Five minutes to Central Fecunditatis Terminal, the rover says.
‘Ready the capsule,’ Lucas instructs. The curving screen shows him the terminal, a kilometre-tall girder work tower attended by a long row on tether-transfer pods. Loading and docking facilities, a solar farm, a siding from the close-by Equatorial One: Central Fecunditatis Terminal is a major cargo hub for Corta helium-3 canisters and pallets of refined Mackenzie rare earths. Today it will heft a different cargo.
‘Operate docking sequence,’ Lucas says. The nimble rover scuttles in to a ring of flashing blue lights: the outlock. And stops dead.
‘Rover, please dock with the terminal.’
The rover stands on the Sea of Fecundity five metres from the flashing lock.
‘Rover …’
‘It’s not going to work, you know.’ The voice breaks in on the com channels. A face appears on the screen: Amanda Sun.
‘Isn’t this a little excessive for post-divorce vindictiveness? Couldn’t you just have cut up a few jackets?’
Amanda Sun laughs deeply and truly.
‘I have to hand it to you, Lucas, you’re a professional. But, you know, jackets? Deprinter? No, what’s going to happen here has nothing to do with our divorce. But you know that. And I am going to kill you. This time, I will succeed. Unless you have a resourceful and plucky cocktail waitress tucked away in there somewhere? Didn’t think so.’
‘We always wondered how that fly got through security.’
Amanda Sun taps an earlobe.
‘Jewellery, darling. You half-brother would have got there eventually. He’s thorough. You Cortas are ridiculously easy to manipulate. All that Brazilian machismo. The Mackenzies hardly needed prodding at all. But it’s far too easy when you can predict your enemy’s next move. That’s why we knew you’d try and get off the moon. And so here I am, in your software. But we’re wasting time. I need to kill you. I have several options here. I could blow you up but you’re a little close to the moonloop terminal. I could depressurise the rover. That would be fairly quick. But I think I’ll just order the rover to drive and keep driving until your air runs out.’
Depressurise the rover. The human hide is an excellent pressure skin. The human body can operate for fifteen seconds in vacuum. Moonrun. He needs to keep her talking while he checks the cabin for what he needs to save his life. Vanity was always her vice.
‘I have a question.’
‘Yes, it is customary to grant a last request. What is it, darling?’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, that would be no fun at all. The villain gives away her entire master plan? I tell you what though, I’ll give you a hint. You’re a smart boy, Lucas. You should be able to work it out. It’ll give you something to do rather than watching the air gauge run down. From day one my family has been taking out options on surface terrain adjacent to Equatorial One. Two lunes ago we started to exercise them. There. That should provide you with some distraction.’
‘I’ll give it my undivided concentration,’ Lucas says and launches himself across the capsule. He slaps the emergency hatch release. The hatch blows. Lucas screams as needles are driven through his eardrums. Every sinus is filled with boiling lead. The scream is good. The scream saves his lungs from rupturing. The scream dies as the blast of air blows Lucas in his jacket and pleated pants and tie out on to the Sea of Fecundity. He hits the regolith in a cloud of dust and rolls. Eyes. Keep the eyes open. Close them and they freeze shut. Blind is disoriented. Disoriented is dead. He hauls himself to his feet. On the edge of his vision he sees the rover spin its wheels. It’s moving. She wants to run him down. One step, two steps. That’s all. One step, two. But everything is dying. He is tearing apart inside. Lucas lurches forward on his two-tone loafers and hits the outlock panel. The flashing lights lock solid blue. The lock slams open. Lucas hauls himself in. The lock seals. Lucas’s lungs and eyes and ears and brain are about to burst. Then he hears the roar of air flooding back into the lock. Over it he hears his own voice. He never stopped screaming. A bang, the lock shakes. Amanda has rammed the rover into the lock. The Vorontsovs build tough but assault by a possessed lunar rover is not in their design parameters. Lucas gasps down air and crawls to the inlock. The door opens, he falls through. The door closes. Central Fecunditatis Terminal rocks again. Lucas presses his cheek to the cold, solid, wonderful floor mesh. On the wall in his direct line of sight is an icon of Dona Luna. He reaches out to stroke a finger down Lady Moon’s bone face.
Still it is not over.
‘Corcovado, Dorolice, Desafinado.’ Lucas croaks the code.
Welcome Lucas Corta, the terminal says. Your capsule is ready for you. Moonloop rendezvous and orbital transfer in sixty seconds.
With the last of his strength Lucas staggers to the capsule.
Please be informed that maximum acceleration will momentarily peak at six lunar gravities, the capsule says as it lowers safety bars over his chest and clasps his waist in a padded hug. The locks seal. Terminal ascent. A different jolt shakes Lucas in his capsule and he almost weeps with relief: the capsule undocking and climbing the terminal tower to the tether platform. At ascent. Moonloop lift in twenty seconds.
He imagines the moonloop wheeling towards him along the equator, sending counterweights climbing up and down its length to dip lower into the moon’s gravity well to snatch this parcel of life. Then Lucas cries out as the grapple connects. The capsule with the screaming Lucas Corta huddled inside it is snatched up into the sky, and flung away from the moon, into the big dark.
Bodies lie strewn like surface scrap along the platform of Boa Vista tram station. An entire Mackenzie blade squad taken down. Dart throwers swivel and lock on Rafa with a speed and accuracy that makes the breath catch in his throat. The guns hesitate. If the Mackenzies have hacked security, Rafa will be dead before he can reach the gate. The dart throwers snap up and away. Pass friend.
Socrates tried to raise Robson and Luna but Boa Vista’s network is down.
Rafa steps out of the station expecting horrors. The long valley is deserted. Water cascades between the impassive faces of the orixas, gurgles through streams and pools and falls. Bamboo stirs, leaves flicker in the subtle breezes. The sunline stands at early afternoon.
‘Ola Boa Vista!’
His voice returns in a dozen echoes.
They might have made it out. They might be dead in their own blood among the columns and in the chambers.
‘Ola!’
Room after empty room. Boa Vista has never felt less his palace. His mother’s apartment, spacious rooms open to the gardens. The reception rooms, the board room. Staff quarters. The old apartment he shared with Lousika, the crawlspace where Luna used to hide and spy and thought no one knew. Deserted. He steps through the door to the service area and an arm grabs him, swings him, slams him into the wall and throws him to the ground. Madrinha Elis stands over him, a knife-tip a centimetre from his left eyeball. She snatches the blade away.
‘Sorry, Senhor Rafa.’