Carnival

Inside the door, Lesa passed the groceries to one of the household staff and sent her off with Xavier once he’d kicked his sandals at the catchall. Lesa balanced on each foot in turn and unzipped her boots before hanging them on the caddy. In Penthesilea’s equatorial heat, all sorts of unpleasant things grew in unaired shoes.

She dug her toes into the cool carpetplant with a sigh of relief and hung up her hat, grateful to House for taking the edge off the sun. Claude and Elena would be in the morning room at breakfast, which was still being served. Lesa’s stomach rumbled at the smell as she walked through seashell rooms and down an arched corridor, enjoying the aviform song House brought in from the jungle along with filtered light.

Elena Pretoria was exactly where Lesa had imagined her, on the back veranda with her long hands spread on the arms of a rattan chair—real furniture, not provided by House—her silver-streaked hair stripped into a tail and her skin glowing dark gold against white lounging clothes. For all the air of comfort and grace she projected, however, Lesa noticed the white leather of her holster slung on her waist and buckled down to her thigh. Elena had a past as a duelist, too, and as a politician. And she wasn’t about to let Claude Singapore forget it, even if Claude’s position as prime minister was enough rank to let her enter another woman’s household without surrendering her honor.

Claude was tall and bony, a beautiful woman with blunt-cut hair that had been white as feathers since she was in her twenties, and some of the lightest eyes Lesa had ever seen—which perhaps explained the depth of the crow’s-feet decorating her face. They couldn’t all be from smiling, though Lesa wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Claude notsmiling. She had an arsenal of smiles, including a melancholy one for funerals.

“Lesa,” Claude said, as Lesa greeted her mother with a little bow. “I’m here—”

“I heard. The grapevine’s a light-minute ahead.”

Claude stood up anyway, extending her hand. Lesa took it. Claude had a politician’s handshake, firm but gentle. “I don’t know why we even have media on this planet.”

“It gives us someone to blame for scandals,” Lesa answered, and Claude laughed even though it hadn’t been funny. “I’m ready. When will they make landfall?”

“Tomorrow. We’re shuttling them down. You’ll come by this evening for a briefing?”

“Of course,” Lesa said. “Dinnertime?”

“Good for me.”

Claude stepped away from her chair, and Elena took it as a cue to stand. “Leaving us already?”

“The Republic never sleeps. And I can hear Lesa’s stomach rumbling from here. I imagine she’d enjoy a quiet breakfast with her family before the madness begins.”

“Claude, I don’t mean to chase you out of your chair,” Lesa said, but Claude was turning to shake Elena’s hand.

“Nonsense.” Claude stepped back, and adjusted her holster. It was a Y-style, and they had a tendency to pinch when one stood. “I’ll see you tonight. I can show myself out—”

“Good-bye.” Lesa did walk a few steps toward the door with the guest, so as not to give offense. When Claude was safely gone, she tilted her head at Elena. “Why did she come herself?”

“Probably a subtle message not to try anything tricky. She hasn’t forgiven me for getting her wife ousted from the Export Board, and she still thinks the Coalition can be appeased.” The twist of her mouth revealed what she thought of that idea. It made Lesa restrain a smile: it was also Katya’s moue, and Lesa’s son Julian made the same face when he was concentrating.

Lesa used that image of Julian to keep her voice under control. “As soon as they have what they want, the Coalition will scorch us off the surface. They’re distracting us while they set up the kill.”

“They’d have to justify the ecological damage from an orbital attack to the Governors, and that would be…hard to get approval for, I imagine. They might convince the Governors that we need to be Assessed, however, and brought under control. We’d fight.”

Lesa caught the glint of Elena’s smile. “You heard from Katherine Lexasdaughter.”

“Coded. A packet concealed in the Kaiwo Maru’s logburst as she made orbit.”

Lesa could imagine the resources required to arrange for treason and insurrection to be transmitted in a ship’s identification codes on a governed channel. Katherine was head of the Captain’s Council on Ur, and held a chair in the Colonial Cabinet on the strength of it.

“He’s coming.” Lesa’s chest lightened and tightened both at once. Elena might think she was the saltspider at the center of the web, but Lesa couldn’t allow her to recognize all the layers of machinations here. Elena was not going to be happy with Lesa when things shook out.

Elena’s smile was tight with guarded triumph. “I hate hanging our hopes on a man, even if he is both gentle andhis mother’s son. But he came.”

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