A heartbeat, but Vincent didn’t even try to keep the relief off his face. “They’ll probably give you another medal you’re not allowed to take home.”

Michelangelo’s laugh might have been mistaken for choking. He shook his head when he stopped, and waved a hand out the bubble at the light over the docking bay, on Boadicca Station’s side. “Light’s green. Let’s catch our bus.”

Pretoria household’s residence was already bannered and flowered and gilded to excess when Lesa arrived home, but that wasn’t limiting the ongoing application of gaud. The street‑level entrance opened onto a wide veranda, and one of Pretoria household’s foremothers had wheedled House into growing a long, filigreed lattice from floor to roof around it. It was a pleasant, airy screen that normally created a sense of privacy without disrupting sight lines, but currently it was burdened with enough garland to drift scent for blocks, without considering the sticks of incense thrust in among the flowers. Those would be lit two evenings hence. In the meantime, misted water would keep the blooms fresh.

Lesa climbed the steps along with the household male who’d accompanied her on her errand. Xavier carried a dozen bottles of wine in a divided wicker holder slung over his shoulder. He was a steady, careful sort; they didn’t clink.

Lesa herself had two bags–the pick of fresh fruit and vegetables from the morning’s markets–and two live chickens in a flat‑bottomed sack, slumbering through their last hours in artificial darkness. It paid to get there early, especially near Carnival, and Elena wouldn’t trust the males or the servants with anything as important as buying for a holiday meal.

Besides, they were all busy decorating.

Katya, Lesa’s surviving daughter, supervised the activity on the veranda, her glossy black hair braided off her neck, unhatted in the sun. “Melanoma,” Lesa said, kissing her on the back of the head as she went by.

Katya was fifteen Amazonian years–twenty‑odd, in standard conversion–and impatient with anything that smacked of responsible adulthood. And she wouldn’t wear her honor around the house; her hip was naked even of a holster. Of course, Lesa–both hands full of groceries, unable to reach her honor without dropping chickens or fruit–wasn’t much of an example, whatever her renown as a duelist twenty years and three children ago.

Katya blew her fringe out of her eyes. “Sunblock.” She rubbed Lesa’s cheek with a greasy finger. “Hats are too hot.”

“On the contrary,” Lesa said. “Hats are supposed to keep you cool.” But it was like arguing with a fexa; the girl just gave her an inscrutable look and went back to braiding a gardeneid garland, the sweet juice from the crushed stems slicking her fingers. “Want help?”

“Love it,” Katya said, “but Claude’s in there. The Coalition ship made orbit overnight. You’re on.”

“They got here for Carnival? Typical male timing.” Lesa stretched under her load.

“See you at dinner.” Katya ducked from under her lapful of flowers and turned so she could lean forward mockingly to kiss the ring her mother wore on the hand that was currently occupied by the sack of chickens.

Inside the door, Lesa passed the groceries to one of the household staff and sent her off with Xavier once he’d kicked his sandals at the catchall. Lesa balanced on each foot in turn and unzipped her boots before hanging them on the caddy. In Penthesilea’s equatorial heat, all sorts of unpleasant things grew in unaired shoes.

She dug her toes into the cool carpetplant with a sigh of relief and hung up her hat, grateful to House for taking the edge off the sun. Claude and Elena would be in the morning room at breakfast, which was still being served. Lesa’s stomach rumbled at the smell as she walked through seashell rooms and down an arched corridor, enjoying the aviform song House brought in from the jungle along with filtered light.

Elena Pretoria was exactly where Lesa had imagined her, on the back veranda with her long hands spread on the arms of a rattan chair–real furniture, not provided by House–her silver‑streaked hair stripped into a tail and her skin glowing dark gold against white lounging clothes. For all the air of comfort and grace she projected, however, Lesa noticed the white leather of her holster slung on her waist and buckled down to her thigh. Elena had a past as a duelist, too, and as a politician. And she wasn’t about to let Claude Singapore forget it, even if Claude’s position as prime minister was enough rank to let her enter another woman’s household without surrendering her honor.

Claude was tall and bony, a beautiful woman with blunt‑cut hair that had been white as feathers since she was in her twenties, and some of the lightest eyes Lesa had ever seen–which perhaps explained the depth of the crow’s‑feet decorating her face. They couldn’t all be from smiling, though Lesa wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Claude notsmiling. She had an arsenal of smiles, including a melancholy one for funerals.

“Lesa,” Claude said, as Lesa greeted her mother with a little bow. “I’m here–”

“I heard. The grapevine’s a light‑minute ahead.”

Claude stood up anyway, extending her hand. Lesa took it. Claude had a politician’s handshake, firm but gentle. “I don’t know why we even have media on this planet.”

“It gives us someone to blame for scandals,” Lesa answered, and Claude laughed even though it hadn’t been funny. “I’m ready. When will they make landfall?”

“Tomorrow. We’re shuttling them down. You’ll come by this evening for a briefing?”

“Of course,” Lesa said. “Dinnertime?”

“Good for me.”

Claude stepped away from her chair, and Elena took it as a cue to stand. “Leaving us already?”

“The Republic never sleeps. And I can hear Lesa’s stomach rumbling from here. I imagine she’d enjoy a quiet breakfast with her family before the madness begins.”

“Claude, I don’t mean to chase you out of your chair,” Lesa said, but Claude was turning to shake Elena’s hand.

“Nonsense.” Claude stepped back, and adjusted her holster. It was a Y‑style, and they had a tendency to pinch when one stood. “I’ll see you tonight. I can show myself out–”

“Good‑bye.” Lesa did walk a few steps toward the door with the guest, so as not to give offense. When Claude was safely gone, she tilted her head at Elena. “Why did she come herself?”

“Probably a subtle message not to try anything tricky. She hasn’t forgiven me for getting her wife ousted from the Export Board, and she still thinks the Coalition can be appeased.” The twist of her mouth revealed what she thought of that idea. It made Lesa restrain a smile: it was also Katya’s moue, and Lesa’s son Julian made the same face when he was concentrating.

Lesa used that image of Julian to keep her voice under control. “As soon as they have what they want, the Coalition will scorch us off the surface. They’re distracting us while they set up the kill.”

“They’d have to justify the ecological damage from an orbital attack to the Governors, and that would be…hard to get approval for, I imagine. They might convince the Governors that we need to be Assessed, however, and brought under control. We’d fight.”

Lesa caught the glint of Elena’s smile. “You heard from Katherine Lexasdaughter.”

“Coded. A packet concealed in the Kaiwo Maru’s logburst as she made orbit.”

Lesa could imagine the resources required to arrange for treason and insurrection to be transmitted in a ship’s identification codes on a governed channel. Katherine was head of the Captain’s Council on Ur, and held a chair in the Colonial Cabinet on the strength of it.

“He’s coming.” Lesa’s chest lightened and tightened both at once. Elena might think she was the saltspider at the center of the web, but Lesa couldn’t allow her to recognize all the layers of machinations here. Elena was not going to be happy with Lesa when things shook out.