‘How long?’ He tries to sit upright. Pain tears along every bone and joint. ‘My party!’
It’s been rescheduled. You’re due another induced coma now. Your father is coming to see you.
White articulated medical arms unfold from the walls.
‘Wait, no. I saw Flavia.’
Yes. She came to visit you.
‘Don’t tell him.’
He has never understood why his father banished his madrinha, his host-mother, from Boa Vista the morning of Lucasinho’s sixteenth birthday. He just knows that if Lucas Corta learns that Madrinha Flavia has been here, his father will hurt her with a hundred spitefulnesses.
I won’t, says Jinji.
A third time Lucasinho wakes. His father stands at the foot of the bed. A short man, slight; dark and haunted as his older brother is broad and golden. Poised and polished, a pencil line of moustache and beard, no more; perfect but always scrutinising to keep that perfection: his clothes, his hair, his nails are immaculate. A cool, judging man. Above his left shoulder hovers Toquinho. His familiar is an intricate knot of musical notes and complex chords that occasionally resolves into half-heard, whispered bossa-nova guitar.
Lucas Corta applauds. Five clear claps.
‘Congratulations. You’re a Runner now.’ It’s known inside the family and out that Lucas Corta never made the moon-run. The reason is his secret: Lucasinho has heard that people who pry are punished, badly. ‘Emergency room team; ophthalmics, pneumo-thoracic specialists; hire of hyperbaric chamber, hire of pressure skin, O2 charges …’ his father says. Lucasinho swings off the bed. The medical bots have removed the pressure skin. The white walls open around him; robot arms unfold with offers of fresh-printed clothing. ‘Transfer from Meridian to João de Deus …’
‘I’m at João de Deus?’
‘You’ve a party to go to. A homecoming for a hero. Make an effort. And try to keep your cock out of someone for five minutes. Everyone’s here. Even Ariel’s managed to tear herself away from the Court of Clavius.’
Before anything else: the essentials. Metal studs and spikes slip into the careful holes in his flesh – each one the record of a heartbreak. Jinji shows Lucasinho himself so he can comb up the quiff to its full low-gravity magnificence; a deep-sea wave of glossy thick hair. Killer cheekbones and you could breaks rocks on his belly. He’s taller than his father. Everyone in this generation is taller than the second-generations. He is so freakin’ hot.
‘He’ll live,’ Lucas says.
‘Who?’ Lucasinho hesitates between shirts before choosing the soft brown marl pattern.
‘Kojo Asamoah. He has twenty per cent second-degree burns, ruptured alveoli, burst blood vessels, brain lesions. And the toe. He’ll be all right. There’s a delegation of Asamoahs waiting at Boa Vista to thank you.’
Abena Asamoah might be there. Maybe she would be so thankful she would let him fuck her. Tan pants with two-centimetre turn ups and six pleats. He snaps the belt shut. Spider-silk socks and the two-tone loafers. It’s a party so a sports jacket will be right. He picks the tweed, feels the prickle of the fibres between thumb and fingers. That’s animal-stuff, not printed. Insanely-expensive animal stuff.
‘You could have died.’
As Lucasinho slips the jacket on, he notices the pin on the lapeclass="underline" Dona Luna, the sigil of the moon-runners. The patron saint of the moon: Our Lady of Life and Death, Light and Dark, one half of her face a black angel, the other a naked white skull. Lady Two-Face. Lady Moon.
‘What would the family have done then?’
How did his father know he’d pick the jacket with the pin on it? Then the arms take the rest of the clothing into the walls and he notices that every jacket has a Dona Luna pin on it.
‘I’d have left him, if it had been me.’
‘It wasn’t you,’ Lucasinho says. Jinji shows Lucasinho the total effect of his choices. Smart but not formal, casual but classy and on the season’s trend, which is European 1950s. Lucasinho Corta adores clothes and adornment. ‘I’m ready for my party now.’
‘I’ll fight you.’
Ariel Corta’s words carry clear across the court. And the room erupts. The defendant bellows: you can’t do that. The defence counsel thunders abuse of process. Ariel’s legal team – they are seconds now that the trial by combat has been agreed – plead, cajole, shout that this is insane, Alyaoum’s zashitnik will cut her apart. The public gallery is in uproar. Court journalists clog the bandwidth as they stream live feed.
A routine post-divorce custody settlement has turned into the highest drama. Ariel Corta is Meridian’s – and therefore the moon’s – leading marriage lawyer, both making and breaking. Her nikah contracts touch every one of the Five Dragons, the moon’s great dynasties. She arranges marriages, negotiates terminations, finds loopholes in titanium-bound nikahs, bargains buy-outs and settles swingeing alimonies. The court, the public gallery, the press and social commentators and court fans, have the highest expectations for Alyaoum vs Filmus.
Ariel Corta does not disappoint. She peels off the gloves. Kicks off the shoes. Slips off the Dior dress. In sheer capri tights and a sports top, Ariel Corta stands before the Court of Clavius. Ariel claps Ishola her zashitnik on the back. He is a broad, bullet-headed Yoruba, a kindly man and a brutal fighter. Joe Moonbeams – new immigrants – with their Earth muscle mass, make the best courtroom fighters.
‘I’ll take this one, Ishola.’
‘No senhora.’
‘He won’t lay a finger on me.’
Ariel approaches the three judges.
‘There is no objection to my challenge?’
Judge Kuffuor and Ariel Corta have old history; teacher and pupil. On her first day in law school he taught her that Lunar law stands on three legs. The first leg is that there is no criminal law, only contract law: everything is negotiable. The second is that more law is bad law. The third leg is that a fly move, a smart turn, a dashing risk is as powerful as reasoned argument and cross-examination.
‘Counsel Corta, you know as well as us that this is the Court of Clavius. Everything may be tested, including the Court of Clavius,’ Judge Kuffuor says.
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.