Carnival

If the other population encroaches, Kii wishes to intervene again, more strongly than before. The Consent is not so sanguine.

Yet.

5

EVEN VINCENT WAS RELIEVED WHEN DINNER ENDED, though it segued without hesitation into another endless reception. This one at least had more the air of a party, and finally there were a number of other men present.

As soon as they left the table, the elder Pretoria cut Michelangelo off Vincent’s arm as neatly as impoverished nobility absconding with an heiress at a debutante’s ball. Despite Michelangelo’s long-suffering eyeroll, he went, flirting gamely.

Vincent took this as a sign that the business portion of the evening had ended, and availed himself of the bar. He wasn’t going to get drunk—his watch would see to that—but he would examine the options. It would give him something to do with his hands while considering the evening’s haul.

He accepted the drink he’d pointed to in a moment of bravado—something greenish-gold and slightly cloudy, a spirit infused with alien herbs, if his nose didn’t mislead him—and leaned into a quiet corner, for the moment observed by no one except the security detail, who appeared to be making sure he didn’t wander off.

It was a reversal of his and Michelangelo’s usual roles, but not an unpracticed one. Michelangelo could pretend to charisma as effectively as anything else, and dominate a room with ease. And the dynamics of an assembly such as this could be revealing. It was like watching a dance that was also combat and a game of chess.

Miss Pretoria, for example, was leaving a conversational cluster that included the person Vincent had tentatively identified as the minister of the militia—of Security, he corrected himself, which was a significant choice of title on its own—and crossing to the group that encompassed Michelangelo and Elena Pretoria, and a tall, beautifully dressed, dark-skinned man with a shaved-slick scalp. With whom, Vincent noticed, Michelangelo was now flirting. Vincent’s fingers curled on his glass, and he pressed his shoulders against the warm, slightly vibrating wall of the building, feeling it conform to his body.

The prime minister and her entourage occupied a space that was more or less on the left center of the ballroom, and somehow managed to give the impression of being off in a corner—and one diametrically opposed to the Pretoria household at that. And there was something else interesting: as Lesa crossed the room, nobody wanted to catch her eye, despite her occasional nods and words she shared with those she passed. Unobtrusively, a path opened before her, but it wasn’t the standing aside of respect. It was a withdrawal. I wonder what she is when she’s not a tour guide and turnkey.

He dug his toes into the groundcover and watched. People could give themselves away in the oddest manners. Even simply by the ways in which they made sure of their guard. For example, the faint discomfort with which Lesa responded to a broad-shouldered, bronzed man who entrapped her a few steps from the relative haven of her mother’s enclave. He had long hair cut blunt at his shoulders, the fair, blondish-brown color and coarse wavy texture even more unusual than Vincent’s auburn, and his hands were knotted whitely with old scars. He spoke softly, eyes averted, and Lesa reached out and tucked a strand of that wonderful hair behind his ear in a good counterfeit of flirtation before excusing herself to join her family.

Vincent was just finally getting around to paying some attention to his drink when the minister of Security—the one who had been about to bring biology into the dinner argument until Singapore shut her down—appeared at his elbow. “Miss Katherinessen,” she said, mispronouncing his name kath-er-in-ES-sen,“I’m sorry to see you’ve been abandoned.”

She held out her hand and he took it gingerly. The wine on her breath bridged the distance between them easily. The New Amazonian disregard for personal space, but also something more.

He would have stepped back, but he was already against the wall. “I’m self-amusing,” he said, and met her gaze directly, the way Penthesilean men did not.

She edged closer, oozing confidence. She expected him to be intimidated and perhaps flattered as she laid her hand on his arm. He’d seen the expression on her face on enough old warhorses cornering sweet young things at embassy parties: a predator gloating over trapped prey.

He was supposed to blush and look down, and maybe sidle away. Instead, he pictured Michelangelo standing where he was standing now, and burst out laughing.

She stepped back, abruptly, covering her discomfiture with a scowl. “I wasn’t aware I was so amusing.”