“And do you duel?” he asked, because she didn’t seem to wish her discomfort noted.
She twirled her fork. “No,” she said, glancing up to locate her mother before she spoke. “It’s a stupid tradition.”
After dinner, the servants rose to clear the plates and bring more wine, coffee, and cakes before reseating themselves. Lesa surveyed the table and brushed Vincent’s sleeve. “There’s no butter, honey, or eggs in those.”
He didn’t flinch away from the contact–a small positive sign–and served himself from the indicated plate with tongs. “Thank you for this afternoon,” he said.
She snorted. “Just doing my job.”
“Any word on who might have been behind it? Or what the goal was?”
She shrugged and slid a pastry onto her own plate. “We’ll know soon enough. I wounded one of them. As for what they wanted–a hostage? To open negotiations of their own? To demand a Coalition withdrawal in return for your life?” She lowered her voice and obscured her mouth behind her hand as she ate. “It all depends what faction we’re talking about.”
Which was a code phrase, one that should have identified her as his contact, based on the information in the chip he’d slipped Robert. But he just rolled his eyes and sipped his wine, far too relaxed for her to believe he had made the connection. “Then security will be tighter from now on.”
“No more slipping through the streets incognito,” Lesa agreed. She glanced at Elena; Elena frowned and tilted her head. Back off. Yes. Lesa thought she’d know if Vincent were dissembling. He might be just as good as she was, but he wasn’t any better. Instead, Lesa leaned around Vincent and caught Robert’s eye, beckoning with a buttery finger. “Would you like to meet my son, Vincent?”
He followed the line of her attention. “Very much,” he said. “You have two children?”
“The obligation is three,” she answered. “My eldest died, but I’ve met it, yes. I could start my own household, become an Elder in my own right.”
“If you wanted?”
“There’s a male whose contract I want to buy. Until it’s available, there’s no point.”
“You wouldn’t have to breed to get married if New Amazonia accepted the Coalition,” he said, dryly.
She smiled. “And you wouldn’t have three sisters and a brother if Ur had fallen into line a few years sooner.”
The look Katherinessen gave her was ever so slightly impressed. It was public record, and Katherine Lexasdaughter’s conceit in naming each of her five children–Valerie, Victoria, Vivian, Vincent, and Valentine–made the bit of data stand out in Lesa’s recall. As Robert came around the table holding Julian’s hand, she smiled at them and scooted back, opening a gap. Her son tugged loose of his sire’s grip and came to her, plopping himself onto her thigh. It wouldn’t last, of course. Any day now, Julian would decide he was too old for sitting on laps and listening to Mother, and not long after that, he’d enter the Trials. If he lived, he’d earn a contract in some other woman’s house.
Unless he beat the odds, of course. And grew up gentle. “Julian,” she said, when he had wiggled himself comfortable and Robert had settled down cross‑legged, not far away. “I’d like you to meet Vincent Katherinessen. He’s a diplomat like me.”
“He’s a male,” Julian said, with childish solipsism. “He can’t be a diplomat. That’s for girls.”
Whatever he thought of Vincent, he held out his hand anyway, and Vincent accepted it. “Pleased to meet you, Julian.”
“Vincent’s gentle,” Lesa said. She met Katherinessen’s golden‑brown eyes, noticing the splinters of blue and yellow around the pupils. “He can be anything he wants.”
Their hands interlaced, Julian’s smaller and darker and more callused, and Julian winced. “You got burned.”
“I did,” Vincent said. “My sun protection failed.”
“That was silly. You need a sunpatch.” He pointed to the shoulder of his jerkin, craning his neck so he could see what he was pointing at–a small patch in colors that matched the one Robert wore on his wrist cuff. “It changes color when you get too much UV. So you know to go inside.”
“I think I do need one of those. May I look?”
Julian nodded, but Vincent had been looking at Lesa when he asked. She slid her hand against her son’s neck and lifted his hair aside, tacit permission. Julian wriggled; the touch tickled. But he sat mostly still as Vincent leaned forward to inspect the sunpatch, oblivious to Kusanagi‑Jones watching from farther down the table with an expression that even Lesa found unreadable adorning his face.
