by Ian McDonald
What is food without drink? João boasts a thousand duster bars and each one of them has spilt on to the street in impromptu barzinhos: a folding table, a door across two trestles, the back of a misplaced rover. With furious concentration, the bar staff mix, muddle, macerate. They pour from height, they drizzle over ice, they add fruit and decorations. But this is carnival for them too and even as they stir, shake, serve they nod to the beat, sway and murmur lyrics.
The girl keeps a distance from the bars. She leads the ghazi a long way around, up a level, along a higher street. She has seen what alcohol does to people. It makes them not people any more. The girl knows this city, but the high streets do not feel comfortable either. The people here wear body-paint and masks and look at her and the ghazi as they speed past. The eyes behind the masks are filled with wants. Up here everyone is looking: something new from the narco-DJs, a partner, quick sex; everyone is weighing and assaying. A wolf-face appears in front of her. She stops with a small cry.
‘Your face.’ The wolf-mask moves closer, inspecting her. A man’s voice: he is naked apart from a thong. His body is painted grey like the wolf. Highlights glow along the contours of his muscles as he crouches down to the girl’s level. ‘What are you?’
The ghazi steps forward.
‘Death,’ she says. The wolf leaps back, hands held up in supplication.
‘Sorry, sorry … didn’t mean to … Fuck. That’s not a costume.’
‘No,’ says the ghazi.
‘Let’s go down again as soon as we can,’ the girl declares. A ladeira brings them down within a hundred metres of their destination but here, around the old Mackenzie Helium offices, the crowds are at their most dense. The girl gives a small cry of exasperation.
‘We’ll never get through this,’ she says.
‘We will,’ the ghazi says and steps forward.
The girl has brought baggage to carnival: a long, flat case slung across her back from a strap. The ghazi turns back to offer a hand, the girl accepts. The music is loud, the voices are stupefying and the crowd is terrifyingly close, but they part before a ghazi. The girl follows footstep close; she smells sweat, vodka, cheap perfumes, then she is in the lobby. She has never seen this place when it was the headquarters of Mackenzie Helium, so she does not know that the neon letters recently had different shapes, that logos and branding have been hastily removed from doors and walls and glass. She looks up at the pulsing neon: C. H. C. H. Yellow green. Yellow green.
Escoltas in sharp suits move to block entrance.
‘There is a dress code,’ says a sharp suit to the ghazi. ‘And an age limit.’
‘Do you know who you are speaking to?’ the ghazi says.
‘They do now,’ the girl says. Her familiar has flashed the escoltas her identity.
‘Apologies, Senhora Corta. You are welcome.’
‘Dakota is my personal bodyguard,’ Luna says.
‘I’m not your bodyguard,’ Dakota Kaur Mackenzie hisses as they cross the decorporatised lobby to the grand staircase. Beyond the doors the thunder of carnival give way to voices, glass chiming, bossa nova. The dress code is 1940s movie-star glamour. White tie and tails for the men, spats and top hats, canes and gloves. White teeth and pencil-line moustaches. The women glide in ballgowns and cocktail dresses; sweeping, sumptuous, caressing close, flaring out into folds and flounces. The field of vision seethes with a luminous host of familiars. Luna Corta freezes, very much the Farside parochial in her grey dress and very sensible boots. Dakota Mackenzie, in pragmatic riding breeches, boots and check print, stops dead. A young woman, her dark skin glowing against her ivory gown, stoops to wonder and smile at Luna.
‘Fabulous face art,’ she murmurs, then sees beneath the art and jerks upright in astonishment. Her surprise ripples across the room. Glasses halt at lips, conversations evaporate in puffs of gossip. The band puts up its instruments and stops playing.
‘I think you got them, chiseller,’ Dakota says.
Then someone runs out from among the frozen socialites and snatches her hard into his arms and throws her up in the air and as she comes down she sees hair, she sees Mackenzie green eyes, she sees freckles. She sees Robson. Luna squeals and laughs and he catches her and holds her so close she can feel his heartbeat, feel his breath tremble, feel him shake and now they are both shaking and crying and laughing. The party erupts into cheering and applause, the band picks up instruments and plays something loud and joyful. Robson steps away, elegant and awkward at the same time in his white shirt and tails. He looks to Luna as if every bone has been broken and reset out of true. A pale, dark-haired boy comes to him, stands with him.
