Luna: New Moon (4 page)

‘Carlinhos!’

Carlinhos Corta sees his niece rush to hug him and steps back but she bangs into him, grabs his legs, sends up a huge cloud of dust that settles on her beautiful peony dress like soot.

Two steps behind Luna comes Rafa. He trades play-punches, knuckle-touches with his kid brother.

‘You came cross-surface?’

Carlinhos holds out his helmet in evidence. In his patchwork sasuit and bearing the spicy, gunpowder smell of moon dust, he’s a pirate at a cocktail party. He dumps his LS pack and snatches a Blue Moon, downs it in one.

‘Tell you something, after two hours on a bike, drinking your own piss …’

Rafa shakes his head in appreciation of lunacy.

‘It’s going to kill you, that dumb biking. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day the sun’s going to flare and you’ll be out on the surface on a dust-bike five hours from anywhere. And it will fry. Your. Carioca. Ass.’ Each emphasis driven home with a prod to the shoulder.

‘And when was the last time you were up on the surface?’ Carlinhos play-punches his brother in the stomach. ‘What’s that I feel? Belly. You’re out of condition, irmão. You need to get surface-fit. You’ve been to too many meetings. We’re helium miners, not accountants.’

Oldest and youngest Corta boys adore sport. Carlinhos’s passion is dust-biking. He’s a pioneer of the extreme sport. He developed the bikes, the customised suits. He’s cut trails all over the Imbrium Apennines and established the cross-Serenitatis endurance race. Rafa’s sport is safer and more enclosed. He owns an LHL handball team. They’re standing high in the Premier League. Rafa shares the mania with his brother-in-law Jaden Wen Sun, owner of the Tigers of the Sun. They compete with humour and ferocity.

‘You staying around after the party?’ Rafa asks,

‘I’ve awarded myself a furlough.’ Carlinhos has been out for three lunes on Tranquilitatis, winning helium.

‘Come to the game. You should see what we’re doing.’

‘Losing, is what I heard,’ Carlinhos says. ‘Where’s moon-run boy? I heard about the Asamoah kid. That was good work. If he ever wants a job on the outside, I could use him.’

‘That’s not in Lucas’s life-plan.’

Two steps behind Carlinhos is a second young man in a sasuit, dark as Carlinhos is fair, with beautiful cheekbones and narrow, hunter eyes.

‘Wagner, irmão,’ Rafa says. A second volley of knuckle-touching. Wagner, youngest brother, smiles coyly.

Luna clings to her Uncle Carlinhos’s leg, smudged and smutted with moon dust.

‘Let me see you!’ Ariel declares, arriving with her entourage. ‘Beautiful boys!’ She bends to kiss but does not touch. No smuts on this dress.

Lucas has arrived, tactically late. He greets Carlinhos politely but routinely. He gives his attention to Wagner. ‘I love parties. All those distant relatives we never see.’

‘Wagner’s here as my guest,’ Carlinhos says.

‘Of course,’ Lucas says. ‘My house is your house.’

Naked hatred arcs between Wagner and Lucas, then Carlinhos takes Wagner by the elbow and whirls him away into the party.

‘Luna, run on with Madrinha Elis,’ Rafa says.

‘We’ll get some of that dirt off you,’ Madrinha Elis says. She is a strong-faced, strong-built Paulistana, a head shorter than the moon-born generations. Earth bodies make strong hosts. The Cortas let none but Brazilians bear their children. She takes sooty little Luna by the hand and leads her away from grown-up talk to look at the musicians.

‘Lucas, not here,’ Rafa says softly.

‘He’s not a Corta,’ Lucas says simply.

A hand touches the back of Lucas’s hand. Amanda Sun is at his side.

‘Even for you, that was rude,’ she chides. Amanda Sun is third-generation; moon-tall, taller than her husband. Her familiar is zhen: ‘Shake’, in deep red. The Suns traditionally skin their familiars in hexagrams from the
Book of Changes
.

‘Why? It’s the truth,’ Lucas says. Society was surprised when Amanda Sun moved from the Palace of Eternal Light to still-raw Boa Vista. The nikah hadn’t specified it. The marriage was powerfully dynastic. Checks, balances, annulment clauses were in place. Yet Amanda Sun came to Boa Vista and has lived there for seventeen years. She seems as much a part of it as the peaceful orixas, or the running waters. Society – some parts of that still care – think she is playing the long game. The Suns were among the first settlers; with the Mackenzies, they consider themselves old stock, true lunar aristocracy. For over half a century they have battled the hegemony of the Peoples’ Republic, which would use the House of Sun as their bridgehead to dominate the moon. All agree that the Suns never marry without consideration.

