“Kii,” she said, when Vincent had taken two deep breaths of frustration and curled his fingers into his palms, “sometimes the status quo needsrearranging. No matter how safe it is.”
“The Consent would not agree,” Kii said, its eyes filming white for a moment and then clearing, sun‑brilliant again.
“The Consent aren’t here to ask, are they?”
Its feathers smoothed, and it stared at her.
“Kii,” she said, “what do youthink?”
“I think the Consent is too conservative,” it said. “I think the diversity of your species should be protected. I think preserving a small local population when there is a…menagerie…no, a panoply of you to experience is foolish.” It settled, and furled its wings. “You’re all so different,” it said plaintively. “And I’ve only gotten to meet a few of you.”
“Take you to Earth,” Michelangelo said. “If you make me a promise about the Governors, Kii. If you’ll take them apart.”
Kii recoiled, wings fanning. And Lesa dropped her hand to the butt of her weapon and took a single slow, deep breath. If she died today, it didn’t matter. Either the plan to subvert the Governors would work, and there would be no war–or she would have to have faith in her mother’s ability to discredit Austin and Singapore.
And there was Vincent’s promise. One way or another, Julian would be okay.
“Decide quickly,” she said. And when they turned to her, she shrugged, her lips pulled tight across her teeth to keep them from trembling. “We have to leave within the hour if we’re going to meet Claude and her seconds before noon.”
Ninety minutes later, Vincent, Lesa, and Michelangelo met Claude, Maiju, and another woman at the challenge square. It was otherwise empty, and Claude and her people had beaten them there and stood, waiting, not far from the center of the open court. Saide Austin was nowhere in sight, and Michelangelo couldn’t decide if he found that expected or surprising. New Amazonian dueling apparently didn’t bow to such niceties as seconds; other than the men she dueled for, Lesa went alone.
She limped in stiff boots that were the next best thing to braces, and she had refused Michelangelo’s offer of an analgesic. “I’d rather suffer than be slow.”
She’d gotten Agnes to cut the trigger guard off an old weapon for her, and wrapped the grip in cloth so that if her palm seeped through the sealant it wouldn’t slick the gun.
Michelangelo wished he thought it would be enough.
Even across the intervening distance, he saw Claude’s chin go up when Lesa rose, wobbling, out of the groundcar. Michelangelo offered his arm, but she brushed past with stubborn pride. Claude didn’t say a word, although the glance she exchanged with her wife said everything.
Michelangelo squeezed Lesa’s shoulder before he let her stagger forward alone. She flashed him an ashen grin and went, trying to stride but hobbling, and Claude’s retinue withdrew.
The duelists would meet at the center of the square. Alone. They would pace off ten steps, turn, and fire.
One shot only.
Which explained why more New Amazonian women didn’t die over a point of honor. Of course, most of them probably wouldn’t bother prosecuting a case as thickheaded as this one unless they had an ulterior motive–like Claude’s.
Michelangelo didn’t react or step back when Vincent laid a hand on his uninjured shoulder and squeezed. The least he could do was refuse to look down.
Lesa was halfway across the square when Antonia Kyoto stepped from an open doorway, flanked by Shafaqat Delhi and two other uniformed security agents, and called out her name. Lesa dragged to a halt, turning slowly, as if it took a moment for the cry to penetrate her awareness. And then Kyoto came toward her, the women fanning out on either side, and Lesa spread her hands wide. Michelangelo started forward, but Vincent’s hand was still on his shoulder, unrelenting now, holding him in place. He could have broken the grip, but he would have had to hurt Vincent to do it, so he shuffled his feet and stayed where he was.
Lesa never even reached for her weapon. She let Kyoto take her elbow and lean close to speak into her ear. And whatever Kyoto said, Lesa responded first by shaking her head and then drawing back, startled, and glancing at Claude.
Claude, faced by two security agents herself, did drop her hand to her weapon. If she ever actually intended to shoot, the gesture came too late, because Shafaqat grabbed her arm and dragged it behind her, and the next time Michelangelo paused to think, he was moving, and Vincent had him by the elbow and wasn’t trying to slow him down.
Lesa and Kyoto reached Claude before they did, about the same time as Maiju and the other woman were intercepted by more uniformed women. Hands were waved and voices raised, though Michelangelo didn’t hear all the conversation. That muttering grew louder when Claude’s gestures and Kyoto’s determined head shaking grew more vehement, and cracked into silence when Lesa turned and gestured Michelangelo over.
He came to her, hiding his limp, Vincent still at his side. “Yes?”
“Claude,” Lesa said without looking at him, “would like to know if you’re willing to accept a vaccine for the virus in return for keeping the existence of the laboratory secret.”
He hid his shock with the old reflexive skill, but couldn’t resist a glance at Kyoto. She winked, but not so Claude would see it, and from Vincent’s sudden tension the answer must be in her face, but Michelangelo couldn’t read it.
He could act, though. He dropped his gaze from Kyoto’s to the pavement in front of his toes and made a show of thinking about it, and then he smiled, looked Claude in the eye, and lightly shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
He almost felt bad for enjoying it so much until Lesa’s hand snuck out and squeezed his own.
“It was good work,” Elena said, and Lesa smiled under the praise despite herself. She wouldn’t go so far as to call it a victory party, but she, Vincent and Michelangelo–whom she could no longer think of as the Coalition agents–Antonia and Elena were seated comfortably around the demolished remains of a very good supper, and even Michelangelo looked halfway relaxed. Very relaxed, for a man going to his execution.
But Lesa wasn’t going to think about that tonight. “So,” she said, when Antonia finally pushed her dessert plate away, “how did you find the lab?”
Elena enjoyed playing hostess. She was already filling a coffee cup, which Antonia accepted gratefully. “Old‑fashioned investigative work,” she said. “We pulled House’s records of everywhere Saide Austin had been for the past six weeks, and found out that she’d checked out a rifle and taken a three‑day hike right before Carnival. We sent out tracking teams, located where the aircar met her, and used satellite imagery to track it to the base. We actually knew last night, but it was more fun to arrest Claude in her moment of triumph.”
Lesa caught herself shaking her head in annoyed admiration and had to force herself to stop. Vincent snorted, and sat forward enough to pick up a dessert plate before reclining back on the floor. He leaned against Michelangelo and sighed. “Are you sure you’re not a Liar, Antonia?”
“Just an old warrior,” she answered, and blew across her coffee cup, but her eyes twinkled over it. “There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to hold Claude for any length of time, of course–or Saide either. They have enough political resources to weasel out of it, I’m afraid–though the scandal should at least clear them out of Parliament.”
Elena coughed lightly. “You might want to search Austin’s studio,” she said with a casual smile. “While you have probable cause and might stand a chance of getting a warrant.”
Antonia blinked at Elena while Lesa bit her lip, watching her mother the way a khir kit watches a fexa. “Oh?” Antonia said.
“You never know,” Elena said. “You might find contraband.”