, and blazer, all severely cut. She looked as if she could take on a pack of wildcats without a flinch. Her badge read Jett Masters and a pulse revolver rested in a holster on her hip.
Jett nodded to Del. “We’re ready to activate the security field, Your Highness.”
“Thanks.” Then he added, “You can just call me Del.”
“Okay, Del.” She attached a silver clip to his vest, the device indistinguishable from the studs on the leather. “This controls the field. You’ll be surrounded with energy deflectors just like when you perform live.”
Del gave her one of his blazing smiles, that celebrated flash of brilliant white teeth. “I’ve never figured out what that means, ‘energy deflector.’ ”
Incredibly, the tough-as-nails Jett blushed at Del’s smile. Mac inwardly groaned. It surely violated some conservation law of the cosmos that so many women reacted that way, even this hardened security officer.
At least Jett recovered faster than most. “The field doesn’t literally deflect energy,” she said. “It affects electronics, optics, superconductors, even solid objects. It helps deflect threats by interfering with what drives them. We also have laser carbines mounted in hidden locations, EM pulse generators, sound blasters, optical blinders, and an armed human contingent.”
“This is just a speech,” Del said with a laugh. “Not a military engagement.”
“I know. But better to have too much than too little.”
“You know, my brother Kelric would really like you.”
Jett blinked. “You mean Imperator Skolia?”
“Yeah, him. He loves this tech stuff.”
She inclined her head to him. “Thank you.”
Del looked confused. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”
Mac held back his laugh. Given the strained relationship between Del and his brother, it probably hadn’t occurred to Del that a military officer would take his comment as a compliment. Something about her response did strike Mac as odd, though he wasn’t sure what.
“Okay,” Del said, more to himself than anyone else. “Let’s do it.”
Jett touched a panel on her gauntlet and the door whisked open, revealing a balcony with potted plants around its edges. Breezes tousled Del’s hair as he walked forward with Jett and Mac. He went to the edge of the balcony and rested his hands on its rail, staring at the plaza below, and the gusts blew his curls back from his face. People filled the wind-swept area. As soon as they saw him, applause broke out and voices surged with appreciative calls. Giant holos of Del appeared on buildings, projecting his image to the streets beyond, where more people had gathered to hear Skolia’s expatriate rock god have his say. Del waved at the crowd and flashed his grin, and the applause swelled. Only Mac could see what didn’t show in the holos, the whitening of Del’s knuckles as he gripped the railing with his other hand.
Aural-orbs spun in the air, swirling with colors that indicated their broadcast frequencies and the media outlets that owned them. A blimp floated above the city, its surface projecting the image of a sea ship, as if an ancient frigate was sailing the sky above Washington D.C. Smart-cranes with media stations at their ends were poised above the buildings bordering the plaza; big enough for two people, maybe three, the stations were also packed with tech, including EI-controlled cams and media consoles. Not all of them carried crews from the conglomerates, however. One had two Marines standing at attention, both armed with EM pulse rifles.
Del spoke in a low voice. “Gods.”
“You’ll do fine,” Mac said. Times like this made him wonder if Del would ever decide his career wasn’t worth the toll it exacted. The moment “Carnelians Finale” had revealed his identity to three empires, he had lost what few freedoms remained in his life. He had already been living the constrained lifestyle of a celebrity, but that had been nothing to the limitations imposed when it became known he was a Ruby prince. He could never appear in public without these precautions.
A tech’s voice came over their earplugs. “Del, you’re good to go. This channel is private. If you toggle the red button on your wrist comm, it will put you into the public address system.”
“Thanks.” Speaking to himself, he added, “Okay, here goes.” He touched the red panel on his comm and it turned green.
“Hey,” Del said. “Hello.”
His voice resonated from every orb and speaker in the plaza. The techs weren’t enhancing it; the same genetics that had gifted Del with his spectacular ability to sing also gave him that glorious orator’s voice. Ironically, it reminded Mac of the Trader emperor, Jaibriol Qox, whose voice had a similar quality.
People called out greetings, kids were jumping up and down, and the general clamor swelled. Del held up his hand for quiet and laughed when half the crowd waved back to him. He waited until the commotion died down and then said, “Thank you all for coming. For listening. Wherever you are.” His opening wasn’t as smooth as what he had planned, but he was speaking from memory rather than using the prompt in his audio comm.
