Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald Page A

Avedon’s full-face photograph of Dovima. It’s her only decoration: bleached-out face, soft dark eyes and mouth, holes for nostrils.
    ‘You won’t tell Papai?’ Lucasinho says.
    ‘Lucas will find out,’ Ariel says. She takes a slice of the cake. Lemon, light as a breath. ‘If he hasn’t already. He will ask me.’
    ‘What will you say?’
    ‘My brother owes me.’ Lucas would have been awake all night, calling in debts, tapping up allies, marshalling his agents biological and informational down on Earth. All his resources he would bring to bear on An Xiuying, but most of all his deliberate, relentless intelligence, that would never rest or relinquish until Lucas Corta had what he wanted. Ariel is almost sorry for the poor man. Lucas will play the coercion sudden, sharp and impossible to escape. ‘So I can say what I like.’ This time. But she isn’t clean. A seat in the Pavilion of the White Hare and she has already betrayed privileged information; under the eyes of the Eagle of the Moon himself. Lucas has never approved of her seeking a life and career outside the family. Now, making this one, tiny betrayal for family, she has given her brother an edge. Not now. Not soon. But some day, when he needs it most. For the family. Always for the family. ‘This cake,’ Ariel takes another bite. ‘Where did you learn this?’
    ‘Where does anyone learn anything? The network.’ Lucasinho slides the cake towards Ariel for her inspection. ‘I’m good at cake.’
    ‘You are.’
    ‘It was kind of tricky. You don’t have much stuff in your kitchen. Actually, just water and gin.’
    ‘Did you order it in?’
    ‘Ingredients, yeah. Stuff I couldn’t print. Like eggs.’
    ‘Then you’re very tidy too.’
    He grins and his pleasure is plain and guileless.
    ‘Ariel; can I stay?’
    Ariel imagines him a fixture in her apartment. Something bright and funny and unpredictable amid the severe whites and pure surfaces, the bespoke gin and the pure water in her cooler, the vast face of a long-dead 1950s model, eyes closed, teeth catching lower lip. Something cute and kind.
    ‘He doesn’t owe me that much.’
    He shrugs.
    ‘Okay. I understand that.’
    ‘Where will you go?’
    ‘Friends. Girls. Boys. My colloquium.’
    ‘Wait.’ Ariel slips into her room and takes paper from her bag. ‘You’ll need this.’
    Lucasinho frowns at the bouquet of grey slips in his hands.
    ‘Is this?’
    ‘Money.’
    ‘Wow.’
    ‘Cash. Your father’s frozen your checking account.’
    ‘I’ve never … Wow. It smells funny. Kind of hot. And like pepper. What’s it made from?’
    ‘Paper.’
    ‘That’s …’
    ‘Rag fibre, if that means anything. And yes, it’s not LDC sanctioned, but it’ll get you where you need, and beyond there, where you want.’
    ‘How did you get it?’
    ‘Clients are often imaginative in settling accounts. Try not to blow it all at once.’
    ‘How do I use it?’
    ‘You can count can’t you?’
    ‘I made you a cake. I can count. And add. And take away.’
    ‘Of course you can. Hundreds, fifties, tens and fives. That’s how you use it.’
    ‘Thanks Ariel.’
    That great heart-melting smile. Ariel is seventeen again; out from under her mother’s wing, blinking in the light of a big world. The University of Farside had just opened its first colloquium in Meridian and Ariel Corta was first name in the study group. Farside was a geeky warren, João de Deus a dirty mining outpost, Boa Vista little more than a cave. Meridian was colour, glamour, ardour and the best legal minds on the moon. She took the BALTRAN. Nothing could take her away from Corta Hélio fast enough. She ran away, she stayed away. Lucas won’t let that happen to his son. Lucasinho’s future is laid out like a boardgame: a chair at the table in Boa Vista, a family job tailored to his talents and limitations. Where is there a place for cakes made with love? The same place as his father’s love for music. Suborned to the needs