Carnival

Vincent’s flat expression, when Michelangelo opened his eyes again, seemed an attempt to convince himself that he hadn’t actually understood. Kusanagi-Jones’s face felt numb.

He kept talking.

“Kii won’t give us the brane tech. What if we offer him another way out of a war? He’s ethical. We offer Kii the opportunity to engineer a virus that modifies the human genome, that inducesConsent, and we get the fucker to downgrade self-interest as a motivating force.”

“The Christ,” Vincent whispered. They stared at each other.

“Vincent. This is…this has to be exactly—”

Vincent’s larynx bobbed as he swallowed, a shadow dipping in the hollow of his throat. “They were the first ones to die, you know. You can’t accuse them of hypocrisy. The Governors Assessed their creators first.”

“Cowards,” Michelangelo said. He shoved the tray aside and swung his feet out of bed, wincing as blistered flesh contacted the tiled floor. “Cowards who didn’t want to watch their program carried out. Could cause a genocide, but couldn’t stand to live through it.”

“This is just how they felt.”

“Heady, isn’t it?”

“Angelo—”

“No. Don’t argue. Think. What do you have that’s better?”

“Who are we to choose for an entire species?”

Michelangelo gave Vincent his sweetest smile. “Who better?”

Vincent backed up to lean against the wall and folded his arms. “Every solution is going to present us with new problems down the line. And this would put an end to Lesa’s problem, too. The way to stop men from preying on women without treating the entire sex as criminals is simply to remove the predatory urge. If we can’t be trained, we can be broken.”

“You’re Advocating.”

Vincent winked, but Kusanagi-Jones saw his hand shake when he checked his chemistry, taking a moment to revise the adrenaline load down to something manageable. “All right. I’ll Advocate. I’m Lesa. She would say it was immoral to tamper with human biology, and more defensible to institute social controls to the same effect.”

“So slavery is more moral than engineering out aggression.”

“It’s not chattel slavery.”

“No,” Kusanagi-Jones said. “An extreme sort of second-class citizenship.”

“Not much worse than women in the Coalition.”

“Women in the Coalition can vote, can work—”

“Can be elected to the government.”

“Theoretically.”

“Practically?”

“Doesn’t happen.” Kusanagi-Jones swallowed. “Who’d want a woman in charge?” Except on some of the repatriated worlds. But Ur was the only one with the nerve to send a woman to the Cabinet. The conviction had dropped from his voice. “I can’t even Advocate this anymore, Vincent. It’s just wrong.”

“No fanatic like a new fanatic,” Vincent said. He came to Kusanagi-Jones and crouched beside him, and patted him on the knee. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Scared,” Michelangelo said, a raw admission meant as much for himself as for Vincent.

And Vincent knew it. Michelangelo could tell by his expression, the arched eyebrows, the line between them. “Having your preconceptions rattled is unsettling.”

“No,” Michelangelo said. He dropped his face to his hands, pushed fingertips against his eyelids until the pressure hurt. The pain didn’t help his focus, so he dropped his hands and looked up instead. “Scared we’ve already figured it out.”

Vincent stood, all lithe grace, and let his hand rest warmly on Michelangelo’s shoulder. “Whatever,” he said. “Let’s at least talk to Kii about getting that weapon cleaned out of your bloodstream, shall we?”

Michelangelo nodded. “And then tell Lesa about Kii, and see what shebloody thinks.”

Vincent and Michelangelo found Lesa on Elena’s beloved veranda, her bandaged feet propped on the softest available cushion, a plate on her lap and a sweating glass beside her as she watched Julian and some other children romp in the courtyard with a couple of khir. Vincent didn’t think Elena would have left her alone willingly. It must have taken a spectacular temper tantrum.

She didn’t acknowledge them at first, as he and Angelo came up beside her—unescorted—and took places on a wooden bench. It was polished smooth, the wood warm in the muggy afternoon, and Vincent leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, watching in fascinated horror as Lesa worked her way around a piece of shellfish sushi rather like a snake ingesting a too-large mouse: lingeringly and with many pauses.

“I’m sorry about Robert,” Angelo said finally when the silence had gone on longer than Vincent expected.

Lesa didn’t look. “I’m not,” she said. “But don’t let Katya find out about it, okay?”

Vincent felt Michelangelo shrug. “I won’t.”

She did turn, then, and give them a painfully dilute smile. “I’ve just heard from Antonia Kyoto. She wanted me to pass along her thanks for your information as well, Michelangelo. And let you know that Miss Ouagadougou and Stefan have been arrested. And are under…considerable pressure to name the rest of the Right Hand apparatus.”

He grunted. “Miss Ouagadougou wasn’t working for the Right Hand,” he said. “She’s Coalition.”