“As a double,” Kusanagi‑Jones said, understanding, but needing the confirmation.
Vincent snorted, shaking his head, water scattering from short, randomly pointed braids. He rocked back and slumped against the wall beside the doorway. “Well, now you know. It’s a good thing Idon’t claim to be a Liar.”
“Who?”
“You know I can’t tell you that–”
“Vincent. I won’t hand you over. Or your connections.”
“I still can’t tell you.”
“What organization?”
The smile was tight, Vincent’s hands curled into fists beside his thighs. He didn’t look down. Kusanagi‑Jones hadn’t thought he would. “One that doesn’t have a name.”
Kusanagi‑Jones shouldn’t have been riding a rush of relief and joy; emotion made you stupid. But it welled up anyway. He reached out and took Vincent’s arm, the dry wardrobe sliding over wet skin beneath. “Know what I’m thinking?”
“Do I ever? It’s part of your charm–”
Michelangelo took a breath and let the words go with it when he let it out. “I threw the mission on New Earth.”
“The Skidbladnirsuffered a core excursion,” Vincent said. “You couldn’t have had…” And then his voice trailed off. He tugged away from Kusanagi‑Jones’s hand, but not hard, and Kusanagi‑Jones held on to him. “Angelo.”
“I’m Free Earth,” he said. “Have been for decades. I killed Skidbladnir,Vincent, and everybody on her.”
“To keep New Earth out of the Coalition.”
“To give them a fighting chance.”
Vincent licked his lips and looked down, jaw working. Kusanagi‑Jones imagined he was toting up the dead–the ship’s crew, marines, civilians. He started to pull his hand back and Vincent caught it, squeezed, held. “Do you mean to do it again?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“If I have to.”
“Good,” Vincent said. “Me, too. We need a plan.”
If there was any tap on the door to the hall, neither one of them heard it over the sound of the rain, but Kusanagi‑Jones could hardly have missed it irising open. He pressed Vincent’s arm before stepping around him, turning him. Then he walked under the dripping door frame before pausing to shake the water off his hair. A shower of droplets bent the leaves of the carpetplant until his wardrobe took care of the rest, wicking moisture away so his clothes seemed to steam. “Come in,” he said to the young woman who waited outside in simple off‑white clothing with a Pretoria household badge embroidered on the breast.
She carried a slip of some sort in her hand, and was on the hesitant cusp of offering it to Vincent, who came through the door a moment after Kusanagi‑Jones and held out his hand, when she glanced at Kusanagi‑Jones for permission. Odd,he thought, and nodded, but not before he said “Wardrobe,” to Vincent.
He didn’t want him actually touchingthat thing.
The faint sparkle around Vincent’s fingertips when they touched the slip said Vincent had anticipated him. “Thank you,” Vincent said to the young woman. She nodded and stepped back, the door spiraling shut before her. Vincent glanced down, the slip dimpling lightly between fingers that didn’t quite contact its surface. “It’s for you.”
“Who from?”
“It doesn’t say.” Vincent generated a thin blade and slid it into the slip, along a seam Kusanagi‑Jones couldn’t see. A slight tearing sound followed, and then he tapped and inverted it, sliding out a second, matching slip. Vincent turned it in his hand and frowned at the black, ornate lettering.
“Another party invitation?” Kusanagi‑Jones asked, letting his mouth twist around the words.
“No,” Vincent said, raising a thin sheet of old‑fashioned card stock, wood pulp unless Kusanagi‑Jones missed his guess. “You seem to have been challenged to a duel.”
16
KATHERINESSEN APPEARED AT LESA’S DOOR IN THE COMPANY of Agnes, who had been working in a study near the on‑loan bedroom, and wordlessly presented her with a challenge card inscribed in Claude Singapore’s writing. Once she read it, he told her, minimally, that Kusanagi‑Jones wasn’t any more loyal to the Coalition than he was, and that it was his considered opinion that they should bring him in.
She sent Agnes back upstairs to fetch Kusanagi‑Jones while Katherinessen appropriated the cushions by her work surface. Kusanagi‑Jones appeared and stationed himself against the wall on the opposite side of the room, arms and ankles folded, still enough to go forgotten. Except for the slip of paper that Katherinessen had laid on her desk for examination, but would not permit her to touch.
Legally speaking, Kusanagi‑Jones couldn’tfight. Gentle or not, foreign or not, he was a male, and men didn’t duel. As she had expected, Katherinessen waited until she finished explaining and asked, “Then what’s the point in issuing a challenge?”
“He cost her face,” Lesa said. “Bad enough she’s in a delicate political situation for pandering to the Coalition–”
“Cost her face?” Katherinessen leaned forward, disbelieving. “He saved her life.”
“That iscosting her face.” Lesa pressed palms flat on either side of the indicted card, and wrinkled her nose at it. “You laid hands on her, which is illegal and a personal affront. If you were a stud male, it would go to Tribunal. Because you’re a gentle male, if an arraignment found no intent to harm, she could still challenge, and the women in your household would have the option of meeting it.”
“She can’t take him to trial,” Katherinessen said. “He has diplomatic immunity.”
Kusanagi‑Jones broke his silence without looking up. “Which is why she went straight to the challenge.”
“Precisely.” Lesa stood, turning her back on that cream‑colored card, and traced a hand along House’s interior curves as she walked away from the desk. “Do you want a drink?”
“Please,” Kusanagi‑Jones said with fervor.
Lesa turned, surprised, and pointed at Katherinessen. He nodded and held up two fingers.
Ice rattled into glasses. She dropped it from higher than necessary, for the satisfying thump. “It isn’t personal.”
Katherinessen frowned at his thumbnails while Lesa filled the glasses and waited, curling her toes into the carpetplant, waiting to see what he would logic out. He looked up and stood to take two glasses from her and pass one to Kusanagi‑Jones. “We…I…walked out of that assassination attempt with a PR advantage. She needs to nullify that.”
“Theft had to be a blow,” Kusanagi‑Jones added.
“Yes.” Lesa tested her drink. Too much ice. “And she can’t be seen to be beholden to the Coalition. And now it seems that you are willing to go to some risk to protect her.”
“She needs to shift the apparent relationship back to a more adversarial footing, or lose support. But why a challenge, when Angelo hasn’t got–”
“A woman to fight for him?” Kusanagi‑Jones said, rattling the ice in his glass. “You can say it.”
Lesa snorted. She came around the desk, easing the formality of the situation, and perched one hip on it, though the position made her holster pinch. “If he were Penthesilean, and no one in his house would stand up for him, Claude could take him in service.”
“Good way to get rid of unwanted houseguests.”
Katherinessen frowned over his shoulder. “But he’s not.”
“No. So if he can’t field a champion, he loses face as a…debtor who doesn’t meet his obligations. Claude looks tough on the Coalition and the two of you are sent home in disgrace, your viability as negotiators devastated. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d half‑bet she set up the assassination herself; it couldn’t better suit her needs. How long would it take the Coalition to scrape up another team?”