Carnival-SA by Elizabeth Bear

dinner?”
    Michelangelo tapped his watch. “I’m on chemistry. And three months of cryo. I’ll be fine.” As if cryo were rest.
    “Do you suppose the mattress squeaks?”
    “We’ll find out, won’t we?” The smoke in Angelo’s voice was enough to curl Vincent’s toes. All lies .
    “Besides, I need to do my forms. Do you want first turn in the fresher?”
    Vincent knew when he was beaten. He shrugged and switched his wardrobe off, pretending he didn’t notice Michelangelo’s lingering, to-all-appearances-appreciative glance as the foglets swarmed into atmospheric suspension, misty streaks across his body before they left him naked. “If I can figure out how to work it,” he said, and walked through the arch into the antechamber, Michelangelo’s eyes on every step.
    The fresher was primitive but the controls were obvious, the combined bath and shower a deep tub with dials on the wall, handles marked blue and red, a nozzle overhead. A washbasin and a commode completed the accommodations, and Vincent had the technology worked out in three ticks. He stepped down into the tub—there were stairs, very convenient—and set the dial for hot.

    Lesa didn’t have time to go home and change before dinner. Fortunately, the government center was all smart suites, and she’d had the foresight to stash a change of clothes in her office. She wouldn’t even have to commandeer one of the rooms for visiting dignitaries.
    She ordered the door locked and stripped out of her suit, leaving it tossed across the back of her chair. She placed her honor on the edge of the desk, avoiding the blotter so she wouldn’t trigger her system, and turned to face the wall. “House, I need a shower, please.”
    There had been no trace of a doorway in the transparent wall before her, but an aperture appeared as she spoke and irised wide. She passed through it, petting the city’s soap-textured wall as she went by. It shivered acknowledgment and she smiled. Lights brightened as she entered, soothing shades of blue and white, and one wall smoothed to a mirror gloss.
    House was still constructing the shower. She inspected her hair for split ends and her nose for black-heads as she waited, but it didn’t take long. The floor underfoot roughened. The archway closed behind her and warm rain coursed from overhead. Lesa sighed and closed her eyes, turning her face into the spray. Her shoulders and back ached; she arched, spread her arms, lifted them overhead and stretched into a bow, then bent double and let her arms hang, pressing her face against her knees, waiting for the discomfort to ease.
    The water smelled of seaweed and sweet flowers; it lathered when she rubbed her hands against her skin. She could have stayed in there all night, but she had things to do. “Conditioner and rinse, please,”
    she said, and House poured first oily and then clean hot water on her, leaving behind only a faint, lingering scent as it drained into the floor.
    Her comb and toiletries were in her desk. She dried herself on a fluffy towel—which House provided in a cubbyhole, and which she gave back when she was done—and sat naked at her desk, wrinkling the dirty suit on her chair, to comb through her tangles and spy on her guests while she planned her attack.
    “Show me the Colonial diplomats.” There was always a twinge of guilt involved in this, but it was her job, and she was good at it. Her blotter cleared, revealing the guest suite. Miss Kusanagi-Jones stood in the center of the floor, balanced and grounded on resilient carpetplant, his feet widely spaced in some martial-arts stance. Eyes closed, his hands and feet moved in time with his breath as he slid sideways and Lesa leaned forward, fascinated. She’d suspected he was a fighter. He held himself right, collected, confident, but without the swaggering she was used to seeing on successful males. As if he didn’t feel the need to constantly claim his space and assert his presence. She wondered if