Faces from her memory push through the crowd.
She sees Alexia the Iron Hand in a long, tight dress and opera gloves. She sees the wolf, the dark legend that haunted the edge of her life, the tio she never really knew. She sees a raccoon push its masked face between immaculately trousered ankles. A bird swoops over her head: she sees her mother, a sunburst in gold. Her swarm forms a halo around her elaborate hair-sculpt.
She sees her Tio Lucas. He is not the uncle she last saw at the wedding at the Eyrie, dapper and composed, joking with her father. Years have fallen on him; his body is broad and bulky with muscle but it weighs him down; he is stiff and bent, leaning on a cane, his face drawn down, his eyes dark.
Sorry to piss on your happy reunion, Dakota says on Luna’s private channel, but we have business here.
‘Tio Lucas,’ Luna declares. ‘Listen.’
‘I am Dakota Kaur Mackenzie, Ghazi of the Faculty of Biocybernetics, School of Neurotechnology of the University of Farside,’ Dakota announces. ‘Before these witnesses, I am charged to deliver this formal challenge to you. In final settlement of the custody case of Lucas Corta Junior, in a mutually acceptable court and legislation at a time not exceeding one hundred and twenty hours, Ariel Corta will meet you in trial by combat.’
The music ceases, mid-beat. Lucas Corta is smiling.
‘I accept,’ Lucas says.
Gasps. Glasses drop from hands. Luna slips the case from her shoulder and presents it in her two hands to Lucas.
‘You will need this.’
Lucas accepts the gift. Luna observes that it is heavier than he thought.
‘Careful,’ Luna says as Lucas opens the case. He holds up the knife of meteoric steel. It glitters in the mirror-ball party-light. His breath catches.
‘Carlinhos’s knife.’
‘Mãe de Santo Odunlade gave me the battle-knives of the Cortas. She said they could only be used by a Corta who is bold, great-hearted, without avarice or cowardice, who will fight for the family and defend it bravely.’
Lucas turns the blade in the light, fascinated by its vicious beauty, then lays it across the palm of a hand and offers it back to Luna.
‘I am not worthy of this blade.’
Luna pushes his hand away.
‘Take it. You will need it.’
TWENTY-FOUR
The rule is this: women of a particular status, in their ninth decade, do not hurry. They do not scurry. A fussy bustle is permissible but it is the limit. A lady never rushes.
Lady Sun rushes, heels clip-clopping in an undignified trot down the palace’s curving corridors. Caught between walk and run, her entourage struggles to keep pace with her. The message on Amanda’s secure channel had ordered her to come at once. Her granddaughter’s suite is too near for a moto to arrive in time, too far to avoid the shame of haste. A palanquin, like the dowagers of old China. That would be the very thing. Like the Vorontsovs use to gad around St Olga, powered by Earth-muscle and youthful enthusiasm. Perfidious Vorontsovs. Lady Sun will not soon forgive the humiliation of the Battle of Hadley. Marooned by VTO, taken in an upholstered cage to Hadley. The smirking politeness of the Mackenzies. Denny Mackenzie grinning his ghastly gold teeth. Grin while you can, golden boy. The po
wer rests elsewhere and when you have served their purpose, the women of Hadley will arrange a boardroom coup, and it will cost you more than your finger. The ransom was insultingly low; Taiyang will recoup it through the breach of contract case against VTO, but it is another unforgivable offence. Fucking Australians.
Lady Sun instructs her sharp young women and men to wait outside Amanda Sun’s apartment. Zhiyuan is present, Tamsin. The whole board. The surprise is Mariano Gabriel Demaria.
‘Is it Darius?’ Lady Sun asks at once. ‘What has happened to him?’
‘Darius is well,’ Zhiyuan says. ‘Mariano brings information about the Eagle of the Moon.’
‘Lady Sun.’ Mariano dips his head in respect. ‘Now that I have the board in full, I can deliver my information. Lucas Corta serves Amanda Sun, plaintiff in the case of Corta versus Corta, Sun and Luna Corta as an Academic Ward of the University of Farside, with a summons to satisfaction at the Court of Clavius. The time and location of this satisfaction to be mutually agreed, but within one hundred and twenty hours.’
‘Satisfaction?’ Amanda Sun says.
‘Trial by combat,’ Lady Sun says.
‘I know what it means,’ Amanda Sun snaps.
