"He looks just like his holos," Tyra said as Mac waved back. "I had thought they doctored his images."
"They don't need to," Mac said. "That's all him." It was one reason Prime-Nova liked Del to tour; he really did look as good in person as in his vid.
"He shouldn't stand out in the open." Tyra increased her stride. "People could recognize him."
"There's no one up here," Mac said.
She nodded toward their right. Squinting into the glare, Mac realized four people were in a corner of the lot, half hidden by the shadows of an overhang, a teenaged girl, a boy, and what looked like their parents. As they stepped down from their flyer, they stared at Del.
"Huh," Mac said. "I didn't see them."
"I'm trained to sense people," Tyra said. "To me, their minds practically shouted their surprise at seeing Del Arden here."
Mac glanced at Del. He was watching Tyra curiously while he leaned against the flyer, soaking in the sunlight.
"I don't think Del realizes they're here," Mac said.
"He doesn't." Tyra said it without doubt.
When they reached the flyer, Mac said, "Del, this is Secondary Tyra Jarin of the J-Force, Imperial Space Command."
Tyra spoke in flawless Iotic. "I'm honored by your presence, Your Highness."
Mac couldn't help but smile. "His Highness" looked like a scruffy kid.
Del knew the protocols, though. He answered with regal formality. "We are pleased, Secondary Jarin, by your attendance." Then he lapsed into his normal voice. "But we shouldn't use titles, should we? It's sort of obvious."
Unexpectedly, Tyra smiled. In English, she said, "From now on, I'm just a bodyguard Del Arden hired." She tilted her head toward the family of four. "We have company."
With a start, Del looked over. The family had come forward, but they were hesitating about halfway across the lot.
"They probably want me to sign something." Del spoke self-consciously. "People do that here. They ask for your signature on a keepsake." Before she could respond, he smiled at the group and motioned them over.
Tyra spoke to Mac in a low voice. "First order of business: he has to stop doing things like this."
The teens came forward, looking shy and eager. The parents followed, clearly intrigued. Cameron appeared in the hatchway of the flyer, his gaze fixed on the group. When Del walked over to them, Cameron jumped down and followed. Mac was aware of Tyra moving forward as well, her posture tensed.
Del smiled at the teens. "Hi."
"You're Del Arden, aren't you," the girl said. She gazed at Del as if she had fallen in love.
"That's me," Del said. "And you're . . . ?"
The girl blushed. "Colleen." She indicated the boy, who was probably about twelve. "This is my brother Tommy."
The boy offered him a vid cube. "We watch this all the time. It's great! Would you—would you sign it?"
With his own eyes lit up almost as much as theirs, Del took the cube. It sparkled like a gem, with a glittering holo that read The Jewels Suite floating above one face. The other faces showed views of Del singing or dancing.
"Do you have a light-stylus?" Del asked. He was trying to look relaxed, but Mac could tell he had tensed up, as he did every time someone asked for his autograph.
At first, Mac had thought Del disliked signing because he feared someone would forge his signature. But he had soon figured out Del was illiterate. It wasn't that Del couldn't sign; he had learned a suitable scrawl. But it bothered him to give it away. When Mac asked why, Del couldn't articulate why, except to say that each time he gave an autograph, he lost a piece of himself.
He was a good sport about it, though. When Colleen handed him a light-stylus, he opened the cube and drew his scrawl on a light panel. He even wrote, "Love, Del." Although he had practiced the word love over and over, he still forgot how to write it sometimes, but today he had no problem.
After Del finished, he spent several minutes talking with the family, who were curious about the tour and his next vid.
"We heard you were sick in California," Colleen said. "It was all over the meshes. They said you had pneumonia from overwork."
"It wasn't that serious," Del said awkwardly. "Just bronchitis." He even pronounced "bronchitis" right. Zachary at Prime-Nova had made him practice it.
Finally Del said, "I better go. I have a rehearsal this afternoon. We're working on the new vid."
"Ultra," Tommy said. "We'll buy it as soon as it comes out."
Del grinned at him. "Thanks."
