Luna: New Moon

‘You look as comfortable as a nun at a masturbation party but you’ll pass. Here.’ Ariel holds out a pair of soft ballet pumps. ‘Society secret. Put them in your bag and any chance you get, slip these on. Just don’t let anyone see you. Let’s go to work.’

Marina does not imagine Ariel’s small smile.

‘Is that a real thing?’

‘What?’

‘A masturbation party.’

‘Coração, you’re in Aquarius Quadra now.’

I’ve been in court three days now and I still don’t get lunar law. I get the principle – everyone gets the principle: there is no criminal or civil law, only contract law. I’ve done dozens of contracts – hundreds: Hetty deals with most of them without me even knowing. There are billions of contracts flying through air and rock and people every second of every day. It’s a Fifth Elemental: contract. The Court of Clavius seems to be about avoiding law. The thing they hate most is making a new law, because that would tie things down and take away the freedom to negotiate. Lots of lawyers, not a lot of laws. Court cases are extended negotiations. Both parties haggle over which judges will preside and how much they’re going to pay for it. They’re more like movie producers than attorneys. The first sessions are all about compensating for bias – there’s no assumption that judges are impartial, so contracts or cases take that into account. Sometimes judges have to pay to get to judge. Everything is negotiated. I have a theory that this is why the moon is so open sexually: it’s not about labels like straight or gay or bi or poly or A. It’s about you and what you want to do. Sex is a contract between fucker and fuckee.

The Court of Clavius; sounds real grand, doesn’t it? All marble and Roman gear. I tell you, no. It’s a maze of tunnels and meeting rooms and court spaces in the oldest part of Meridian. The air is stale and smells of moon dust and mould. But what hits you first is the noise: hundreds of lawyers and judges and plaintiffs and parties, all shouting their wares, hustling for work. It’s like those old stock-exchange movies; men in ties jostling and shouting out bids and offers. It’s a law market. So: you’ve hired your lawyers, your judges, your courtroom. Next you decide how you want to be tried – it’s not just lawyers and judges on sale, it’s legal systems too. So: I finally found out what a zashitnik is. A zashitnik is a big man – usually a man, usually a Jo Moonbeam, because we’re physically stronger. It’s perfectly legal to settle your case in a duel, or, if you’d rather not fight yourself, hire someone to do it for you. That’s a zashitnik. Apparently Ariel caused a big legal storm by calling a trial by combat and stripping down to her fighting pants in front of the whole court. I find that hard to imagine. Then again, she’s a marriage and divorce lawyer, so maybe not so weird.

So, I’m in court with Ariel, which most of the time is her talking in a room with other lawyers and judges and me sitting outside playing games with Hetty. Or making posts for you guys. Or just trying to work out lunar law without my skull melting. You’d think the contracts would sew everything up tight, but even water-tight contracts go against the lunar principle that everything is negotiated, everything is personal. There must always be loopholes – every contract must have room to wriggle. Lunar law doesn’t believe in guilt or innocence, or absolute right or absolute wrong. I say, isn’t this blaming the victim? No, lunar law is about personal responsibility, Ariel says. I don’t know. Seems like anarchy to me, but things get done. Cases are settled. Justice is done and people abide by it. They seem much more content with it than we do with our legal systems. No one ever appeals on the moon; that would mean there was a failure in negotiation and that’s like a catastrophic culture shock here. So processes are long and there’s endless talk-talk, but they seem sure. There’s one point in common with terrestrial law: most of the work gets done over lunch.

Sorry. Nodded off there. It’s two am, I’m at a reception – I think it’s a reception, or maybe a launch – and Ariel is still talking. I don’t know how she does it, day after day. Nothing more tiring than talking. It’s relentless. I’m exhausted. I can’t even run any more.

I can hear you, Mom; you’re saying, is Marina maybe getting a little respect for Ariel Corta? Well, as a lawyer maybe. As a human being; well, let me say, it seems she’s never had a partner or even a quickie lover. None. Ever. I can so believe that.

‘It will cost you twenty million,’ Ariel says.

‘That’s a lot for a Sun,’ Lucas says. He has irritated his sister, hauling her out to Boa Vista but he will not suffer the indignity of the scrimmage of lawyers and judges and litigants howling through the corridors of the Court of Clavius. Corta affairs are conducted away from the commentariat, in intimate lounges over cocktails.

‘They started at fifty.’

Toquinho floats the contract for Lucas’s perusal. He scans a digest of main points.