For the past five years, Lucas Corta has lived in his apartment in João de Deus.

The music – soft bossa-jazz – stops. Glasses halt on their journeys to lips. Conversations die; words evaporate; kisses fail. Everyone is transfixed by the small woman who has stepped out from a door between the enormous, serene faces of the orixas.

Adriana Corta has arrived.

‘Won’t they be looking for you?’

Lucasinho has taken Abena Maanu Asamoah by the hand and led her far from inhabited ways, along corridors lit by gleams of light from other rooms – construction bots need light – through new-cut chambers and rooms that still hum with the vibration of digging machines.

‘They’ll be kissing hands and making speeches for ages. We’ve plenty of time.’ Lucasinho pulls Abena to him. Heat-lamps lift the permanent minus-twenty sub-surface cold but the air is chilly enough for breath to hang in clouds and Abena to shiver in her party frock. The moon has a cold heart. ‘So what is this special thing you want to give me?’ Lucasinho moves a hand down Abena’s flank to rest on her hip. She pushes him away with a laugh.

‘Kojo is right, you are a bad boy.’

‘Bad is good. No, really. But come on – we’re moon-runners.’ His other hand strokes Abena’s Lady Luna, moves like a spider up to the bare upper slope of her breast. ‘We’re alive. More alive than anyone on this rock, right now.’

‘Lucasinho, no.’

‘I saved your brother. I could have died. I nearly did die. I was in a hyperbaric chamber. They put me in a coma. I went back and I saved Kojo. I didn’t have to do it. We all know the risks.’

‘Lucasinho, if you go on like this you will kill it.’

He lifts his hands: surrender.

‘So what is this thing?’

Abena opens her right hand. Silver there; a glinting tooth of metal. Then she snaps her hand to Lucasinho’s left ear. He cries out, claps a hand to unexpected pain. There is blood on his fingers.

‘What did you do? Jinji, what did she do?’

We are outside Boa Vista camera coverage,
Jinji says.
I can’t see.

‘I gave you something to remember Kojo by.’ It may be the red glow of the heat-lamps, but Lucasinho sees a light in Abena’s eyes he’s never known before. He doesn’t know who she is. ‘Do you know what they say about you? That you put a pierce in for every heart-break. Well, with me it’s different. That pierce I put in your ear is a heart-make. It’s a promise. When you need the help of the Asamoahs – really need it; when you have no other hope, when you’re alone and naked and exposed, like my brother; send the pierce. I will remember.’

‘That hurt!’ Lucasinho whines.

‘Then you’ll remember it,’ Abena says. There is a smear of Lucasinho’s blood on her forefinger. Very slowly, very gracefully, she licks it off.

Adriana Corta is slight and elegant as a bird among her tall children and taller grandchildren. Age lies lightly under lunar gravity; her skin is smooth and unlined, her body is unstooped by her seventy-nine years. She bears herself with the poise of a debutante. She is still head of Corta Hélio, though she has not been seen outside Boa Vista for months now. She is as rare a sight to many of Boa Vista’s residents. But she can still muster a show for family. Adriana greets her children. Three kisses for Rafael and Ariel. Two for Lucas and Carlinhos, one for Wagner. Luna breaks free from Madrinha Elis and runs to her Vovo Adriana. Gasps about the smudges on Adriana’s Ceil Chapman dress. Adriana doesn’t wear a Lady Luna pin. In her wild-catting years she drank more vacuum than all the moon-runners in Boa Vista.

Lucas falls in behind his mother’s shoulder as she works the line of grandchildren, madrinhas and okos and guests. She has a word for everyone. Special minutes are spent with Amanda Sun and Lousika Asamoah, Rafa’s keji-oko.

‘Now, where is Lucasinho?’ Adriana Corta says. ‘We must have the hero.’

Lucas realises that his son is absent. He bites back rage.

‘I’ll find him, Mama.’ Toquinho tries to call but the boy is off-network. Adriana Corta tsahs in disapproval. Protocol will not be proper until she has congratulated the party-boy. Lucas goes down to the band; a small ensemble of guitar, piano, double bass, soft-shuffling drums. ‘Do you know
Aguas de Marco
?’

‘Of course.’ It’s a standard, a classic.

‘Play it sweet. It’s my mama’s favourite.’

