Carnival

by Elizabeth Bear

  Lesa let her hand drift away from her holster as she came forward, but didn’t fix the snap. Kyoto hadn’t unbonded her honor; it wouldn’t slow her down much, if she opened fire–but probably enough. Considering how people treated Lesa when she had a weapon in her hand.

  “I don’t know,” Lesa said. She stepped under the arch, into the shadows, and Walter trotted beside her, fluffed up and cheerful. “You’d have to ask his true mistress.” She tilted her head, frowning at Kyoto under the fall of her hair, and lowered her voice. “In between plotting treason in the streets. Where’s Kusanagi‑Jones, Vincent?”

  “Keeping busy with a little industrial espionage. You leave Angelo to me. That’s not negotiable.”

  Kyoto glared for a moment before she nodded. “All right,” she said. “Vincent. You are authorized to deal for your mother.”

  “Full authority,” he said. “New Earth, too.”

  Kyoto nodded and turned to Lesa. “Then we’ll join forces. One good Coalition deserves another.”

  “Mother won’t like it.”

  “I’ll handle your mother.” And now Kyoto’s hand dropped to her gun butt. Vincent stiffened, ready to grab her wrist and trust to his wardrobe to save him, but all she did was stroke a thumb across the snap, assuring herself that it was closed.

  Lesa snorted, but she echoed the gesture, causing a click. “I’d like to see that. Who else do you have in Pretoria house?”

  “Nobody,” Kyoto said. Vincent believed her; he glanced at Lesa to see what shethought. He was still half convinced that Kyoto was a Liar. Or the next best thing.

  Lesa was nibbling her lower lip, leaning forward aggressively as if completely oblivious that she was facing down her superior officer. “Then where’s Robert tonight?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Robert left the Blue Rooms somehow. He’s gone.”

  Vincent had rarely seen somebody’s mouth actually drop open. Kyoto’s did, and stayed down for seconds while she thought it over. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I have no idea.”

  “Shit,” Lesa said. She thumbed her watch and turned slightly away, as people did for politeness when taking remote calls. Her eyes unfocused slightly. “Agnes? Yes. Sweetie, I’m sorry…we have a fairly serious problem.”

  “When you’re done with that,” Vincent said, “I’ll need a distraction while I sneak back into my room.”

  Kusanagi‑Jones returned to the guest suite half an hour before dawn, walking camouflaged through the door when the security guards knocked to awaken Vincent. He slipped into the bed as Vincent was shaking the covers in an ostensible attempt to awaken him, reabsorbed the mannequin, and sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Morning already?”

  “You don’t look very rested,” Vincent said. He walked toward the shower as Kusanagi‑Jones rolled out of bed.

  “Somebody’s snoring kept me up,” he said between push‑ups.

  “Your own?” Vincent replied.

  Kusanagi‑Jones’s eyes were gritty with exhaustion. He wasn’t young enough to shrug off a sleepless night anymore, if he ever had been; he couldn’t remember. He quit at twenty‑five push‑ups and knelt, ducking his head over his wrist as he adjusted his chemistry. A rush of energy swept the cobwebs away, leaving him taut and jittering but awake.

  He climbed to his feet and went to join Vincent in the shower. Vincent stepped aside, letting Kusanagi‑Jones have the spray. He lifted his face into the patter of water, fighting the uneasy urge to flinch. He didn’t like it drumming on cheeks and eyelids. “Did you find it?” Vincent asked.

  Kusanagi‑Jones stepped out of the water and looked at him before answering the same way. “Found something. I know where the generator is, anyway, though it’s going to be a bigger problem than I want to contemplate getting to it. Disruptingthe power supply, I might manage. At some risk. The point of transmission is guarded. The rest…it’s going to take awhile to explain.” He paused for a breath, and to shake the water off his lashes. “Why are you limping?”

  Vincent was lathering himself. His hands were over his face, but Kusanagi‑Jones saw him hesitate. “Am I?”

  “Favoring your knee.”

  “I must have hit it wrong last night,” Vincent answered, turning into the water to rinse. “It’s sore.”

