Carnival

Kusanagi-Jones’s eyes were gritty with exhaustion. He wasn’t young enough to shrug off a sleepless night anymore, if he ever had been; he couldn’t remember. He quit at twenty-five push-ups and knelt, ducking his head over his wrist as he adjusted his chemistry. A rush of energy swept the cobwebs away, leaving him taut and jittering but awake.

He climbed to his feet and went to join Vincent in the shower. Vincent stepped aside, letting Kusanagi-Jones have the spray. He lifted his face into the patter of water, fighting the uneasy urge to flinch. He didn’t like it drumming on cheeks and eyelids. “Did you find it?” Vincent asked.

Kusanagi-Jones stepped out of the water and looked at him before answering the same way. “Found something. I know where the generator is, anyway, though it’s going to be a bigger problem than I want to contemplate getting to it. Disruptingthe power supply, I might manage. At some risk. The point of transmission is guarded. The rest…it’s going to take awhile to explain.” He paused for a breath, and to shake the water off his lashes. “Why are you limping?”

Vincent was lathering himself. His hands were over his face, but Kusanagi-Jones saw him hesitate. “Am I?”

“Favoring your knee.”

“I must have hit it wrong last night,” Vincent answered, turning into the water to rinse. “It’s sore.”

“Sure picked the right day,” Kusanagi-Jones answered, as Vincent stepped past him, reaching for a towel. “We’re going to be on our feet every minute.”

14

IT WASN’T QUITE AS BAD AS THAT. THERE WERE CHAIRS AT the breakfast table. Which was fortunate, for by then occasional sharper stabs punctuated the ache in Vincent’s knee. It was manageable, however, with the assistance of the same chemistry that mitigated his sunburn.

Elder Kyoto caught him wincing as they took their seats. “Third day is the worst,” she said.

“Oh, good,” he answered. “Something to look forward to.” Across the table, Michelangelo reached out to press a fingertip to Vincent’s wrist. The heat made him jerk his hand back.

“Remember this,” Angelo said, finishing it with a glower. The sting of the touch wasn’t what made Vincent’s eyes burn.

He looked down hastily, examining what was on offer this morning. Apparently, somebody had alerted the chef to the dietary restrictions of the Coalition agents, because the breakfast options included a kashalike grain, cooked into porridge and served with some sort of legume milk and a sweetener reminiscent of molasses in its sulfury richness.

There were new people at this meal, husbands and wives of dignitaries who hadn’t attended the supper two days previous. Vincent filed all the introductions under mnemonics. The one on his immediate left, however, he suspected he’d have no difficulty recalling: Saide Austin, the artist.

She was an imposing woman. Almost two meters tall and not slight of build, with short, tight-coiled hair shot through with gray threads like smoke and wide cheeks framing a broad, fleshy nose. Her skin was textured brown, darker around her eyes and paler in the creases between her brows, and her half-smile reinforced the lines. Heavy silver rings circled several of her fingers, flashing like the mirrors embroidered on her robe.

Her hand was warm where she shook Vincent’s, and she gave him a little pat on the forearm before she let him go. Over her shoulder, he saw Michelangelo frown. Their eye contact was brief, but definite, and the flickering glance that followed ended on Claude Singapore.

So Austin was the one pushing Singapore’s buttons.

“I very much admired your sculpture,” Vincent said.

“Jinga Mbande?”The smile broadened, showing stout white teeth. “Thank you. How do you think your government will feel about touring artists, when negotiations are concluded?”

“I’m sure they’d welcome them,” Vincent said. He slid his spoon into the porridge and cut a bite-sized portion against the edge of the bowl. “I’m surprised you’d be willing to send New Amazonian art to Old Earth, though, after—”

“The Six Weeks War?” She spooned honey into her tea. He looked away. “Isn’t the Coalition bent on showing goodwill?”

“Your countrywomen aren’t all so sanguine,” he answered.

She shrugged and drank. “What did you expect? I’m not sanguine either. But I’m prepared.”

Vincent nodded, reaching for his own tea. Yes. This was the person the Coalition meant him to deal with, the one who could bargain without running home to check with her mother. And according to Kyoto—if he could trust her—one he had no real chance of bargaining with. A separatist, somebody who’d as soon see New Amazonia live up to its name to the extent of eradicating men entirely.

So why was she wasting his time?

Across the table, Michelangelo was drinking coffee, apparently engrossed in conversation with Miss Ouagadougou, but he was listening. Vincent suppressed that twinge again, half guilt and half anticipation. “I’ve heard a rumor,” he said, “that your voice is one of the respected ones urging dйtente. We’re grateful.”