by Ian McDonald
‘I got some more work to do.’
‘Go to bed, Analiese,’ Analiese says.
‘I’ll be up later.’
‘You won’t. Promise me, you will be here in the morning.’
‘I will.’
‘You didn’t promise.’
When Analiese has gone Wagner opens his arms and pulls his hands together in a slow clap, summoning the exploded elements of assassin-fly. He set them in slow orbit around him, looking for other clues to its builders but his concentration is broken. On the edge of his hearing, on the edge of every sense, he can hear his pack calling across the Sea of Tranquillity.
For the Pavilion of the White Hare, Ariel Corta wears a reprint 1955 Dior in chocolate with a Chantilly cap-sleeve blouse, deep plunging, ruched. A pillbox hat with a brown silk rose, gloves to mid forearm, complementing bag and shoes. Co-ordinating, not odiously matchy-matchy. Professional but not starchy.
A receptionist takes Ariel up to the conference suite. The hotel is tasteful, the service discreet, but it is far from the most expensive or opulent Meridian offers. In the elevator Ariel switches off Beijaflor as instructed. There is a level of political and social life where constant connectivity is a liability. Nagai Rieko greets Ariel in the lobby where the counsellors socialise in the lobby drinking tea, taking sweet-bean baozi from trays. Fourteen, including the outgoing members. So many exquisite dresses, so many bare shoulders. Ariel feels as if she has been admitted to a secret louche sex party: improper, a little scandalous.
Rieko makes the introductions. Jaiyue Sun, head of development at Taiyang; Stephany Mayor Robles the educationalist from Queen of the South. Professor Monique Dujardin from the Faculty of Astrophysics at the University of Farside. Daw Suu Hla, her family allies of the Asamoahs by blood and business, Ataa Afua Asamoah of the Kotoko trying to keep an over-lively pet meerkat under control. Fashionable chef Marin Olmstead: Ariel blinks at his presence: Everyone does that, he says. He’s been in the White Hare for four years. Pyotr Vorontsov from VTO. Marlena Lesnik from Sanafil Health, the major medical insurers. Sheikh Mohammed el-Tayyeb, Grand Mufti of the Queen of the South Central Mosque, scholar and legalist, famous for his fatwa excusing the necessity of the Haj on the lunar acclimated. Outgoing Niles Hanrahan, and V. P. Singh the poet, his replacement. Six women, five men, one neutro: all successful, professional, moneyed.
‘Vidhya Rao.’ A small, elderly neutro shakes Ariel’s hand vigorously. ‘A pleasure, Senhora Corta. Your family’s presence in the White Hare is long overdue.’
‘Pleasure is mine,’ Ariel says but she is already scanning the room, smart as the meerkat, seeking social advantage.
‘Long overdue,’ Vidhya Rao says again. ‘I was a doctor of mathematics at Farside but for the past ten years I’ve been on the board at Whitacre Goddard.’
Ariel’s attention snaps back to the neutro.
‘The Rao forward.’
Vidhya Rao claps er hands in pleasure.
‘Thank you. I’m honoured.’
‘I’m aware of the Rao forward, but I don’t really understand it. My brother speculates regularly in them.’
‘I would have thought Lucas Corta was far too canny to gamble on the forwards market.’
‘He is. It’s Rafa. Lucas insists he only use his own money.’ Rafa has explained Rao forwards several times – too many times. They are financial instruments, a variant of a futures contract that exploits the 1.26 second communications gap between Earth and moon: the time it takes any signal, travelling at the speed of light, to cross 384,000 kilometres. Time enough for price differentials to open between terrestrial and lunar markets: differentials traders can exploit. The Rao forward is a short-term contract to buy or sell on the LMX exchange at a set price. If the lunar price drops, you are in the money. If it rises, you are out. Like all futures trading, it is a guessing game; a good one, adjudicated by the iron law of the speed of light. That is where Ariel Corta’s understanding ends. The rest is voodoo. To the AIs that trade in milliseconds on the electronic markets, 1.26 seconds is an aeon. Billions of forwards, trillions of dollars, are traded back and forth between Earth and moon. Ariel has heard that the Vorontsovs are considering building an automated trading platform at the L1 point between moon and Earth, setting up a secondary forwards market; time delay .75 of a second. ‘Lucas believes that you should never invest in something you don’t understand.’
