Carnival

He didn’t see any ghosts.

He’d done his threat assessment before the door of the limousine ever glided open, and he reconsidered it now, as his wardrobe wicked sweat off his skin so quickly he barely felt damp and his toiletries combated the frizz springing up in his hair. He blocked the door of the limousine, covering Vincent with his body, and turned like a shadow across a sundial to scan roofs and the assembled women with his naked eyes and an assortment of augments.

The Penthesilean security forces stood about where he would have stationed them, and that was good. It was good also that the women in the greeting party stayed back and let him make sure of the surroundings rather than rushing in. He hated crowds.

Especially when he was with Vincent.

He moved away, and a moment later Vincent stood beside him. Kusanagi‑Jones’s skin prickled, but there was nothing but the dark opalescent somethingunder his feet, the punishing equatorial sun, and the three women who detached themselves from the dignitaries and started forward. The one in the middle was the important one; older, with what Kusanagi‑Jones identified–with a bit of wonder–as sun‑creases decorating the edges of long black eyes distinguished by epicanthic folds. Her hair was straight and shoulder length, undercut, the top layer dyed in stained‑glass colors, shifting to reveal glossy black. She wore dark vibrant red, what Kusanagi‑Jones thought was a real cloth suit–a blatant display of consumption.

The two behind her were security, he thought; broad‑shouldered young women in dark plain wardrobes or clothing, with the glow of animal health and stern expressions calculated to give nothing away. All three of them were openly armed.

Kusanagi‑Jones knew how to use a sidearm. He’d received training in allthe illegal arts, although he’d never been a soldier. And he’d been on planets raw enough that citizens were still issued permits for long weapons. But he’d never been in the presence of people–especially women–who wore their warcraft on their sleeves.

He wondered if they could shoot.

It made him unhappy, but he stepped to one side and allowed Vincent to take point. The older woman stepped forward, too. “I’m Lesa Pretoria,” she said in accented com‑pat, tendering a hand.

Vincent reached to take it as if touching strangers were something he did every day. He shook it while Kusanagi‑Jones hurried to adjust his filters so he could follow suit. “Vincent Katherinessen.”

“That’s not a Coalition name,” Miss Pretoria said.

“I was born on Ur, a repatriated world. This is my partner, Michelangelo Osiris Leary Kusanagi‑Jones. He isfrom Old Earth.”

“Ah.” A world of complexity in that syllable. Vincent had answered in nearly flawless New Amazonian argot, which owed less to Spanish and Arabic and more to Afrikaans than com‑pat did. She extended her hand to Kusanagi‑Jones. “I’ll be your guide and interpreter.”

Warden,Kusanagi‑Jones translated, taking her hand and bowing over it, painfully aware of her consideration as his wardrobe considered her and let them touch. “The fox.”

She blinked at him, reclaiming her appendage. “Beg pardon?”

“Lesa,” he said. “Means the fox.”

Her lips quirked. “What’s a fox, Miss Kusanagi‑Jones?”

The Amazonian patois had no honorific for unmarried men, and his status here was at least diplomatically speaking better than that of a Mister. So being called Missrelaxed him, although he caught Vincent’s sharp amusement, an undertone flavored with mockery.

Just another mission, just another foreign land. Just another alien culture to be navigated with tact. He smiled at Vincent past Miss Pretoria’s shoulder and bowed deeper before he straightened. “An Old Earth animal. Beautiful. Very clever.”

“Like what we call a fexa,then? A hunting omnivore?” she continued as he nodded. “All gone now, I suppose?”

“Not at all. Seven hundred and fourteen genotypes preserved, of four species or subspecies. Breeding nicely on reintroduction.” He gave her a substandard copy of Vincent’s smile number seven, charming but not sexually threatening. “Featured in legends of Asia, Europe, and North America.”

“Fascinating,” she said, but she obviously had absolutely no idea where those places were, and less interest in their history. “Those are nations?”

“Continents,” he said, and left it at that, before Vincent’s mirth could bubble the hide off his bones like lye. He stepped back, and Miss Pretoria moved to fill the space as smoothly as if he’d gestured her into it–no hesitation, no double‑checking. They fell into step, Vincent flanking Pretoria and himself flanking Vincent, her security detail a weighty absence on either side: alert, dangerous, and imperturbable. Pretoria ignored them like her breath.

Kusanagi‑Jones caught Vincent’s eye as they headed for the reception line. Your reputation precedes you, Vincent. She’s like you.Neither an empath nor a telepath; nothing so esoteric. Just somebody born with a greater than usual gift for interpreting body language, spotting a lie, a misdirection, an unexpected truth.

A superperceiver: that was the technical term used in the programs they’d been selected for as students, where Michelangelo was classified as controlled kinesthetic,but the few with the clearance to know his gift called him a Liar.

He almost heard Vincent sigh in answer. Irritation: do something, Angelo.Not words, of course–just knowing what Vincent wouldhave said.

Kusanagi‑Jones took his cue as they entered the receiving line and tried for a conversation with Miss Pretoria between the archaic handshakes and watch‑assisted memorization of each name and rank. He knew as soon as he thought it that he shouldn’t say it, but it was his job to be the brash one, Vincent’s to play the diplomat.

He leaned over and murmured in Miss Pretoria’s ear, “How does a planet come to be called New Amazonia?”

Her lip curled off a smile more wolf than fox. “Miss Kusanagi‑Jones,” she said, the dryness informing her voice the first evidence of personality she’d shown, “surely you don’t think we’re entirelywithout a sense of humor.”

He shook another stranger’s hand over murmured pleasantries. There was a rhythm to it, and it wasn’t unpleasant, once you got the hang of it. The New Amazonians had firm grips, sweaty with the scorching heat. He wished he’d worn a hat, as most of the women had.

He decided to risk it. “I admit to having worried–”

She didn’t laugh, but her lip flickered up at the corner, as if she almostthought it was fu

3

THEY HAD NOT BEEN LIED TO. THE MEN WERE GENTLE; when one leaned, moved, spoke, the other one mirrored. She sensed it in the energy between them, their calm failure to react on any visceral level to her smile, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips–or to the more youthful charms of her security detail. She knew it as surely as she would have known fear or hunger. Not only were they gentle, they were together.

She’d been afraid the Coalition would try to send stud males, to pass them off–even to replace Katherinessen with an impostor. These weren’t quite like the gentle males of her acquaintance, though. They were wary, feral, watching the rooflines, eyes flickering to her honor and to the weapons of the other women. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Without women in a position to protect them, gentle males would find rough going in a society dominated by stud males and hormonally driven aggression. She liked the way they backed each other, the dark one and the tawny one, shoulder to shoulder like sister khir against a stranger pack. She wondered how old they were, with their strange smooth faces and silken skin, and the muscled hands that didn’t match their educated voices.