A man in a sleek black jumpsuit stepped out and bowed to them. Bowed. This was getting bizarre. His fingertip glowed with a laser-light as he touched his belt. An airlock in the middle of the limo immediately opened. Even stranger, Del inclined his head to the man as if he had done this sort of thing all his life.
Del let her enter the car first. As he slid in behind her, the driver resumed his seat up front and the airlocks closed. The limo lifted off, deliciously smooth, and hovered across the docking bay.
Okay, this is definitely weird, Ricki thought. The black leather seats had gold trim. Real gold. A silver stand in front of them with diamonds inset in its rim held ice and a bottle of champagne. And look at that; a bed with velvet covers waited behind their seat. My goodness, wasn't Del optimistic.
Del settled back and put his arm around her shoulders. "Do you like it?"
"It's all right." She didn't say what she thought, that even Prime-Nova top execs didn't take this level of luxury for granted. Yet Del didn't even blink.
Del laughed softly. "You like it, Ricki. Admit it."
She slanted him a look. "What, you can read my mind?"
"Not your mind. But your moods, yes, especially when you let down your barriers." He even said it with a straight face.
"Uh, yeah. Right." Had he gone wonko? Next thing she knew, he would be claiming to be a telepath, or whatever the Skolians called their supposed mind readers.
She pulled the bottle of champagne out of the ice. "Peking Gold, 2105." She glanced at Del. "I've seen faked bottles of the aged champagnes before, but usually you can tell it's phony. This is the best imitation I've seen."
"It's not an imitation," Del said. "At least, it had better not be. I told them to give me the best that they had."
Ricki laughed. "Told who?"
"The limo company."
"You told them." She couldn't figure this out. "You, who can't afford to pay your rent, ordered a bottle of champagne that costs thousands of dollars."
His gaze slipped away from her. "I don't know what it cost." He ran his finger around the rim of the bucket.
"You didn't ask?"
"No." He wouldn't meet her gaze.
Unease swept over Ricki, and she put the bottle back in the bucket. "Del, how did you get all this?" She took his chin and turned his head so he had to look at her. "If you're into some illegal biz, tell me. We'll get you out of it."
His strain disappeared, and he laughed. "Good gods, Ricki. I'm not in trouble."
"Why do you always say that? It makes no sense."
"Say what?" His alarmingly sexy smile flashed. "That I've done nothing illegal? I'm really not such a bad boy, you know."
"Yes, you are. But that wasn't what I meant." She mimicked his deep voice. " 'Good gods.' You say it all the time. Never 'Good Lord' or 'Oh, my God.' It's always plural."
"Oh. That." He tried to look nonchalant. "We have a whole pantheon where I come from."
"Lyshriol." She crossed her arms. Despite what he claimed, he had to be in trouble. Your typical farm boy wouldn't even know how to talk to the driver of this limo, let alone rent it. "This planet I've never heard of, that no record exists of, and oh gosh, you don't want me to mention it in any public bio. I wonder why."
"It exists."
She studied his face, trying to understand his reaction. He seemed . . . curious, of all things. She would have expected him to be nervous if he were in trouble. He did seem scared, but of her more than anything else. Well, he should be scared. He was pissing her off. "Fine. Take me to Lyshriol. Let me see this supposed world of yours."
He shifted his weight. "I can't."
"I didn't think so."
"It's not what you think, Ricki. It's real." His gaze never wavered. "You just know it by a different name."
"Is that so?" She had never been one to believe eyebrows really could arch, but she could actually feel hers doing it. "What might that be?"
He met her gaze squarely. And said, "Skyfall."
XIX: A Desolate Landscape
Ricki wanted to sock him. Skyfall. Did he think she was that stupid?
Except.
So much made sense. The military's involvement in his rescue, their ability to find him so fast, the eerie way Del knew her moods, his ease with this wealth that even in her circles would be extreme, the complete absence of any mention about his world in any database.
No. That was carrying the absurd too far. She took his arm off her shoulders and practically threw it into his lap. "Don't shit with me, Del."
