Luna: New Moon Read Free Page A

inside his head. I can adjust the input.
    ‘Hey Jinji you’re back.’ No mistaking the picky, butlerish speech of his familiar. Familiars have problems with ambiguity. He’s aware of the chib in the bottom right corner of his vision. Cortas don’t need to notice those numbers but he’s glad to see it. The chib tells him he’s alive, aware, consuming. ‘Where am I?’
    You’re in the Sanafil Meridian medical facility, Jinji says. You’ve been moved from a hyperbaric chamber to a compression skin. You’ve been in a series of medically induced comas.
    ‘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 lapel: Dona Luna, the sigil of the moon-runners. The patron saint of the