by Ian McDonald
Courses will intersect. Familiar-talk for blades and blood.
‘Jinji, if we shut down the sensors, external comms, beacons and tags, how much extra battery life will that give us?’
At our current speed, thirty-eight minutes.
‘How far will that take us?’
Jinji rezzes a map, the rover’s final resting place a flag twenty kilometres short of João de Deus.
‘And if we match their speed?’
The destination flag shifts ten kilometres closer to the southern edge of the equatorial solar strip. Too far to walk. The decision is made.
‘Take us as close as you can to João de Deus.’
Coelhinho speeds over the regolith and Lucasinho tries not to imagine blades at the back of his neck. He’s tired of being afraid, so very very tired.
The line of black across the edge of the world is so total, so abrupt that Lucasinho almost stops the rover. Part of the world is missing. The black grows by the second, the metre, swallowing the world.
‘It’s Glassland,’ Luna says. They have come to the border of the equatorial solar farm, the belt of black which the Suns are wrapping around the world. Perspective shifts with Lucasinho’s understanding: the black is much closer than he thought. Will it take his speed? Will he crack it, will it shatter under him and collapse? Fuck it. There are fifteen killer bots behind him.
‘Yay!’ he shouts, and Luna echoes him and they roar full speed on to the glass.
* * *
When Lucasinho looks over his shoulder he can no longer see Coelhinho. Not even the tip of its aerial. There has been no report of the pursuing bots for twenty minutes now. Lucasinho and Luna are alone on the glass, the lithe white sasuit, the lumbering red and gold shell-suit. Glass: smooth, featureless, perfect black in every direction. Black above, black beneath; the heavens reflected in the dark mirror. You could grow crazy looking down at your own patiently marching image. You could walk in circles forever. Jinji steers them by offline mapping. A ghostly shape inside the glass is João De Deus, down beyond the horizon, never seeming to grow closer. Horizon: it is impossible to tell where sky ends and earth begins.
Lucasinho imagines he feels the warmth of the energy stored in the glass through the soles of his boots. He imagines he feels the tic-tic of fine pointed bot feet through the reflecting glass. Paces pass into kilometres, moments into hours.
‘The first thing I’m going to do, when I get to João de Deus, is make a special cake, and we’ll eat it all just ourselves,’ Lucasinho says.
‘No no, the first thing you’re going to do is have a bath,’ Luna says. ‘I smelled you at Secchi.’
‘Right then, a bath.’ Lucasinho pictures himself sliding into bubbling warm water, chin-deep. Water. Warm. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to have guava juice from the Café Coelho,’ Luna says. ‘Madrinha Elis used to take me and it’s the best.’
‘Can I have one with you?’
‘Of course,’ Luna says. ‘Very cold.’ And a dozen alarms light up red inside Lucasinho’s helmet.
Luna has a suit breach, Jinji says in its ever-calm, ever reasonable voice.
‘Luca!’
‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ But he can see the water vapour jet in sparkling ice crystals from the shell-suit’s left knee joint. The corrugated jointing has failed under the constant rub of dust. The suit is open to vacuum.
‘Hold your breath!’ Lucasinho shouts. The tape. The tape. The extra roll of tape he insisted Luna print out and bring with them. The one they might need: did need. Where is it where is it where is it? He closes his eyes, visualises it in Luna’s hand. Where do her hands go? To the shell-suit’s left thigh pocket. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’
Luna’s air supply is at three per cent, Jinji says.
‘Shut the fuck up, Jinji!’ Lucasinho roars. He snaps the roll of tape from the pocket and tears free the end, wraps it around the leg joint. Dust flies from his fingers: treacherous, abrading lunar dust. He wraps until the tape runs out. ‘How much has she got, Jinji.’
I thought you wanted me to shut the fuck up, Jinji says.
‘Tell me, then shut the fuck up.’
Internal pressure is stabilised. However, Luna has insufficient oxygen to reach João de Deus.
‘Show me how to transfer air over,’ Lucasinho shouts. Graphics light up all over Luna’s suit. ‘Are you all right?’ Lucasinho asks as he locks the supply hose from his suitpack to Luna’s. ‘Talk to me.’
Silence.
‘Luna?’