He winced and rubbed his arm. "I'm not."
"Mac Tyler would never audition a Ruby prince."
"I wasn't the person you were supposed to audition. The guy never showed. Mac found out later that he had been too drunk."
"So you pretended to be him?" Ricki wouldn't have expected a cheap move like that from Del.
"No. I didn't know it was an audition. Mac said maybe I could try out a studio. I thought I was doing that." He regarded her with that melting look of his. "Are you angry?"
"Yeah." She refused to melt. "I hate it when people make up crap. This is some stupid trick to push up your royalty rate on the next vid, right?"
"Royalty." He gave an uneven laugh. "Right."
The explanation finally came to her. "Oh, I get it. You come from Skyfall, but you really are just a farmer. You did something that put you in good with one of those princes and he bought you a ticket to Earth as a reward."
"No," Del said quietly. "Roca Skolia is my mother. Eldrinson Althor Valdoria, the man you would call the King of Skyfall, was my father. My full name is Del-Kurj Arden Valdoria Skolia."
A chill went through Ricki. She was good at telling when people lied to her, and she didn't think he was doing it. But his name couldn't be Skolia. That was the name of a dynasty.
The name of an empire.
"You know," Ricki said, "I think I need your twenty-thousand-dollar champagne after all." She fumbled with the cork on the bottle.
"Here." Del took two goblets out of the ice and handed them to her. Then he tugged the green and silver bottle away from her and opened it with a practiced gesture. A trace of froth bubbled over the top.
Ricki was having trouble breathing evenly. As Del filled the glasses, gold bubbles clung to the crystal and rose through the sparkling liquid. She couldn't imagine drinking it. As much as she wanted to enjoy this, she didn't believe it, and she didn't want to look like a gullible fool. When Del returned the bottle to the bucket, she almost grabbed it to make sure no drops of the precious liquid escaped. How much were those drops worth? Hundreds of dollars each? If this was all a farce he had cooked up, they were worth no more than her foolish moment of weakness when she thought he might be telling the truth.
"To us." Del hinged his hand around his goblet as if it were perfectly natural to fold his hand in half. He tapped his glass against hers, producing a chime like his voice when he sang. He was so different, and it never fazed him. Then he raised the glass to his lips, and while Ricki watched in disbelief, he drank.
Okay, if he could take supposedly thousand-dollar swallows, so could she. Ricki sipped her own drink. God almighty. She had drunk plenty of expensive champagne, and none came close to this.
"It's exquisite," she said.
"It is good." Del looked at his glass. "I don't usually like alcohol. But this is great."
"I noticed you don't drink much." Ricki leaned back and closed her eyes, sinking into the blissful seat. The leather adjusted to ease her muscle tension. A hundred questions rose in her mind, but she held them back. If this turned out to be a scam, the less she reacted, the better.
"It's not a scam," Del said.
Ricki sat up abruptly. "Why did you say that?"
"You thought it. Loudly." He spoke quickly. "And no, I can't usually read your mind. But if you relax your barriers and have an intense thought, I may pick it up."
No. It couldn't be telepathy. He was just good at reading body language and facial exp
ressions.
"What do I have to do to convince you?" he murmured.
"Well, hell, how about an introduction to the Ruby Pharaoh?"
"All right."
"What?"
"I'll comm her when we get to the hotel."
"Right, of course." She spoke unsteadily. "I believe that."
She didn't know whether to laugh or run away.
Del watched Ricki, enjoying the sight of her in that clingy jumpsuit. She stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling panel of reinforced dichromesh glass and gazed out at the starkly spectacular landscape of the Moon. The sun was setting, brilliant in the black sky. No erosion had ever softened those peaks or craters. No sunset, no colors. It was a world of black, grey, and white, where the night began with an abruptness that took his breath. It meant a lot to him that he could give her something of beauty that even she, with all her influence and experience, didn't expect.