"You know, you're really nice," Colleen said. "I was afraid you wouldn't want to be bothered by us."
Del looked embarrassed and pleased, and Mac knew it was real, not an act he put on for the kids. "I'm just glad you like my vid."
"It's the best," Tommy assured him.
Del flashed his dazzling smile and waved as he boarded the flyer. "Have a good flight."
Colleen looked as if she were melting. "Bye," she said, her gaze rapt. "You, too."
Inside the flyer, Del strapped into his seat while Tyra and Mac settled on either side of him, and Cameron took the copilot's chair.
"It's still so hard to believe," Del said. "They like my singing. I can't get over it."
"You'll have to," Tyra said as their pilot took the flyer into the air. "You can't talk to people that way."
"What?" Del turned to her. "Why not?"
"It's too risky."
Del scowled. "Cameron lets me."
The Marine cleared his throat. "We need to talk about that."
Tyra glanced at him. "You're Sergeant Cameron?"
"That's right." He offered his hand, and they shook with a firmness that made Mac wince. If either of them grabbed his hand like that, they would break it.
"Pleased to meet you," Tyra said.
"Glad to have you on stars," Cameron said.
"What stars?" Del said.
Tyra smiled at Del, and it looked genuine. He didn't seem to irk her the way he did most military types. Maybe that was why Imperator Skolia had chosen her. Del wasn't likely to get along with any bodyguard his brother sent, but the arrangement would be more bearable if they didn't find each other intolerable.
"It's military lingo," Tyra said. "On stars. On the ship. Part of the team."
"If you two are done communing with each other," Del said, "maybe you could tell me how I'm supposed to meet my fans if you won't let me talk to them."
"You don't meet them," Tyra said.
Del glared at her. "Like hell."
Mac felt like groaning. It would have been nice if the "I'm honored to meet you" détente could have lasted more than ten minutes. "Del, they have a point."
"Et tu, Bruté?" Del said.
"Where did you learn that?" Mac didn't know which startled him more, that Del knew the Latin or that he understood the reference to betrayal implied by the quote, supposedly the last words of Julius Caesar when he saw his friend Brutus among his assassins.
"Claude is reading Shakespeare to me," Del said.
Tyra came even more alert. "Who is Claude?"
"He's my EI," Del said. "What, are you going to say it's too risky for me to talk to my mesh? Heaven forbid. He might bore me to death with soliloquies on quantum scattering theory."
"Del," Mac said. He didn't know whether to laugh or groan.
"Mac, listen," Del said. "I know I shouldn't go into crowds. And okay, I admit it." He gave Cameron a guilty look. "I shouldn't have tricked you and run off."
"No, you shouldn't have." Cameron actually cracked a smile. "Though I've never been avoided in such an entertaining way."
"If I were in a better mood," Del said, "I would tell you that she really does like you that much. But since I'm pissed at you, I'm not saying anything."
"You really think she does?" Cameron asked. Del just glowered.
"Who?" Mac asked, at a loss to follow this development.
"It's nothing," Cameron said, back in taciturn mode.
Del smirked. "A nothing nam
ed Anne." When Cameron glared at him, Del regarded his bodyguard innocently. "What?"
"Who is Anne?" Tyra asked.
"She's my drummer," Del said. "Gosh, maybe it's too risky for me to hang out with her, too."
"We're checking all your associates," Tyra said.
Dreading the response he was about to get, Mac said, "You'll have to clear all your friends with Tyra, too."
"No!" Del stared at them in undisguised disbelief. "I refuse to live like a recluse. How is this any different than my being a Ruby prince in the Imperial Court?"
"I don't know about the Imperial Court," Mac said. "But Del, greetings, you are a Ruby prince." He regarded the grumpy youth with frustration. "Pretending you aren't won't make it go away."
Del crossed his arms and looked daggers at them, first Mac, then Cameron, then Tyra, then for good measure at the pilot, who couldn't see because he was paying attention to his flying.
"This drills," Del said.
Tyra glanced at Mac. "He's learned a lot of English."
