Luna: New Moon

VTO

Valery Vorontsov: founder of VTO, has spent the last fifty years in free fall aboard the cycler Sts. Peter and Paul

Nicolai ‘Nick’ Vorontsov: commander of the VTO moonship fleet

Grigori Vorontsov: (briefly) amor and shelterer of Lucasinho Corta

LUNAR DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

Jonathon Kayode: Eagle of the Moon: President of the Lunar Development Corporation

Judge Kuffuor: Senior Judge on the Court of Clavius and Ariel Corta’s law teacher

Nagai Rieko: Senior Judge of the Court of Clavius and member of the Pavilion of the White Hare

Vidhya Rao: economist and mathematician, White Hare and Lunarian Society member, independence campaigner. Developed the Three August Ones with Taiyang for the Whitacre Goddard corporation

SISTERHOOD OF THE LORDS OF NOW

Irmã Loa: Confessor to Adriana Corta

Madrinha Flavia: joined the Sisterhood after her exile from Boa Vista

Mãe-de-Santo Odunlade Abosede Adekola: Matron of the Sisters of the Lords of Now

MERIDIAN/QUEEN OF THE SOUTH

Jorge Nardes: bossanova musician and amor of Lucas Corta

Sohni Sharma: researcher at the University of Farside

Mariano Gabriel Demaria: director of the School of Seven Bells, an assassin’s college

An Xiuying: trade delegate from the China Power Investment Corporation

Elisa Stracchi: freelance nanoware designer for Smallest Birds

THE WOLVES

Amal: leader of the Meridian Blue Wolves pack

Sasha Volchonok Ermin: leader of the Magdalena pack from Queen of the South

Irina: light-time pack amor of Wagner Corta

ONE

In a white room on the edge of the Sinus Medii sit six naked teenagers. Three girls, three boys. Their skins are black, yellow, brown, white. They scratch at their skins constantly, intently. Depressurisation dries hide, breeds itches.

The room is tight, a barrel barely large enough to stand up in. The kids are wedged on benches facing each other, thighs pressed against their neighbours’, knees touching those opposite. There is nowhere to look and nothing to see except each other but they are shy of eye contact. Too close, too exposed. Each breathes through a transparent mask. Oxygen hisses where the seals are inexact. Just below the window on the outlock door is a pressure meter. It stands at fifteen kilopascals. It has taken an hour to bring the pressure this low.

But outside is vacuum.

Lucasinho leans forward and once again looks through the small window. The gate is easily visible; the line from him to it is straight and open. The sun is low, the shadows are long and profound, thrown towards him. Blacker on the black regolith, they could conceal many treacheries. Surface temperature is one hundred and twenty Celsius, his familiar had warned. It will be a fire-walk.

A fire-walk, an ice-walk.

Seven kilopascals. Lucasinho feels bloated, his skin taut and unclean. When the meter reads five the lock will open. Lucasinho wishes his familiar was with him. Jinji could have dialled down his racing heart, stilled the twitching muscle in his right thigh. His eyes catch those of the girl opposite him. She is an Asamoah; her older brother sits beside her. Her fingers twist the adinkra amulet around her neck. Her familiar will have warned her about that. Metal can flash weld to skin out there. She might wear the mark of Gye Nyame as scar tissue forever. She gives him a fractional smile. There are six naked, good-looking teenagers pressed thigh to thigh but the chamber is a sexual vacuum. Every thought is turned to what is beyond the lock. Two Asamoahs; a Sun girl; a Mackenzie girl; a scared Vorontsov boy, hyperventilating; and Lucasinho Alves Mão de Ferro Arena de Corta. Lucasinho has hooked up with all of them but the Mackenzie girl. Cortas and Mackenzies don’t hook up. And Abena Maanu Asamoah, because her perfection intimidates Lucasinho Corta. Her brother though; he gives the best blowjobs.

Twenty metres. Fifteen seconds. Jinji has burned those numbers into him. The distance to the second lock. The time a naked human body can survive hard vacuum. Fifteen seconds before unconsciousness. Thirty seconds before irreversible damage. Twenty metres. Ten strides.

Lucasinho smiles at handsome Abena Asamoah. Then lights flash red. Lucasinho is on his feet as the lock opens. The last breath of pressurisation shoots him out on to the Sinus Medii.

Stride one. His right foot touches the regolith and drives every thought from his head. Eyes burn. Lungs blaze. He is bursting.