Luna--Wolf Moon--A Novel

by Ian McDonald

  Bryce Mackenzie’s back straightens, swells visibly against the street shine.

  ‘Are they now?’

  * * *

  He travels alone, in a chartered railcar to the citadel of his enemy. On his arrival he is guided to its heart as only the correct doors open to him.

  Lucas Corta’s crutches click along the polished stone of Hadley.

  Inevitable that Duncan would build a garden. Robert Mackenzie’s Fern Gully had been a wonder of the moon. Robert Mackenzie created in fern and frond, wing and water. Duncan Mackenzie builds in stone and sand, wind and whisper. The environment is a hundred metres across, the ceiling agoraphobically high for tight-pressing Hadley. Lucas had felt the weight of its rock on his shoulders and now he is released. The air is dry and very pure and carries a sting of fine sand. A flagstone path meanders between gardens of raked sand. Shafts of light fall from high windows on to austere geometries of stone and sand.

  Click, tap.

  Duncan Mackenzie waits in the stone circle, Esperance shimmering over his shoulder. The upright rocks represent every type found on the moon and many from beyond. There are menhirs from the birth of the solar system; pieces of Earth and Mars blasted loose in titanic asteroid strikes and launched across space; the metal cores of meteor impacts buried a billion years ago.

  Lucas does not fail to notice that every rock is shorter than Duncan Mackenzie.

  ‘I could have gutted you a dozen times over,’ Duncan Mackenzie says.

  Lucas leans into his crutches.

  ‘You’d be a hole in the regolith.’

  ‘Mass drivers make good neighbours.’

  ‘I have no quarrel with you, Duncan.’

  ‘I was in Crucible. I ran with the rest of them when the mirrors turned on us. I heard the hands hammering on the escape-pod doors. I saw people burn, and I laid my father’s familiar in the tabernacle in Kingscourt.’

  ‘The history of violence is no help to us here,’ Lucas says. ‘Bryce has João de Deus. That’s mine. You can have his helium business.’

  ‘I want nothing from you.’

  ‘I’m not gifting it to you. You continue your range-war with Bryce and the LMA will turn a blind eye.’

  ‘And when I take back the fusion business, you take it from me. Corta Hélio reborn.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can say to convince you that I have no interest in helium. But I do want João de Deus.’

  ‘Mackenzie Metals has no strategic interest in João de Deus.’

  Lucas Corta contains a smile. He has the deal.

  ‘We understand each other. I’ll take up no more of your time.’

  Halfway down the serpentine flagstone path, Lucas turns on his crutches.

  ‘I forgot to say. In case you decide on a reconciliation with your brother, as you pointed out, I still have a mass driver.’

  ‘The Vorontsovs have a mass-driver,’ Duncan Mackenzie calls.

  * * *

  Duncan Mackenzie watches Lucas Corta click his way between the spirals and circles of combed sand.

  Fucking Corta. Fucking Corta.

  You have a big gun, but you’ve forgotten that the way to be safe from a big gun is to put something between it and you.

  He waits until the doors have closed before calling Denny Mackenzie.

  ‘Bring me Robson Corta.’

  Fucking Corta.

  * * *

  Above eighty-five the elevators and ladeiras do not go. By staircase and steps, ladders and rungs, Wagner Corta climbs to the top of the city. Up into Bairro Alto, its overhang and ledges, its crawlspaces and wire-walks, its dispossessed and contract-less; up and out into the places where air soughs from vents, sighs around pipe runs and comms dishes and the narrow mesh catwalks beneath him tremble to the pulse of machinery so that, if that beat ever changes, Wagner grabs the handrail and forces himself to look straight ahead. To glance down through the grid is to court vertigo. The drop is two kilometres sheer to Tereshkova Prospekt.

  Above one hundred even the handrails give out. Wagner edges along weld seams, around cold-dewed water tanks. He sits for five minutes, back to the warm flank of a heat-exchange stack, trying to summon the nerve to step over a three-metre gap between two humidity control units. In the end he grabs two fistfuls of sagging cable and swings himself to the farther ledge. Death by electrocution is quicker than death by falling. Yet here are signs of human habitation: water bottles, protein and carb bar wrappers, blown into crevices and crannies by the perpetual artificial winds of highest Meridian. Not even the Zabbaleen, legendary in their zeal to recycle every molecule of carbon, dare climb this high. Only the sunline is higher, and Wagner feels it as a constant, blinding oppression. The roof of the world burns. Yet fluorescent symbols, the ideograms of the free runners, point to still higher paths.