"Too well," Mac said. Although Tyra hadn't smiled, he had the impression she found Del funny rather than aggravating. Well, good for her. She hadn't been around long enough to want to strangle him. If Mac didn't have nanos protecting his stomach lining, he would have an ulcer.
Del continued to bedevil Cameron about Anne. Cameron pretended to have no idea what Del meant, which only spurred Del to try provoking him more. Although Tyra hardly seemed to listen, Mac had no doubt she was taking it all in, analyzing, developing who knew what models. Jagernauts had more extensive node systems in their brains than most anyone else alive.
He just hoped she didn't end up needing it all to defend Del.
* * *
Ricki spent the day working with Jenny Summerland on her new virt. After Jenny left, Ricki stayed in her office, hunched over a console, listening to one of the songs. She didn't like the whine of the morpher.
"You're here late," a man said behind her.
Ricki froze. She would know that sensual voice anywhere. She gritted her teeth and kept working.
"Ricki, don't." Del pulled over a chair and sat next to her. "Talk to me."
She looked up with her most innocent expression. "Talk?" she asked sweetly. "Do you do that? I thought you just fucked."
Del jerked as if she had hit him. "That was low." He spoke with difficulty. "You left. In the morning. After my party in Chicago."
She tensed, remembering that night. Such a great night. And then he had ruined it all with crazy Delilah in her pink lace. "I have a job. I had to be back." Frustrated, she said, "You wake up at noon, Del. I don't have that luxury."
Ricki couldn't tell him the rest, that if she stayed with him in the morning, she left herself vulnerable. He would see her asleep and helpless. She still remembered her mother crying the morning after her father had deserted them. How the hell could her mother have done the same thing a few years later, leaving her own daughter to fend for herself? Ricki should have gone into foster care, but she had run away. God only knew what would have happened if that musician hadn't taken her in. He had been her first and—until Del—her only rock singer. No way would she leave herself open to being deserted and crushed again, especially with a damn singer who jumped from woman to woman.
Del was watching her oddly, as if he were straining to hear a barely heard conversation. He spoke softly. "I won't hurt you again. I swear it. Give me a chance."
She couldn't relent. He scared the hell out of her, and being angry was easier than admitting how she felt. "To do what? Let me watch you drill your way across America? Not a chance, sweetheart."
"Ricki, I'm sorry. I really am." He took her hand. "I mean it. No more screwing around. No more Delilahs or Kendras or Talias."
She pulled her hand away. "I'm sure the next one will have a different name."
"I'm a reformed man."
"Yeah, right."
"I mean it. Let me prove it to you." He regarded her with those huge, heartbreaker eyes of his. "I'll take you to dinner. And afterward I'll take you to the fanciest hotel in D.C."
"On whose salary?" she asked curiously. She knew how much money Del had; she had arranged his loan herself, and he hadn't been paid yet for the next royalty period.
"I saved up." He had that boyish look that always weakened her resolve. Damn, he was good-looking. It wasn't fair.
"I'm busy," Ricki said.
"You have to eat." He recaptured her hand and kissed her knuckles. "Come with me. I miss you."
Ricki wanted to refuse. She intended to. But somehow instead she said, "You'd take me to any hotel I picked?"
"The fanciest you want. No limit."
"Does it have to be in D.C.?"
He brushed her knuckle down his cheek. "Anywhere you want, love, is fine by me."
Don't call me love, she thought. Aloud, she said, "I want to go to the Royal Lunar Suites. That's on the Moon, babe." It was the most exorbitant hotel in the solar system, arguably among the Allied Worlds.
Del's gaze never wavered. "All right."
She couldn't help but smile. "Oh, Del. You could never even get a reservation there, let alone afford a suite."
"Claude?" he said.
Ricki peered at him. "What did you call me?"
A man's voice came out of Del's wrist-mesh. "Here."
"Please arrange a reservation for myself and Miss Varento at the Royal Lunar Suites. We'll take the Express Shuttle up, so the Lunar should expect us in about twelve hours. Mac can give you the info for my accounts."
"I'll contact Mister Tyler," Claude said.
"Is that your EI?" Ricki asked.
