Carnival

He whuffed one last time, disappointed, and bounced up into an ambling trot, nose to the ground. She waited while he cast back and forth, darting one way and then the other, feathery whiskers sweeping the square. They framed the end of his mouth like a Van Dyke, above and below the labial pits, and served a dual purpose—as sensitive instruments of touch and for stirring up, gathering, and concentrating aromas.

Then, not far from the doorway she’d exited, he made two short, sharp dashes at right angles to each other and glanced over his shoulder with quivering ear-fronds for a decision.

They hadn’t gone the same way.

Lesa raised her hand and pointed at random. Walter took off like a spring-loaded chase dummy, and Lesa bounded after, running until her knees ached and her lungs burned.

The scent was fresh.

Elder Kyoto closed her fingers around Vincent’s biceps and drew him under the archway. “Any problem getting away?”

She kept her voice low, down in her throat like a lover’s, and Vincent answered the same way. “None. Given who passed your note, I expected Miss Pretoria—”

“What a pity to confound your expectations,” she replied. “You have a message from your mother, I understand?”

“I am empowered by the government-in-anticipation of Ur to seek alliances, if that’s what you mean.” He checked his fisheye: slightly more subtle than glancing over his shoulder. “We’re unmonitored here?”

“Jammed,” she said, and held up her wrist. The device strapped to it looked like an ordinary watch. She smiled. “I apologize for my boorish behavior at the reception, by the way.”

“Quite all right.” He draped himself around her shoulder, leaning down as if to murmur in her ear. “Elder Singapore isn’t sympathetic, I take it?”

“Elder Singapore is convinced that the Coalition can be bargained with.” She snuggled under the curve of his arm, her shoulders stiff behind a mask of insincere affection.

“Yes,” Vincent said. “So was my grandmother. Is it worth trying to convince her?”

It was so easy now, now that it was happening. The tension of waiting and secrets and subtleties released, and he was here, working, calculating. “On a male’s word?” Kyoto shrugged. “There isn’t. Singapore was Separatist before her conversion to mainstream politics, and her closest associates—Montevideo, Saide Austin—are still deeply involved in antimale politics.” Kyoto grimaced. “Pretoria house might be sympathetic—actually, we used sleight of hand to talk to you first—”

“We?”

“Parity.”

“Excuse me?”

She tossed her hair back roughly. “That’s our name. Parity. What you might call a radical underground movement. We’re pro men’s right’s, anti-Trials, in favor of population control. Opposed to Coalition appeasement—”

“And illegal.”

“How ever did you guess?” She might have become someone else since the night before, the cold mask replaced by passionate urgency.

“You’re a Liar,” he answered. “I would have known—”

“I’m not. And you don’t know everything. I’m on your side.”

“My mother’s side.”

“The rebel prince,” she mocked. She folded her arms across her chest. “Do you actually carewhat your mother stands for, or did you just grow up twisted in her shadow? Katherine Lexasdaughter is a famously charismatic leader, of course. But what do youbelieve in, Vincent Katherinessen?”

His lips drew tight across his teeth while he considered it. “You think it’s wise to overthrow the entire planetary social system as a prelude to an armed revolt, Elder Kyoto?”

“Armed revolt first,” she answered. “ Thenrevolution. We have a hundred thousand combat-trained stud males on this planet. We have half a million armed, educated, fiercely independent women. I don’t want to see them come to blows with each other. I want to give them an enemy in common.”

He watched her, still, and she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Maybe not a Liar, then. Not a trained one, anyway. Just very controlled, very good. “I was supposedto contact Lesa Pretoria, wasn’t I?” he asked. “You intercepted the codes.”

“We needed you first. It’s not just about the Coalition—”

“It’s about the Coalition first.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What about personal dignity? Personal freedom?”

“Never mind the Coalition.” His hands wanted to curl into fists. Tendons pressed the inside of his bracer. “Never mind New Amazonia. Do you think there’s any of that under the Governors?”

“I think,” she said, “the Governors come first. And then the internal reforms.”