by Ian McDonald
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, softshuffling 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 offbeat. 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 blandout. 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.’
Heitor Pereira looks closer. The fly batters itself against the glass but in its moments of stillness a pattern of gold tracery is clearly visible on its wings and carapace.
‘Let her go.’ Adriana Corta’s voice is quiet but the tone of command makes every security man and woman flinch. Heitor Pereira nods. The knives are sheathed. Lousika scoops up the howling Luna.
‘And her,’ Adriana Corta orders. Marina gasps as the knife is removed from her throat and realises she has not inhaled since security grabbed her. The shaking starts.
Lucas is shouting, ‘Lucasinho? Where is Lucasinho?’
‘I’ll take that now.’ Heitor Pereira places his hand on top of the glass. He takes a pulse-gun from a small holster. The device is the size of his thumb, a silly, camp weapon in his huge hand. ‘Shut down your familiars.’ Up and down Boa Vista familiars wink out of existence. Marina blinks off her own Hetty. That camp little gun possesses enough power to take down the whole of Boa Vista’s network. There is nothing to see or hear, but the little wired fly goes from moving to still and dead.
Lucas Corta leans close to his Head of Security and whispers to him.
‘They tried to kill my brother. They got into Boa Vista; into our home, and they tried to kill my brother.’
‘The situation is under control, Senhor Corta.’
‘The situation is that an assassin came within the thickness of a cocktail glass of killing Rafa. In front of guests from every one of the Five Dragons. In front of our mother. That doesn’t strike me as a situation under control, does it?’
‘We’ll analyse the weapon. We’ll find out who’s behind it.’
‘‘Well that’s not enough. There could be another attack any moment. I want this place secured. This party is over.’
‘Senhors, senhoras, there has been a security incident,’ Heitor Pereira announces. ‘We must secure Boa Vista. I have to ask you to leave. If you could make your way to the tram station. It’s now safe to relog your familiars.’
‘Find my son!’ Lucas orders Heitor Pereira. Lucasinho’s friends mill, lost and overshadowed. Their moon-run, Lucasinho’s saving of Kojo Asamoah, are eclipsed. Boa Vista security shepherd guests out of the gardens towards the station. A guard escorts Corta grandees indoors. Lucas Corta considers Marina Calzaghe with ice and iron. She is shivering with shock.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Marina Calzaghe.’
‘You work for the caterers?’
‘I work at what I can get. I am – I was – a Process Control Engineer.’
‘You work for Corta Hélio now.’
Lucas offers a hand. Marina takes it.
‘Talk to my brother Carlinhos. The Cortas owe you.’
And gone. Still numb with shock, Marina tries to work out what happened. The Cortas try to slit her throat, now she works for them. But: the Cortas. Blake, it will be all right. I can get you meds. We’ll never be thirsty again. We can breathe easy.
TWO
Luna Corta: small spy. Boa Vista is rich in hiding places for a bored girl. Luna discovered the service tunnel following a cleaning bot one long Boa Vista morning. Like all moon kids Luna is drawn to tunnels and crawlspaces. No adult could fit it and that is good because hiding holes and dens must be secret. The shaft has grown tight since Luna first crawled in and realised she could look down into her mother’s private room and, if she held her breath, hear. Tucked up behind the eyes of Oxossi, Luna squirms, a constriction in a sinus in the head of the hunter and protector.
‘They put a knife to my throat.’
Her father says something she can’t make out. Luna twists closer to the ventilation grille. Dusty light-rays strike up around her face.
‘They put a knife to my throat, Rafa!’
Luna sees her mother brush fingers against her neck, touching the remembered edge of the knife.
‘It was just security.’
‘Would they have killed me?’
Luna moves again to fit both of her parents into her narrow slot of sight. Her father sits on the bed. He looks small, diminished, as if the air and light has gone out of him.
‘They were protecting us. Anyone who wasn’t a Corta was suspect.’
‘Amanda Sun isn’t a Corta. I didn’t see a knife at her throat.’
‘The fly. Everyone knows you people use biological weapons.’
‘You people.’
‘The Asamoahs.’