  “Sure picked the right day,” Kusanagi‑Jones answered, as Vincent stepped past him, reaching for a towel. “We’re going to be on our feet every minute.”

  14

  IT WASN’T QUITE AS BAD AS THAT. THERE WERE CHAIRS AT the breakfast table. Which was fortunate, for by then occasional sharper stabs punctuated the ache in Vincent’s knee. It was manageable, however, with the assistance of the same chemistry that mitigated his sunburn.

  Elder Kyoto caught him wincing as they took their seats. “Third day is the worst,” she said.

  “Oh, good,” he answered. “Something to look forward to.” Across the table, Michelangelo reached out to press a fingertip to Vincent’s wrist. The heat made him jerk his hand back.

  “Remember this,” Angelo said, finishing it with a glower. The sting of the touch wasn’t what made Vincent’s eyes burn.

  He looked down hastily, examining what was on offer this morning. Apparently, somebody had alerted the chef to the dietary restrictions of the Coalition agents, because the breakfast options included a kashalike grain, cooked into porridge and served with some sort of legume milk and a sweetener reminiscent of molasses in its sulfury richness.

  There were new people at this meal, husbands and wives of dignitaries who hadn’t attended the supper two days previous. Vincent filed all the introductions under mnemonics. The one on his immediate left, however, he suspected he’d have no difficulty recalling: Saide Austin, the artist.

  She was an imposing woman. Almost two meters tall and not slight of build, with short, tight‑coiled hair shot through with gray threads like smoke and wide cheeks framing a broad, fleshy nose. Her skin was textured brown, darker around her eyes and paler in the creases between her brows, and her half‑smile reinforced the lines. Heavy silver rings circled several of her fingers, flashing like the mirrors embroidered on her robe.

  Her hand was warm where she shook Vincent’s, and she gave him a little pat on the forearm before she let him go. Over her shoulder, he saw Michelangelo frown. Their eye contact was brief, but definite, and the flickering glance that followed ended on Claude Singapore.

  So Austin was the one pushing Singapore’s buttons.

  “I very much admired your sculpture,” Vincent said.

  “Jinga Mbande?”The smile broadened, showing stout white teeth. “Thank you. How do you think your government will feel about touring artists, when negotiations are concluded?”

  “I’m sure they’d welcome them,” Vincent said. He slid his spoon into the porridge and cut a bite‑sized portion against the edge of the bowl. “I’m surprised you’d be willing to send New Amazonian art to Old Earth, though, after–”

  “The Six Weeks War?” She spooned honey into her tea. He looked away. “Isn’t the Coalition bent on showing goodwill?”

  “Your countrywomen aren’t all so sanguine,” he answered.

  She shrugged and drank. “What did you expect? I’m not sanguine either. But I’m prepared.”

  Vincent nodded, reaching for his own tea. Yes. This was the person the Coalition meant him to deal with, the one who could bargain without running home to check with her mother. And according to Kyoto–if he could trust her–one he had no real chance of bargaining with. A separatist, somebody who’d as soon see New Amazonia live up to its name to the extent of eradicating men entirely.

  So why was she wasting his time?

  Across the table, Michelangelo was drinking coffee, apparently engrossed in conversation with Miss Ouagadougou, but he was listening. Vincent suppressed that twinge again, half guilt and half anticipation. “I’ve heard a rumor,” he said, “that your voice is one of the respected ones urging dйtente. We’re grateful.”

  Sh
e sipped her tea, set it down–aligning the cup and saucer carefully with the cream pitcher–and lifted a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth. Vincent waited while she chewed and swallowed. “How would the Coalition react if New Amazonia opened itself to limited immigration?” she asked, as if idly. “There must be women on Old Earth who would come–”

  It was possible she was trying to see if he would startle, or how he would react. It was possible the offer–with all its attendant benefits and problems–was genuine. He could see half a dozen ways it could be politically or idealistically motivated. In any case, he’d been expecting some sort of dramatic maneuver, and he managed to neither bite his tongue nor drop his spoon. “I think they’d be very interested,” he said. “It might help relieve population pressures a great deal.”

