Luna: New Moon

Did you hear what I said? Carlos didn’t die. He was killed. There was intent in it. There was purpose and ill will. Nothing was ever proved, but I know he was killed. He was murdered. And I know who did it.

I’m sorry. I get over-emotional. It’s been so long – half my life without him, but I see him so clearly. He comes and stands so close to me: I can see the texture of his skin – he had terrible skin; I can smell him – he had a very distinct, very personal smell; sweet like sugar. Sweet-smelling sugar-man. His children have it too: the sweet sweat. I can hear him, I can hear the little whistle he made when he breathed through his nose. His chipped tooth. I see it all in such detail and yet it doesn’t seem real. It’s as unreal to me as Rio. Did I ever live there? Did I waggle my toes in the ocean? We were together so short a time. I have lived three lives: before the moon; Carlos; after Carlos. Three lives so different they don’t feel like me.

I still find it hard to talk about. I haven’t forgiven. I don’t even understand the concept; why should I stop feeling what I honestly feel, why should I pardon the injustice? Why should I take all the hurt that’s been done to him and say, None of that matters Carlos? I have forgiven

. Pious nonsense. Forgiveness is for Christians, and I am no Christian.

He was out on a five-day inspection run across the new Mare Imbrium fields. His rover underwent an uncontrolled depressurisation in the Montes Caucasus. Uncontrolled depressurisation – you understand what that means? An explosion. It was forty years ago and our engineering was not as good as it is now, but even then, rovers were sturdy; rovers were tough. They did not undergo uncontrolled depressurisations. It was sabotaged. A small device, internal pressurisation would do the rest. I went out on a Vorontsov lifeboat. The rover was scattered over five kilometres. There wasn’t even enough to recycle for carbon. Do you hear my voice? Do you hear how I keep it flat and focused, how I choose my words like tools, precise and practical? This is still the only way I can talk about Carlos. I put a marker there; a pillar of laser-cut titanium. It will never rust, never discolour, never grow old and dusty. It will stand there for aeons. That’s right, I think. That’s long enough.

You killed Carlos Matheus de Madeiras Castro, Robert Mackenzie. I name you. You waited, you took your time and you worked out how to hurt me most. You destroyed the thing I loved dearest. You paid me back three times.

Three months later Lucas was born. I never loved him as I loved Rafa. I couldn’t. My Carlos was taken, Lucas was given back. It didn’t seem a fair trade. And that’s not right, that’s not just, but human hearts are seldom just. But it was Rafa who heard the name of his father’s killer whispered over his bed; he was the one grew up in that shadow, with hate in his heart. Cortas cut. We begin and end with our names.

Rafael, Lucas, Ariel, Carlinhos: little Carlos. Wagner. I couldn’t be kind to that boy. We get notions into our heads and then we look around and a lifetime has gone past and they become dogmas. And Ariel … Why didn’t I … No point. Once an engineer, always an engineer. It has taken me a lifetime to realise that lives are not problems to be solved. My children are the achievements that make me most proud. Money – what can we spend money on here? A faster printer, a bigger cave? Empire? It’s dust out there. Success? It has the shortest half-life of any known substance. But my children: do you think I’ve built strong enough to stand ten thousand years?

Yemanja laid a silver path out across the ocean and I walked up it until I came to the moon. What I like about the orixas – their particular wisdom: they don’t offer much. No holiness, no heaven, just one opportunity, once given. Miss it and it will never come again. Take it and you can walk all the way to the stars. I like that. My mamãe understood this.

My story is finished now. Everything else is just history. But do you know? I wasn’t average. I wasn’t Jane-outside. I was extraordinary

.

Sister, excuse me. Yemanja has an emergency call.

TEN

You pass the first line of security twenty kilometres out from João de Deus. You may be on the train, a bus or rover, perhaps you fall towards the Fecunditatis 27 catcher in a BALTRAN capsule, but your vehicle, your passenger manifest and you will have been interrogated by Corta security AI. The first trip-line is so subtle you won’t even know you’ve crossed it. Unless you trip it.

The second line of security is not a line but a level, a field that covers every prospekt and level, every crosswalk and elevator, every duct and pipe and shaft of João de Deus. Bots, crawling and climbing and flying, from massive tunnel diggers and sinterers to insect-sized inspection drones. Eyes and ears and senses only bots possess turned outward, alert and engaged.