Carnival-SA by Elizabeth Bear Page B

foglets. His body was still hard under it, blocky, the pattern of moles and tight-spiraled curls on his chest at once familiar and alien, like coming home to a place where you used to live.
    “Figures. We have to come to the last outposts of civilization for our decadence.” Tendons flexed as he glanced at his watch. “Be out in a few ticks. I’ve given you access to my licenses. Figure out what I should wear, won’t you?”
    Vincent smiled to hide the twisting sensation. Dressing Angelo had always been Vincent’s job. Left to his own devices, Michelangelo would probably walk around naked most of the time. Not that most people would object—
    Mind on your job, Vincent reprimanded himself, and set about trying to figure out what the New Amazonians would consider “formal.”
    Uncertain what cultural conditions would apply, their offices had issued each of them a full suite of licenses, which, of course, did not include any hats. Formal fashions on Old Earth tended to be more elaborate than those on colonial planets, which cleared about half the database, but Michelangelo had the advantage of his complexion and looked wonderful in colors that Vincent couldn’t remotely carry off. Vincent chose a wrap jacket and trousers in rusty oranges and reds, simple lines to offset the pattern, the shoulders flashing with antique-looking mirrors and bouillon embroidery. That should dazzle a few eyes—and hearts, if Vincent was reading Miss Pretoria’s admiring glances accurately. He had absolutely no objections to using his partner’s brooding charisma as a weapon.
    For himself, he chose a winter-white dinner jacket and trousers instead of tights, because he didn’t want to risk slippery feet if they were expected to go barefoot again. The jacket was plain, almost severe, with understated shaded green patterning on the lapels.
    He’d wear a shirt and cravat to dress it up. Let them stare at Michelangelo’s chest; it was prettier than Vincent’s, anyway.
    He was already dressed, toiletries arranging his hair and moisturizing his face, when Michelangelo emerged from the fresher. He flicked his watch, sending Michelangelo the appropriate license key. Michelangelo’s wardrobe assembled the suit in moments; he glanced at himself in the mirrored wall and nodded slightly, as if forced, unwilling to admit that Vincent had made him handsome. “I look like a Hindu bride,” he said, fiddling with his cuffs.
    “I don’t think we have a license for bangles,” Vincent answered. “If we’d known how conspicuously the New Amazonians consume, I would have requisitioned some.”
    Michelangelo’s disapproval creased the corners of his eyes. When he spoke, it was in their own private code, the half-intelligible pidgin of one of Ur’s most backwater dialects and a random smattering of other languages that they’d developed in training and elaborated in years since. It had started as a joke, Vincent teaching Michelangelo to speak one of his languages, and Michelangelo elaborating with ridiculous constructions in Greek, Swahili, Hindi, and fifteen others. It was half-verbal and half-carrier, tightbeamed between their watches—practiced until, half the time, all they had needed was a glance and a hand gesture and a fragment of a sentence.
    It had saved their lives more than once.
    “A planet like this,” Michelangelo said, “and they’re wearing nonrenewables and doing who-knows-what to the ecosystem. Haven’t seen forests like that—”
    —outside of old 2-D movies and documentaries about pre-Change, pre-Diaspora Old Earth. Vincent knew, and sympathized. The frustration in Michelangelo’s voice couldn’t quite cover the awe. Ur didn’t have forests like that, and neither did Le Pré, Arcadia, or Cristalia. Never mind New Earth, which was about as dissimilar to Old Earth as it could be, without being a gas giant.
    “See the logging scars when we came in?” Michelangelo continued. “Bet you balcony passes to the Sydney