Carnival

–Lesa’s own chances of getting Julian off‑planet to Ur, if he didn’t prove gentle, went from reasonable to infinitesimal.

Ignoring the monitors (she’d be the one who examined the recordings), she tugged the covers up slightly, as if tucking in a couple of sleeping spies, and padded back toward the door. It opened and she passed between Asha and Cathay without a word.

“Everything all right?” Asha asked, hooking lustrous dark hair behind her ear with a thumb.

“Fine,” Lesa said over her shoulder. “Sleeping the sleep of the just. Make sure they’re up at five hundred for the repatriation ceremony?” She paused and turned long enough to throw Cathay a wink. “I think they wore themselves out.”

The lift brought her down quickly. Her watch buzzed against her wrist; she touched it and tilted her head to her shoulder to block external noise. Her earpiece needed replacing. “Agnes?”

“Lesa, Robert’s not in the rooms,” Agnes said, her high‑pitched voice shivering. The words came crisp and clipped, as if she’d had them all lined up, ready to rush forward as soon as her mouth was opened. “Do you want a constable on it?”

Lesa’s mouth filled with bitter acid. “Does Mother know?”

Agnes paused. “I called you before I woke her.” Which was a violation of protocol. But Lesa would have done the same.

There were any number of possibilities, but only two seemed likely. Robert was a double. Which meant he was working for either a free male faction, like Parity or–she prayed not–Right Hand Path. Or he was working for security directorate, and she’d just bought herself a sunrise execution.

“You did the right thing,” Lesa said. As she walked out into Government Center she passed the community car she’d taken here, which was parked silently at the curb waiting for its next call. She paused, frowned at her watch, and then continued, “And send me Walter, would you?”

She leaned a hip and shoulder against the wall as she waited, closing her eyes to cadge a few moments of dozing. Less than ten minutes later the whuff of hot breath on her hand and the tickle of feathers alerted her. She stroked a palm across Walter’s skull, laying his ear fronds flat and caressing warm down and scales. He panted slightly with the run, but he’d had no trouble finding her. Penthesilea wasn’t a big city in terms of area; he was trained as a package‑ru

“Good khir,” she said, and gave him her other hand, the one she’d stroked through the Coalition agents’ bedding. He whuffed again and went down on his haunches, not sitting but crouching. He lifted his head, ear‑fronds and crest fluffing, and waited, his eyes glowing dimly with gathered light.

“Find it, please,” Lesa said. Walter nosed her hand again. “No cookie,” she said, shaking her head. She had nothing to bribe him with. “Find.”

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, ru

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.”

He bit his lip, leaning forward, voice low and focused, taut with wrath. “Elena Pretoriacan bring me the New Amazonian government, once Singapore is out of the way. Can you? My mother willsupply the Captains’ council. We can guarantee New Earth. That’s three. It’s not enough, but it’s what we’ve got, and once things are started, a few more may take their chances. You were right when you said my mother is famously charismatic. But this is a civil warwe’re discussing, Antonia, and one Old Earth will fight like hell to win, because every planet it loses means one less place for the population to expand to. Will your half a million armed women fight for you, fight against Coalition technology, if they think you’re going to take away theirspot at the top of the pecking order?”