‘There were other Asamoahs at the party. Abena Maanu for one. I didn’t see a knife at her throat. My people, or just some of my people?’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because your people, Rafa, put a knife to my throat. And I don’t hear anything from you that says they wouldn’t have cut me.’
‘I would never let them do that.’
‘If your mother gave the order, would you have stopped them?’
‘I’m bu-hwaejang of Corta Hélio.’
‘Don’t insult me, Rafa.’
‘I’m angry our security put a knife to your throat. I’m angry that you were a suspect. I’m raging, but you know how we live here.’
‘Yes. Well maybe I don’t want to live here.’
Luna sees Rafa look up.
‘I know how we live in Twé. It’s a good place, Twé. It’s a safe place. With my people, Rafa. I want to take Luna there.’
Luna gasps. The shaft is so tight she can’t press hands to mouth, to try and call back the noise. They might have heard. But then she thinks, Boa Vista is full of sighs and whispers.
Rafa is on his feet. When he is angry, he gets close, breath-close. Spit-in-my face close. Lousika doesn’t flinch.
‘You’re not taking Luna.’
‘She’s not safe here.’
‘My children stay with me.’
‘Your children?’
‘Didn’t you read the nikah? Or were you too eager to jump into bed with the heir apparent of Corta Hélio.’
‘Rafa. No. Don’t say this. This is beneath you. This is not you.’
Rafa’s anger is stoked now. Anger is his sin. It is the other side of his affability: easy to laugh, to play, to make love. Easy to rage.
‘You know? Maybe your people planned …’
‘Rafa. Stop.’ Lousika presses her fingers to Rafa lips. She knows his anger is as quick to ebb as to flow. ‘I would never, ever plot against you – not me, not my people – to get hold of Luna.’
‘Luna stays with me.’
‘Yes. But I won’t.’
‘I don’t want you to go. This is your home. With me. With Luna.’
‘I’m not safe here. Luna’s not safe. But the nikah won’t let me take her. If you’d once said you were sorry that your escoltas put a knife to my throat, it might be different. You were angry. You weren’t sorry.’
Now her father speaks but Luna can’t hear his words. She can’t hear anything but a rushin
g noise inside her head that is the sound of the worst things in the world arriving. Her mamãe is going away. Her chest is tight. Her head rings with the horrible hissing, like air and life leaking away. Luna wriggles free, pushes herself down the shaft away from the hidey-hole where she overheard too much. She has scuffed her shoes and torn her Pierre Cardin dress on the raw stone.
The rain has swept the dead butterflies into floes and flotsam. Their wings form an azure scum around the lips of pools. Luna Corta sits among the corpses.
‘Hey hey hey, what is it?’ Lousika Asamoah crouches beside her daughter.
‘The butterflies died.’
‘They don’t live very long. Just a day.’
‘I liked them. They were pretty. It’s not fair.’
‘That’s how we make them.’
Lousika kicks off her shoes and sits down on the stone beside Luna. She swishes her feet in the water. Blue wings cling to her dark legs.
‘You could make them live longer than a day,’ Luna says.
‘We could, but what would they eat? Where would they go? They’re decorations, like flags for Yam Festival.’
‘But they’re not,’ Luna says. ‘They’re alive.’
‘Luna, what happened to your shoes?’ Lousika says. ‘And your dress.’
Luna looks at the floes of butterflies slowly drifting downstream.
‘You’re going away.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I heard you say it.’
None of the questions Lousika could ask have any meaning here.
‘Yes. I am going back to Twé, back to my family. But only for a while. Not for always.’
‘How long?’
‘I don’t know, love. No longer than I have to.’
‘But I’m not going with you.’
‘No. I would love to, more than anything – more than myself – but I can’t.’
‘Am I safe, Mama?’
Lousika hugs Luna to her, kisses the top of her head.
‘You’re safe. Papa will keep you safe. He’ll tear the head off anyone who tries to hurt you. But I have to go until things are clear. I don’t want to, and I will miss you so much. Papa will look after you, and Madrinha Elis. Elis will not let anything hurt you.’
