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.
‘He’d have cut me to ribbons. Do you think I would have risked it if I didn’t know Muñoz would capitulate?’
Idris spreads his hands. Explain the trick.
‘The Alyaoums were clients of the Mackenzies until Betake Alyaoum insulted Duncan Mackenzie by not marrying Tansy Mackenzie,’ Ariel says. The entourage dotes on her words. ‘The Mackenzies withdrew their support. Without it: if Alyaoum had so much as scratched me, it would have been vendetta with the Cortas, without House Mackenzie behind them. They couldn’t risk that. All the way I was forcing a trial by combat, knowing they had to concede.’ She stops at the door of the Counsel Room to address the entourage. ‘Now if you’ll excuse I have a moon-run party for my nephew and I simply can’t go like this.’
Judge Nagai and a bottle of ten-botanical gin wait for Ariel in the Counsel Room.
‘Pull a trick like that in my court again, and I will order the zashitniks to gut you,’ the judge says. She’s perched on the edge of the washbasin. Counsel chambers are small and stuffy.
‘But that would be clear dereliction of due diligence,’ Ariel says. She dumps her armful of business suit into the deprinter. The hopper swallows it and reduces the fabric to organic feedstock. Beijaflor, Ariel’s familiar, has already picked out her party frock: a 1958 Balenciaga, shoulder straps, asymmetric cut, black floral print on deep grey. ‘The court failing to protect the interests of a contracted party?’
‘Why can’t you just mine helium like your brothers?’
‘They’re such dull boys.’ Ariel kisses her on each cheek. ‘Lucas has a negative sense of humour.’ Ariel studies the gin: a gift from her client. ‘Custom printed. What a nice touch.’ She tips the bottle towards Judge Nagai. A shake of the head. Ariel fixes herself a martini, blisteringly dry.
Rieko touches her left forefinger between her eyes: the accepted gesture to speak without familiars. Ariel blinks Beijaflor away: a half-seen hummingbird, a spray of iridescence constantly changing hue to match Ariel’s fashion. Rieko’s familiar, a blank sheet constantly folding itself into new origami models, blinks out.
‘I’ll not keep you,’ Judge Nagai says. ‘To be brief, you may be unaware that I am a member of the Pavilion of the White Hare.’
‘What’s it they say? Anyone who says they’re a member of the White Hare—’
‘—isn’t,’ Judge Nagai finishes the aphorism. ‘There’s an exception to every generality.’
Ariel Corta takes a debonair sip of her martini but every sense is alert and vibrant. The Pavilion of the White Hare, the council of advisers to the Eagle of the Moon, inhabits a place between myth and truth. It exists, it could not possibly exist. It hides in plain sight. Its members confirm and deny their membership. Ariel Corta does not need Beijaflor to tell her her heart rate has increased, her breath quickened. It takes all her concentration to keep her excitement from rippling across the surface of her martini.
‘I am a member of the White Hare,’ Judge Nagai says. ‘I have been for five years. Every year the White Hare drops two members. I am part of this year’s rotation. I would like to nominate you for a seat.’
Ariel’s belly tightens. A seat at the round table and here she stands in her underwear.
‘I’m honoured. But I do have to ask …’
‘Because you are an exceptionally gifted young woman. Because the White Hare is conscious of the increasing influence of certain elements among the Five Dragons on the LDC and desires to offset that influence.’
‘The Mackenzies.’ No other family is as nakedly ambitious for political power. Adrian Mackenzie, the youngest son of CEO Duncan, is oko to Jonathon Ayode, Eagle of the Moon, Chair of the Lunar Development Corporation. Robert Mackenzie, clan patriarch, has long campaigned for the abolition of the LDC and full lunar independence, free from the paternal oversight of Earth. The moon is ours. Ariel knows the political arguments and the players but has always remained disinterested. More than any other kind of law, lunar matrimonial law is a chaotic terrain of fierce loyalties, hissing resentments and unending grudges. It’s a volatile mix with LDC politics. But a seat at the hand of the Eagle … She may never have smelt moon dust on her skin, but Ariel is a Corta, and the spirit of the Cortas is power.
‘There are figures close to power who feel it’s time the Cortas gave up their isolation and became participating members of the lunar polity.’
Of all her family, Ariel has flown closest to political power. Rafa, bu-hwaejang of Corta Hélio, has economic power: Corta Hélio lights the night of Earth; Adriana, founder, matriarch of Corta Hélio, has moral power. But the Cortas are not universally adored among the older families. The Fifth Dragon; they are regarded as upstarts, crooks made good, grinning assassins, carioca cowboys. Cortas smile as they cut you. Carioca cowboys, helium hellions no more. This is their invitation to the table of power. This is the Cortas’ acceptance as a noble house. Mamãe will be scornful – who needs the approval of these degenerates, these soft parasites? – but she would be pleased for Ariel. Ariel has always known she was never the favourite, never the golden child, but if Adriana Corta is hard on her daughter, it is because she expects more of her than the sons.