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Radiance

Catherynne M. Valente


  Look at me, I’m growing a proper lunar coat of cynicism.

  The fact is, a unicorn cage is the safest place to be. And I want to be safe. I have to be safe. And to be safe I need protection. These studios prowl the Moon like little emperors bouncing on great stupid beasts. They’ve carved up the place between them like England and France and Austria-Hungary and Russia.

  They’ve put on actual wars!

  You won’t hear a breath of it back home, no sir. But it’s happened. They’ve all the costumes and props and explosives for any battle in history, after all. Why let it go to waste just because no one is making a war flick this week? Tithonus is divided into territories: the north belongs to Capricorn, the south to Tranquillity, the east to Plantagenet Pictures, the west to Oxblood Films. The rest of Luna is carved up the same way, minus a few independent strongholds here and there. Virago, Wainscot, Artemisia. Woe betide the soul who crosses lines! Little wee emperors with ivory crowns jousting on rhinoceroses. Only, what actually happens is that Oxblood swipes Maud Locksley from Plantagenet and Simon Laszlo storms their backlot—which is more or less the whole west end up to Coriander Street—with a hundred actors who think they are re-enacting the betrayals of the Duke of Burgundy until their bullets actually blow the heads off the “loyal French peasants” and Miss Locksley gets a shell-shocked escort home and a month locked up in Laszlo’s house with her head stuck in a bushel of af-yun before she can pull herself together enough to stand on her mark.

  Oh, the money on the Moon is English—you can see Vickie’s sour old kisser on the bills. But no one is under one single illusion as to who runs this joint. You take sides if you’re smart. Offer up your loyalty, ’cause it’s all you’ve got to trade.

  Trouble is, most times, when you go looking to sell your soul, nobody’s buying.

  I picked up this little notebook at the shop round the corner from the Huntress, which is a whorehouse, but quite a good one. If I’m ever in a bad way, I’ll hope to get hired on there. You get breakfast brought on a tray and don’t have to start work ’til four. I mean to record in it Things I Know. There is such an awful lot to know up here. I suppose I thought the Moon would be like London, only bigger and less expensive. I’m quite certain that was the idea. But just like everywhere else, it only took about five seconds for folk to notice that Earth is very, very far away.

  The first supper rush is coming on. My tea’s gone cold. There is already a foxtrot tinkling away in Imperatrix Square: garlands of pale green callowlanterns swinging in the sea wind, heels clapping on the cobblestones like an audience, girls with short hair laughing at boys with feathers in their lapels. Perhaps I shall join them later. I am a fair dancer. Not superb, but fair. I am always honest about my capabilities. I am very pretty, though my prettiness lacks depth and therefore misses beauty by a hair. I have an extremely expressive face that I can contort at will. I am short, but I have a serviceable chest and practically perfect calves. For stage work I have a rich voice which carries well, though it is somewhat deeper than the fashion. I can alter it somewhat. I can pass for an American or a Frenchwoman, and I am working on a Muscovite lilt. Perhaps at twenty I shall be a superb dancer. Perhaps at thirty I shall be beautiful. Anything is possible.

  My waiter has taken pity upon me and brought me a plate of walnuts and cheese and thus won my heart entire. Yes, my lad, I shall marry you. I shall.

  Very well, Mary, very well! Get to it!

  As of today, the Twentieth of August in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eight, I believe the following to be Immutable Lunar Laws:

  1. A woman has but eight roles open to her: ingénue, mother, witch, detective, nun, whore, queen, and corpse.

  2. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna own you, kid. Call yourself Queen of the May if you get a say in whom.

  3. You have no pride. If you have it, misplace it. Under your mattress, in someone else’s cupboard. It’ll do you no favours.

  4. That person you are when the camera’s having its way? That’s not you. That’s a Looking Glass Girl. She lives on the other side of the lens. She’s better than you are—prettier, more graceful, walks more properly, sparkles when she ought to, blushes when she ought to, fades to black before anyone gets bored. And better things happen to her than the sad little teas and flophouse fleas that happen to you. Love that Looking Glass Girl. Love her hard and love her true. Make obeisance; say your Aves. She is your personal god, and you’ll chase her for the rest of your life.

