by Ian McDonald
‘Three minutes to the seats. Then another five to work the bottom half of the train. If we’re lucky. Or they’re standard jackaroo thick.’
‘You can take them?’ Ariel asks.
‘It won’t come to that. And that is so fucking irritating.’
Ariel realises she has been drumming her fingers on the arms of her wheelchair. She looks out of the porthole again. The train has entered the mirror field around Hadley. The cupped hands of the mirrors are upturned to the sun, catching and offering it to the solar forges of the great pyramid like a sacrifice. Ariel feels the soft drop of deceleration.
‘Any second now, they’re going to work out what I’m doing,’ Dakota says.
‘What are you doing?’ Ariel asks.
‘Gods, they’re moving. Where the fuck is it?’ Dakota pushes past Ariel to peer out of the port. The train drops to the line. A noise, metal on metal, the solid clunk of locks mating. There is something out there, docked with the train. Seals mesh, systems runs checks.
‘They’re here,’ Ariel says. Three women, two men storming in tight formation down the aisle. Shouts and protests from the passengers – one man gets up and is sharply smacked back into his seat by a hand to the chest. Sasuits, helmets at hips. Mackenzie Metal logos on shoulder and thigh. Sudden green light in the vestibule. The locks are equalised. Doors open. Ariel looks into a tiny pressure pod; worn gear, broken equipment, scratches on the fascia, stains on the upholstery.
‘I’ll never…’
‘Leave the chair.’
‘I need…’
‘Leave the fucking chair!’ Dakota seizes Ariel by her lapels and throws her through the lock. She turns, hurls the wheelchair at their attackers as the vestibule door admits them, then dives through the hatch. The lock slams shut, pumps hiss. Green lights turn red. Ariel pulls herself upright on the circular banquette and a lurch immediately sends her sideways. A series of jolts, a small surge of power. She is running free.
‘I requisitioned an old rover from our metallurgy research station at Rima Vladimir,’ Dakota says. ‘Took its fucking time getting here. That was a lot closer than I like.’
‘You could have broken something,’ Ariel says. ‘And my chair…’
‘Fuck your chair!’ Dakota shouts. ‘We’ll build you legs. We’re the fucking university, we build fucking legs, hands, whole new colons. Okay?’
In the silence in the pressure pod, so small the two women fit it like seeds in cardamom, Ariel summons Beija Flor. She is far from the network, out in Hadley’s mirror maze, but her familiar links with the rover AI and shows her the world beyond the windowless bubble. Whichever way she looks, mirrors rise around her. She understands the terrestrial word forest now, amid the pylons, yet her overpowering feeling is not of enclosure, but of agoraphobic terror. She is a foetus in a womb, in the middle of ferocious vacuum, light, radiation, engineering. The rover weaves an escape path through the mirror maze, away from the main line and any other jackaroo squads; bearing north-west by north. Low on the horizon burns the brilliant star of Hadley.
‘Right under Duncan’s nose,’ Ariel says. ‘That’s you off his mooncake gift list.’
‘What is your family’s problem with my loyalties?’ Dakota says.
‘Mackenzies killed my brothers,’ Ariel says simply. ‘Mackenzies took my legs away.’ She pushes herself deep into the seating. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Rozhdestvenskiy. About twenty hours. Plenty of time for the art of conversation. Or if you don’t fancy conversation, do you play oware?’
* * *
‘Pass me the pee pants,’ Ariel Corta says. Dakota Kaur Mackenzie unhooks the apparatus from the reclamation unit and looks away as Ariel pulls up her skirt to pull them on. The air is thick and over-breathed, tinged with the ammoniac hum of an elderly filtration system.
No dignity on a rover, Dakota Mackenzie said the first time she passed Ariel the urinal.
‘When you’re in my situation you learn pretty quick there’s no dignity anywhere,’ Ariel said.
That was nineteen hours ago.
For the first hour they played oware but Ariel could not engage with the game, lost interest quickly and tried to find ways to cheat.
‘Where’s the fun if you don’t?’
The second hour they ate. They dragged out every mouthful and appreciative comment as far as they could. The third hour was excretion. The fourth hour they talked a bit and slipped into a sleep broken by the rolling of the rover as it negotiated the rock-strewn seabeds of Imbrium. Eat, excrete, sleep. Talk. Eat, excrete, sleep. Talk. The rover climbs up over the pole and picks a careful path down the northern rim of Rozhdestvenskiy.
