Luna: New Moon

Ariel purses the fingers of her right hand and dips her head to the judges. She turns to face the defendant’s zashitnik down in the pit. He is muscle and scars, the veteran of a score of trials that have gone to combat, already beckoning her to come on, come down, come into the fighting pit.

‘So let’s fight.’

The courtroom roars approval.

‘First blood,’ shouts Heraldo Muñoz, Alyaoum’s counsel.

‘Oh no,’ roars Ariel Corta. ‘Death, or nothing.’

Her team, her zashitnik are on their feet. Judge Nagai Rieko tries to make herself heard over the tempest of voices. ‘Counsel Corta, I must caution you …’ Through the tumult, Ariel Corta stands poised, powerful, the calm at the heart of the storm of voices. Counsels for the defence confer, heads dipped, eyes flashing towards her and then back to their fast, low talk.

‘If the court please.’ Muñoz is on his feet. ‘The defendant withdraws.’

Not a breath is taken in Courtroom Three.

‘Then we find for the plaintiff,’ says Judge Zhang. ‘Costs against the defendant.’

A third time the court erupts and this time is the loudest of all. Ariel drinks down the adulation. She makes sure the cameras get every angle. She slides her long, slender titanium vaper out of her bag, snaps it to length, locks and lights and exhales a thin stream of white mist. She slings her jacket over her shoulder, hooks her shoes on a finger and stalks out of the court in her fighting gear. The applause, the faces, the hovering cloud of familiars: she devours them. All trials are theatre.

An outside view costs; entertainment costs even more so Marina sits in her bottom deck, centre-section seat and makes faces at the kid peeking at her between the headrests. It’s only an hour by high-speed train from Meridian to João de Deus. Amusing a kid is entertainment enough. This is the first time Marina has been out of Meridian. She’s on the moon. She’s on the surface of the moon, racing across it on magnetic rails at a thousand kilometres per hour, and she’s blind inside a metal tube. Plains and crater rims and rilles and escarpments. Great mountains and vast craters. All out there, beyond this warm, jasmine-scented, pastel-coloured, chattery interior. All grey and dusty. All the same, all short of magnificence. She’s missing nothing.

Hetty has full network access so when the kid is told to quit bothering the lady in the row behind, Marina passes the time with music and pictures. Her sister has uploaded new family photographs. There’s her new niece, and her old nephew. There’s brother-in-law Arun. There’s her mother, in the chair, with the tubes in the backs of her hands. She’s smiling. Marina’s glad she can’t see the airless mountains, the harsh empty seas. Against the treasury of leaves, the soft dove skies, the sea so green and full she could almost smell its depth; the moon would look like a white skull. In this train Marina can pretend she’s home on Earth and she will step out among the trees and volcanoes of Cascadia.

Mom starts a new course Tuesday. Kessie would never openly beg for money but the ask is there. Mom’s medical bills sent Marina to the moon. The Big Boom on the Moon! Everyone has their hands out. Everyone, every second of every day. Marina bites back the anger. It’s not the lunar way. If everyone acted how they felt, the cities would be morgues by nightfall.

The train slows into João de Deus. Passengers collect belongings. Hetty’s instructions are to present to security on Platform 6, from which the private tram will take her to the site. Marina feels a kick of excitement; for the first time she’s thought about what lies at the end of that private line: Boa Vista, the legendary garden-palace of the Cortas.

Outside Courtroom Three the entourage descends. Ariel Corta is never without admirers, clingers, potential clients, potential suitors of all genders. Attractive is the first thing people say about Ariel. The Cortas have never been deep beauties but no Brazilian has ever been ugly and every child of Adriana commands the eye with some grace. Ariel’s attraction is her bearing; she carries herself with poise and assurance, a cool confidence. Attention flows to her. Her colleague Idris Irmak pushes through the kisses and congratulations.

‘You could have died in there.’

Insect-sized cameras swarm above Ariel’s head.

‘No I couldn’t.’

‘He would have cut you open.’

‘You think?’

Ariel’s hands move and grip Idris’s forearm. She locks his elbow. Her slightest pressure will pop the joint like a bottle cap. The entourage gasps. The cameras dart lower for a tighter angle. This is sensational. The gossip webs will be squealing for days. And release. Idris shakes out his agonised hand. All Corta children are taught Gracie jiu jitsu. Adriana Corta believes that every child should know a fighting art, play a musical instrument, speak three languages, read an annual report and dance a tango.