‘Lucas Corta is a wise man,’ says Vidhya Rao with a smile. The doors to the suite open. Inside are low tables, deep sofas upholstered in vat-grown leather, tasteful art works.
‘Shall we?’
‘Shouldn’t we wait for the Eagle?’ Ariel asks.
‘Oh, he’s not invited,’ Vidhya Rao says. ‘Marin is our liaison.’ E nods at the celebrity chef.
‘It’s all very informal,’ Judge Rieko says at the door. With Niles Hanrahan she remains outside as Ariel follows Vidhya Rao into the room. Then the hotel staff close the doors and the Pavilion of the White Hare is in session.
*
‘Hey.’
Kojo Asamoah lies facing the wall. Medical bots flit and dart around him. At the sound of Lucasinho’s voice he rolls over, sits up in surprise.
‘Hey!’ A wave of the hand banishes the medical machines. They flock in the corners of the room; digitally concerned. Access to the medical centre had not been so easy now that Lucasinho was Kid Off-grid. Grigori Vorontsov had swung it. He had always been the best coder in the colloquium.
‘What are you wearing?’
Lucasinho shows off in the suit-liner. The clothes Ariel printed are top-marque, of the mode, but he tried them on once and then consigned them to the backpack. He likes the look of the suit-liner now. It turns him into a lean rebel. People notice. Eyes catch him as he swings past. That’s good. He might even become a fashion.
He kisses Kojo on the mouth, like a boy.
‘How are you?’
‘Bored bored bored bored bored.’
‘But you are all right?’
Kojo leans back, arms behind head.
‘Still coughing up bits of lung but at least I can lie on my ass now.’ He lifts his left foot. It’s enclosed in what looks like a sasuit boot, with tubes running from it into the base of the bed. ‘They’re growing me a new toe. They printed a bone out, and the stem cells. It’ll be back in about a month.’
‘Brought you something.’
Lucasinho takes the seal-pack from his bag and opens it. The medical bots flutter in distress as their sensors register chocolate, sugar, THC. Kojo props himself up on his elbow and takes an offered brownie, sniffs at it.
‘What have you got in this?’
‘Fun.’
‘That’s what I heard you were having with Grigori Vorontsov.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Afua.’
‘This time she’s right.’
Kojo sits up in the bed. His face is puzzled.
‘What happened to Jinji?’
‘I’m not wearing him.’
Not wearing a familiar is like not wearing clothes. Or skin.
‘Afua said you’d run out on the family. Your father cut you off.’
‘She’s right about that too.’
‘Wow.’ Kojo studies Lucasinho closely, as if looking for sins, or parasites. ‘I mean, you can breathe all right?’
‘He’d never do that. Grandmother would never forgive him. She loves me. Water is okay too, but he has frozen my carbon and data accounts.’
‘What do you do for money?’
Lucasinho spreads a fan of cash.
‘I have a useful aunt.’
‘I’ve never seen this before. Can I smell it?’ Kojo riffles notes under his nose. He shudders. ‘Just think of all those hands that have touched it.’
Lucasinho sits on the bed. ‘Kojo, how long are you going to be in here?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Just, if you’re not using your place …’
‘You want my pl
ace?’
‘I saved your life.’ At once Lucasinho regrets playing his ace. It’s unbeatable, it’s low.
‘Is that the reason you came here? Just to hide out at my place?’
‘No, not at all …’ Lucasinho backtracks. No words will convince. He offers a brownie. ‘I made these for you. Really.’
‘I’m not supposed to have anything recreational until the toe grows back,’ Kojo says and takes a brownie. He bites. He melts. ‘Oh man these are great.’ He finishes the brownie. ‘You’re really good at this.’ Halfway down the second, Kojo Asamoah says, ‘You have the apartment for five days. I’ve reset the lock to your iris already.’
Lucasinho pulls himself up on to the bed and curls up like a pet ferret at Kojo’s feet. Now he takes a brownie. The medical bots hum and swarm and register their patient’s increasing level of stonedness. The two teenagers munch and giggle the sweet hours down.
The tall double doors open and the delegates rise from their sofas and drift away, conversation looping into conversation. The Pavilion of the White Hare is ended.
‘So, Senhora Corta, what did you make of your first taste of lunar politics?’ The banker Vidhya Rao slips in to Ariel’s side.
‘Surprisingly banal.’