  “Of course, it would be unlikely that the government would allow them to import Old Earth technology.” She touched his sleeve, rubbing the fog between finger and thumb. “They’d be homesteading. Any men would live under New Amazonian law.”

  “Of course.” He put the spoon down and leaned back, turning to face her. Suddenly, he wasn’t all that hungry. “This wouldn’t substitute for negotiations regarding the exchange of technology for the remaining unrepatriated art, though.”

  “Why not?” She finished her tea, the resinous scent of her perfume wafting from her clothes as she moved. “We’d be giving the Colonial Coalition something it desperately needs–”

  “Because,” Vincent said, “you benefit as much as we do. You’re having genetic issues, of course.”

  Her fingers rippled on the table. She watched them beat three times, then let go a held breath and nodded. “Not yet.”

  “But soon.”

  “We do not permit genetic manipulation.”

  “Indeed,” Vincent said. “In a closed population, that’s likely to cause problems. Especially if the radiation exposure your colonists suffered in transit was anything like what we contended with on Ur.”

  “You’re a clever bastard, Vincent Katherinessen,” she said, and lifted her fork again.

  He matched the gesture. “It’s what I do.”

  As the breakfast reception ended, Lesa made her way around the table to collect Katherinessen, leaving Kusanagi‑Jones looking slightly trapped under Elder Montevideo’s care.

  She waited while Katherinessen courteously ended his conversation with Elder Austin and turned before she offered her hand. He shook it lightly and followed as she led toward the door. “Robert?” he asked quietly.

  “No sign. We reported him as a runaway. Anything else was too much risk.” She’d been proud of how level her voice was, but it didn’t spare her Vincent’s glance of sympathy.

  “Are we ready for the ceremony, then?”

  “Claude and Elder Austin will be on their way down shortly. But I thought you and Miss Kusanagi‑Jones would appreciate a trip to the washroom beforehand,” she said. “House has the stage set up, and there’s quite a crowd.”

  “You’d expect everybody would be too hung over.”

  As easily as he read her suppressed grief, she picked up the tension under his flip reply. “Penthesileans pride themselves on never being too hung over for a party,” she answered. She lowered her voice and leaned in, as if making an off‑color comment in his ear. “Any problem with your partner?”

  “Not at all,” he answered, turning to wink. “I’m afraid he didn’t get any rest, though.”

  “Miss Katherinessen, you’re a very bad man.”

  “I know,” he answered. “Isn’t it grand?”

  Lesa caught Kusanagi‑Jones’s attention and he fell into step as they slipped through the crowd milling by the door. Two security agents–Shafaqat and someone new–joined them as they entered the hall, and waited with Lesa during a brief pause outside a lavatory. When the males rejoined her, they both looked ineffably fresher. Lesa resisted a brief pang of jealousy. The wardrobes were indeed nice technology, but who would want to pay the price?

  The sun barely crested the rooftops as they reached the square. Three more security agents joined them as they stepped outside, and Lesa noticed that not only did Vincent know how to move with them–close as a shadow, his body always partially obscured by theirs–but that Kusanagi‑Jones fell into the pattern as flawlessly as a stone into a ring, covering both Katherinessen and Lesa herself. The crowd parted to let them pass, and to Lesa’s trained eye, Vincent’s unease at the situation lay open. He concealed it from everyone else, smiling and waving graciously, shaking whatever hand was offered, while Kusanagi‑Jones exhibited a grim stoicism that probably masked painful worry.

  Lesa guessed that on Old Earth, an emissary would never be suffered to come in such close contact with crowds. If the mind of the mob were to decide it wanted Vincent Katherinessen dead, he would be, though the cost in New Amazonian life might be stunning. But the New Amazonian system was based on personal contact, kinship and friendship systems, alliances and bargains hammered out during drawn‑out suppers.

  The populace wouldn’t tolerate any deal they felt was made in secrecy. And if Pretoria house was going to succeed, especially with the added complication of something as unpopular as Parity in the soup, Lesa needed the people comfortable with, even fond of, Katherinessen. He’d have to take the risk, even in the wake of the attempted abduction.