Eat, excrete, sleep. Talk. The best of these is talk.
‘Why law?’ Dakota asks.
‘There is ritual every Corta child takes,’ Ariel says. ‘It takes place in the Earth-dark. Only Earth-dark. You step out on to the surface. You’re on your own but you’re not alone. There’s a voice. It says, Go out beyond the lights, child. Let go of the safety lines and air-caches. Don’t be afraid, I’m with you. You walk out until the voice tells you stop. Then the voice says, Look up and tell me what you see. And you say, I see the sky and the stars and the dark Earth. The voice says, Look again and tell me what you see. And the correct answer, the Corta answer is, I see the lights. I see the billion lights of the dark Earth. And the voice says, We light the lights.
‘I went up to the surface, age ten, in my little shell-suit with kitty and dragon stickers on it. And the voice told me: walk out. I walked out, I kicked up the dust, I listened to my breath. Tell me what you see, the voice said. I said, I see nothing. The voice said, Look again, tell me what you see. And I said what I saw. I said, I see dead rock and grey regolith, I see burning light and vacuum and emptiness. I see silence and tedium. I see nothing.
‘Wrong answer. Not the Corta answer. Lucas still thinks I betrayed the family for glamour and money. Being darlinged by society. No: I saw exactly the same as he saw. He saw the lights, I saw dead rock. He saw a whole world where he could play and build and make and break things. I saw no talk, no wit, no drama. No people. Like your little game: where’s the fun?’
‘You say, wit, drama, other people,’ Dakota says. ‘Yet you’ve never been in a long-term relationship.’
‘You seem to know a lot about me, ghazi,’ Ariel says.
‘I need to know my clients.’
‘Client, am I? That sounds a little proprietorial. What is the university’s interest in me?’
‘The university has a long tradition of academic sanctuary.’
‘Which you extended to Luna, and to me when I asked for it. And you’re treating Lucasinho. That’s a lot of Cortas in one hemisphere. This is the moon, sweetie. No one does something for nothing. Did you see an opportunity for leverage on my brother?’
‘The university has always been independent from the old LDC and the LMA. We’re apolitical.’
‘And Cortas don’t do politics either. Until they do.’
Dakota sits back on the bench.
‘Half an hour to Rozhdestvenskiy,’ she says. Ariel permits herself the leanest of courtroom smiles. She has drawn blood.
‘Now, contractual obligation,’ Ariel says. ‘What’s your story, ghazi?’
Dakota pulls her legs up to sit cross-legged on the curving bench.
‘I studied bioscience at the university. My doctoral and post-doc were in human genome engineering. I was brilliant. Best of my cohort. Best in years. Modesty is such a snivelling virtue. I came back to Nearside to work as liaison between Crucible and Twé. The Mackenzies have been pursuing a strategy of genetic engineering to stabilise the geneline.’
‘Eugenics,’ Ariel says. ‘Blue-eyed babies.’
‘There is more to it than that,’ Dakota says. ‘I was working with AKA to set up a reservoir of human biodiversity. In case we find ourselves facing a genetic crash at some point in the future. It’s possible. Likely even. We are a small population, even
with terrestrial migration. And epigenetic factors are driving our population towards sub-speciation. A new humanity, if you like. But essentially, yes, blue-eyed blond-haired babies. And when I decided to have a child, I found that I carry a flaw in the MEN1 gene that increases the risk of thyroid, parathyroid, pituitary, adrenal, bowel and stomach cancers.’
‘Gods,’ Ariel says. ‘Geneticist, engineer thyself.’
‘I did, with the university’s help. There was a price: ten years serving the university as a ghazi. By the time my service is done, Melyssa will be in a colloquium herself. Do you want the twist in the tale?’
‘All good stories have a twist,’ Ariel says.
‘When I learned about the error on the MEN1 gene I went to my family first. They soak up a lot of radiation on Crucible; they’ve developed a lot of techniques to repair genetic injuries. Turns out Dakota Kaur was not Mackenzie enough for the treatment. Too brown-eyed, too brown-skinned. That’s why, when you or your brother or any other fucking Corta gets sniffy about my loyalty, I want to stick it up your ass so far I can see it when you yawn.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ariel says. Another hit, another drop of blood. In time she will find this ghazi’s every vulnerability. ‘How long until we get to Rozhdestvenskiy’s network bubble?’