  He has crossed seas and highlands, he has battled monsters and horrors, witnessed courage and despair, approached energies that could punch a hole through a city and empty it to vacuum. He has suffered exhaustion and starvation, dehydration and hypothermia, robots and radiation. This final half-kilometre of his journey to find Robson and bring him to safety is worse than all of those. Set a thousand kilometres of glass before him, drop him in the slashing riot of a robot war, bombard him with hyper-accelerated ice slugs: he will fight a way through them. Put a three-metre gap before him and two kilometres of howling air beneath him and he is paralysed. Wagner is afraid of heights.

  Heart hammering, breath a succession of shallow sips, he pushes himself as deeply as he can into the crevice between two gas-exchange silos. The air is appreciably thinner at the top of the world. Wagner breathes deep, supercharging his body with oxygen.

  ‘Robson Corta!’

  Wagner calls three times, then collapses, panting. His head throbs. If only the fucking kid had his familiar switched on. But that’s Rule One of disappearing; disconnect from the network. Wagner had only tracked Robson to the roof of Antares Quadra by sophisticated pattern recognition and passive trace analyses.

  ‘Robson! It’s me. Wagner.’ He recharges his lungs and adds, ‘I’m on my own Robson. Just me. I swear.’

  His voice echoes around the titanic metal-scapes of high Antares. Wagner has always had a horror of loud voices, yelling, making noise. Drawing unwanted attention to himself. Loud people. He is the wolf that never howls.

  He is the wolf that is shit-scared, hiding from the abyss in a steel cranny.

  ‘Robson!’ Again his voice rings out three times among the reverberating metal planes. He hates hearing himself.

  ‘Wagner.’

  The voice is so close that Wagner twitches in shock. He pushes himself back from the drop into his alcove.

  Wagner’s heart tightens in terror. Robson stands on a ten-centimetre flange, no handholds, no grips. The toes of his climbing shoes curl over the lip. Beneath them is two kilometres of clear air. Between Wagner and Robson is a five-metre gap. For all that Wagner can cross it it might be the void between moon and Earth.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  The boy is a mess. His shorts are stained and holed. One sleeve has been torn from his over-sized T-shirt and hangs free. His hair is a matted shock, half-way to dreads, his skin is filthy and mottled with bruises and healing abrasions. He was never a solid kid but he is famine thin. Wagner sees collar-bones at the wide neck of the T-shirt. His eyes are brilliant and feral.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes. No. Robson, I need to tell you, it’s all right.’

  ‘I fought a bot,’ Robson says. ‘I think it was just checking but it had blades. I flipped it. It didn’t see what I was doing. It was like a trick. It hit the hundred and fifteen catwalk down there and came apart. Bits scattered from twentieth to fortieth. There was a debris warning so no one got hurt.’

  ‘Robson, I’ve come to take you home.’

  ‘I’m not going back there.’

  ‘I know. Amal said. Né does love you, it’s just, well, our love is different. Né got hurt bad, Robson. N�
� was trying to protect you.’

  ‘Is Né all right?’

  ‘Né’ll recover.’ A ruptured spleen, severe abdominal trauma. They had an Iron Fist, né told Wagner when he visited ner in the med centre. ‘Né was trying to protect you.’

  ‘I know. But I can’t be like you, Wagner.’

  ‘I know that now. We won’t go back to the Packhouse. I promise.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I will be with you.’

  ‘You need the pack. You’re not you without them.’

  Up on the catwalk, wedged into a crevice barely wide enough for his bony ass, knees pulled up and arms wrapped around them so they block out as much of the fearful awesome vista before him as he can, Wagner Corta’s heart tears a little.

  ‘I will have you.’

  Robson says, ‘You were out there, weren’t you?’

  ‘I saw things I couldn’t believe. I saw things no one has ever seen before, I saw things no one ever should. I saw things I will never tell.’

  Again, a long silence.

  ‘Robson, I have to tell you, all those things I saw, I was scared, but not like I am now. I’m terrified, Robson. I can’t be here. I feel like I’m dying, I don’t know if I can move. Will you help me down?’

