this.
‘She doesn’t trust me.’
Lucas cannot understand his brother’s emotional incontinence. This is what marriage contracts are for. Trust and love are no architecture for a dynasty.
‘While Luna is here, she will come back to you,’ Lucas says. ‘She understands. I’m keeping Lucasinho here until the security situation improves. He’ll hate it. It’ll be good for him. Give him something to work against. He has it all too easy.’ Lucas claps Rafa on the back. Make light of it. Get over it. Let go of me.
‘I’m going to get Robson back.’
Lucas suppresses the sigh of exasperation. This, again. When Rafa is frustrated, in business or sport or society or sex, he falls back on the enduring injustice of his son and first born. It has been three years since Rachel Mackenzie took Robson back to her family. Contracts were broken, flagrantly and deliberately. Lawyers are still arguing what is effectively an act of hostage-taking. Ariel has negotiated a steel-bound access agreement but every time the tram takes Robson back to Queen of the South or Crucible, Rafa’s scabs tear and bleed. In such moods, not even Lucas can talk his brother down.
‘You do what you have to.’ Lucas respects his mother in all things, except in her blind adoration of Rafa. Golden Rafa, the heir apparent. He’s too emotional, too open, too soft to run the company. Hearts can’t decide the fate of dynasties that keep Earth’s lights burning. Lucas hugs Rafa again. His mission is clear. He will have to take control of Corta Hélio.
Two jumps from Queen of the South to João de Deus. Rafa and his escoltas wait in the private arrivals area of the BALTRAN station. Until now Rafa’s guards have been electronic. Today they are close and biological: two men, one woman, armed and alert.
The capsule is in the elevator tube, Socrates informs him.
Green lights. Doors open. A boy charges out; brown-skinned, mane of dreadlocks; all legs and arms. He crashes into Rafa. Rafa scoops him up, swirls the boy around, laughing.
‘Oh you you you you!’
Behind the boy comes the woman: tall, red-haired, white-skinned. Green-eyed like her boy. With infinite poise she stalks up to Rafa and slaps him hard across the face. Bodyguards’ hands flash to the hilts of knives concealed in well-cut suits.
‘We have trains, you know.’
Rafa cracks into great golden laughter.
‘You look stunning,’ Rafa says to his wife. And she does look fantastic, for a woman who has been bucketed across the moon in a converted cargo can like a load of ore. Make-up immaculate; every hair, every pleat and fold: immaculate. And she is right. The BALTRAN is outmoded since the high-speed rail network has been linked up: it’s crude, but it is quick. The BALTRAN is a ballistic transport system. On an airless moon, ballistic trajectories can be calculated with precision. A magnetic mass-driver accelerates a capsule. Throws it up. Gravity brings it down. A receiving end of the target mass-driver catches the capsule and decelerates it to rest. In between, twenty minutes of free fall. Repeat as necessary. The capsules can contain cargo, or people. It’s tough but endurable; fast and only hair-raising if you think about it too much. Rafa used to enjoy it for the freefall sex.
‘I want him to catch the game. He’d miss it if he came by train.’ Then to the boy: ‘You want to see the game? Moços versus Tigers. Jaden Sun thinks he’s got us beat but I say we kick Tiger ass all over the stadium. What do you say?’
Robson Corta is eleven years old and the sight of him, the presence of him, his magnificent hair, his face, his great green eyes, the way his lips part in excitement, fill Rafa’s heart with a joy so great it is pain, and at the same time a loss so deep it is a nausea. He crouches to kid level. ‘Game day. What do you think, eh?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Raf.’ Rachel Mackenzie knows, Rafa knows; their respective sets of bodyguards, even Robson knows that
‘She doesn’t trust me.’
Lucas cannot understand his brother’s emotional incontinence. This is what marriage contracts are for. Trust and love are no architecture for a dynasty.
‘While Luna is here, she will come back to you,’ Lucas says. ‘She understands. I’m keeping Lucasinho here until the security situation improves. He’ll hate it. It’ll be good for him. Give him something to work against. He has it all too easy.’ Lucas claps Rafa on the back. Make light of it. Get over it. Let go of me.
‘I’m going to get Robson back.’
Lucas suppresses the sigh of exasperation. This, again. When Rafa is frustrated, in business or sport or society or sex, he falls back on the enduring injustice of his son and first born. It has been three years since Rachel Mackenzie took Robson back to her family. Contracts were broken, flagrantly and deliberately. Lawyers are still arguing what is effectively an act of hostage-taking. Ariel has negotiated a steel-bound access agreement but every time the tram takes Robson back to Queen of the South or Crucible, Rafa’s scabs tear and bleed. In such moods, not even Lucas can talk his brother down.
‘You do what you have to.’ Lucas respects his mother in all things, except in her blind adoration of Rafa. Golden Rafa, the heir apparent. He’s too emotional, too open, too soft to run the company. Hearts can’t decide the fate of dynasties that keep Earth’s lights burning. Lucas hugs Rafa again. His mission is clear. He will have to take control of Corta Hélio.
Two jumps from Queen of the South to João de Deus. Rafa and his escoltas wait in the private arrivals area of the BALTRAN station. Until now Rafa’s guards have been electronic. Today they are close and biological: two men, one woman, armed and alert.
The capsule is in the elevator tube, Socrates informs him.
Green lights. Doors open. A boy charges out; brown-skinned, mane of dreadlocks; all legs and arms. He crashes into Rafa. Rafa scoops him up, swirls the boy around, laughing.
‘Oh you you you you!’
Behind the boy comes the woman: tall, red-haired, white-skinned. Green-eyed like her boy. With infinite poise she stalks up to Rafa and slaps him hard across the face. Bodyguards’ hands flash to the hilts of knives concealed in well-cut suits.
‘We have trains, you know.’
Rafa cracks into great golden laughter.
‘You look stunning,’ Rafa says to his wife. And she does look fantastic, for a woman who has been bucketed across the moon in a converted cargo can like a load of ore. Make-up immaculate; every hair, every pleat and fold: immaculate. And she is right. The BALTRAN is outmoded since the high-speed rail network has been linked up: it’s crude, but it is quick. The BALTRAN is a ballistic transport system. On an airless moon, ballistic trajectories can be calculated with precision. A magnetic mass-driver accelerates a capsule. Throws it up. Gravity brings it down. A receiving end of the target mass-driver catches the capsule and decelerates it to rest. In between, twenty minutes of free fall. Repeat as necessary. The capsules can contain cargo, or people. It’s tough but endurable; fast and only hair-raising if you think about it too much. Rafa used to enjoy it for the freefall sex.
‘I want him to catch the game. He’d miss it if he came by train.’ Then to the boy: ‘You want to see the game? Moços versus Tigers. Jaden Sun thinks he’s got us beat but I say we kick Tiger ass all over the stadium. What do you say?’
Robson Corta is eleven years old and the sight of him, the presence of him, his magnificent hair, his face, his great green eyes, the way his lips part in excitement, fill Rafa’s heart with a joy so great it is pain, and at the same time a loss so deep it is a nausea. He crouches to kid level. ‘Game day. What do you think, eh?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Raf.’ Rachel Mackenzie knows, Rafa knows; their respective sets of bodyguards, even Robson knows that
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