Carnival

A poorly trained scout. She repeatedly glanced over her shoulder at the confrontation, rather than facing the approach, weapon ready.

Actually, her right hand was bandaged and splinted, and though her weapon was rigged for left-hand use, he thought that hand flexed awkwardly over the holster.

Sometimes you got a lucky break.

Well,Michelangelo thought, at least I’m invisible.

For now. He thought he could rely on the New Amazonians to figure things out once he acted. And while his wardrobe couldstop bullets, it couldn’t do it forever. It cost in power and in foglets, and the technology needed time to recharge and repair.

He wasn’t without assets, though. She might be female, but Lesa was deadly enough with a sidearm to win Vincent’s respect, as Vincent had impressed on him after the discussion in Lesa’s office. Katya was another factor. Duelist or not, Kusanagi-Jones didn’t think she was the sort to just stand there and weep. And, of course, the khir. Kusanagi-Jones could only guess from old media how useful it might be in a fight, but he knew police and military had used dogs as attack animals before Assessment, and the khir was bigger than any image of a dog he’d seen.

He hoped they hadn’t overstated the case.

If Lesa was the…gunslinger…Vincent had intimated, she’d initiate something when she saw an opening. Which meant Kusanagi-Jones needed to giveher that opening, while being alert for any moves she might make on her own, and standing ready to abort and follow her lead. He just hoped she didn’t do anything hysterical, or freeze up because of the gun to her daughter’s head.

He was getting blasted tired of trying to second-guess people smarter than he was. And it wasn’t made any easier when they were women.

If this was the same crew that had attempted to abduct Vincent—as the lousy perimeter guard’s bandaged hand tended to indicate—they might be armed chiefly with nonlethal weapons. They would want everyone alive.

Which would be why the woman controlling Katya was using Katya’s weapon. Because itwould be loaded with lethal rounds, and Lesa would know that. If one meant to threaten, it never hurt to reinforce your intention with a little evidence.

If one meant to act, however, sometimes the element of total surprise came in handy.

Kusanagi-Jones moved forward. The wardrobe’s camouflage function was designed to bypass automated security. Mere human senses never stood a chance as he picked his route between the attackers. The target was of average height, for a New Amazonian. Her dark brown hair was cropped short and brushed forward into a coxcomb, dyed cherry-red at the tips. She held Katya’s weapon with confidence, and her voice carried.

“Please place your hands on your head, Miss Pretoria, and turn to face the wall.”

Lesa seemed to be obeying, slowly and with deliberation. Her hands rose, her eyes unswerving on the gunwoman’s face. Walter’s leash still slid looped around her left wrist, and the khir hissed as she turned, its nostrils flaring. Michelangelo wondered how long it could balance on its hind legs—it showed no signs of strain yet—and he wondered also why the cherry-haired woman didn’t just drop it. Whatever need kept them from harming Lesa, he couldn’t imagine it applied to her pet.

That was, he hoped, secondary. He found a position behind the gunwoman before Lesa finished her hesitation-march pirouette. His moment would come when Lesa’s back was fully turned. The target’s attention should shift, momentarily, from controlling Lesa and Katya to ordering her troops.

That would be the moment when Katya would be at the least risk from his intervention. And he saw it coming in the shifting of the target’s weight, the instant when she drew a deeper breath, preparatory to speaking.

New Amazonia had specified that the negotiators come unarmed, all security to be provided by Penthesilean forces. And so Vincent and Kusanagi-Jones had carried no obvious weapons. But a utility fog was, by its very nature, adaptable technology, and they carried data under diplomatic seal. And among those data were licenses for weapons banned on every Coalition world.

The cutting wire that formed between Kusanagi-Jones’s hands as he raised them wasn’t actually a monofilament. It was composed of a single chain of hand-linked foglets, and it was neither as strong nor as sharp as a monomolecular wire.

It didn’t need to be.

He formed his arms into an interrupted loop, as if to capture her in a surprise embrace, and brought the wire down.

It caught the target below the elbows. Slight resistance shivered up the invisibly thin wire as it made contact, and Michelangelo jerked down.

The target made no sound. For a hopelessly long time—a third of a second, longer—she stared in shock at the abrupt termination of her arms. Both her hands fell, and Michelangelo had just enough time to hope the pistol didn’t discharge from the shock when they hit.