“Where do you get one of those?” Vincent asked. He addressed Julian directly again, and Julian, charmed, smiled shyly and looked down.
“House,” he said.
“Do you think House would make me one?”
Julian ducked further, still smiling, and nodded, his courage for strangers exhausted.
“If you asked,” Lesa supplied.
Vincent leaned back, a half‑second after Lesa would have, and let Julian tug away. He drew his knees up and buried his face against Lesa’s shoulder, hands in front of his mouth. He was a warm compact bundle of muscle and bone, and she closed her eyes for a moment, leaning her chin on his hair. “He likes astronomy,” she said. “And computers.”
Vincent picked up his wineglass and leaned back, raising his eyes to the slow gorgeous burn of the Gorgon transmitted to the ceiling overhead. “Bad planet for getting to look at the stars from,” he commented, without audible irony.
“I know,” Lesa said. “Are anyof them any good?”
12
THROUGHOUT DINNER, KUSANAGI‑JONES WAS AWARE OF AN increasing level of noise from the street. Vincent gave him an arch look at one point–the invitation had been for food and Carnival–but Kusanagi‑Jones answered it with a sidelong shake of his head. I’ll chain you to a wall if you even suggest going out there.
Fortunately, in the constellation of VIPs that Kusanagi‑Jones had secured over the years, Vincent ranked as one of the few who was capable of learning from a mistake. He tipped his head, mouth twisting as he acknowledged the undelivered ultimatum, and turned to Elena Pretoria. “Elder,” he said, when there was a lull in the conversation, “may I inquire as to our plans for the evening?”
“We have balconies,” Elena said. “I think you’ll be sufficiently safe from abduction there. And you’ll get to see at least some of the proceedings.”
Kusanagi‑Jones bit his lip. Abductions were one thing. He was worried about snipers.
To say that Pretoria house had balconies was akin to saying that Babylon had gardens. Vincent would have liked to go to the edge of the one they occupied, three stories or so above the street, and lean out to get a better view of the merrymakers. But Angelo and Shafaqat had other ideas; they kept their bodies between him and the street, while Lesa and Katya flanked him. Elena, Agnes, and the older man that Vincent had met at dinner were off to the left and slightly above his vantage point, and the rest of the household scattered about, above and below.
Miss Pretoria had been right. It was indeed a pretty good party.
The street that the balconies overhung was narrow, the buildings opposite lower and more rolling than the twisted spire of Pretoria house. And even three stories up, Vincent could smellthe mass of humanity below. Not just the liquor or the perfume or the crushed flowers draped around their necks and threaded through their hair, but the meaty animal reek of all that flesh pressed together. They moved like a many‑legged, meandering insect, singing and laughing, banging drums, playing portable instruments that were remarkable to Vincent in their familiarity–gourds and flutes and saxophones and kalimbas.
There were a lot of weird worlds, a lot of political structures based on points of philosophy. Not all the ships of the Diaspora had been faster than light, even; humanity had scrambled off Earth in any rowboat or leaky bucket that might hold them, and dead ships were still found floating between the stars, full of frozen corpses.
&
nbsp; Vincent found it alternately creepy and reassuring when he considered that no matter how strange the culture might be, every single world out there, every instance of intelligent life that he had encountered, claimed common descent from Earth.
As the Gorgon brightened overhead, the crowds grew heavier. Someone on stilts paraded past, her head nearly level with Vincent’s feet. He returned her wave, laughing, and she tossed him a strand of holographic beads that cast pinpoint dots around them as they whirled through the air. Vincent reached to catch them, but Michelangelo intercepted and enfolded them in his hands.
For analysis, of course. His wardrobe wasn’t doing anything that Vincent’s couldn’t, but it was Vincent’s job to let Angelo take the risks for him. He hated it.
Angelo finished his analysis and threat assessment and handed Vincent the necklace. It was spectacular, some light, cool substance with a high refractive index and pinpoint LEDs buried deep within, so the facets cast multicolored sparks in all directions. More brilliant than a necklace of diamonds, and not dependent on available light.
