“Miss Ouagadougou is one of our leading art historians,” Miss Pretoria said, standing aside. She gestured Vincent toward the sealed hatch on the pod.
He deferred, glancing at Michelangelo. “Angelo’s the expert on the team. I’ve got a layman’s knowledge, but he has a degree in art history from the University of Cairo, on Old Earth.”
Michelangelo’s slight smile reflected amusement as Miss Pretoria blinked at them, obviously conducting an abrupt field rearrangement of her assumptions. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “There’s room for all of us in the capsule.”
“That’s all right. I’ll stay outside.” Vincent folded his arms and pointed with his chin across the water, its serene blue surface transparent enough that he could see rippled golden sand underneath. Penthesilea sprawled and spiked behind him, embraced by the green crescent arms of the bay. In the shadow of his hat, the sun wasn’t even so bad. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Miss Pretoria stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Don’t wander far. I’d hate to see you kidnapped by pirates. They have an eye for a pretty man.”
“Pirates?” Of course, where there was shipping, there was piracy, but…
“Even New Amazonia has terrorists and renegades,” she said. “By the way, should you have the opportunity to be kidnapped by radicals, you’d rather fall in with the Right Hand Path than with Maenads, if you get the choice.”
Vincent laughed. “I won’t pass the security cordon.” Miss Ouagadougou’s eyes flicked sideways, her lips tightening as if she was about to say something, and Vincent wondered exactly what it might be. Regarding the Right Hand Path, by the timing of her gesture. Michelangelo also shot him a look, and Vincent returned it. Of course I have an ulterior motive. Run with it.
Michelangelo nodded, took the handoff, and turned away, ducking to murmur in the historian’s ear before he produced the key for the cargo pod’s seal. She laughed, bubbling excitement and enthusiasm, almost vibrating with her eagerness to run her gaze over the treasures.
They filed inside, leaving the door open, and Vincent sighed in an unanticipated intensity of relief. Alone at last,he thought, self‑mocking, and leaned against a piling, tilting his hat forward to produce a little more shade. To anyone observing, he might have seemed to be drowsing in the sun, halfheartedly watching the bustle the length of the pier.
He wasn’t surprised to see a man he recognized from the reception round the pilings at the land end of the pier and walk up the path between bustling fisherwomen, obviously intent on the cargo pod. The man was dressed like the laborers, although his trousers and vest were of better quality, embroidered, and the badge on his left wrist looked more elaborately decorated. His shaven head gleamed black as basalt under the heat of the sun, and he was big and fit, but none of that was unusual. Neither the scars pale against his complexion nor the swagger in his stride set him apart among Penthesilean men.
What startled Vincent was the man’s companion; a leggy teal‑green‑and‑gold‑dappled animal, maybe sixty kilos, all long bones and prancing angles under the windblown fuzziness of what was either a pelt or hairlike feathers. One of the raptor‑creatures from the Dragon’s frieze, it looked more predatory in the flesh. Two large front‑facing eyes would provide binocular hunter’s vision, sheltered under fluffy projecting eyebrows. Something like a moth’s fronded antennae protruded from the top of its long head, and its limbs, muzzle, and belly were scaled, a sleek contrast to the warm‑looking fluff on its back.
“Pets,” Vincent said, under his breath, watching the way the beast leaned its shoulder on the man’s thigh as they moved down the pier. “They have pets.”
Well, of course. They ate animal flesh, and while some of it must be harvested from the wild–witness the bustle and the stench of death on this pier–they also must have domestic animals. And it was a short step from one perversion to another, from enslaving animals for their meat to enslaving them as toys.
Vincent kept his face carefully calm in the dappled shade of his hat, and swallowed to fight the taste of bile.
And this is better than the Governors?The beast nosed the man’s hand as they paused by the security cordon and the man rewarded it with a quick ruffle of its feathers. It was like watching a grown man in diapers; the process of infantilization was complete. There was no way an animal so crippled could have a life outside of human control.
This is what we are when we’re left to our own devices–savage, selfish, short‑sighted.Vincent squared his shoulders, thought of Michelangelo, and frowned. But free. Any government founded on a political or religious agenda more elaborate than “protect the weak, temper the strong” is doomed to tyranny,he quoted silently, and made himself look away from the tame animal. He slipped an etched‑carbon data chip no larger than his thumbnail out of his pocket and concealed it in his lightly sweating palm. It was steady‑state material, not a fog, and fiendishly expensive, but there were too many security risks entailed in using his watch to transport data as sensitive as this. And he could afford it with his mother footing the bill.
They’d have to make the trade quickly, invisibly, without detection by the security agents, Michelangelo, or Miss Pretoria. The New Amazonian habit of indiscriminate handshaking proved itself useful for once.
Vincent checked his watch as the black‑skinned stranger showed the security guards his license, displayed a data pad of archaic design, and was waved through. No doubt, he was ferrying a message for Miss Pretoria or Miss Ouagadougou.
Eight hundred hours, as arranged.
Right on time.
Lesa hung back by the hatch, inside the cool darkness of the shuttle, and watched Nkechi Ouagadougou and Michelangelo Kusanagi‑Jones code‑key open cargo lockers with the sort of reverence she associated with wrapping a funeral shroud. Lesa herself wasn’t an artist or a scientist. Her aesthetic sense was limited. If it weren’t for her empathic gift, if her foremothers hadn’t had the resources for Diaspora and she’d been born on Earth, she’d have been Assessed.
But as Ouagadougou and Kusanagi‑Jones paused before each freshly opened chamber and waited for the utility fog that served as packing material to fade to transparency, she could feel their awe. It rolled off them in bittersweet cataracts, Kusanagi‑Jones’s flavored with a faint reluctance and Ouagadougou’s dripping eagerness. It was a held‑breath sort of moment for both of them, and Lesa didn’t want to intervene.
Besides, enjoyable as the overflow of their quiet glee was, she was only pretending to watch them. Practically speaking, she was watching Katherinessen. And Robert, who paused beside the step up to the door to introduce himself. They shook hands–Lesa’s smile never showed–and Katherinessen’s hand slipped back into his pocket. “They’re inside,” he said. Quietly, but his voice was crisp enough to carry.
Robert bowed, his manners impeccable, and glanced at the hatch. Lesa knew she was invisible in the darkness within. She stepped forward so the light would catch on her cheekbones and held out her hand. “Hello, dear.”
He didn’t step inside the pod, just held out a datacart and bowed as she accepted it. Something else fell into her palm–a chip, which had been pinned between his thumb and the cart. She flipped her hand over, opening the cart. “Anything important?”
He looked demure, or a convincing approximation. “Elder Elena Pretoria sends her regards,” he said, folding his hands behind his back. “And requests her daughter inquire as to whether the emissaries would consent to join the household for supper and Carnival tonight in the absence of other plans.”
Lesa thumbed the cart and slipped the chip into her pocket casually with the opposite hand. “All I can do is ask.”
Michelangelo swung down from the pod in a state of elation, feeling light and taut enough that he actually checked his chemistry to make sure it wasn’t a malfunction. The twin expressions of concern that Vincent and Miss Pretoria wore stopped him short before he was firmly grounded. His foot skipped on the wood underfoot, and he reached up and tilted his borrowed hat to cut the glare.