  Wagner sees no physical effort, no tensing of muscles or preparation, but Robson soars over the void, reaches up a hand and catches a stanchion. He swings across the face of the gas-exchange silo, flies across the gap in which Wagner huddles, grabs a second stanchion and tumbles to land sure and poised on the access gantry.

  Wagner crawled on his hands and knees across that gantry. Robson extends a hand.

  ‘Take it. Don’t look at anything but my eyes.’

  Wagner inches forward. His leg muscles are numb, his ankles untrustworthy.

  ‘Take my hand.’

  He reaches out. For an instant he is falling forward and the gulf opens before him. Then Robson’s hand has his and Wagner realises he has never touched this hand, embraced this body. There is strength here, softness and warmth. Stubborn resistance. Wagner staggers to his feet.

  ‘Look at me.’

  And he is around the second gas-exchanger, on to the access way.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘I might hurl.’

  ‘Don’t do it over empty air.’

  Wagner leans on the railing, panting, pale and sweating. Three times he feels nausea push up inside him, then he stands, panting.

  ‘Let’s go. First stop, a banya. You reek, irmão.’

  Robson’s smile could still stop worlds in their orbits.

  ‘You’re not too fresh yourself, Lobinho.’

  * * *

  Wagner lies a long time in the dim warmth of the hot room. Smooth stone beneath his back, a pleasing prickle of perspiration, beading and running, drawing deep fatigue from his muscles. Stars above him, inlaid in unmoving constellations on the dome. A full Earth in blue and white mosaic.

  It’s waxing. He can feel it, even deep in the caverns of the moon. He knows it’s the medication, it always has been the medication, and his own physiological and psychological rhythms, but he senses without seeing that a blue crescent Earth stands over Meridian. He feels it tugging him to the unity of the pack. He can’t go. He has a child. Lying on the slab folded in warmth, Wagner is seized by panic. Not just this Earthrise, but every Earthrise, he will be separated from the pack. He doesn’t know how he can bear it. He will bear it. He must. He has a child.

  Sombra chimes.

  Hey, I’m out.

  Robson perches on a stool at the banya’s tea-bar. He’s printed up an off-the-shoulder grey marl top, belly-cut, cuffs rolled up and three-stripe track pants. His hair is a glorious auburn puff ball.

  ‘Smell better?’ Robson says. He shines.

  ‘Eucalyptus, menthol. Juniper. Bergamot, some sandalwood.’ A final sniff. ‘And a trace of frankincense.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I know a lot of things in the dark.’

  ‘I want to show you a trick,’ Robson declares and takes his half-deck of cards from the pocket of his track pants. He picks a card and flicks it at Wagner. Presto: the card is gone.

  ‘He holds it inside his hand,’ a voice says. ‘Between his thumb and palm. You can’t see it from where you’re sitting. I can.’

  Magic is the art of misdirection. The hand diverts the attention here, and so it does not see the card being worked. Or Mackenzie Metals’ First Blade arrive.

  Denny Mackenzie leans on the tea-bar. He sees Wagner check the lobby for blades.

  ‘I’m alone. Nicely done, finding the boy.’

  ‘My name is Robson,’ Robson flares. ‘Not the boy, not Robbo. Robson.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ Denny Mackenzie says. ‘Apologies for that. And you…’ – this to the chai-seller – ‘don’t. I can take every one of your security, but there will be no trouble here.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Wagner asks.

  ‘I heard you came all the way from Twé. We lost a lot of jackaroos there.’

  ‘I did. What do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to be at Twé, but I’m First Blade and that keeps me cooped up in Hadley. Barring occasions when Duncan needs me to run an errand for him. He wants Robson.’

  Wagner steps between Robson and Denny Mackenzie.

  ‘Wagner, this is commendable but you’re really not a fighter,’ Denny says. ‘Duncan wants a nice warm body to put between him and your brother. Your mouth’s open, Wagner. You’re staring. You really didn’t know? Where were you? Oh yes, of course. Your brother is Eagle of the Moon. Lucas Corta.’

  ‘Lucas is…’ Wagner begins.

