Carnival

She found a crevice under a fallen log big enough to cram herself into, heaped leaf litter under it to conserve warmth, and hauled a drape of living wire-plant over the top to serve as a barricade to any wandering animals, savaging her hands further in the process. She picked the thorns out of her palms with her teeth, and dropped them in the cup of a rain-collecting plant among wriggling tadpoles so the water could help hide the scent of her blood.

The pungent stinging scent of wire-plant sap would serve to conceal her own body odor.

She crammed herself into her impromptu shelter as dusk was growing thick under the trees, controlled her breathing, and resolutely closed her eyes.

Kusanagi-Jones sighed and tugged idly at his shackles, galling his wrists and pulling at the shallow knife cut on his forearm. He didn’t shift either the three-centimeter-thick staple they were locked to or the beam behind it. Apparently better bondage equipment had arrived during the night. And when he’d been lying on the ground in the center of camp, flat on his back from the paralytic agent the insurgents had used to bring him down, he’d seen several more good-sized shelters all overhung with holographic and utility fog camouflage. At least two aircars had gone out after Lesa. The entire camp was under a false rain-forest canopy, all but invisible from the air, probably protected by IR and other countermeasures.

Coalition technology. Which also explained how they’d managed to shut down his wardrobe. Miss Ouagadougou wasn’t the only Coalition agent on the ground here.

Somebody was running guns.

And the nasty, suspicious part of Kusanagi-Jones’s mind—the one that tended to keep him alive in situations like this—chipped in with the observation that he and Vincent hadn’t been trusted with the information. Which told him that they weren’t the primary operation in this theater.

They were the stalking horse. And the real operation was an armed insurrection.

Who’d miss a couple of disgraced old faggots anyway? And if Vincent happened to get himself killed in theater by enemy action, it wasn’t as if Katherine Lexasdaughter could complain, no matter how much pull she had with the Coalition Cabinet. Which made sense of yesterday’s unutterably stupid grab for Vincent in Penthesilea, too. It gave the Coalition one more big black check mark in the invade New Amazoniacolumn to present the Governors.

At least he was more comfortable now. They’d permitted him access to a privy, and the shackles gave him enough slack to stand, sit, or even stretch out on his back if he crossed his arms over his chest—and enough slack to kick the “food” they’d brought him almost far enough away that he didn’t have to smell charred flesh every time he turned his head.

The water, he’d drunk; it was clean, and there had been plenty of it, and if they wanted to drug him they didn’t need to hide it in his rations when another dart would work just fine. He had tried a few bites of the bread, but there was something cloying about the taste and texture that made him suspect it contained some ingredient he didn’t care to consume.

He’d wait. He wasn’t hungry enough for it to affect his performance, yet.

It was best that Lesa had escaped. She had a better chance of getting back than he did, and a better chance of being heard when she did so. And Kusanagi-Jones was safer in captivity anyway. Less likely to be raped or tortured—and they hadn’t tried anything yet, though he wouldn’t bet his ration number on it—and more likely to survive the experience if they wanted to use him to extract something from Vincent.

He wouldn’t be held as a bargaining chip, though. Not if they were already receiving Coalition aid. Presuming they knew who they were receiving it from. Which was presuming a lot.

He shifted again, wishing he could rub the torn skin under his manacles or his cut shoulder. His docs weren’t dependent on the power supply of his watch or his wardrobe; they used the kinetic energy of his own bloodstream to power themselves, a failsafe that kept them operational as long as his heart was beating. And they were doing an acceptable job of preventing infection, and even speeding healing, but the wounds could hardly have itched more.

Another damned irritation, like the hunger and the dehydration making him light-headed in the heat.

He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the post, and tried to think as Vincent would. What purpose would holding him serve? What was he doing alive?

There was the obvious answer. Bait.

“You know,” Kusanagi-Jones said to the air, “he really only brings me along so they’ll have someone to take hostage.”