‘Attention to the banal keeps us alive,’ Vidhya Rao says. The chef Marin Olmstead hurries to the elevator lobby, impatient to rez up his familiar and arrange his report to Jonathon Kayode. ‘Of course politics doesn’t have to be this banal.’ E touches Ariel’s arm, an invitation to linger, to conspire. ‘There are councils within councils.’
‘I’ve only just got my feet under the table at this one,’ Ariel says.
‘Your nomination was not universally welcomed,’ the banker says. E beckons Ariel to sit with er. The touch of vat-grown leather has always made Ariel’s flesh crawl. She can’t forget its provenance: human skin.
‘It would be impolitic to name names,’ Ariel suggests.
‘Of course. Some of us argued strenuously for your admission. I was one of them. I’ve followed your career with interest. You are an exceptional young woman, with a stellar career before you.’
‘I’m far too vain to blush,’ Ariel says. ‘I hope so too.’
‘Oh my dear, this is not wishful thinking,’ Vidhya Rao says. Er eyes are bright. ‘This has been modelled with a high degree of precision. The Rao forward is the least of my achievements. What every investment bank desires is the ability to see the future. To predict which prices will go long and which will short, that would give us a powerful advantage.’
‘You said “us”,’ Ariel says.
‘I did, didn’t I? For the past seven years I have been developing algorithms to model the markets. In effect, I have created shadow markets running on quantum computers, from which it is possible to make educated guesses as to the movements of the real markets. The accuracy is surprising, though we find it’s a less useful tool than we had imagined – acting on that information shows our hand, so to speak, and the market moves against us, abolishing any advantage Whitacre Goddard might enjoy.’
‘Voodoo economics,’ Ariel says. ‘Black magic.’ She snaps her vaper to full length and locks it rigid. She ignites, inhales, lets out a curl of vapour.
‘We found a more useful application for the technique,’ Vidhya Rao says. E leans forwards, demands Ariel meet er eyes. ‘Prophecy. That’s religious gobbledegook of course. I mean useful predictions based on highly-educated guesses derived from fine-scale computer modelling. Modelling the lunar economy and society. We have three independent systems, each running the model. Taiyang constructed three quantum mainframes, I developed the algorithms. We call them the Three August Ones: Fu Xi, Shennong and the Yellow Emperor. They seldom agree – one has to find patterns in their output, but they agree with a high degree of confidence on one person. You.’
Ariel’s outward demeanour is calm and elegant – her court face – but she feels a shock of cold electricity run from her heart to the root of her brain.
‘I’m not sure I like being the Chosen One to a cabal of quantum computers.’
‘It’s nothing so tendentious. We naturally modelled the Five Dragons. You are the major shapers of the economic and political society. You emerge as a significant figure in the Corta family. The significant figure.’
‘Rafa is bu-hwaejang.’
‘And Lucas is the power behind the throne. You do know he is planning to take over the company. Talented boys, but they are predictable.’
‘And you’ve predicted my unpredictability.’ Ariel looses another stream of vapour into the air. Effortless cool. Inside, she is electrically alert.
‘The Three August Ones were unanimous. The Three August Ones are never unanimous. I shall be frank, Ariel. We want to make a bid for your potential.’
‘You’re not talking about Whitacre Goddard.’
‘I’m talking about a movement, a ghost, a philosophy, a diversity.’
‘If you give me good versus evil, this conversation is over.’ But the small neutro has her attention. Curiosity conspires with vanity.
‘Your mother built the moon.’ Judge Reiko’s voice. Ariel had not seen her reenter the lobby. ‘But the political legacy of the LDC and the Five Dragons is essentially feudalism. Great Houses and the Monarchy, dispensing territories and favours, monopolising water, oxygen, carbon allowance. Vassals and serfs indentured to their sponsoring corporations. It’s like Shogun Japan or medieval France.’
Reiko sits beside Vidhya Rao. Ariel begins to feel targeted.
‘The Three August Ones agree that this model is unsustainable,’ Vidhya Rao says. ‘The Five Dragons have reached the pinnacle of their power – last quarter profits from derivatives trading exceeded those of the Five Dragons for the third quarter in a row. Financial entities like Whitacre Goddard are in the ascendant.’
Ariel holds Vidhya Rao’s eyes until the banker looks away. Corta disdain.
‘The woman in Hamburg plugging her car into the charge point on the street, the girl in Accra who recharges her familiar chip from the school touch-pad, the boy in Ho Chi Minh City playing his DJ set, the man in Los Angeles boarding the HST to San Francisco; what they plug into is Corta helium.’
