Luna: New Moon

‘But the expense. Who pays for this?’

Now Rafa touches a finger under his eye.

‘You do.’

Sohni’s eyes widen as she reads the charge to her water account on her chib.

‘But that’s …’

‘Nothing. Do you begrudge it?’

‘No. Never.’ She shivers.

‘You’re wet through,’ Rafa says. ‘I can print you something fresh at my club.’

Sohni smiles through the shivers.

‘That’s a pick-up line.’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Come on then.’

Socrates throws a big tip to the bartender and Sohni and Rafa dash back through the dripping city to the PHO Club. The spying fly remains, buzzing in its glass bell-jar.

Lucas returns to the listening room and sits on the acoustic centre of the sofa.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Everything is in order. Please start Expresso again.’

‘It’s just that you don’t take interruptions.’ This is Jorge’s third listening room session but the pattern is established. He plays for an hour unbroken, Lucas listens for an hour undivided. But in the third bar of Expresso, Lucas had risen abruptly from the sofa and hurried from the room. Jorge could not hear Lucas’s business but he was gone several minutes.

‘Expresso, please.’

But the disturbance has thrown Jorge and it takes him a few moments to work out the tension in his fingers and body and throat. Fingers find the chords, voice the syncopation. There are no further interruptions but the flow of energy from performer to audience and back to performer is disturbed. Jorge finishes Izaura with a muted cadence and packs away the guitar.

‘Same time next week, Senhor Corta?’

‘Yes.’ A hand on Jorge’s shoulder as he turns to go. ‘Stay for a drink.’

‘Thank you, Senhor Corta.’

Lucas guides Jorge, guitar in hand, to the lounge and brings him a mojito.

‘I have got the proportions right?’

‘It’s perfect, Senhor Corta.’

‘Taste it first.’

He does. It is.

Lucas takes his own drink to the window. João de Deus whirls past, movement and light, level upon level. Blue neon, green biolights, gold street lamps.

‘I apologise for taking that call. I could see it threw you.’

‘Being professional is not letting it throw you.’

‘It threw me. I must still be an amateur audience. Do you have brothers, Jorge?’

‘Two sisters, Senhor Corta.’

‘I would say you’re lucky, but in my experience, sisters can be as difficult as brothers. Differently difficult. The thing about brothers is, the rules are set in place at birth. Firstborn is always firstborn. Always golden. Are you firstborn, Jorge?’

‘I’m in the middle.’

‘That would be me and Ariel. Carlinhos is the darling. The youngest always is.’

‘I thought there were five Cortas.’

‘Four Cortas and a pretender,’ Lucas says. ‘I see you’ve finished.’ Jorge gulped his mojito. Nervy drinking. ‘Have another one. Try to enjoy it this time. The rum really is good.’ He brings the second drink and with it lures Jorge to the window. ‘My mother was a pioneer, an entrepreneur, a dynasty builder but in many ways quite traditional. Those things are not incompatible. The firstborn will run the company. The rest serve as their talents allow. I do. Carlinhos does. Even Wagner serves. Ariel. I envy Ariel. She chose her own career outside the company. Counsel Ariel Corta. Queen of the nikahs. The toast of Meridian.’ Lucas raises his glass to the teeming, dusty street. ‘She is a White Hare.’

‘Anyone who says they’re a White Hare—’

‘Almost certainly isn’t. I know. If Ariel says she is a White Hare, she is. What do you think of my rum, Jorge?’

‘It is good.’

‘My own personal brand. When you were a boy, did you have pets?’

‘Only machine ones.’

‘Us too. My mother wouldn’t have anything organic about the place. All that shitting and dying. The Asamoahs gave us a flock of decorative butterflies for Lucasinho’s moon-run. My mother complained about the mess for days. Wings everywhere. Machines are cleaner. But they still terminate. They die. They make them die, you know? To teach kids a lesson. And then someone has to put them into the deprinter. That was my job, Jorge.’ Lucas takes a sip. Jorge is nearing the bottom of his second mojito. Lucas has barely tasted his first. ‘The Golden Boy has made a dreadful mistake. He has managed to alienate the Vorontsovs. He let his feelings get the better out of him and has jeopardised not just our expansion plan but our shipping deal with VTO. We rely on VTO to ship helium containers to Earth. And it’s up to me to repair the damage. Think of a solution. Upcycle the dead. Clean up the mess.’

‘Should I be hearing this, Senhor Corta?’

‘You’re hearing what I want you to hear. Jorge, I fear for my family. My brother is an idiot. My mother … She’s not what she was. She’s keeping something from me. Helen de Braga and that fool Heitor Pereira will never tell me, no matter what levers I apply. The company will fall unless someone deals with the shit and the death. Do you have any children, Jorge?’

‘I’m not on that spectrum.’