  ‘I think you’ll find he very much is not dead, Wagner. Duncan wants a hostage. What Lucas wants is Bryce’s head. Duncan is too much Mackenzie to realise that Lucas is not his enemy. He would be a fool to antagonise the Eagle of the Moon and whatever the LDC calls itself now. I’m no politician but even I can see that. There’s a way out of this, Wagner Corta.’

  ‘You owe me, Denny Mackenzie, and I make my third and final claim.’

  ‘And I shall honour that claim, Wagner Corta.’ Denny Mackenzie pulls his knife from the sheath inside his Armani jacket and kisses the blade. ‘The debt is paid in full.’ He re-sheathes the knife. ‘Go somewhere far from here, Wagner Corta. Go right away.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Wagner says. He holds out a hand.

  ‘I’m not shaking a fucking Corta hand,’ Denny Mackenzie says. From the door he calls, ‘Robson. If you can trick with a card, you can trick with a blade. Bear it in mind.’

  ‘Tio Lucas is the Eagle of the Moon?’ Robson asks.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Wagner says. ‘But I will.’ Go somewhere far from here, Denny Mackenzie had said. Far from the blades of Duncan Mackenzie, far from the machinations of Lucas Corta. Far from the love and warmth and fellowship of the pack. Somewhere far, where another kind of love waits. ‘Come on, Littlest Wolf.’

  * * *

  Denny thinks the sand garden a ridiculous affectation. The sort of thing that the Suns would waste resources on and then think themselves civilised and superior. Soft and sickly. The old Fern Gully made his skin crawl. Damp and green and living things. His skin felt infested every time he entered it. It had been Jade Sun’s idea. That was when old Bob began to lose it. Mackenzies dig, Mackenzies smelt. Our work is our garden.

  ‘I asked you to bring me a thirteen-year-old boy,’ Duncan says.

  ‘I repaid a debt.’

  ‘We needed something over Lucas Corta.’

  ‘I repaid a debt.’

  ‘To a fucking Corta.’

  ‘I repaid a debt.’

  ‘You failed your fucking family.’

  Denny Mackenzie holds up his left hand. The smallest finger is missing. The amputation was short and sharp but bearable. His seconds moved quickly to sterilise and cauterise the wound. He forswore analgesia. The pain is bearable. The chief irritation is the loss of sensation where nerves
have been severed.

  ‘You think that’s enough?’ Duncan says. ‘Some stupid debt of honour and everything is all right? All privileges and accesses are revoked. Rights and permissions are nullified. You’re cut off. You are no longer a Mackenzie. You have no name. You have no home. You have no father.’

  The corner of Denny Mackenzie’s mouth twitches.

  ‘So be it.’

  His heels sound on the flagstones as he walks away. He could trudge through the meticulous circles and waves of sculpted sand. Zen shit. That would be petty. He abides by the path. The golden figures on his chib fade to green. He breathes, for now. All he needs is breath enough to take him away from Hadley.

  The jackaroos line the corridor outside the stone garden. Sasuits, work wear, sports gear, classic leggings and hoodies. Not a thread of 1980s retro. These are workers. Denny Mackenzie does not look as he walks between the lines of blades. As he passes knuckles touch brows in salute. Behind him a wave of applause grows, carrying him forward.

  He clenches his left fist tight.

  He gives the barest nod as he turns in the elevator and the door closes.

  A ticket waits at the station. First class. His chib is still green. He knows who has paid for these. He takes his seat in the observation car. When the train emerges from the tunnel he turns to face Hadley. He watches the great pyramid until only the peak, brilliant with the light of ten thousands suns, is visible. Then it too is lost beneath the horizon.

  There is still no feeling in the wound on his left hand.

  * * *

  A sliver, a paring, the least needle-scratch of Earth-light, shines beyond the train window. Robson is curled up in the seat, mouth open, drooling a little, deeply unconscious. Sleep is the great vehicle of healing, crossing great distances of renewal and regeneration. Wagner can’t sleep, but it’s not the wolf-light that keeps him awake. He has turned the last shreds of his dark-self concentration on the news – lunar and terrestrial – the commentators, the opinion pieces, the political forums and histories. He begins to understand what happened while he and Zehra made their hegira across the Sea of Tranquillity, what his brother was working over those eighteen lunes since Corta Hélio fell, Boa Vista was destroyed, Wagner went into exile and two worlds believed Lucas Corta was dead.