‘Eloquently put Senhora Corta.’
‘It’s more eloquent in Portuguese.’
‘I’m sure. The fact remains, the future is financial. We are a resource-poor, energy-rich economy. It’s obvious that our economic future lies with weightless, digital goods.’
‘Weightless goods turn strangely heavy when they fall on you. Or have you learned nothing from the Five Crashes?’
‘The Three August Ones …’
‘We are an independence movement,’ Nagai Reiko cuts in.
‘Of course you are,’ says Ariel Corta with a feline smile and a slow draw on her gleaming vaper.
‘We have our own pavilion. The Lunarian Society.’
‘More talking.’
‘Words are better than blades.’
‘And you want me.’
‘The Lunarian Society draws from all Five Dragons and levels of society.’
‘It is much more democratic than the White Hare,’ Vidhya Rao interjects.
‘I’m a Corta. We don’t do democracy.’
Vidhya Rao can’t disguise er scowl of distaste. Nagai Reiko smiles.
‘You want to invite me to join your society,’ Ariel says.
Vidhya Rao sits back, honest surprise on er face.
‘My dear Senhora Corta, we don’t propose to invite you. We want to buy you.’
With a bed under his back and money in his pouch, Lucasinho hits the party circuit. It’s never hard for a Corta boy to find a party. He follows a chain of acquaintances of acquaintances to Xiaoting Sun’s apartment up on Thirty Aquarius Hub. His reputation has preceded him. You skipped out on your father? I mean, no network, no carbon, no bitsies? Where are you sleeping?
Kojo Asamoah’s. While he’s growing a new toe. I saved him. But they roll straight wit
h the next question: Whatever are you’re wearing?
Xiaoting Sun has hired Banyana Ramilepe, the new narco-DJ. She mixes and prints custom highs and moods and loves into juice for a battery of vapers. Lucasinho drifts through the party, gorgeous in tight pink, inhaling empathy, religious awe, pleasure that’s better than any sex, euphoria, golden melancholy. For twenty minutes he is in deep deep love with a short, wide-hipped serious Budiño girl. She is an angel, a goddess, love divine, every day he’ll just sit and stare at her, sit and stare. Then the chemicals break up into nothing and they are sitting and staring at each other and he drops new juice into his vaper. By the end of the night a boy and a girl are drawing hallucination-creatures on his suit-liner with marker pens.
No one comes back with him to Kojo’s.
At the party the next night in Orion Quadra there are two girls in suit-liners, fluorescent green and hi-visibility orange. He’s still trying to work out if one of them was at the Sun party when a bubbleblonde white girl appears in front of him and asks, Can I see the money?
He flicks out the notes and fans them like a street magician.
And this is bitsies?
Five ten twenty fifty one hundred.
A crowd has gathered, the notes pass from fingers to fingers, feeling the textures, the crumple.
And if I just took it?
And if I tore it in half?
And if I set fire to it?
It would be dead money, Lucasinho says. This stuff doesn’t have insurance.
A boy takes a five bitsie note and scribbles on it with a pencil. He’s one of those moços whose tongue sticks out a little when they concentrate. He’s not used to writing.
What about this?
He’s changed the Five to Five Million.
Doesn’t make any difference, Lucasinho says. The boy has left another message, written along the edge in a hand so bad Lucasinho can barely read it. A location in Antares Quadra, and a time.
Antares Quadra is eight hours behind Orion so Lucasinho has only enough time to stuff the suit-liner in the laundry, get his head down, shower and order in some carbs-for-cash before he finds himself at the top of West 97th, in sun-down dark, with riders on luminous bicycles blazing past him. It’s a long climb when elevators and escalators don’t take folding money. He’s at a downhill; an urban bike race down five kilometres of precipitous city architecture. Zigzagging down ramps and stairways. Stupendous leaps, soaring high over roof tops to land in narrow alleys, and on and on, swerving around hairpin corners, accelerating up ramps to leap and fly again. On and on, hurtling down the dark, steering by night-vision lenses and luminous arrows sprayed on walls and the lamps of Antares West, blowing whistles to warn pedestrians and night-strollers. A girl’s hand snatches Lucasinho into a doorway as whistles blare out of nowhere and two bikes streak past, leaving luminous after-imagines on his retinas.