Carnival

“They’re dead. It strikes me as macabre to hang murdered plants all over your buildings. How much longer is Carnival?”

“Seven days,” she said. “Ten all together. And the flowers are dead because nothing grows in a Dragon city. Except carpetplant. They do their own weeding.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“That’s how the cities survived intact.” She came closer and joined him at the lattice, peering through the blooms to the empty courtyard. “Katya’s not talking,” she said. “We’re going to have to go to Claude.”

“Not an option,” he said, and bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to say that. Some sneaky, underhanded diplomat I am.”

She didn’t step closer, but he felt her warmth against his arm. It reminded him that his shoulders itched, and he tightened his fingers on the ledge of the porch railing.

“You’re more worried about him than you pretend.”

He looked at her standing there, open‑eyed, empty‑palmed, and for a moment almost managed to think of her as human.

“We need to involve security and the militia,” she continued when it became apparent he had nothing to say. “I can’t do that without Claude.”

“Elder Kyoto is on our side.”

“Elder Kyoto wouldn’t keep her job long enough to be of any use to us if she tried to sneak this past the administration. Why are you so opposed to involving them?”

“Other than her challenging Angelo to a duel?”

“Political maneuvering,” Elena said with a wave of her hand. “There’s more.”

“All right,” Vincent said, and let his hands fall open, too. “I believe she and Saide Austin are aware of–no, in collusion with–the operators of an illegal genetics lab somewhere on New Amazonia. And that they used that lab to create a retrovirus with which they then infected my partner, with the intent of spreading a deadly epidemic across Old Earth.”

“You have proof?” Elena asked, as of course she would.

“It’s in Angelo’s bloodstream,” Vincent answered. “We hadn’t had time to get it taken care of yet.”

“Oh.” She took a half‑step forward, belly against the railing, her hands curled hard on the edge.

“Yeah,” Vincent said. “I’m not sure talking to Claude is the best possible solution.”

“No,” Elena said. “The genetic engineering, though. If we could prove that, we wouldn’t even have to have her killed.”

“So all we have to do is find a genetic lab so well hidden nobody in Penthesilea knows where it is.”

“You’ve never had to find an illegal drug lab?” Elena said. “Somebody always knows. I just wish Lesa were here.”

“Out of danger?”

“To help find it. Security directorate is what she does.”

21

LESA KNEW HER WAY THROUGH THE BUSH. UNARMED, barefoot, injured, and clad in the rags of city clothes, she managed to stay ahead of the pursuit for almost twelve hours, through the afternoon rain and well into the evening of the long New Amazonian day, until the sounds of voices faded and the only man‑made sound she heard was the occasional distant, echoing signal by gunfire, followed by a crescendo of animal complaint.

She regretted not having a bush knife most of all. A gun would have been nice, and it chafed not to have her honor at her hip, but a knife would have made travel infinitely easier. It also would have left a defined trail, of course, but crawling under still more thorny wire‑plant, her scratched hands and forearms swelling with infection, she didn’t think she’d care. At least the tender redness was likely just her own skin flora; most New Amazonian bacteria didn’t like the taste of Earth meat any better than did the New Amazonian bugs.

Once the sun was up, she had managed a good bearing, though that wasn’t much use without a reference point. Then, for lack of options, she had headed east. If the Right Hand hadn’t brought her too far from Penthesilea, she’d find a coast in that direction. And if they’d transported her any distance–well, this looked like home jungle, and if it wasn’t, something was very likely to eat her before she starved.

Unlike the “insects” and the “bacteria,” some of the larger New Amazonian life had absolutely no objection to the taste of mammal. And fexa were quite territorial.

In any case, it was bound to be a long walk.

At least she could entertain herself as she picked her way over borer‑addled trunks and through drapes of waterlogged vines by trying to decide how she was going to explain to Vincent that she’d left Kusanagi‑Jones behind.

The conscious edge of her brain wasn’t helping her anyway. What she needed was the i

She did pick up a stout branch, green and springy. It had a gnawed, pointed gnarl at the base where it had been disarticulated by a treekat after the infestation of bugs in the heartwood. The smaller twigs had withered since it fell, but only a few rootlets protruded; she stripped them away, broke the slender end off, and found herself possessed of a serviceable three‑foot‑long club.

The rich scent of loam rose from under her denting footsteps, and insectoids scurried from overturned litter. She made an effort to walk more lightly, picking past clumps of moss that would show her footsteps, hopping between patches of wild carpetplant that flourished where sunlight managed to pierce the canopy in long, flickering rays. It wouldn’t bruise, even when she jumped on it, and it beat sticking to game trails. Those would lead pursuit right to her.

She needed to find a place to bed down for the night.

Lesa had slept rough before, but she had no illusions about her odds of surviving a night in the jungle unarmed, without shelter, and without daring to build a fire even if she had the wherewithal to do so. It might keep off animals, but it would be as good as a beacon to the Right Hand.

At least being dive‑bombed and picked clean by sirens or strangled by a fexa would be quick.

She found a crevice under a fallen log big enough to cram herself into, heaped leaf litter under it to conserve warmth, and hauled a drape of living wire‑plant over the top to serve as a barricade to any wandering animals, savaging her hands further in the process. She picked the thorns out of her palms with her teeth, and dropped them in the cup of a rain‑collecting plant among wriggling tadpoles so the water could help hide the scent of her blood.

The pungent stinging scent of wire‑plant sap would serve to conceal her own body odor.

She crammed herself into her impromptu shelter as dusk was growing thick under the trees, controlled her breathing, and resolutely closed her eyes.

Kusanagi‑Jones sighed and tugged idly at his shackles, galling his wrists and pulling at the shallow knife cut on his forearm. He didn’t shift either the three‑centimeter‑thick staple they were locked to or the beam behind it. Apparently better bondage equipment had arrived during the night. And when he’d been lying on the ground in the center of camp, flat on his back from the paralytic agent the insurgents had used to bring him down, he’d seen several more good‑sized shelters all overhung with holographic and utility fog camouflage. At least two aircars had gone out after Lesa. The entire camp was under a false rain‑forest canopy, all but invisible from the air, probably protected by IR and other countermeasures.

Coalition technology. Which also explained how they’d managed to shut down his wardrobe. Miss Ouagadougou wasn’t the only Coalition agent on the ground here.

Somebody was ru

And the nasty, suspicious part of Kusanagi‑Jones’s mind–the one that tended to keep him alive in situations like this–chipped in with the observation that he and Vincent hadn’t been trusted with the information. Which told him that they weren’t the primary operation in this theater.