‘Ridiculous,’ Zhiyuan says. ‘There hasn’t been a satisfaction by combat since …’
‘Since Carlinhos Corta opened up Hadley Mackenzie balls to voicebox,’ Amanda Sun says. She twists open a vape, inhales deep, exhales slow. ‘The Cortas have form here.’
‘He knows he was a weak case,’ Lady Sun says.
‘Or he needs to settle quickly,’ says Tamsin Sun. ‘Within five days.’
‘Obviously, he has been served with his own challenge to trial,’ Lady Sun says.
‘The only one with skin in the game is his sister,’ Amanda Sun says.
‘I see no legal advantage in Ariel Corta issuing a challenge,’ Zhiyuan says.
‘You didn’t see Ariel Corta putting her nephew on the witness stand at the preliminary,’ Tamsin Sun says. ‘To her eminent advantage.’
‘Get yourself a zashitnik, girl,’ Lady Sun says to her granddaughter.
‘I’ve already summoned Jiang Ying Yue.’
‘Jiang Ying Yue, who surrendered her blade to Denny Mackenzie and twenty grubby jackaroos,’ Lady Sun says. ‘You have the greatest knife-fighter on the moon, Nearside or Farside, sitting right in front of you. Write him a contract, pay him five million bitsies and post it on the Court Listings and Lucas Corta and whatever back-stabber he’s persuaded to step into the arena for him will fold.’
Again, Mariano Gabriel Demaria dips his head respectfully.
‘You honour me, Lady Sun, but I am unable to accept your contract. I am already contracted as zashitnik in this case.’
Consternation on the luxurious upholstery. Zhiyuan is on his feet; Tamsin’s familiar is calling security. With a whim Lady Sun could summon her entourage from the corridor but what would it avail but pointless blood? If Mariano Gabriel Demaria intended mayhem no force in this room, in the Palace of Eternal Light, could prevent him.
‘Whatever Lucas Corta is paying, I pay you five times,’ Amanda Sun says.
‘Ridiculous,’ Lady Sun says. ‘He doesn’t need your money. This is personal. He was Carlinhos Corta’s second in the Mackenzie duel. He taught Carlinhos Corta the path of the Seven Bells. Old loyalties die hard.’ Lady Sun adds, with venom, ‘Though, it seems, not to his current pupil.’
‘I shall dedicate myself to Darius’s training,’ Mariano Gabriel Demaria says. ‘If Darius wishes to continue.’
‘He does not,’ Lady Sun snaps. ‘We too take personal loyalty seriously in the Palace of Eternal Light. You have earned my enmity. The enmity of the Suns. Please leave us.’
A bow to all and Mariano Gabriel Demaria is gone.
‘Lucas Corta intends to frighten us off,’ Lady Sun says.
‘I propose we don’t give the satisfaction,’ Zhiyuan says.
‘I concur,’ Amanda Sun says. ‘We will face him in court. This family will not run again.’
‘He will cut us apart,’ Tamsin Sun says.
‘Of course he will,’ Lady Sun says. ‘We have no defence. But you of anyone should know that one hundred and twenty hours is a long time in law. Perhaps Lucas Corta is lying. Perhaps he is bluffing. Perhaps Mariano Gabriel Demaria’s legend greatly outshines his ability. And perhaps Lucas Corta will never go to trial at all.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tamsin Sun says. Sun Zhiyuan nods. He understands.
‘Lucas Corta has an important vote in the LMA,’ he says.
‘Precisely.’ Lady Sun finds she is reaching for her flask. How good, how triumphant, how affirming and reassuring a sip of her gin would be now. No. This too is a rule. Dowagers of exalted houses, in their ninth decade, do not drink in the street. ‘Now, I must go and talk to the Three August Ones.’
Again, the voices beyond the stone doors. Again, the tap of heels, the click of cane on the smooth stone. Again, the flutter in the belly, the bladder, that makes Alexia press her fingers to the tightly buttoned waist of her two-piece Chanel suit. She could throw up.
‘Do you want me to announce you?’
Lucas Corta shakes his head.
‘I want you up in the seats. I want you to read the room and report to me.’
‘Report what?’
‘Anything that takes your attention.’