  They climbed the stairs to the stage and took their seats. House had provided several rows of chairs for the occasion, along with a canopy to offer shade and some protection from the inevitable afternoon squall, if proceedings lasted that long.

  Except for Shafaqat, security fell away as they climbed. The rest of the detail lingered near the foot of the stage or mingled with the crowd. And Lesa, drawing a deep breath, looked down at her hands and composed herself as Claude Singapore and Maiju Montevideo, Saide Austin, Antonia Kyoto, Nkechi Ouagadougou, and four pairs of artists and dignitaries chosen to represent other settlements passed through the crowd in their own ring of security, pausing to exchange small talk and shake hands with those who came forward. “When they come up,” Lesa said, in case her charges didn’t know, “you’ll rise and shake hands with them.”

  “Of course,” Kusanagi‑Jones said, the left‑hand corner of his mouth twisting up. “What else’d we do?”

  “You could always break somebody’s neck,” Lesa answered. “Do you take recommendations?”

  Kusanagi‑Jones turned to check before he was certain she was smiling at him. It was a small, tight smile, such that he wondered at the subtext, but a secondary peek at Vincent yielded no further information.

  He sighed and ran his fingertips across his wrist, activating the sensors in his watch. “Not more chemistry,” Vincent said.

  “Just dialing my wardrobe down,” he said. “Hate to zap the minister of produce.”

  “Do they have a minister of produce?” Vincent asked, between unmoving lips. Their eyes caught, and Vincent smiled, just with the corner of his eyes.

  Michelangelo looked down quickly, disguising the sudden, tight pain in his chest. There had to be a way. There hadto be a way. There was a way out of everything.

  It was just a matter of finding it, and then having the guts to grab it and the strength to hang on. And standing ready to pay the cost. Kusanagi‑Jones’s choice was a little too clear cut. He could be loyal, desert Free Earth, and keep Vincent–maybe. If they could pull this off. If he could bring home the brane technology–far more critical to their reception on Earth than any alliance with New Amazonia–it might be enough to buy him Vincent. All it meant was abandoning the ideal of freedom from the Governors that he’d been working toward for thirty years.

  He even saw an angle that might work. All he had to do was convince Kii to give it to him as the price of keeping the Coalition out of New Amazonia. Destroying the Consent wouldn’t work. He didn’t think the virtual space they inhabited was housed in the Kali system. Or even in the local universe.

  If it were him, and he had the technology to manip
ulate branes, to build himself a pocket universe of his desire, he’d build one where the cosmological rules encouraged a stable existence, or maybe lock it to an event horizon. What was the point of Transcending to virtual immortality if it just meant you still had to die when entropy collected its inevitable toll?

  After long consideration of the night’s odd conversation, Kusanagi‑Jones even thought he understood the theory. The technology was another issue, of course–but based on what Kii had said, that suggestive word cosmocline,and a technology apparently based on manipulation of quantum probability and superstrings, Kusanagi‑Jones could make an educated layman’s guess at what was going on.

  The mysterious energy might be generated betweenuniverses, in a manner analogous to a thermocline. Some quality–the cosmological constant, gravity, something even more basic–varied along the cosmocline, to use Kii’s word. And that variation produced a gradient, which produced potential energy, which could be converted into usefulenergy. They could stick the far end of a wormhole into the general vicinity of a star, even, he supposed, though he wouldn’t vouch for the integrity of the star afterward.

  This was a species that could grab hold of a superstring and open up a wormhole to another universe as if tugging aside a drape. Kii’s promise to obliterate the Coalition stem and branch if it threatened Kii’s pets was not idle posturing.

  It was just Kusanagi‑Jones’s fortune that the Dragon was ethical and preferred to avoid atrocity. When convenient. And that he was constrained by the programmed equivalent of a neurochemical tether; he was physically (if that was the right word for a Transcended intelligence) incapable of acting against his species’ interests.

  Leaving Kusangi‑Jones the choice of siding with Vincent, and leaving most of his species under the threat of Assessment and the Cabinet’s less‑than‑generous governance–or of lying to Vincent, and protecting New Amazonia from the Coalition and the Coalition from the Dragons, and losing Vincent for good.