Luna: New Moon

Lucas sits up on the edge of the bed. The room is so small his bare feet are in the living space.

‘At least let me get you a decent apartment in Queen.’

‘Okay.’

‘You agreed to that too quickly.’

‘I’m a musician. We never turn down free accommodation.’

‘I’d like to come and listen to you. Sometime.’

‘Sometime. Not yet. If that’s all right.’

‘I’ll do that.’

Jorge pulls Lucas down beside him and Lucas curls up around him, belly to back, balls to ass, innocent and for a few moments empty of past and future, history and responsibility.

‘Sing me something,’ Lucas whispers. ‘Aquas de Marco.’

Chef Marin Olmstead is ill. Chef Marin Olmstead is not ill. Chefs are the unhealthiest trade. Their hours are sick, their workplaces cramped, uncongenial, filled with vapours and fumes. They are serial abusers of their bodies. But they never take a day off from their kitchen. Chefs never get ill. When Marin Olmstead asks Ariel take his place reporting the deliberations of the Pavilion of the White Hare to the Eyrie of the Eagle of the Moon because he is ill, Ariel Corta knows a fatted lie. Jonathon Kayode wants words with her.

Security is discreet and begins the moment Beijaflor summons the moto to the Eyrie. Ariel and Marina have been throughly scanned and checked by the time the cab attaches to the ascender and climbs the south-west wall of Antares Hub. An elegant butler in a bolero suit and hat asks Ariel to follow her please, up through the terraced gardens.

The Eagle of the Moon takes tea in the Orange Pavilion. His Eyrie is a series of sinter-glass kiosks and belvederes set among tiered gardens, each themed around a colour. The Orange Pavilion is set at the edge of formal citrus trees; orange, kumquats, bergamot, all dwarfed to human scale by AKA geneticists. The view is stupendous; the Eyrie sits half up the central rotunda where Antares Quadra’s habitats meet, high enough for panorama, low enough to be aristocratic. The breath catches in Ariel’s chest. This is stepping out on to the edge of forever. Antares Quadra is eight hours behind Aquarius Quadra and the sunline wakes, casting golden light the length of the five Prospekts. Lights shine in the gloaming, dusty as stars. This is the Eagle’s preview and the Eagle’s alone.

‘Counsel Corta.’ Jonathon Kayode plucks a bergamot. He digs his fingernails into the green rind, releases a spray of aromatic oil. ‘Smell.’ Ariel bends to the fruit.

‘I can’t describe it.’

‘No, it’s impossible, isn’t it? Sensations and emotions, there is no way to express them except in terms of themselves.’ He throws the fruit away. Ariel doesn’t see where it falls. It could have gone over the edge. ‘Will you?’

The Eagle indicates a small domed pavilion at the very edge of the central rotunda, big enough for just a low table and two benches. Ariel settles her layered petticoats. A Dior circle-dress today, floating and cinch-waisted; its flagrant femininity intentional deception. The butler brings mint tea for the Eagle, a spanking dry martini for Ariel. It’s always cocktail hour in some Quadra. Ariel flicks out her vaper.

‘Do you mind?’

‘You’re my guest.’

The sky is already busy; cable cars swing across the canyon; bicycles and scooters skim across the flyovers; high above, in the poor town, Ariel can make out figures running the rope-bridges. Drones and fliers flash through the golden space.

‘My sincere apologies for not making it to your mother’s birthday. The world will miss her at the head of Corta Hélio.’

‘My mother kept her distance from the world, so I very much doubt there will be weeping on the Gupshup network.’

‘Unlike you,’ Jonathon Kayode says. For the first time Ariel feels his physical mass: Earth-born weight and muscle. He intimidates her a little.

‘So tell me what you want,’ Ariel says. ‘What you really want.’

Jonathon Kayode’s smile could dazzle worlds. He sets down his tea glass and claps his hands in delight.

‘So forward! I want a wedding.’

‘It’s a day out for everyone.’

‘I want a Corta-Mackenzie wedding.’

‘I annulled the nikah between Hoang Lam Hung Mackenzie and Robson Corta on grounds on parental neglect of his sexual rights and Luna is only five.’

‘I mean Lucasinho, with Denny Mackenzie.’

‘Another one of Bryce’s little orphans.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want me to tell you what Lucas will say?’

‘Lucas will say yes, after you’ve explained to him that if he declines, I will instruct the LDC to review the Mare Anguis licence for procedural irregularities.’

‘Corta Hélio has deep pockets.’

‘But not bottomless ones. How rich is your war chest when we impose an interim embargo on your helium-3 exports, until the investigation is concluded?’

‘How long will you stay in this lovely palace when Earth goes dark?’

Jonathon Kayode leans forward and takes Ariel’s hands in his. His skin is soft and very warm.