Luna: New Moon

The third circle is the security personnel, women and men in sharp suits with sharper blades and other, longer-range weapons that can take down an assassin, biological or machine, before it closes to killing distance. Poisons, air-drones, tasers, targeted insects. Heitor Pereira has spent freely and widely. His arsenal is the finest on the moon.

At the centre of these rings of security lies Ariel Corta in an induced coma in the intensive care unit of the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Medical Facility.

The Cortas have come from the four quarters of the moon. The doctors are firm in their refusal to allow the family access to the ICU. There’s nothing to see. A handsome woman in a life-support cot, tubed and wired, bot sensors and scanners weaving over her body like mudras from a Hindu dance. Beijaflor hovers above her head. Adriana has moved her court to João de Deus. Corta Hélio has requisitioned a suite of rooms on the level above the ICU. Occupants have been well-compensated; where necessary, they have been booked in other medical facilities, transported at Corta expense with the best available care, upgraded. Boa Vista staff print out furniture and fabrics and broadcast catering tenders. Press and gossip sites camp outside the med centre. Heitor Pereira has caught thirty spy drones already.

Their familiars have told them the details of the attack and the damage but the Cortas find comfort and reassurance in repeating, rehearsing, renewing them to each other. An assassin’s litany.

‘A bone knife,’ Adriana Corta says.

‘He carried it straight past the scanners at the party,’ Rafa says. He’s arrived directly from Twé; three jumps by BALTRAN. He’s unruffled; groomed, clothes, shoes, hair immaculate despite the indignities of ballistic transport. ‘They never saw it.’

‘The pattern is widely available on the network,’ Carlinhos says. He’s come twelves hours by rover from the small war on the Sea of Crises, itchy in an unfamiliar shirt and suit. He tries to loosen the confining collar. ‘Half my crew carried them. They were fashionable a couple of years back. You’d use your own DNA as the template.’

‘A litigant with a grudge,’ Adriana says.

‘Not so short a commodity,’ Lucas says.

‘Ridiculous,’ Adriana hisses. ‘If you’re on the sharp end of the bad divorce, you don’t take it out on the lawyer, you take it out on the ex.’

‘The story is credible,’ Lucas says. ‘Barosso vs Rohani. The Court of Clavius has the case file. He backed out of negotiations and went for a court settlement. Ariel took him to pieces.’

‘Yet he was a guest at this party,’ Adriana says. Ridiculous. Ridiculous.’

No one has yet named the obvious, nor will they until Ariel is out of danger. The rest of the moon can work up rumours and frenzies and network indignation. It feeds the Corta well, but not so well as their dignity in distress.

‘And where is Wagner?’ Adriana asks.

‘Queen,’ Carlinhos says. ‘He’s found something.’

‘If he wants to be one of us, he needs to be here.’

‘I’ll try him again, Mamãe.’

But Lucas’s eyebrow is raised and he flicks a look at his brother that says we’ll talk about this.

Dr Macaraeg is here, everyone’s familiar announces.

Ariel’s physician hesitates in the open door, intimidated by the phalanx of Cortas facing her. She sits at one end of the conference table. The family congregate around the other end.

‘It’s not good,’ Dr Macaraeg says. ‘We’ve stabilised her though she’s lost a lot of blood. A lot of blood. There has been nerve damage. The knife has severed part of the spinal cord. There has been a loss of function.’

‘Loss of function?’ Rafa blusters. ‘What’s that? You’re not talking about a bot here. My mother needs to know what’s happened to Ariel.’

Dr Macaraeg rubs her eyes. She’s exhausted and needs nothing less than Rafael Corta’s futile temper.

‘The knife caused a category B lesion in the region of the L5 section of the spinal cord. With a category B lesion motor function is lost. Sensory function remains. The L5 region is associated with motor control in the feet, legs and pelvic region. That’s been lost. There’s also a loss of bowel and bladder control.’

‘What do you mean, bowel and bladder control?’ Rafa says.

‘Incontinence. We’ve fitted a colostomy system.’

‘She can’t walk,’ Carlinhos says.

‘It’s a paraplegia. Your sister is effectively paralysed from the hips down. We’re also concerned about potential brain damage from the heavy blood loss.’

Carlinhos murmurs an umbanda invocation.

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Adriana Corta says.

‘What can you do?’ Rafa asks.

‘We’ll begin stem cell therapy as soon as Ariel is stabilised. It has a good success rate.’

‘I don’t understand: good success rate? Kojo Asamoah had a new toe in two months,’ Lucas says.

‘There’s a big difference between growing a new toe and repairing spinal nerves. It’s a delicate process.’

‘How long?’ Adriana asks.

‘It can take up to a year.’

‘A year!’ Rafa says.