Carnival-SA Read Online Free PDF Page B

flowers except the freshly dead garlands twined with ribbon or contack that hung from every facade. No landscaping, no songbirds—or the New Amazonian equivalent—just the seemingly wind-sculpted architecture, buildings like pueblos and weathered sandstone spires and wind-pocked cliff faces. He stood, tropical humidity prickling sweat across his brow, and arched his neck back to look up at the legendary Haunted City of New Amazonia.
    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 something under 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 all the 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 is from 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 Miss relaxed him, although he caught Vincent’s sharp amusement, an undertone