‘Lucasinho, will you hold my hand?’ The voice is small and afraid but it’s a voice, rich on oxygen.
‘Sure.’ He slips his gloved hand into the shell-suit’s gauntlet. ‘Jinji, has she enough?’
Lucasinho, I have bad news. There is insufficient oxygen for you both to make it to João de Deus.
‘Good to go, Luna?’ A slight tremor in the shell-suit. ‘Did you nod your head again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s go then. It’s not far.’ Hand in hand they walk across the black glass, treading on stars.
Did you hear what I said, Lucasinho?
‘I heard what you said,’ Lucasinho says. The shell-suit’s stride is half a metre longer than his. He half-runs across the glasslands. His muscles ache; there is no strength left in his legs. He wants more than anything to lie down on the black glass and pull the stars over him. ‘We’re going because we have to go. What are my options?’
You don’t have any options, Lucasinho. I have solved the equations and you will run out of oxygen a minimum of ten minutes before the lock.
‘Dial me down.’
That is with me dialling you down.
‘Do it.’
I did it two minutes ago. You could reclaim some of Luna’s O2 …
‘Absolutely not.’ Already the words are like lead in his lungs. Every step burns. ‘Don’t tell Luna.’
I won’t.
‘She has to go on. She has to get to João de Deus. You have to do that for me.’
Her familiar is preparing a script for that.
‘You never know, though,’ says Lucasinho Corta. ‘Something will come up.’
I assure you it will not, Jinji says. I really cannot understand this optimism in the face of sure and certain facts. And I am bound to advise you not to literally waste what little breath you have by contradicting me.
‘Whose breath is it anyway?’ Lucasinho says.
You are going to die, Lucasinho Corta.
The certainty hits him, darts around his every obfuscation and denial and plunges its blade into his heart. This is where Lucasinho Alves Mão de Ferro Arena de Corta dies. In this too-small, patched-up, dusty sasuit. Mackenzies couldn’t kill him, bots couldn’t kill him. Lady Luna has saved him for her most intimate death: the kiss that draws the last breath from the lungs. That red and gold suit, the stars and glass full of their reflections, that blue crescent Earth, these too-small gloves –these are his last sensations, his last sights; the hiss of the respirator and the half-felt thud of his heart the last sounds.
And it’s not so bad, now it is close and inescapable. It always was. That’s the lesson of Our Lady of the Thousand Deaths. The only important thing now is how he meets it, walking towards it, with will and dignity. His lungs strain. He can’t catch enough air. Walk on. His legs are stone. He can’t put one in front of the other. His helmet read-outs are all red. His vision is narrowing. He can see Luna’s helmet, his hand in her hand. The circle tightens. He can’t breathe. He has to get out. There is no dignity at the end. He tears free from Luna’s hand, wrestles with his helmet, his suit, trying to get out of it. His brain is on fire. Red fades into white. An all-consuming whine fills his ears. He can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe. Can’t live. Lucasinho Corta falls into the white embrace of Lady Luna.
9: LEO – VIRGO 2105
The family carried Caio in an improvised litter – a kitchen chair gaffer-taped between two ba
mboos – up eight flights of stairs. Like the Pope. Like an invalid brought to a faith-cure. They helped him to the edge of the rooftop spa pool and set him on the rim, his feet in the water. Then they left the roof to Caio and to Alexia.
She had the tripod, she had the screen, she had the ice-cream. Caju. Not Alexia’s favourite flavour but you had to go with what you could get and this was about Caio anyway. She sat beside him, feet in the cool, fizzing spa pool and they fed each other spoonfuls of caju ice-cream. Alexia sucked the little bits of nut from between her teeth. Then the moon came up and threw silvers across the sea and she pulled it down out of the sky on to her screen.
‘The dark bits are called seas, and the bright bits are the highlands,’ she said, zooming in on the Sea of Tranquillity. In days she had become the tower’s expert on the moon. ‘That’s because people used to think they had water in them. What they really are are a different kind of rock, the kind you get from volcanoes, and that does flow a bit like water, so seas is probably a good thing to call them. That’s the Sea of Tranquillity. There’s the Sea of Fecundity and the Sea of Nectar and the Sea of Serenity and the Sea of Showers. There’s even an ocean, out in the west of the moon…’ She scanned the screen – the magnification was pretty impressive for a budget model. ‘The Ocean of Storms.’
