“Why not?”
“It could be arranged. The Consent will contemplate it.” Kii considered, and tilted its long head toward Michelangelo. “This, Kii is not forbidden to impart, Michelangelo Osiris Leary Kusanagi‑Jones. There is a weapon in your blood.”
Kusanagi‑Jones heard the words plainly, but they didn’t process at first. He was tired, overstimulated, still unsettled with the dream he’d lied to Vincent about. It hadn’t been Skidbladnirat all, but the old dream, the one of Assessment. But it hadn’t been his death he’d dreamed this time, or his mother’s.
It had been Vincent’s.
He looked down at his hands, as if expecting to see what Kii meant, and then his eyes flicked up again and he bounced to his feet. “Bioweapon.”
“Yes.”
Of course, Old Earth didn’t need to invade New Amazonia. They could do it the easy way. And the months in cryo to help time the latency right. “The Coalition didn’t–”
Kii reached forward, as if to sniff, or sweep its whiskers and labial pits across Kusanagi‑Jones. But its head was nothing more than a projection in the holographic wall, and Kusanagi‑Jones was treated to the bizarre perspective of the Dragon seemingly lunging for him, and never arriving. Kusanagi‑Jones locked his hands on the edge of the bed and held his ground, when he wanted to flinch and shield his eyes. It isn’t real.
“Since yesterday,” Kii said. “The infection is new.”
Kusanagi‑Jones turned toward Vincent, who stood framed against the evening light filtering through the doorway to the balcony. “Saide Austin,” he said. “Bitch.”
Vincent stepped forward, and Kusanagi‑Jones stepped away. Since last night. Which meant that Vincent had no more than casual exposure, and–“How long?”
“It is a tailored retrovirus,” Kii said. “It will affect only certain genetic strains of the human animal.”
“Mine,” Kusanagi‑Jones said.
“Yours. In females, it will not express to disease. Kii estimates the latency period to be on the order of part‑years.”
“The Penthesileans turned you into a bioweapon?” Vincent took another step forward, and this time Kusanagi‑Jones let him.
“Time bomb.” Kusanagi‑Jones bent over his watch, running diagnostics, search routines, low‑level scans, calm despite the twisting tightness in his chest. “Not even a blip. My body thinks it’s me. Supposed to carry it back to Earth and– pfft!” He waved his right hand in the air, still hunched over the green and blue lights glowing under the skin of his wrist.
“The New Amazonians think genetic tailoring is anathema.”
“Not anathema enough–”
Kii shifted, fanning and refolding its wings, a process that involved leaning back on its haunches to get them clear of the ground. “Kii has subroutines to contain the infection,” it said. “The Consent is indifferent with regard to Kii’s dealings with individuals. Kii may intervene in this thing.”
Vincent grabbed Kusanagi‑Jones’s arm and pulled him forward, front and center before the hologram. “You can cure him.”
“Kii can,” Kii said. The ragged‑edged patterns on its wing leather showed bold against blue sky as it beat them twice. Kusanagi‑Jones flinched from expected wind, but felt nothing.
“Wait.”
“No wait.” But Kusanagi‑Jones shook Vincent’s hand from his arm and dropped to their subchannel.
“You trust him? You can’t processthat thing, you know.”
“You don’t think there’s a virus? It makes Claude Singapore’s plan make a hell of a lot more sense, doesn’t it? Get you sent home, in disgrace, maybe brought before the Coalition Cabinet to testify, make all their separatist friends happy.” Vincent glanced sideways at Kii.
“First thing we do, let’s kill all the men.”
Kii, filling an apparent silence, said, “Your genotype proves resistant, Vincent Katherinessen.”
“Don’t know,” Kusanagi‑Jones said, over Kii. “If there is, it’s hiding in plain sight–You trust him.”
“It’s not human body language.”
“You trust him anyway.”
Slowly, Vincent nodded. He reached out gently and took Kusanagi‑Jones’s arm again, folding his fingers around the biceps and holding on like a child clinging to an adult’s finger.
“Bugger it,” Kusanagi‑Jones said out loud. “So do I.” He waved at Kii. “Do we know it’s fatal?”
“Kii estimates a 93 percent mortality rate.”
“Cure him,” Vincent said.
And again, Kusanagi‑Jones stepped away from his partner and said, “Wait.”
17
LESA DID NOT WANT TO TALK TO HER MOTHER. SHE MOST particularly had no desire at all to tell Elena the truth about Robert, and she was still working out her spin when the door to her office irised open again, admitting Katya. Her hair was bound back in a smooth, straight tail, and–an out‑of‑character note–her honor was strapped over garish festival trousers.
“I’m going out,” Katya announced, a conclusion Lesa had already drawn. “Do you want anything?”
“No. Thank you. Home for supper or out all night?”
Katya looked down. “It depends if I find a good party.”
The relationship between Lesa and her middle child had always resembled an arms race. Katya had been determined to become unreadable since she was a small child and she was often successful. But Lesa could almost always tell when she was hiding something, if not what she was hiding.
Lesa laid her stylus across the finished response to Claude she had been staring at, and folded her hands over it. Please let it be something innocent. A secret lover, a questionable hobby. Anything Katya thought Lesa should disapprove of.
Anything, but knowing where Robert was and concealing it from the rest of the household.
“All right,” Lesa said. “Try to stay out of fights.”
“Mom.”Katya paused before making good her escape. “Oh, and Grandma wants to see you. She’s up in the solar.”
“Wonderful.” Lesa levered herself from her chair, leaving the stylus laid across the desk but slipping the card into an envelope. “That’s what I was waiting for. Thank you, Katya.”
“No problem.” Katya grinned before slipping out the door.
Lesa followed, but turned right instead of left. She worried at her thumbnail with her teeth as she strode down the short, fluted corridor and climbed the stairwell past the second floor, where Vincent and Michelangelo were temporarily housed. Sweat trickled down her neck by the time she reached the third story and stopped in her own room.
It was full of evening light. Walter dozed in his basket, warmed by a filtered ray of sun, and for three or four ticks she contemplated activating the beacon in his collar and sending him after Katya. But that would hardly be subtle; it wasn’t as if he could be told to hidefrom her.
Lesa would have to track Katya herself, after she spoke to Elena. That would give Katya enough of a head start. In the meantime, Lesa combed her hair, changed her shirt, and went to talk to her mother.
Elena’s solar was at the top of Pretoria house, and Lesa took the lift. That climb was above and beyond the call of casual exercise in the service of keeping fit.
The room was pleasantly open, airy and fresh, with the windows on the sunset side dimmed by shades currently and the other directions presenting views of the city, sea, and jungle. Elena stood at the easternmost side, staring over the bay and its scatter of pleasure craft and one or two shipping vessels cutting white lines across glass blue.
“How much trouble are we in?” Elena asked before Lesa could announce her presence.
Lesa crossed the threshold, stepping from the smooth warmth of House’s imitation of terra‑cotta tile to cool, resilient carpetplant. “It’s less bad than it could be. Antonia Kyoto has injected herself into the situation.”