Carnival

“Could be,” Kusanagi-Jones said. Even when he dropped his chin to speak, water splashed into his mouth. It tasted strange, not neutral but crackling with ozone, faintly salty, sweet. From below, Kusanagi-Jones heard voices, a woman’s and those of children, and the slap of bare footsteps running on wet pavement. He turned his right hand up to let the rain wash across the sealed nick on his palm. “Don’t seem too worried.”

Water pattered on Vincent’s hair and shoulders as he came outside. He paused at Kusanagi-Jones’s shoulder, and Kusanagi-Jones leaned back slightly, so their wardrobes meshed. The coded channel was carried on a single-photon beam—an unimpeachable transmission. But it didn’t hurt to shorten the hop. “Vincent—”

Vincent’s hand on his shoulder almost made him jump out of his wardrobe. “If you’re about to tell me that you’re seizing command of the mission, Angelo, I don’t blame you. But I will put up a fight. Can’t we come to an accommodation?”

Kusanagi-Jones stopped hard, with his jaw hanging open. He put one hand out, found the balustrade, and used it to pivot himself where he stood. “Beg pardon?”

To see Vincent staring at him, similarly gape-mouthed and blinking rapidly against the rain that dripped from his lashes. “I thought—” He stepped away, let his hand fall, and tilted his head back. “The Christ. I thought you’d made me.”

“As a double,” Kusanagi-Jones said, understanding, but needing the confirmation.

Vincent snorted, shaking his head, water scattering from short, randomly pointed braids. He rocked back and slumped against the wall beside the doorway. “Well, now you know. It’s a good thing I

don’t claim to be a Liar.”

“Who?”

“You know I can’t tell you that—”

“Vincent. I won’t hand you over. Or your connections.”

“I still can’t tell you.”

“What organization?”

The smile was tight, Vincent’s hands curled into fists beside his thighs. He didn’t look down. Kusanagi-Jones hadn’t thought he would. “One that doesn’t have a name.”

Kusanagi-Jones shouldn’t have been riding a rush of relief and joy; emotion made you stupid. But it welled up anyway. He reached out and took Vincent’s arm, the dry wardrobe sliding over wet skin beneath. “Know what I’m thinking?”

“Do I ever? It’s part of your charm—”

Michelangelo took a breath and let the words go with it when he let it out. “I threw the mission on New Earth.”

“The Skidbladnirsuffered a core excursion,” Vincent said. “You couldn’t have had…” And then his voice trailed off. He tugged away from Kusanagi-Jones’s hand, but not hard, and Kusanagi-Jones held on to him. “Angelo.”

“I’m Free Earth,” he said. “Have been for decades. I killed Skidbladnir,Vincent, and everybody on her.”

“To keep New Earth out of the Coalition.”

“To give them a fighting chance.”

Vincent licked his lips and looked down, jaw working. Kusanagi-Jones imagined he was toting up the dead—the ship’s crew, marines, civilians. He started to pull his hand back and Vincent caught it, squeezed, held. “Do you mean to do it again?”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“If I have to.”

“Good,” Vincent said. “Me, too. We need a plan.”

If there was any tap on the door to the hall, neither one of them heard it over the sound of the rain, but Kusanagi-Jones could hardly have missed it irising open. He pressed Vincent’s arm before stepping around him, turning him. Then he walked under the dripping door frame before pausing to shake the water off his hair. A shower of droplets bent the leaves of the carpetplant until his wardrobe took care of the rest, wicking moisture away so his clothes seemed to steam. “Come in,” he said to the young woman who waited outside in simple off-white clothing with a Pretoria household badge embroidered on the breast.

She carried a slip of some sort in her hand, and was on the hesitant cusp of offering it to Vincent, who came through the door a moment after Kusanagi-Jones and held out his hand, when she glanced at Kusanagi-Jones for permission. Odd,he thought, and nodded, but not before he said “Wardrobe,” to Vincent.

He didn’t want him actually touching

that thing.

The faint sparkle around Vincent’s fingertips when they touched the slip said Vincent had anticipated him. “Thank you,” Vincent said to the young woman. She nodded and stepped back, the door spiraling shut before her. Vincent glanced down, the slip dimpling lightly between fingers that didn’t quite contact its surface. “It’s for you.”

“Who from?”

“It doesn’t say.” Vincent generated a thin blade and slid it into the slip, along a seam Kusanagi-Jones couldn’t see. A slight tearing sound followed, and then he tapped and inverted it, sliding out a second, matching slip. Vincent turned it in his hand and frowned at the black, ornate lettering.

“Another party invitation?” Kusanagi-Jones asked, letting his mouth twist around the words.

“No,” Vincent said, raising a thin sheet of old-fashioned card stock, wood pulp unless Kusanagi-Jones missed his guess. “You seem to have been challenged to a duel.”

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