‘But they don’t have storms on the moon,’ Caio said.
‘They don’t have any weather on the moon,’ Alexia said.
‘Can I see the big dick now?’
‘Certainly not.’ King Dong was legendary; a hundred-kilometre long cock and balls marked out in rover tyre tracks on the Mare Imbrium by bored surface workers. Time and industry had blurred it but it was still the defining image of human activity on the moon. ‘I want to show you the rabbit.’ Alexia zoomed-out the screen to frame the whole moon. She traced the ears of Mare Nectaris and Mare Fecunditatis, the head of Mare Tranquilitatis; drew in the outline of the great Moon Hare.
‘It’s not very good,’ Caio said.
‘Well, people are always seeing faces in things. In China they believe that the Jade Rabbit stole the formula for immortality and took it away to the moon, and he’s grinding out the herbs.’ Alexia sketches in the pestle of Mare Nubium. She twisted her fingers on the screen and turned the image upside down. ‘In the norte they see a face – the Man in the Moon? See it?’
Caio shook his head and frowned.
‘I see it now! It’s not very good either.’
‘And sometimes they saw an old woman with a bundle of sticks on her back but I’ve never been able to see that,’ Alexia said. ‘On the moon, they see a mitten. From a surface-activity suit.’
‘How can they see that if they’re on the moon?’
‘They’ve got maps.’
‘Oh yes. Of course they do.’
Alexia traced the mitt: Mare Fecunditatis the fingers, Mare Nectaris the thumb, Mare Tranquilitatis the palm.
‘That’s pretty boring,’ Caio said. Alexia had to agree that it was. ‘Even the rabbit is better than that.’ The tripod tracked the moon as it rose. The light on the rooftop garden was immense; the streets were dark again tonight, whole sectors browned out. We light the lights, that had been the boast of Corta Hélio.
‘Caio, I’ve been offered a job,’ Alexia said. ‘A fantastic job. Crazy money. Money to get us all out of here, enough money to make sure we’re never afraid again. The thing is, Caio, it’s up on the moon.’
‘On the moon?’
‘It’s not so crazy. Our Great-Aunt Adriana went. She went from this exact same apartment, all the way up there.’
‘Her family all got killed.’
‘Not all of them. People go to the moon, Caio. Milton went to the moon.’
‘Milton got killed.’
Alexia swung her feet in the cool water, kicked spray at Caio but he was not to be toyed with.
‘You’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?’
‘I’m going, Caio. But I promise, I promise, that I will get the best people to look after you. I will get you doctors and physiotherapists and your own tutors. I will look after you. When have I never kept a promise?’ She regretted the words the instant they left her tongue.
‘There’s not much I can do, is there?’
‘I wanted to show you what it was like, so you’ve an idea.’
‘Are we not enough, Lê?’
Her heart cracked.
‘Of course you are. You are everything; you and Mãe and Marisa. Tia Iara and Tia Malika and Tio Farina. But this place isn’t. I want more, Caio. We deserve more. We were a great family back in Great-Aunt Adriana’s time. There’s a way out of Barra, and I’ve got one chance at it. I have to take it.’
Caio’s cheek twitched. He looked at his feet in the now-still water. ‘I will come back,’ Alexia said. ‘Two years; that’s the time limit. Two years isn’t so long, is it?’
Caio kicked water, splashed the screen. Alexia had no right to tell him off.
‘Is there any more of that ice-cream?’
‘All gone. Sorry.’
‘Then can I see the big dick?’
* * *
Plastic carry cases and storage boxes blocked the corridor. Men in orange coveralls with three letter acronyms on their backs manoeuvred trolleys. Alexia, in Michael Kors and Carmen Steffens heels, squeezed between bulky pieces of white medical architecture and piles of cardboard boxes. The suite opened to her thumb. The interior was a grander confusion; coverall men packing and stacking, hotel staff standing by with helpless expressions.
‘What’s going on here?’ Alexia demanded.