‘About seven minutes.’
‘I’ll need university privileges and encrypted private server.’
‘I’m not your PA,’ Dakota Kaur Mackenzie says.
Ariel continues as if the ghazi had not spoken. ‘A law library. You have a law faculty? I’ll need a meeting with Abena Manu Asamoah as soon as possible. Face to face. Secure venue. Book her tickets and find her somewhere decent to stay. Hostages like me can slum it but I have standards for my legal team.’
‘This all needs to be cleared…’ Dakota Kaur begins but the ideas are kindling in Ariel Corta; sparkling like dust in the rover’s fetid atmosphere. She long ago learned the joy of seeing those bright stars in the moment of pure potential, before reaching for them and the movement of her hands sending them into new, brilliant constellations. She has a plan now.
‘I am going to explain this to you as if you were a tiny child, in simple, clear and non-technical terms so that you will understand what it is I am trying to do and because you understand you will render me all assistance.
‘I am trying to keep Lucasinho Corta – Lucas’s son, my nephew – safe and alive. He’s nineteen and has legally been a free agent since exchanging parenting and agency contracts with Lucas when he was twelve. I know, I drew up the contracts. However, he has sustained severe neurological damage through oxygen starvation which means he is incapable of acting in his own interests and therefore someone must assume a contract of duty of care for him. His mother is Amanda Sun – she and Lucas terminated their nikhah two years ago. One of the best day’s work in my life. If the Palace of Eternal Light gains care over Lucasinho, Lucas is effectively their hostage. If Lucas gains duty of care over him, the only way he can make sure Lucasinho is safe is to keep him under his own personal protection. That means he either moves Lucasinho to Meridian – clear breach of duty of care – or he moves the LMA to Farside. That’s going to sit well with your legendary “independence”.
‘I can’t take charge of him. My relationship with Lucas was strained enough when I turned down his request that I act for him in the Court of Clavius. I don’t want the word “sorocide” to come anywhere near his paranoid little head. That leaves only one candidate, and she’s already proven she can care for Lucasinho. And she’s untouchable. But I need to move fast. I need to get writs to the Court of Clavius at the same time as Lucas and Amanda Sun.
‘So I will need help on this. Will you help me?’
‘You utter fuck,’ Dakota Kaur Mackenie says. ‘Save the kid? How can I say no?’
‘One more thing.’
‘There’s always going to be one more thing, isn’t there?’
‘Those legs you promised? What can you do in the time before we leave Rozhdestvenskiy?’
* * *
In her new favourite dress, Luna Corta presses her hands to the gondola’s glass wall and peers out. The old pink suit-liner is discarded, deprinted and remodelled. The window reads Luna’s intention and dims the interior lights but in the moment before it does she sees her face reflected: a half-face hovering over the half-shaded hills and sub-craters of Coriolis. She leans her forehead against the glass.
‘Luna,’ Madrinha Elis chides. She doesn’t trust the glass, doesn’t trust this car, doesn’t trust the cable unspooling it from the medical facility cut into the western rim of Coriolis crater. Doesn’t trust any of the old, clattery machinery of the university. Which is much of the reason Luna does it. She likes the old domes and habitats cut into rims and mountainsides, the crazy tramways and hyperloops and cableways and funiculars. It reminds her of the tunnels and caves and secret passages of Boa Vista.
‘What way will Tia Ariel’s train come?’ Equatorial One is a strip of brilliant light across the grey floor of the crater. Beyond the western rim of Coriolis fleets of moondozers are stalled while university and Taiyang argue through the Court of Clavius over extending the sunline across the crater, over all of Farside.
‘From the east,’ Madrinha Elis says. ‘The other way.’
Luna knows you have to be fast fast fast to catch a VTO train, even when it is slowing down into Coriolis Station. Luna-familiar can give her the time and the bearing but she might blink, and sneeze and miss it.
A flicker of light. So fast it takes her breath away.
‘There it is! I see it, I see it!’
‘Look, anjinho,’ Madrinha Elis says. The sky above Coriolis is filled with moving lights like dozens of festival lanterns, all converging with a graceful lack of haste. Cablecars from Coriolis’s diverse habitats, spinning down their lines towards the station. There’s a train in and people are hurrying to meet it. Then the AI announces imminent arrival and Luna’s car enters the dock.