"That's right." Del slid his hand behind her head and drew her closer, his lips coming toward hers.
"Oh no, you don't." Ricki pulled away. "You can't get reservations at the Lunar. Even if you could afford it, they wouldn't have a suite available in just twelve hours."
"We'll see." Del tugged her back and kissed her, his lips warm against hers.
Ricki instinctively started to relax into the kiss, but she caught herself in time. Putting her palms against his shoulders, she pushed him back. "Stop playing with me."
"I'm not," he murmured, his lashes half lowered.
When he looked at her that way, her good sense went away. "I know a Thai place not far from here. Let's go there." She gave him a stern look. "But you go home afterward. Without me."
Del trailed his finger down her cheek. "If Claude sets up a reservation for us at the Lunar, will you come?"
"Sure," Ricki said with a smile. "Why not?"
"Good," Del murmured. "Because the shuttle to the Moon leaves at midnight."
This isn't possible. Ricki gazed at the view screen in the lounge of the Express Shuttle. A diamond-dust limo was hovering into the cavernous bay where the ship had just docked.
"That can't be your limo," Ricki said.
Next to her, Del stretched his arms. "It's not."
She still couldn't believe they were on the Moon. Where had he found the money for the exorbitant Express Shuttle tickets? They had slept during most of the flight, so she might have wondered if they had really left Earth, except they had been in free fall almost the whole time.
"I didn't think it was yours," she said.
Del yawned. "I rented it."
Ricki just smiled. He couldn't have rented it. She didn't really believe he had a reservation at the Lunar, either, but who knew. Maybe his name had become well enough known that they gave him a suite from a cancellation. If the reservations officer were human and female, that could explain a lot. Del might have taken another loan against the royalties he'd receive in a few months. With "Diamond Star" on top of the charts and The Jewels Suite climbing back up, he would see a good chunk of money. It bothered her to think he might have blown his earnings on this trip because of a suggestion she had never expected him to take seriously.
When the ship announced they were free to disembark, they stood up. Ricki hadn't paid attention to the
other three passengers in the lounge since she had slept during the trip. They were business types in expensive jumpsuits, silver or blue, two men and a woman. The woman was tall, with aquiline features and dark hair brushing her shoulders. Ricki half expected to see the ubiquitous Cameron. She had even thought she glimpsed him earlier with the ship's crew. But that was absurd. Cameron was a roadie, not a crewman.
The passengers had space suits available to them, but travel to the Moon was so mundane, no one donned suits except in the rare emergency. Del was wearing a pair of old mesh-jeans, though at least these didn't have rips. His blue pullover was soft and worn. He looked more like a high school boy than someone wealthy enough to afford two berths on the elite Express. Ricki hadn't changed her work clothes; she had on a green jumpsuit with a gold belt, a nice outfit, sure, but nothing fancy. The two of them hardly looked like they belonged in a limo.
As soon as Ricki took a step, she stumbled. No gravity! No, that wasn't true. She had a little bit of weight. During the trip, she had been strapped in, so the free fall hadn't affected her, other than when her hair floated into her face and woke her up. Now she felt as if she were drifting out of the lounge.
They followed the two men, with the woman behind them. Ricki half-floated, half-walked down the ramp to the corrugated deck of the docking bay. Del came to her side, his steps languid.
"Think how high I could jump if I did a show here," Del said.
Hey. That was a thought. "Maybe we could set one up." She slanted a look at him. "But you already jump ridiculously high."
"That's because the gravity on Earth is so low." He gave the barest jump and floated into the air. "I weigh almost twenty percent more on my world than on Earth." He came down so gently, his sports shoes made no sound. "My muscles are adapted to that."
"Huh." It was an odd idea, that Earth had "low" gravity.
Del stopped at the bottom of the ramp. The execs kept going, and Ricki fully expected one of them to meet the limo. But they went by it, while the limo floated up to her and Del. Silently. Impressive for a hover vehicle, especially such a long one. It settled onto the deck, and a hatch irised open on the driver's side. A molecular airlock. Good Lord. It meant they could survive in the limo even outside on the airless Moon.