Read Online Carnival-SA by Elizabeth Bear - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Bear
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Fiction - Science Fiction, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Life on other planets, spies, spy stories
Ads: Link
Bolshoi that those outgoing lighters are exporting wood .”
“Not to Old Earth. Not legally.”
They’d dealt with their fair share of environmental criminals in the past, though. And it wasn’t even necessarily illegal trade; there were other colonies, not under OECC oversight—and there are idiots on every planet who considered possession more important than morality.
Michelangelo knew it, too, and knew his denial was reflexive. “So smuggling happens. More to the point, what do you expect from a bunch of women? Short-term thinking; profit now, deal with the consequences later.”
Vincent shrugged. “They can be educated. Assisted.”
“Perhaps. You saw her shoes, right?”
Vincent nodded. “Pretoria’s? I didn’t recognize the fiber. What about them?”
“ Leather, Vincent.” Michelangelo’s stagy shudder ran a scintilla of light across the mirrors on the yoke of his jacket. “I’m trying very hard not to think about dinner.”
4
FOR THE THIRTIETH TIME, KUSANAGI-JONES WISHED THEIR downloads on New
Amazonian customs had been more in depth. Although, given this was the first physical contact between the New Amazonians and a Coalition representative since the Six-Weeks-War almost twenty years ago, he was lucky to get anything.
He’d guessed right about the food, and he hadn’t even had to wait until dinner to prove it. There were crudités—familiar vegetables in unusual cultivars, and some unfamiliar ones that must be local produce amenable to human biochemistry. But he didn’t trust anything else, even if he’d been rude enough to wardrobe up an instrument and stick it in a sample.
Usually mission nerves killed his appetite and he struggled with the diplomatic requirements of eating what was set before him. As the gods of Civil Service would have it, though, when the options included things he was unwilling to consume even in the name of détente, he was practically dizzy with hunger. And the wine the New Amazonians served at the reception was potent. So he crunched finger-length slices of some sweet root or stem that reminded him of burgundy-colored jicama and stuck at Vincent’s elbow like a trophy wife, keeping a weather eye on the crowd.
Penthesilea was the planetary capital, and there were dignitaries from Medea, Aminatu, Hippolyta, and Lakshmi Bai in attendance, in addition to the entire New Amazonian Parliament, the prime minister, and the person whom Kusanagi-Jones understood to be her wife. There was also a security presence, though he was not entirely certain of its utility in the company of so many armed and obviously capable women. Even that assembly—at least three hundred individuals, perhaps 95 percent female—didn’t suffice to make the ballroom seem crowded. They moved barefoot over the cool living carpets, dancing and laughing and conversing in whispers, with ducked heads, while the musicians sawed gamely away on a raised and recessed stage, and handsome men in sharp white coats bore trays laden with what Kusanagi-Jones could only assume were delicacies to the guests. It could have been an embassy party on any of a dozen planets, if he crossed his eyes.
But that wasn’t what provoked Kusanagi-Jones’s awe. What kept distracting him every time he lifted his eyes from his plate, or the conversation taking place between Vincent and Prime Minister Claude Singapore—while Singapore’s wife and Miss Pretoria hovered like attendant crows—was the way the walls faded from warm browns and golds through tortoiseshell translucence before vanishing overhead to reveal a crescent moon and the bannered light of the nebula called the Gorgon. The nebula rotated slowly enough that the motion was unnerving, but not precisely apparent.
When the silver-haired prime minister was distracted by a murmured comment or question from an aide, Kusanagi-Jones tapped Vincent on the arm, offered him the plate, and—when Vincent ducked to examine what was on offer—whispered in his
“Not to Old Earth. Not legally.”
They’d dealt with their fair share of environmental criminals in the past, though. And it wasn’t even necessarily illegal trade; there were other colonies, not under OECC oversight—and there are idiots on every planet who considered possession more important than morality.
Michelangelo knew it, too, and knew his denial was reflexive. “So smuggling happens. More to the point, what do you expect from a bunch of women? Short-term thinking; profit now, deal with the consequences later.”
Vincent shrugged. “They can be educated. Assisted.”
“Perhaps. You saw her shoes, right?”
Vincent nodded. “Pretoria’s? I didn’t recognize the fiber. What about them?”
“ Leather, Vincent.” Michelangelo’s stagy shudder ran a scintilla of light across the mirrors on the yoke of his jacket. “I’m trying very hard not to think about dinner.”
4
FOR THE THIRTIETH TIME, KUSANAGI-JONES WISHED THEIR downloads on New
Amazonian customs had been more in depth. Although, given this was the first physical contact between the New Amazonians and a Coalition representative since the Six-Weeks-War almost twenty years ago, he was lucky to get anything.
He’d guessed right about the food, and he hadn’t even had to wait until dinner to prove it. There were crudités—familiar vegetables in unusual cultivars, and some unfamiliar ones that must be local produce amenable to human biochemistry. But he didn’t trust anything else, even if he’d been rude enough to wardrobe up an instrument and stick it in a sample.
Usually mission nerves killed his appetite and he struggled with the diplomatic requirements of eating what was set before him. As the gods of Civil Service would have it, though, when the options included things he was unwilling to consume even in the name of détente, he was practically dizzy with hunger. And the wine the New Amazonians served at the reception was potent. So he crunched finger-length slices of some sweet root or stem that reminded him of burgundy-colored jicama and stuck at Vincent’s elbow like a trophy wife, keeping a weather eye on the crowd.
Penthesilea was the planetary capital, and there were dignitaries from Medea, Aminatu, Hippolyta, and Lakshmi Bai in attendance, in addition to the entire New Amazonian Parliament, the prime minister, and the person whom Kusanagi-Jones understood to be her wife. There was also a security presence, though he was not entirely certain of its utility in the company of so many armed and obviously capable women. Even that assembly—at least three hundred individuals, perhaps 95 percent female—didn’t suffice to make the ballroom seem crowded. They moved barefoot over the cool living carpets, dancing and laughing and conversing in whispers, with ducked heads, while the musicians sawed gamely away on a raised and recessed stage, and handsome men in sharp white coats bore trays laden with what Kusanagi-Jones could only assume were delicacies to the guests. It could have been an embassy party on any of a dozen planets, if he crossed his eyes.
But that wasn’t what provoked Kusanagi-Jones’s awe. What kept distracting him every time he lifted his eyes from his plate, or the conversation taking place between Vincent and Prime Minister Claude Singapore—while Singapore’s wife and Miss Pretoria hovered like attendant crows—was the way the walls faded from warm browns and golds through tortoiseshell translucence before vanishing overhead to reveal a crescent moon and the bannered light of the nebula called the Gorgon. The nebula rotated slowly enough that the motion was unnerving, but not precisely apparent.
When the silver-haired prime minister was distracted by a murmured comment or question from an aide, Kusanagi-Jones tapped Vincent on the arm, offered him the plate, and—when Vincent ducked to examine what was on offer—whispered in his
Similar Books
