Sky Coyote by Kage Baker Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kage Baker
me download the briefing material she’d need for her assignment. Maybe it was the fact that it was that festive time of year when old grudges are put aside, mistletoe is hung, the smell of gingerbread and Yule logs perfumes the air, and slaves get to whack their masters on the head with inflated pig bladders. Maybe it was the fact that she really did love her work more than anything else (or anything at all). Anyhow we saw more of each other as the century rolled through its final days, assembling our field kits and swapping bits of information that might prove useful on the job.
It was Mendoza who pointed out to me that observing our Mayans would teach me absolutely nothing about the Indians we were going to work with, just as studying Swedish farmers would teach me nothing about Turkish soldiers. Different continent, different nation, different culture, different experiences. It’s a point non-Americans tend to miss, and what did I know? I’d been basedin the Old World all my life. Well, most of my life. I had all those access codes to clue me in, though, and I was an expert in no time.
So, though you couldn’t call our relationship cordial, we wound up going to the Grand Fin de Siècle Cotillion on New Year’s Eve together.
“Wait here, guys, okay?” I hopped nimbly from the sedan chair as soon as the Mayans set it down. The lead bearer inclined graciously. I tossed him a couple of drink tokens by way of a tip and went into Botany Residential, adjusting my wig.
“Hokay, Natasha, honeybunch, your ride is here,” I called cheerfully, ringing the buzzer.
“You’re early,” Mendoza told me, opening the door long enough for me to step inside. She turned and went back to packing a garment bag with what looked like fifty pounds of white silk petticoat. She herself was all dolled up in ballroom best, absolutely the latest Paris fashion rendered in tropical-weight cream shantung, though she hadn’t yet put on the elaborately heeled shoes (higher than mine) of Italian calfskin. They were lined up neatly by the side of the bed, next to her field kit and duffel.
“I’m always early. Catches people off guard,” I replied, looking around. The place was emptier than a hotel room, though she’d been living in it for over a century. She’d packed up, but the staff hadn’t yet been in to vacuum, so there were dust rectangles on the console where her field notebooks had been and two dust outlines on the wall where pictures had hung. From a hook dangled a single strand of spangly holiday decoration. It had broken when she pulled it down and was too high up the wall to bother with. “Boy, I hate moving during the holidays,” I said sympathetically. She shrugged and zipped the bag shut, subduing all those waves of silk.
“I passed the Grand Ballroom on the way over here,” I continued. “Brother! What an engineering stunt
that
is.”
“Isn’t it?” She sat on the edge of the bed and fished around for her shoes. “Whole thing goes up like a hallucination in twenty-four hours. You haven’t even seen the inside yet. That’s his big specialty; Houbert earned his first credits designing portable field shelters like palaces. He’s a genius, under all the aesthete crap.”
“I guess so!”
“Not that I’ll miss him.” She pushed her feet into her shoes and stood up, looming over me. “Let’s get out of here. Revelry and merriment await us.”
CHAPTER NINE
W HETHER THEY DID OR NOT , I was sure impressed by the Grand Ballroom. It looked real, and permanent, until you got close enough through the traffic jam of sedan chairs and saw that the whole massive thing was just a white tent—though on a scale that made Barnum and Bailey’s biggest effort look like a field bivvy. Carved cantilevers ten stories high circled around the outside, gleaming with gold leaf, and scarlet pennants fluttered from the dome, and the whole business glowed with interior lighting like a fairy castle.
“Wow” was all I could
It was Mendoza who pointed out to me that observing our Mayans would teach me absolutely nothing about the Indians we were going to work with, just as studying Swedish farmers would teach me nothing about Turkish soldiers. Different continent, different nation, different culture, different experiences. It’s a point non-Americans tend to miss, and what did I know? I’d been basedin the Old World all my life. Well, most of my life. I had all those access codes to clue me in, though, and I was an expert in no time.
So, though you couldn’t call our relationship cordial, we wound up going to the Grand Fin de Siècle Cotillion on New Year’s Eve together.
“Wait here, guys, okay?” I hopped nimbly from the sedan chair as soon as the Mayans set it down. The lead bearer inclined graciously. I tossed him a couple of drink tokens by way of a tip and went into Botany Residential, adjusting my wig.
“Hokay, Natasha, honeybunch, your ride is here,” I called cheerfully, ringing the buzzer.
“You’re early,” Mendoza told me, opening the door long enough for me to step inside. She turned and went back to packing a garment bag with what looked like fifty pounds of white silk petticoat. She herself was all dolled up in ballroom best, absolutely the latest Paris fashion rendered in tropical-weight cream shantung, though she hadn’t yet put on the elaborately heeled shoes (higher than mine) of Italian calfskin. They were lined up neatly by the side of the bed, next to her field kit and duffel.
“I’m always early. Catches people off guard,” I replied, looking around. The place was emptier than a hotel room, though she’d been living in it for over a century. She’d packed up, but the staff hadn’t yet been in to vacuum, so there were dust rectangles on the console where her field notebooks had been and two dust outlines on the wall where pictures had hung. From a hook dangled a single strand of spangly holiday decoration. It had broken when she pulled it down and was too high up the wall to bother with. “Boy, I hate moving during the holidays,” I said sympathetically. She shrugged and zipped the bag shut, subduing all those waves of silk.
“I passed the Grand Ballroom on the way over here,” I continued. “Brother! What an engineering stunt
that
is.”
“Isn’t it?” She sat on the edge of the bed and fished around for her shoes. “Whole thing goes up like a hallucination in twenty-four hours. You haven’t even seen the inside yet. That’s his big specialty; Houbert earned his first credits designing portable field shelters like palaces. He’s a genius, under all the aesthete crap.”
“I guess so!”
“Not that I’ll miss him.” She pushed her feet into her shoes and stood up, looming over me. “Let’s get out of here. Revelry and merriment await us.”
CHAPTER NINE
W HETHER THEY DID OR NOT , I was sure impressed by the Grand Ballroom. It looked real, and permanent, until you got close enough through the traffic jam of sedan chairs and saw that the whole massive thing was just a white tent—though on a scale that made Barnum and Bailey’s biggest effort look like a field bivvy. Carved cantilevers ten stories high circled around the outside, gleaming with gold leaf, and scarlet pennants fluttered from the dome, and the whole business glowed with interior lighting like a fairy castle.
“Wow” was all I could