Below, there was more music, more dragon dancers. A roar echoed from the street’s narrow walls as tumblers passed, given so little room by the crowd that it seemed they must stumble into bystanders at any moment. Vincent ran a backup analysis on the beads–nothing, not even a microprocessor–then pulled the necklace over his head and let it fall across his chest. It settled over his wardrobe, casting dancing pinpoints down his torso and across his shoulders, up his cheeks and into his hair. He turned to grin at Angelo, half wishing they were down on the street amid the revelers, and caught Angelo looking at him with a particular, aching, focused expression that set him back.
Angelo blinked and looked down quickly, leaving Vincent adrift with one hand half extended. It might almost have been an honest reaction.
“What’s that?” Michelangelo asked, pointing down the alley. The music was swelling again, a new group of performers pushing by. Katya Pretoria pressed a cold drink into Vincent’s hand.
On the left, amid the coiling river of pedestrians, a group of men clad in red carried a platform on their shoulders. At first Vincent thought it was another Carnival float, and the person slumped cross‑legged on the litter would begin throwing beads or lift up a trumpet at any moment.
But his head lolled against one powerful shoulder, and when Vincent leaned forward, peering down into the street–trying to see in the half‑light provided by flickering torches and the glowing hemispheres that adorned the building walls–he could see that the man was propped up between slats, and his hands were bound together before his chest. The litter bearers were singing, Vincent saw, their voices rising over the tumult of the crowd, and even the dragon dancers made way for them.
Angelo nudged Vincent, and Vincent stepped back. “He’s–”
“It’s a funeral procession,” Katya said. “It’s an honor.”
When Vincent turned to her, she stared straight ahead, her eyebrows drawn close above her nose. “Is it an honor afforded to women, as well?”
“If they die in combat,” Katya said. She nodded down over the railing, then looked away from the litter and the dead man’s singing bearers. She pulled a wreath of beads and flowers from the balcony railing and shouted down to a teenage boy walking unattended amid the tumblers. The boy looked up, and Katya tossed the necklace into his hands.
Vincent didn’t see his license, but he suspected the young man wouldn’t be allowed out alone if it were not Carnival; he glanced about himself wide‑eyed, and waved the bruised flower over his head, calling out to Katya.
“Combat?” Vincent asked.
She stepped back from the railing. “That’s Philip they’re burying, who was of Canberra house. He was killed in the Trials yesterday.”
Vincent’s voice came out of nebula‑tinted darkness, just loud enough to carry over the cries of merrymakers in the street. “Do you remember Skidbladnir?”
Kusanagi‑Jones, who had been poised on the edge of sleep, came sharply awake, his heart jumping in response to an adrenaline dump. “Vincent?”
A warm hand rested above his elbow. Too warm, and Vincent was shivering. “The ship. Remember her?”
Kusanagi‑Jones turned, eyesight adapting, collecting heat‑signatures and available light. “Your temperature is up.”
“Sunburn,” Vincent said. “Robert warned me. I’m cold.”
Which was an interesting problem. “How much does it hurt?”
“I’ve got chemistry,” Vincent answered. Which was Vincent for a lot. He didn’t use it if he could avoid it.
“May I touch you?”
“Please.”
But when he reached around Vincent’s shoulders, Vincent yelped behind clenched teeth. Kusanagi‑Jones jerked his hand back. “I’m more sore than I thought,” he said.
“How’s your chest?”
“Not bad. Not as bad. Just a little sore at the top.”
“Well then.” Kusanagi‑Jones flopped on his back, shaking the bed, and tented the covers. “Get comfortable.”
Vincent slid over him, a blessed blanket of warmth in the chill of the over‑climate‑controlled night. Kusanagi‑Jones was used to sleeping warm everywhere but on starships, and he found himself sighing, relaxing, as Vincent spread out against his chest. Vincent made a little sad sound and stiffened when the blankets fell against his back, but settled in once his wardrobe established an air cushion. He propped himself on his elbows so he could look Kusanagi‑Jones in the face. “Skidbladnir.”