Guitarist and pianist nod to each other, count in the subtle off-beat.
Waters of March
: an old and lovely song that Adriana Corta sang to her children when their madrinhas brought them and set them on her knee, sang over them in their cots. It’s an impressionistic autumn song about the rain and sticks and tiny living things, about the universal in the hand-sized, at once joyful yet spiked through with saudade. Male and female voices exchange lines; snapping up each other’s cues; vivacious and playful. Lucas listens closely, passionately. His breath is shallow, his body tense. Tears haunt the folds of his eyes. Music has always moved him powerfully, especially the old music of Brazil. Bossa-nova, MBP. Elevator music; MOR bland-out. Smooooth ball-less jazz. The ones who say that don’t have ears; don’t listen. They don’t hear the saudade; the sweet sorrow of the fleetingness of things that makes all joys sharper. They don’t hear the hushed despair, the sense that beyond the beauty and the languor, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Lucas glances at his mother. She nods to the sidewinding rhythm, eyes closed. He has distracted her from prodigal Lucasinho. Lucas will deal with him later.

The song’s highlight is the two voices playing capoeira over single words, cutting in on each other; tumbling and dodging. The man on guitar, the woman on piano are very good. Lucas had never heard of this combo before but he is delighted to have heard them. The song ends. Lucas chews back emotion. He applauds loud and clear;.

‘Bravo!’ he cries. Adriana joins him; then Rafa, Ariel. Carlinhos, Wagner. The applause ripples out across the party. ‘Bravo!’ Drinks come round again, the moment of embarrassment forgotten, the party rolls on. Lucas steps in for a word with the pianist. ‘Thank you. You have bossa, sir. My mamãe loved it. I’d like it if you were to come and perform for me, in my own apartment in João de Deus.’

‘We’d be honoured, Mr Corta.’

‘Not we. Just you. Soon. What’s your name?’

‘Jorge. Jorge Nardes.’

Familiars exchange contact details. And then the waiter, the norte Jo Moonbeam with the cocktail tray, makes a sudden lunge at Rafael Corta.

She likes the rough texture of the scab on Lucasinho’s ear. She enjoys tugging at it, undoing the healing, letting a little fresh blood seep. It gets Abena wet inside her Helena Barber ballgown. Now they’re back in Boa Vista’s network, Jinji has shown Lucasinho her gift; a chrome fang curving through the top arc of his right ear. Looks good. Looks hot. But she won’t let him even slip an arm around her waist.

Before they reach the window they both know something is wrong. No music, no chatter, no splashing of bodies in the waterfall pool. Shouting voices, orders snapped in Portuguese and Globo. The pupil of Xangô’s stone eye overlooks the length of the Boa Vista’s gardens. Lucasinho sees Corta security escoltas guarding groups of guests. The band and the wait staff have their hands on their heads. Security drones scan the sculpted walls; their lasers rest a moment on Lucasinho and Abena.

‘What’s going on?’ Lucasinho asks. Jinji answers in the same instant as Abena’s face turns to shock.

There has been an attempt on the life on Rafael Corta.

The edge of the knife lies against Marina Calzaghe’s throat. If she moves, if she speaks, if she takes too deep a breath, it will part her flesh. The blade is so insanely sharp it is almost anaesthetic: she would not feel the slitting of her windpipe. But she must move, she must speak if she is to live.

Her fingers tap the stem of the cocktail glass clamped upside down on the tray.

‘The fly,’ she hisses.

Flies didn’t move like that. Marina Calzaghe knows flies. She worked as a flycatcher. On the moon, insects – pollinators, decorative butterflies like the ones the Asamoah kids sent wafting through Boa Vista, are licensed. Flies, wasps, wild bugs threaten the complex systems of lunar cities and are exterminated. Marina Calzaghe has killed a million flies and knows they don’t fly like that, in a straight attack line for the exposed soft skin in the corner of Rafael Corta’s jaw line. She lunged with the glass, caught the fly millimetres from its target and clapped the empty martini glass to the tray. A cocktail prison. And in the same instant, a knife whispered out of a concealed magnetic sheath to her throat. At the end of the knife, a Corta escolta in a tailored suit with a perfectly folded square in his breast pocket. He still looks like a thug. He still looks like death.

Heitor Pereira squats stiffly to examine the thing in the glass. For a first-generation, he is a big man, square built. A big ex-navy man peering into an upturned cocktail glass would be comedy but for the knives.

‘An assassin bug,’ Heitor Pereira says. ‘AKA.’

In an instant blades ring Lousika Asamoah. Their tips are millimetres from her skin. Luna wails and sobs, clinging to her mother. Rafael hurls himself at the security men. Men in suits pile on him, pinion him.

‘For your own safety, senhor,’ Heitor Pereira says. ‘She may be harbouring biological agents.’

‘It’s a drone,’ Marina Calzaghe whispers. ‘It’s chipped.’