Luna is running as the doors open. Madrina Elis shouts but she is already a corridor and a flight of steps away. One flight two flights three flights four. Luna takes them in entire, joyful bounds, in motion as she lands to leap and fly down the next one. Her new favourite dress billows out around her. It is sleeveless, scoop-necked, high-waisted and full-skirted, printed in a dust-grey so light and soft it feels like ash against the skin.
Car 12, familiar-Luna advises. The train is an enormous, potent presence beyond the pressure glass. The platform is a mass of bustling humanity – arriving, departing, greeting, adiosing.
Luna, Madrinha Elis calls through the network but the lock is opening and there is Ghazi Dakota stepping out in great boots and there, there, two steps behind her is Ariel. Ariel walking. Ariel walking towards her as she rushes towards her tia.
‘Oh, anjinho,’ Ariel says as she scoops up Luna the way she used to in the old times, when she came back after long-away to Boa Vista. ‘Oh meu amorzinho. Voce e bonita.’ Luna clings to her side, Ariel tucks an arm under her, holding her up. ‘You’ve got heavy.’ Cortas say what they think. But she does not set Luna down.
‘You’ve got new legs,’ Luna says as Ariel marches up the platform to the waiting Madrinha Elis.
‘I’ve got old legs,’ Ariel says. ‘But I’ve got a new thing they gave me at Rozhdestvenskiy; like a bridge over the parts of my spine that don’t work. Better than those old scary legs, right? But you’ve got a new face!’
‘Put me down put me down,’ Luna insists.
‘What’s the matter, anjinho?’ Ariel says.
Luna looks over her shoulder.
‘I don’t want Madrinha Elis to see,’ Luna whispers. ‘Bend down like you are going to kiss me.’
Luna flashes a look of conspiracy at Dakota, who is two steps behind her ward. Say anything and I will kill you, ghazi or not.
‘Get close,’ Luna whispers. A kiss, cheeks touch. Luna reaches into the secret pocket she had built into this new favourite dress. The pocket
is the reason it is her new favourite piece of clothing. Pink suit liners hide nothing. Folds of soft grey fabric can hide anything. She slips out the knife and presses it into Ariel’s hand. Ariel resists, Luna insists.
‘Take it. It is for a Corta who is bold, great-hearted, without avarice or cowardice, who will fight for the family and defend it bravely. If you are fighting for Lucasinho you will need a knife.’
‘Luna, it’s not me fighting,’ Ariel says. ‘It’s you.’
* * *
Another three days. That’s enough to make a ritual. After parkour Robson Corta goes to the banya, soaks off the grease and steams out the aches, then meets Haider in El Gato Encantado for horchata. There are fifteen hotshops in Theophilus but Robson was careful to take Haider to every one of them, sample their beverages (hot and cold), their food (savoury and sweet), their clientele (young and old) and general ambience. They kept scores, took pictures, built up a spreadsheet. This is an important decision. Since it looks likely that both of them will be at Theophilius for a long time, they cannot make a mistake.
El Gato Encantado, on the third level by the north outlock, doesn’t score so well for food or beverages, but ranks high for ambience – an old digging with cubbies and corners scooped from the north wall of the old crater and rough-sealed, concealed spaces where you can hide and take your time and watch without being watched, and number one for clientele. They are the only kids.
‘No more, right?’ Jianyu behind the hot bar says. Robson is sweet with that. The population of Theophilus is three thousand two hundred. Of that, one hundred and twelve are under sixteen, and thirteen are of Robson’s cohort. Every one of them hates him. He knew that the moment he walked into the Year Seven Rose Quartz Colloquium and every head turned to him. He loathed the enablers’ earnest pleas for welcome and acceptance and assimilation. Don’t waste your breath, he wanted to say. These inbred West Nectaris pissdrips are going to try to kill me as soon as you turn your back.
They ambushed him on Seventh. The big fucker, his sergeants, the kids who really want to be in and a couple of girls to record it for the network. New kid. Outlander. Alien. Kid who? Corta. We’re here to tell you, you’re nothing. They were big, they were strong but they weren’t fast and they weren’t smart. Robson ducked away from them and was two levels up by the time the big kid Emil had even recovered his balance. They hooted and jeered as he ran along the airduct, ten metres above their heads. When he got back to the apartment Joker’s notification buffer was stuffed with hate posts.