He left the lights off, knowing the view would be even more impressive that way. And he wanted to impress her. These past days had been excruciating, with her ignoring him or being icily formal when they worked at the studio.
"May we live to honor God's splendor," Ricki murmured. "In the glory of his incomparable nights."
Del came up behind her and put his arms around her waist, looking over her head at the moonscape. The low gravity made him feel light-headed. "Did you write that?"
"Not me. A poet named Constance Herrera, about a century ago, after she visited the Moon."
"It's beautiful." The tension eased in his body. He had been nervous all day, worrying how to tell her about himself. It was funny. He had finally done it, and she didn't believe him! He wished he hadn't said he would comm Dehya. His aunt might insist he talk to his mother. He hadn't spoken with any of them since Chaniece had told him they knew about his singing. He dreaded it. His aunt didn't judge him, though, even when his choices puzzled her.
Del wanted to use his bliss-node. He hadn't for two days, the longest he had gone except in the hospital. Yet as much as he needed the virt, he needed even more for Ricki to understand. It mattered too much to him, but he couldn't turn off that emotion. He didn't know what to do with it, because he felt as if he had nothing to give her.
The Skolian Assembly had left him in an impossible situation. Although the rural culture of Lyshriol and the glittering society of Skolian nobility had few traits in common, both agreed in one respect: a man who fathered children should marry their mother. He could never have the relationship with Chaniece a man should have with the woman who bore his children, but that did nothing to change the sense of responsibility he felt. He couldn't let it go, and it interfered with his ability to love anyone else. Somehow, he had to find his way through all the tangled threads.
A discreet hum came from across the room. Del looked over his shoulder. "Come."
A panel shimmered away in the gold and ivory wall, and the lights came up. A man in a formal black jumpsuit entered, moving with slow steps in the low gravity. He bowed to them both. In a culture where almost anyone could afford robots to do everything, human servants became an exorbitant luxury.
"Your dinner is here," the man said.
"Thank you." Del indicated a gleaming table of polished wood that stood across the spacious room. "You can leave it there."
"Of course, sir." The man lifted his hand without looking behind him. Two more people entered, a man and a woman, guiding an airborne tray that held platters, crystal goblets, and goldware utensils. They led the tray to the table and set out the gold platters, uncovering them to reveal steaks, sauces, curry, and unfamiliar dishes that smelled heavenly. Then all three withdrew as discreetly as they had come.
"Wow," Ricki said.
Del smiled at her. "Do you like it?"
"It's great. But I don't understand." She had that same wariness as in the limo. "Why did you need to borrow money from Prime-Nova if you could afford this?"
"Because I earn what Prime-Nova pays me." Del motioned at the glistening suite around them, with its plush gold rugs and diamond chandeliers. "I can give you this for a night or a year, Ricki, but it isn't from me. It's a fluke of my heritage."
"Did you tell the people here you're a Ruby prince?" she asked. "Is that how you got this suite so fast?"
"No. I just paid them a lot." He hesitated, uncomfortable with the pragmatic details. "There are protocols you can follow that tell the people who run a place like this you're—" He stopped, at a loss for the word in English. In Iotic, he would have said, behind the sun. It meant a person had great influence, title, and wealth. He couldn't think of an equivalent in English, so he just said, "That you're a dignitary."
"Oh." She studied him as if he were a code she was trying to crack. "You said something about your aunt . . . ?"
Del had hoped she might forget. "Don't you want to eat?" He gazed longingly toward the food. "It smells really good."
She frowned at him. "Don't try to distract me."
He could tell she still didn't believe him. So he resigned himself to the inevitable. He walked to a gold console in a corner of the room, his steps long and slow in the slight gravity. At his approach, a chair morphed out of the console. Del blinked at it, then sat down.
"Hello," a pleasant female voice said. "I'm Elizabeth. What can I do for you tonight?"
"I'd like a link to the Kyle-mesh," Del said.
"I'm connecting now."
Just like that. No refusals, no lengthy procedures, no codes, no requests for payment. Just I'm connecting now. More than anything else, that spoke of the stratospheric quality of this hotel.
