Carnival

The light dimmed, the walls and ceiling filling with the images of wind-rustled leaves and vines. She stretched and rubbed her eyes. “Hello, Mom,” Julian said without looking up from the monitors. “Did you sleep well?”

She rubbed at her eyes and padded across the carpetplant to the wardrobe. “Too well,” she said. “I’m late. Save your work, Julian, and go eat.”

“Mom—”

She paused, a fistful of patterned sylk drawn out into the light, and turned to stare at the back of his head. “You know you can’t stay down here while I’m gone.”

His shoulders drooped, but his hand passed quickly over the save light, and he powered the terminal down before sliding, monkeylike, out of the chair. It was a little too tall for him, so he had hooked his toes over a brace while he worked, and the disentangling turned him into a study in conflicted angles. “All right,” he said, and came to hug her before vanishing through the door, gone before it had entirely irised open.

Lesa dressed for business in the warmth of the evening; the rain would be over before she left. She chose a tailored wrap skirt and the sylk blouse, and belted her honor over the skirt. Claude could take offense at anything, even if Lesa were of a mind to show up anywhere public unarmed. And the skirt would be cool enough; she couldn’t face trousers after the rain, with the hottest part of the year beginning.

Downstairs, she passed Xavier in the foyer, coming in from the decorating. Lesa had taken her own turn earlier in the day. At least it was better than pulling the flowers down, which was the part she truly hated.

She told House she was leaving, and asked it to summon a car. The vehicle was waiting by the time she reached the end of the alley that fronted Pretoria house; a diplomatic groundcar with a male driver, his street license prominently displayed on his shoulder—marking a gentle male, rather than a stud like Xavier. He smiled as she slid in. “Government center?”

“Singapore house,” she said. “I have a dinner invitation.”

He drove carefully, politely, through the rain-flooded streets. Water peeled away under the groundcar’s tires on long plumes, but the only people outside during cloudover were one or two employed stud males with street licenses hurrying back to their households or dormitories for dinner, and the householders on their porches under umbrella-covered tables, sipping drinks and enjoying the brief cooling.

The household Claude Singapore shared with her wife, Maiju Montevideo, was on the seaward side of the city, overlooking the broad, smooth bay. By the time Lesa arrived, the clouds had peeled back from the tops of Penthesilea’s storied towers. The rays of the westering sun penetrated, sparking color off the ocean, brightening it from gray to the usual ideal blue.

Lesa Pretoria was not Claude Singapore, and her own rank as a deputy chief of Security Directorate did not entitle her to carry her honor inside another woman’s house. She paused at the top of the steps to Singapore house’s door and surrendered it to the woman who waited there, along with her boots. Both were hung neatly on a rack, and Lesa smiled a thanks. There was a male servant present, too, but he could not touch firearms.

She must come armed, to show her willingness to use her strength in defense of Pretoria household’s alliance with Singapore, and she must be willing to lay that strength aside to meet with Claude. There were forms, and to ignore them was to give offense.

Lesa wasn’t particularly concerned about offending, however prickly Claude might be. Lesa could outduel her. But it was also polite. She gave the male servant her overcoat and followed the woman inside.

Although the rains were barely breaking, Lesa was the last to arrive. Claude and Maiju and the other guests were gathered around a table under a pavilion in the courtyard, sitting on low carpet-covered stools to keep the dampness off their clothes.

In addition to the prime minister, there was Miss Ouagadougou, the art expert who would be working directly with the Coalition diplomat. She was joined by her male confidential secretary, Stefan—a striking near-blond, almost unscarred, though Lesa knew he’d had a reputation during his time in the Trials. Beside them sat Lesa’s superior, Elder Kyoto, the head of Security Directorate.

Claude stood as Lesa emerged from the passageway, disentangling her long legs from the bench, and ushered Lesa to a seat—one strategically between Maiju and Stefan, Lesa noticed with a grin. Maiju was separatist; she’d as soon see all the males—stud andgentle—on New Amazonia culled down to the bare minimum and confined to a gulag. Or better yet, the widespread acceptance of reproductive gene splicing.