Luna: New Moon

‘Our lives aren’t simple. We do things differently here.’ In those few words, Carlinhos says, we are still contractor and contractee.

‘I’m at about twelve per cent O2,’ Marina announces.

‘We’re here,’ Carlinhos says, brakes and swings the tail of the bike round in a doughnut of flying dust. Marina loops wide and slows to park up beside him. The dust settles gently around her.

‘Here.’ Dark, flat sea-bottom, as featureless as a wok.

‘North-east vertex of the Mare Anguis quadrangle,’ Carlinhos says. He unstraps the beacon from the back of the dustbike.

‘Carlinhos,’ Marina says. ‘Boss …’

The horizon is so close, the Vorontsov ship so fast it is as if it has materialised in the sky above her, like an angel. It’s big, it’s half the sky; it’s low and descending on flickers of rocket thrust from its engine pods.

Carlinhos swears in Portuguese. He is still snapping out the legs of the Corta beacon.

‘Those things have built-in positioning. If it touches the ground …’

‘I’ve an idea.’ A bad mad idea, a clause not even a lunar contract would cover. Marina guns the dustbike. The Vorontsov ship pivots on its central axis. Its thrusters throw up pillars of dust. Marina accelerates through the dust and brakes directly under the belly of the ship. She looks up. Warning lights splash across her helmet visor. They wouldn’t land on an employee of Corta Hélio. They wouldn’t mash her and burn her, not in front of a Corta. They wouldn’t. The ship hovers, then the thrusters glow and the transporter veers away from its landing zone.

‘No you fucking don’t!’ Marina kicks the dustbike again and dashes in underneath the descending ship. Rocket thrust buffets her, threatens to tumble her. Lower this time. Belly cameras swivel to lock on to her. What arguments are going on in the cockpit of that ship? This is the moon. They do things differently here. Everything is negotiable. Everything has a price: dust, lives. Corporate war with the Cortas. The transporter hangs in the air.

‘Carlinhos …’

The transporter darts sideways. It can’t drift too far from the co-ordinates of the vertex which neutralises its advantage in speed. Marina can always catch up. But it’s low; dear gods it’s low. Too low. With a cry Marina throws the bike into a skid. The rear wheel goes out, bike and rider hit the dust and slide slide slide. Marina grabs dust to try and brake her speed. Winded, she comes to a halt under the landing pad. Engine-blast wraps her in blinding dust. The landing pad is crushing death bearing down inexorably on her. They’ve made the calculation.

‘Marina! Out of there!’

With the last of her strength Marina rolls out from under the landing gear. The Vorontsov ship touches down. Pad and strut and shock absorbers are two metees from her face.

‘I’ve got it, Marina.’

She rolls on to her other side and there is Carlinhos crouched, hand extended to help her up. Behind him the transponder beacon blinks. Those blinks are life. Those blinks are victory.

‘We’ve got it.’

Marina struggles to her feet. Her ribs ache, her heart flutters, every muscle groans with exertion, she might throw up in her helmet, a dozen hud alerts are flashing from yellow to red and she can’t feel her fingers or toes from the cold. But those lights, those little blinking lights. She puts an arm around Carlinhos and lets him help her hobble away from the ship. The transporter is beautiful and alien, a thing out of place, a child’s toy, abandoned in the Sea of Serpents. Figures in the brightly lit cockpit; one of them raises a hand in salute. Carlinhos returns the gesture. Then the thrusters fire, blinding Marina and Carlinhos in dust and the transporter is gone. They are alone. Marina sags against Carlinhos.

‘How long until that rover gets here?’

Jorge settles the guitar into its customary, comfortable position against his body. Left foot a step forward, weight balanced.

‘What would you like me to play, Senhor Corta?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing. I’ve brought you here falsely, Jorge.’

Sleep had come hard after practice with the band, sequences and chord progressions running silver through his musical imagination; ways of working a difficult syncopation with the drummer. Gilberto his familiar whispered in his ear: Lucas Corta. Three thirty-four. Jesus and his Mother. I need you.

‘I don’t want you to sing.’

Jorge’s breath catches.

‘I want you to have a drink with me.’

‘I’m very tired, Senhor Corta.’

‘There’s isn’t anyone else, Jorge.’

‘Your oko; Lucasinho …’

‘There isn’t anyone else.’

On the balcony, a mojito mixed to Jorge’s taste. Lucas’s personal rum. Heading four o’clock now but São Sebastião Quadra bustles, robots and shift workers, maintenance and materiel technicians. The air is still, electric with suspended dust. Jorge tastes it on his tongue, in his throat. He would slip on his kuozhao to protect his singing voice but the dust-mask might affront Lucas.

‘I’m going to divorce my wife,’ Lucas says.

Jorge struggles for an appropriate reponse.