“What about it? Seventeen years ago.” Kusanagi‑Jones rearranged himself so Vincent could stretch comfortably between his legs. In the middle distance, someone was singing, and he shifted uncomfortably, remembering the dead man on his litter.
“It was the last time–”
When they were still half convinced they could keep their relationship a secret. When they thought they had,and the sex had, all too often, been furtive and hasty, and–
“Yes.” The words scratching his throat. “I remember.”
“Do you remember what you said to me?”
He knows,Kusanagi‑Jones thought. He stroked Vincent’s hip lightly, feeling heat and skin slick with moisturizer and analgesic. “Told you,” he said, picking over each word, “no matter what happened, I wanted you to know I–” He shrugged. It wasn’t something he had the courage to say twice in one lifetime. “I did. Want you to know.”
“And something happened.”
“Yeah.” Kusanagi‑Jones closed his eyes, filtering out the charcoal‑sketch outline of Vincent’s face. “Had to eventually.”
“I didn’t answer at the time,” Vincent said. “I–”
Michelangelo reacted fast. Just fast enough to get his hands into Vincent’s braids–careful of his burned neck–and pull Vincent’s mouth down to his own before Vincent could say anything stupid. Before Vincent could give him back his own words of nearly two decades before.
Vincent’s voice trailed off in a mumble that buzzed against Michelangelo’s lips for a moment before Vincent’s mouth opened, wet, yielding, returning fierceness for fierceness and strength for strength. The confession, however it might have begun, turned into a pleased, liquid moan. Teeth clicked and tongues slid, and Michelangelo arched his spine to press their groins together, not daring to hook his ankles over the backs of Vincent’s calves. Vincent pulled back, panting, drawing the scratchy cords of his braids through Michelangelo’s fingers.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” he ordained. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Vincent asked, archly, lowering his head to claim another kiss.
“Nothing interesting.”
Gray on gray in Michelangelo’s augmented sight, Vincent’s eyebrows rose. Nothing,Michelangelo thought, because I’m going to sabotage this mission, too. Because I’m going to give you up again. I have it in my hands, sod it, and I don’t…care…enough to sacrifice a whole culture for you.
So I’m going to help New Amazonia get
away, the same way I helped New Earth get away, and they’re going to take me away from you again.
What he said was, “Vincent. Your turn tonight.”
Kii understands. The bipeds do this themselves. They choose. As the Consent chooses, in its own time. The way of life is growth and consumption, blind fulfillment.
This is not the way of the Consent. As the Consent chooses to enter a virtual space and achieve a burdenless immortality, the bipeds, unpredatored, invent a predator. Something that keeps them in balance. Something that kills their culls, forces them to evolve when they outstrip their native predators.
A stroke of genius. An entire society bent to poetry.
They areesthelich, after all.
Vincent waited while Angelo pushed the pillows aside and stretched on his stomach, breathing shallowly until Vincent covered Michelangelo with his body again, licking the warm curve of Angelo’s ear as Angelo turned his head to breathe. Vincent caught Angelo’s hands in his own and pressed them to the bed. Playing at restraint.
Angelo squirmed, panting, muscle rippling as he pushed against Vincent, so powerful and so contained, and so soft where it counted. He had always loved this, loved and feared it, rarely permitted it, almost never asked. He hated letting anybody, even Vincent–perhaps especially Vincent–far enough inside his armor to see the vulnerabilities underneath. To see him need anything.
And he would never forgive Vincent if he understood how transparent he was, in this one particular, and how well Vincent understood this aspect of his psyche. Because Michelangelo was a Liar–and while Vincent couldn’t tell when Angelo was lying, he knew how it worked. Their talents were the same at the root. But Angelo’s was broken.
Vincent had been born with a cognitive giftedness. He was a superperceiver. Michelangelo had the same gift. And if he had grown up in the environment Vincent had, chances were he would have been as skilled at understanding and compromise and gentle manipulation. But he’d been raised under harsher circumstances, and Michelangelo’s gift had been shaped by a history of verbal abuse and neglect into something else. Where a less talented child would have been driven into a borderline personality, Michelangelo had been warped into a perfect machine for survival. A chameleon, a shape shifter.
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