This is the day of the vote. The day when the future of the moon is decided. The Lunar Mandate Authority is in full session. The Dragons have arrived from their cities and palaces in their full panoply. The terrestrials in their poor suits and unfashionable shoes have ridden down from their mid-level executive apartments. They know, but have yet to understand, the lunar way; that the higher the status, the further from radiation it lives. To the Earth-born, status is always altitude. Legal counsels and advisers have been retained. The university, for half a century loathe to involve itself in the moon’s politics, has sent observers.
‘You hesitate?’ Lucas asks.
Alexia grimaces.
‘Denny Mackenzie will be there.’
‘Denny Mackenzie will be everywhere from now on,’ Lucas says. ‘This is a small world. You will meet the same faces over and over again for the rest of my life. Love them hate them fuck them kill them. Again and again.’
Alexia takes the staircase to the upper tiers.
You hear me? she says on the secure channel.
I hear you very well, Lucas answers.
It’s a hell of a show, Alexia says. Lousika Asamoah has left her ward-animals outside the council chamber but she and her party fill their seats with colour and spectacle. Kente robes, staffs of authority, extraordinary hair arrangements: wings, inverted pyramids, cascades of braids, plaited loops. Yevgeny Vorontsov occupies his traditional ring-side seat while his young controllers jostle and brood in the high tiers, groomed to molecular perfection and so so easy on the eye. Yevgeny is flanked by two avatars; humanoid bots with pixel skins carrying the images of the two other aspects of VTO: Sergei Vorontsov, two seconds out of sync, for VTO Earth and Valery Vorontsov for VTO Space. Alexia has never seen Sergei Vorontsov before: he is less distinctive, less theatrical than the other two patriarchs. Burdened. Eroded by politics and gravity. Valery Vorontsov in avatar form is even more of a horror than when Alexia met him in his cylindrical forest in the core of Saints Peter and Paul. His attenuated limbs, his weak, spindly neck, his deceptively broad chest turn him into a puppet from nightmare, controlled by strings from orbit. That his feet don’t touch the ground compounds the horror.
The Mackenzies command an entire sector of the council room. Gone are the grey men of Duncan Mackenzie’s reign. The White Women of Hadley stake their claim to the Council Chamber and the future of Mackenzie Metals. In the heart of the white dresses and suits is a bright yolk: Denny Mackenzie, in a very good sui
t of russet-gold synthetic tweed. Alexia’s attention snags on the woman at his side, ivory dress contrasting with dark skin. Irina. Irina Efua Vorontsova-Asamoah, of St Olga, who had come to her in tears and melodrama when she was to marry Kimmie-Leigh Mackenzie. And now looks well in with the Golden Boy of Hadley, from the way his smile displays his gold tooth when she whispers in his ear.
Alexia knows that smile very well.
Irina notices eyes on her, then notices whose eyes. Her face lifts in recognition. Alexia exchanges the briefest of smiles. But she won’t bet on an invitation to that dynastic wedding.
The murmur begins by the main door and circles the council chamber. The Suns are here. Not creeping, not shame-faced, not their single token delegate, but as Dragons. First a coterie of aides and assistants, girls and boys and others of a beauty to match the Vorontsov kids, a style that rivals the Mackenzies and hairstyles – sculpted, gelled, engineered, fighting gravity and inertia – that challenge the Asamoahs. Then, the advisers and legal representatives, impeccable, professional, diamond-bright. Last of all, the delegates from the Palace of Eternal Light. The murmur turns into a rumble and Alexia calls Lucas.
Lucas, Taiyang just rolled up like a rock show. Your ex the Queen of Mean.
The Suns overflow their assigned seats; Team Taiyang spills up into the top tiers, aides jostling Vorontsov bravos.
Amanda Sun places herself in the seat directly beneath Alexia. She turns, smiles like murder.
‘Mão de Ferro. I know you’re in contact with Lucas. Tell him that unless he drops the court action against me, Taiyang will abstain in the vote.’
‘You’re bluffing. You’ll hand victory to the terrestrials.’
‘We will have all the victory we need when the sun-belt contracts start coming in. As for emasculating the Vorontsovs and Mackenzie dreams of space, can you blame us? We have nothing to lose here.’
Alexia summarises to Lucas. Their familiars have made the mathematics clear to them, and the consequences of Lucas’s choice. The Suns abstain, the proposal fails. Lucas votes for the proposal, he declares war against the terrestrials. Lucas votes against, he makes himself the enemy of the Vorontsovs and Mackenzies. Lucas abstains, everyone draws blades against him.
