Carnival

What startled Vincent was the man’s companion; a leggy teal-green-and-gold-dappled animal, maybe sixty kilos, all long bones and prancing angles under the windblown fuzziness of what was either a pelt or hairlike feathers. One of the raptor-creatures from the Dragon’s frieze, it looked more predatory in the flesh. Two large front-facing eyes would provide binocular hunter’s vision, sheltered under fluffy projecting eyebrows. Something like a moth’s fronded antennae protruded from the top of its long head, and its limbs, muzzle, and belly were scaled, a sleek contrast to the warm-looking fluff on its back.

“Pets,” Vincent said, under his breath, watching the way the beast leaned its shoulder on the man’s thigh as they moved down the pier. “They have pets.”

Well, of course. They ate animal flesh, and while some of it must be harvested from the wild—witness the bustle and the stench of death on this pier—they also must have domestic animals. And it was a short step from one perversion to another, from enslaving animals for their meat to enslaving them as toys.

Vincent kept his face carefully calm in the dappled shade of his hat, and swallowed to fight the taste of bile.

And this is better than the Governors?The beast nosed the man’s hand as they paused by the security cordon and the man rewarded it with a quick ruffle of its feathers. It was like watching a grown man in diapers; the process of infantilization was complete. There was no way an animal so crippled could have a life outside of human control.

This is what we are when we’re left to our own devices—savage, selfish, short-sighted.Vincent squared his shoulders, thought of Michelangelo, and frowned. But free. Any government founded on a political or religious agenda more elaborate than “protect the weak, temper the strong” is doomed to tyranny,he quoted silently, and made himself look away from the tame animal. He slipped an etched-carbon data chip no larger than his thumbnail out of his pocket and concealed it in his lightly sweating palm. It was steady-state material, not a fog, and fiendishly expensive, but there were too many security risks entailed in using his watch to transport data as sensitive as this. And he could afford it with his mother footing the bill.

They’d have to make the trade quickly, invisibly, without detection by the security agents, Michelangelo, or Miss Pretoria. The New Amazonian habit of indiscriminate handshaking proved itself useful for once.

Vincent checked his watch as the black-skinned stranger showed the security guards his license, displayed a data pad of archaic design, and was waved through. No doubt, he was ferrying a message for Miss Pretoria or Miss Ouagadougou.

Eight hundred hours, as arranged.

Right on time.

Lesa hung back by the hatch, inside the cool darkness of the shuttle, and watched Nkechi Ouagadougou and Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones code-key open cargo lockers with the sort of reverence she associated with wrapping a funeral shroud. Lesa herself wasn’t an artist or a scientist. Her aesthetic sense was limited. If it weren’t for her empathic gift, if her foremothers hadn’t had the resources for Diaspora and she’d been born on Earth, she’d have been Assessed.

But as Ouagadougou and Kusanagi-Jones paused before each freshly opened chamber and waited for the utility fog that served as packing material to fade to transparency, she could feel their awe. It rolled off them in bittersweet cataracts, Kusanagi-Jones’s flavored with a faint reluctance and Ouagadougou’s dripping eagerness. It was a held-breath sort of moment for both of them, and Lesa didn’t want to intervene.

Besides, enjoyable as the overflow of their quiet glee was, she was only pretending to watch them. Practically speaking, she was watching Katherinessen. And Robert, who paused beside the step up to the door to introduce himself. They shook hands—Lesa’s smile never showed—and Katherinessen’s hand slipped back into his pocket. “They’re inside,” he said. Quietly, but his voice was crisp enough to carry.

Robert bowed, his manners impeccable, and glanced at the hatch. Lesa knew she was invisible in the darkness within. She stepped forward so the light would catch on her cheekbones and held out her hand. “Hello, dear.”

He didn’t step inside the pod, just held out a datacart and bowed as she accepted it. Something else fell into her palm—a chip, which had been pinned between his thumb and the cart. She flipped her hand over, opening the cart. “Anything important?”