Carnival

VINCENT COULD SEE NOTHING FROM THE AIR, BUT THAT failed to surprise him. He perched on the observer’s seat of the aircar, beside the pilot, and made sure his wardrobe was active and primed. The Penthesileans wouldn’t give him a weapon, but as long as he had his wits, he wasn’t helpless.

A weaponized utility fog didn’t hurt either.

“They must have a camouflage screen up,” he said over his shoulder.

Elena, in the backseat, grunted as the aircar circled. “Or Katya lied to us.”

“Also possible,” Vincent admitted, as the pilot reported finding nothing on infrared. “I don’t suppose any of these vehicles have pulse capability.”

“This one does,” the pilot answered, after a glance to Elena for permission.

There were seven aircars in the caravan, armored vehicles provided by Elder Kyoto through the Security Directorate. According to Katya, that should be more than enough to handle the complement of this particular Right Hand outpost.

And again, Katya might be wrong. Or she might be decoying them into a trap, though Vincent’s own skills and instincts told him shebelieved she was telling the truth.

Of course, he’d also trusted his own skills and instincts about Michelangelo. But Angelo was the best Liar in the business—and close enough in Vincent’s affections that any reading would be suspect anyway.

“Take us higher, please,” Vincent said. The pilot gave him a dubious look, but when Elena didn’t intervene she shrugged and brought them up. Somewhere down there, indistinguishable from the rest of the canopy by Gorgon-light, had to be the camouflage field. Invisible—but not unlocatable.

Vincent’s wardrobe included licenses for dozens of useful implements, among them an echolocator. It was designed for use in situations where there was no available light and generating more would be unwise. In this case, he was obligated to patch through the aircar’s ventilation systems to externalize the tympanic membranes, but that was the work of a few moments.

The readout projected to his implants was many-edged, shifting, translucent, but perfectly detailed, each individual leaf and branch discernable over the spongy reflection of the litter-covered ground. And just off to the south was a gap in the fragile, shadowy echoes of the canopy, a mysterious, rough-edged hole floored with sharp regular echoes and softer elevated patches.

“There,” Vincent said, and pointed. “South by southeast, 40 degrees descent.”

“It’s all trees,” the pilot said, and Vincent frowned at her—the frown he reserved for people who obviously couldn’t have meant to disappoint him, and so must have done it through some oversight. “It’s a utility fog,” he said. “A limited-license one. It pattern-matches the surrounding territory. Look, see that tree?”

There was one, in particular, a bit taller than the rest and a bit paler in color, as if it hadn’t entirely leafed out yet or were growing in iron-poor soil.

The pilot nodded. Elena leaned over the chair back to see better, laying a possessive hand on Vincent’s shoulder.

“There’s another one,” she said, and pointed left. The angle was different, and so the silhouettes didn’t quite match, but there they were, as alike as if cloned. “Which is real?”

Vincent indicated the second one with a jerk of his thumb, making an effort not to shrug her hand away, no matter how it irritated. Andreminded him of the tenderness of peeling skin.

At least the damned sunburn hurt less than it had and his wardrobe was doing an adequate job of coping with the sloughing epidermis. Which was unpleasant. But, by comparison, didn’t hurt enough to be worthy of the term.

“Is it safe to descend through the canopy?”

He hesitated. “Theoretically.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s a utility fog, and they can be weaponized. Elder Pretoria—”

Her hand flexed on his shoulder. He hid a flinch. “Yes, Vincent?”

Not Miss Katherinessenanymore. “Does anybody on New Amazonia use fog technology? Because something Lesa said led me to believe it wasn’t warmly considered—”

“No,” Elena said. “They don’t.”

He nodded. “Then I can’t guarantee what we’ll run into.”

“Right,” she said, and released him. “Jayne?”

“Elder Pretoria?”

“Bring us down onto the canopy, would you? And let the others know what we’re doing, and why.”

The aircar didn’t have the flexibility of programmable vehicles that Vincent was used to, but he had to admit that the landing nets were impressive. Jointed insectile limbs unfolded, stretching glistening mesh between them, and the aircar settled onto a forest canopy made mysterious by nebula-light. The trees dimpled and groaned under the distributed weight, and Vincent heard wood creak and twigs snap wetly, but they bore up under the weight. On each side, the other aircars settled into the canopy, surrounding the camouflaged clearing, pastel swirls of night sky reflected in their glossy carapaces so they looked like enormous, jeweled beetles resting on spinners’ webs.

“How do we get out?” he asked, because he knew it was expected of him.