“We’ve heard a lot in recent months about my song, ‘Carnelians Finale,’ ” Del said. “I’ve come here today to talk to you about that.”
The crowd fell completely silent.
“The song is about my family,” Del said. “And about the wars my people have had with the Eubians for centuries. The wars and their aftermath.” He stopped, and his hand on the rail was shaking. He lifted his chin. “I did not release that song! After all these killing centuries of warfare between my people and the Eubians, we want peace.” He took an uneven breath. “I would never undermine the efforts of my family and Emperor Jaibriol to negotiate the treaty that Skolia and Eube have signed. Never!”
Murmurs spread through the crowd. A few buildings showed the audience now rather than Del. It was hard to read their mood; their expressions and body language were as varied as the people. Some looked relieved, others disappointed, others uncertain. Their tension was like an elasticized band pulled too tight.
“Nothing will change what my family has suffered,” Del said. “But someone has to say ‘Today I will not seek vengeance. Today, I will look beyond the violence and extend the hand of peace.’ ” His voice rang out as he left behind his careful speech. “Because if we cannot find it within ourselves to extend that hand, our children will pay the price, all of them, as we fight endless wars, grinding each other in the machinery of our hatred until nothing remains of the human race, not Skolian, not Eubian, not Allied. I ask you, entreat you, not to let anger pull apart our efforts to find peace, especially not the anger from my song. Let us begin a new era for humanity, one of a better harmony.”
Del stopped and the crowd was silent.
Good Lord. Mac hadn’t expected that. The same passion that drove “Carnelians Finale,” wrenching out of Del’s deepest pain, had infused his words here. The crowd rumbled with the sounds of people stunned and hopeful, angry and puzzled, so many emotions blended together. Del had pulled away their moorings. Skolians hated Traders, Traders hated Skolians. That was all they knew. This was probably the first time a major political figure had made such a statement: Let us forgive. Whether it would calm the furor over Del’s song, Mac couldn’t tell, but if anything could help, it was this.
Del lifted his hand to the crowd and they responded with an upsurge, waving and calling his name. As he stepped back from the rail, the commentators in the media cranes talked full speed into their holocams, already analyzing Del’s words for their interstellar audiences.
When Mac joined him at the back of the balcony, Del touched the green panel on his comm and it turned red. He gave a shaky smile. “Well, okay. It’s done.” With a wince, Del added, “I hope my family doesn’t get upset about my changing the script.”
Mac spoke quietly. “It was a good speech.”
Inside the console room, the techs were spinning down, more relaxed. Many nodded to Del or complimented him on the speech. The tension was easing. It had gone well.
Jett walked at Del’s side. “Would you like to return to your flyer?” she asked.
Del smiled at her with relief. “Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks.”
“Here, this way.” She ushered them toward a side door.
“What made you decide to change the words?” Mac asked as they walked with Jett. Del’s other two bodyguards came with them, two bulky Marines assigned to him by Allied Space Command for this event.
“Truthfully, I’m not sure. It just came out.” Del pushed back his mop of hair. “Kelric would say I’m too emotional, that I should control my feelings more.”
Mac smiled. “I’ll bet you your next paycheck he likes this.”
Del laughed easily now, his voice rich and full. “If you’re willing to bet that much, I better not. You’re too good at figuring out odds.” They went through the doorway, with Jett in front and his other two guards behind. “All that math, it’s incomprehensible hieroglyphics to me.”
Mac nodded, distracted. Jett had ushered them into an unfamiliar corridor, leading them toward an elevator at its end. “Captain Masters, where are we going?”
“We have a hover car downstairs,” she said. “It will leave the building via secured tunnels.” She glanced at Del. “So you don’t have to go out into that crowd.”
“Thanks.” Del massaged the muscles in the back of his neck. “When I started performing, before I was well known, it bothered me that people said I shouldn’t go in a crowd. I wanted to meet them. I mean, they actually liked my music. But the better known I got, the crazier it went. People would grab my clothes and hair.” He reddened. “Women threw lingerie. A few times I was trampled when the crowd knocked me down. It was nuts.”