‘Surprising, the amount of sheer physical material I have accumulated in three months,’ Lucas Corta said. He navigated his wheelchair through shuffling feet and shifting boxes. Alexia kissed him twice. ‘I rather enjoyed having things. It’s such a novel experience. On the moon we dump and reprint. No one really owns anything. The carbon you use for this sheaf of papers is carbon you can’t use for anything else. Locked up. Dead carbon. We are a planet of renters. I think I may have become a little avaricious in my amassing of the physical. Now it all has to go and I find I’m experiencing a sense of loss. I’ll miss this shit.’
‘No,’ Alexia says. ‘What is going on here?’
‘I’m packing, Alexia. I’m going back to the moon.’
‘Wait,’ Alexia says. ‘Shouldn’t your Personal Assistant have been informed about this? As some kind of priority?’
‘It’s on my orders,’ Dr Volikova says. Always Dr Volikova. Alexia knows better than to expect the doctor to update her on Lucas’s health. She’s known from their first meeting that the doctor does not like her, that she thinks Alexia is a grubby little opportunist. A malandra from Barra. Alexia has made sure that Dr Volikova knows the dislike is mutual. Give as you get: the iron rule of Barra. Alexia also knows that the doctor will not tell her the reason for this order unless she asks.
‘I’m to be informed of anything that impacts on Lucas’s work.’
The shifters and packers in orange freeze. A look from Lucas sends them on their business.
‘At least a dozen medical AIs in five continents are monitoring my health,’ Lucas said. ‘Four of them reached a consensus that I need to leave Earth within the next four weeks to have a better than fifty per cent chance of surviving the flight to orbit.’
‘Senhor Corta’s physiology has deteriorated in the past two weeks,’ Dr Volikova said.
‘Earth is a harsh mistress,’ Lucas said.
‘Can we speak in private?’ Alexia said to Lucas. He wheeled to his bedroom. Alexia closed the door. The familiar scanners and monitors, the breathing equipment, were folded away and pushed back. The waterbed stood alone, exposed, isolated.
‘Lucas, am I your personal assistant?’
‘You are.’
‘Then don’t treat me like your fucking niece. I’m not someone you’ve hired to stand around in a short skirt and high heels and make the place look pretty. You made me look stupid in front of
those removal men. And who hired them anyway? That’s my job. Let me do my fucking job, Lucas.’
‘I made a mistake. I’m sorry. It’s not easy for me to delegate authority.’
‘I understand that, but when you’re back on the moon, if I understand what you’re going to do, you won’t have many friends. I will stand with you but you must trust that if I say I will do something, I can do it.’
‘Very well. I need you to leave Earth with me.’
You’re trying to throw me, Alexia thought. You’re watching my eyes, my throat, my hands, my mouth, my nostrils for any tell that I’m shocked. You engineered this whole show to see how I would react. You want to see if I’m the right stuff. Watch my eyes. They do not look away.
‘I’m leaving for Manaus tonight for pre-flight training. It’s the minimum necessary. I can confer online with my backers but there is work which must be finished up here in Rio.’
‘What do I need to do?’
‘I need to sign off on the bot design. I won’t be able to do that. You need to see them physically, what they are capable of doing. Press them for delivery. VTO Manaus is standing by for shipping to orbit but they will need twenty-one days’ notice.’
‘I’ll do this, Lucas.’
‘I’ll need you in Manaus five days before launch. The medical and physical examinations are quite rigorous. Your ticket is booked.’
Fuck him. He got her. Alexia stifled a smile.
‘One more thing.’ Lucas reached into his Boglioli jacket. Alexia admired Lucas Corta’s suits. She had never seen him wear the same one twice. Always a flower in his buttonhole, always pink, always fresh. Always dewed, even on days when the heat on the Avenida Atlantica beat like a hammer on an anvil. A silver charm swung gently on from his grasp. ‘Please.’ Alexia crouched, bent forward as Lucas fastened the clasp around her neck. This was not a gift, this was not a jewel. This was a medieval knight receiving a grace. ‘This is a code,’ Lucas said. ‘It’s been in my family for generations. My mother gave it to me. I give it to you. If anything happens to me, if I’m unable to ask you for it, or consent to its operation in any way, use it.’
‘How … when…’