Ricki sat in an armchair out of sight of the screen, though Del could see her in his side vision. Within moments, the hotel's system connected him to the Sunrise Palace. He gave it Dehya's private channel and waited. The screen shimmered gold, cleared—
And it wasn't his aunt.
It was Kelric.
Damn! His square-jawed brother stared out of the screen, impossible to avoid. Grey streaked his hair and lines showed at the corners of his eyes. He wore a tan pullover with no marks, nothing except the symbol on his right breast of an exploding star within a circle, the insignia of Imperial Space Command.
The Imperator's symbol.
"Why are you on Dehya's comm?" Del asked in Iotic, flustered.
Kelric answered dryly. "I'm glad to see you, too."
Del was painfully aware of Ricki listening. "Do you have a translation program for Earth languages?"
"Why?" Kelric asked. "What's wrong with Iotic?"
"I want to speak English."
Exasperation flickered on Kelric's face. "Look, Del, I don't have time for this. We need to talk. In a language I know."
"All right." Del flicked some holicons above his screen. "I'll do the translator." The console even had an option for directing the translation to Ricki's chair, where it would give her the words without interfering with Del's conversation. Not that he would have minded interference. A lot of it.
Kelric glanced down, probably at displays on his console. "You have someone there. A woman. About thirty-nine."
An irritated breath came from Ricki. Del hadn't realized she was that much older than him. He had no intention of telling Kelric, though. He gave his brother a satisfied smile. "She's an angel." In his side vision, he saw Ricki smile.
"No doubt," Kelric said, managing to sound unimpressed with just two words. "It's you I want to talk to."
Del had no desire to talk to him. "I commed Dehya."
"She's not here. She's on the Orbiter."
"Why are you on her line?"
Kelric crossed his arms, and muscles bulged under his sleeves. "I saw that the incoming message was from you. So I answered."
"Well, I won't take any more of your time—"
"Oh no you don't. You aren't slinking out."
Del bristled. "I don't slink anywhere."
Kelric scowled at him. "Of course not. You immediately told us about this rock thing of yours."
> "It's not a 'thing.' It's a profession. And I don't report to you. I'm not one of your lackeys."
Irritation crackled in Kelric's voice. "Letting us know what you were doing would have been, at the very least, a courtesy. Or doesn't your family rate even that? And leaving yourself open to risk was irresponsible and immature."
Great, really great. Just what he needed, for Ricki to hear his brother lecture him. "Don't talk to me like I'm some stupid kid. I cleaned your butt when you were a baby. You've no call to treat me like a child."
Kelric uncrossed his arms and planted them on the console while he leaned forward. "Then don't act like one."
"I'm not!" Damn it, why did he have to get Kelric? He wanted to cut the connection, but if he angered his brother, Kelric might order Del's bodyguards to bring him home. Cameron had ridden up in the shuttle with the luggage crew and was staying in the staff quarters here. Tyra had come up as a business exec and checked into another suite Del had rented. She was monitoring him via implants ISC had put in his body years ago.
"I've been looking into this career of yours," Kelric said. "The more I learn, the less I like."
"Yeah, well, I'm not enamored of yours, either. So what?"
"These people are using you," Kelric said flatly. "Prime-Nova will make millions off you, and when you're no longer useful—when you burn yourself out on exhausting schedules, drugs, sex, and gods only know what else—they'll throw you away."
Del felt cold, then hot. One of Prime-Nova's biggest movers was hearing every word of this. But when he lifted his hand to cut off the translator, Ricki spoke in a low voice. "Leave it on."
"Was that your girlfriend?" Kelric asked.
"It's not your business," Del said. "I have to go."
"Damn it, Del, quit avoiding us. Keep it up, and I'm bringing you home."
"You can't!" Del clenched the console. "The Harrison Protocol says that as long as the Allieds allow me to live here, I have the same rights as any Allied citizen. You can't do a damn thing. It's illegal to force me to leave when I don't want to."