“We’ll make sure nothing like that happens,” Jett assured him.
The elevator turned out to be a pleasant chamber carpeted in amber, with mahogany walls and a luminous disk on the ceiling, like a pool of radiance shedding light. Yet it felt wrong to Mac. It was like when Jett had thanked Del for comparing her to Kelric. He didn’t understand what troubled him; all her responses were normal and expected, and the Marines looked unconcerned as they stepped inside the elevator chamber.
“Captain, where does this elevator go?” Mac asked as the doors closed. “I thought I knew all the exits from this building.”
“HQ recently installed it,” Jett said. “Special treatment for VIPs.”
Again, a perfectly normal answer, but it felt . . . what?
Fake, Mac thought. It’s fake. He didn’t know why he thought she or the Marines were acting; he had no reason for it other than his gut reaction.
“No, let’s go out the way we came in,” Mac said. He turned toward the control panel—and found only the smooth wall. “Where are the controls?” He swung around to Jett. “Stop this elevator.”
“I’m sorry, Mister Tyler.” She looked genuinely apologetic. “This is a secured chamber. It won’t stop until we reach the hover lot in the basement.”
Del spoke coldly. “I’m not stupid, Masters. If you can start this lift, you have the codes to stop it. Do it now. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I believe you are going somewhere, Your Highness,” she said. “With us. You won’t be making any more speeches.” The other two guards were watching Del and Mac with impassive gazes, silent bulwarks behind Jett, their hands resting on their holstered guns.
“Are you crazy?” Mac asked. “You can’t take him with you.”
Jett ignored him as she spoke to Del. “Many people, both Allied and Skolian, believe your song must be heard. This ‘peace’ treaty is a falsehood propagated by the Traders to weaken us, with the ultimate goal of conquest over all humanity.” Her voice hardened. “We’re making sure no one else uses you as a propaganda tool, not the Traders, not the Allieds, and not your own family.”
Del stared at her. “You’re out of your flaming mind.”
“You won’t even get him out of this building,” Mac said. “Let alone anywhere else.” According to the files he had seen, these Marines had been vetted by both the Allieds and Skolians. But if they were taking Del, he didn’t believe the military had any hand in it. This came from somewhere else.
“We have private transportation arranged,” Jett said.
“Gods, this is rich,” Del said with an angry laugh. “I can’t even trust the people who are supposed to protect me from the nut cases out there who want to ‘keep me from being used’ by whoever they don’t like this week.”
“You’re looking at a court-martial,” Mac told Jett, his voice as hard as the knot forming in his stomach. This couldn’t be happening, not now. Was there anyone out there who wasn’t trying to destroy the damn peace process?
The sensation of descending stopped and the elevator doors slid open. Outside, a man and a woman in black jumpsuits waited in the hover lot. The woman was holding a laser carbine, but the man had a different type of gun, an air-loaded syringe pistol. A hover-van with tinted windows waited on a pad behind them, dark and sleek.
“No.” Del raised his hands, palms outward, as if to push away the commandos. “Damn it, no.” He swung around to Jett. “I’m not going with you.”
“I’m afraid you have to.” Jett glanced at the man in the lot and he raised his syringe pistol.
A familiar stab of fear went through Mac. “You can’t shoot him! He’s allergic to many drugs. He’s not even native to this planet. You could kill him!”
“We’re aware of his health,” Jett said. “The shot will only knock him out. Unless he comes of his own free will.” She raised her hand as if inviting Del to dinner. “After you, Your Highness.”
Del, stall, Mac thought, shouting the words in his mind. He wasn’t a telepath, but Del was a powerful enough psion that if Mac projected his thought with sufficient strength, Del might pick it up even through the mental shields he used to protect his mind.
Del glanced at Mac, his forehead furrowed as if he were straining to hear a whisper.
Stall them! Mac thought. Allied Space Command monitored Del. Even if Masters and her people had temporarily nullified that security, they couldn’t keep this up for long. If he and Del stalled long enough, someone would find them.
Del crossed his arms and regarded Jett implacably. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself.” She nodded to the man with the syringe gun.
As had often happened during Mac’s Air Force days in an engagement, his time sense slowed down. The man with the syringe seemed to move in slow motion, training his weapon on Del. Mac didn’t give a rat’s ass what Jett Masters claimed about their precautions; he couldn’t let whatever was in that gun hit Del. When the man’s finger touched the firing stud, Mac threw himself in front of Del. He didn’t hear the shot, he felt only a stab of pain in his neck, but that was enough; he recognized the pressure-driven dart of a syringe gun. With a grunt, he lurched past Del and crashed into Jett. He was dimly aware of the Marines converging on them as he and Jett slammed into the wall.
The world went dark.
Aliana had never expected even to leave Muzeopolis, let alone visit a Skolian embassy. The idea that she might leave the planet was so far outside her experience, it never entered her mind.
Until it happened.
She had no choice. The soldiers had taken them from the embassy despite outraged protests from the Skolians. Aliana was just grateful ESComm hadn’t executed anyone, especially Lensmark, who she particularly liked despite the Secondary being an Imperialate soldier. The Skolians should be grateful they were alive, yet instead they were furious at ESComm. Aliana wished she could be angry, too, but mostly she was terrified.
“Zina?” Red’s voice was soft in the darkness.
Aliana lifted her head. She was slouched in a big beanbag, here in the two-room cabin where the soldiers had locked up her and Red. He had been in the other room, asleep in a pressure hammock slung between two bulkheads. She could have closed his door, but she couldn’t bear to cut herself off from him, her only friend within light years. She had no idea what the soldiers had done with Tide and it was killing her. This had happened because he helped her and Red. Even knowing ESComm would have looked for him anyway when the order came to kill any survivors of his line, she felt responsible.
“I’m over here,” she said, ensconced in the soft beanbag. It shifted around, making her more comfortable, something she hadn’t known chairs could do.
“I come over?” He sounded closer.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Please.”
A hand touched her shoulder. The fresh scent of his clothes tickled her nose, and the smooth cloth of his jumpsuit brushed her neck when his arm moved past her. The material crinkled as he sat settled to her in the big lump of a chair.
Aliana hesitated, feeling shy. But they had so little time left with each other. She didn’t want to waste it. She put her arms around him, tentative, afraid he would pull away.
“You smell good,” she said.
“You, too.” His cheek moved against hers as if he were searching for something. He turned her head, bringing her lips against his. Then he kissed her softly, with such sweetness. It felt good, like warmth against the cold of their fear and isolation.
Fear. Common sense finally kicked in and Aliana pulled back. “Red, no. We can’t.”
“Yes, can,” he murmured, stroking her hair.
“I’m not an Aristo. I can’t have you.”
“Not want Aristo.” His voice caught. “They never love. They hurt and hurt and hurt.”
She couldn’t imagine what hells he had lived. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Not want to die.” His usually rich voice had a hard edge. “Aristos say I never think. No mind. Nothing. Just provide. But I think.” His voice rasped with anger she had never heard him give words to. “I feel. I dream. I laugh and I cry. I want to live.”
“Ah, gods.” Tears gathered in her eyes. It was all there, in him, the humanity the Aristos had denied, that they had bred him never to show, just like the humanity within Tide. She had no way to save his life, no way to help either of them. ESComm was sending them both to Admiral Muze, who was on the planet Glory. She didn’t know why they included her, except that she was a side issue caught up with Red and Tide. She knew only that Admiral Muze had wanted to kill Red for some cruel and arbitrary reason she would never understand.
She brushed her lips over Red’s nose, tickling it with her tongue, and he laughed, his voice catching at the end. He kissed her again as they slid down in the beanbag. It molded around them, cradling their bodies. Red undressed them both with such expertise, she didn’t realize what he was doing until his palms slid over her bare skin and she felt his smooth chest against her body. He knew exactly how to touch her, how to make her want him, his touch playful and kind.
Their minds blended until Aliana couldn’t tell where his started and hers ended. She knew then what he wanted, what he needed, that he had never been touched in love, never in his life, only hurt until he wept from the pain and his loneliness. When her skin brushed his, he tensed as if for a blow. When she caressed him instead, his startled relief suffused her mind.
He made love to her with kindness and desperation. The damp skin of his face pressed against her cheek, his tears mixing with hers. It was the first time—and probably the last—that either of them would know how it felt to share love.