  Ship’s Manifest,

  Small Commercial Craft Clamshell

  Owner-of-Record: Oxblood Films/ Franklin R. Edison

  Port-of-Call: Tithonus, Luna, United Kingdom

  Built: 1940, Copernicus Ironworks

  Manufacturer: Wernyhora Motors, Inc. (Subsidiary: J.P. Morgan & Company)

  Model: Cerigo VI (Inner System Restricted Permit #NK55781432F00QWP)

  Occupancy: 35

  Tonnage: 5,771

  Length: 425 ft.

  Beam: 56 ft.

  Propulsion: Ourania Class Cannon, Ford Quad-Firing Orbital Slugs, Carnegie Diesel-Balloon Braking, Foldback Magnetrisse Sails

  Carriage Decks: Bridge, Crew Berths, Cantina, Observation, Passenger Berths, Radio Room, Darkroom, Cargo Bay, Engine Hold, Fire Room, Ballast

  Preflight Condition: No Malfunctions. Kitchen Equipment, Data Transmission, and Interior Communication System Scheduled for Maintenance Upon Return to Dry Dock

  Examined by: Piotr Krupin, Arkady Lagounov, Ekaterina Bogomolova, Depot Noviy Kitezh, Moscow, 11.6.44

  Great Railway Merger Expected 2100 12.6.44, Anadyomene Junction, Switch 9.6.4.2

  Film Crew:

  Severin Unck: Director

  Cristabel Ossina: 1st Assistant Director

  Erasmo St. John: Director of Photography

  Horace St. John: Cameraman

  Maximo Varela: Lighting Master

  Mariana Alfric: Sound Engineer

  Santiago Zhang: Best Boy

  Konrad and Franco Sallandar: Craft Services

  Support:

  Anastaas Dajo: Pilot (Inner System Transit Authority Certified 1919, Hesperides Medal 1924)

  Griet Van Rooyen: Navigator (Junior Cartographer, British Railways, Corps of Engineers Special Commendation 1942 for Work on the Venus-Mercury Toll Artery)

  Isaac Deerfoot: Conductor (M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1938, Junior Conductor, Mohawk and Hudson Railway, Mars-Asteroid Corridor 1939–1942)

  Ghanim Boulos: Signalman

  Balazs Almassy: Security

  Dr Margareta Nantakarn: Surgeon (Edinburgh School of Medicine, 1922, Specialization in Epidemiology. Offworld Residency: Mercury, Trismegistus, St. Talaria’s Children’s Hospital, 1925)

  Aylin Novalis: Venus Liaison (White Peony Station)

  Henry Lamb, Simon Poole, Jaromil Kysely: Stewards (Contracted from Tithonus Savoy, Term of Contract 29.5.44-8.8.46)

  William Kaur: Sanitation Engineer

  Carolyne Derrick: Wire Walker

  Arlo Covington, C.P.A.: Oxblood Oversight

  Mr Tobias: Ship’s Cat (Abyssinian, six years old, missing left ear)

  Materiel:

  1200 pounds beef

  700 pounds mutton

  775 pounds tinned beef

  600 pounds veal, pork, sausage (beef-fennel, hot lamb-za’atar, chicken-tarragon)

  1500 pounds chicken

  250 tins preserved fruit

  250 tins Dundee marmalade (orange, lemon, blood orange, muskbulb), Crosse & Blackwell jam (strawberry-peppercorn, gooseberry-port, cloudberry-champagne, Martian goji-serrano) and chutney (mango, cranberry, lunar coconut, Triton mint-miseryrose)

  250 bottles pickles and sauces: Branston, Serapis Peppers, Nergal Morels, C&B Walnuts, HP Sauce, Hermeneus Fancy Catsup, Caloris Basin Hot Mustard, Worcestershire, Mount Penglai Soy Sauce, Tethys’ Tail Fish Sauce, Io’s Best Sweet Chili Sauce, McCollick’s Bird Pepper Sauce, Lyle’s Golden Syrup, Chinkiang Black Vinegar, Tethys’ Tail Shrimp Paste, Celest
ial Moose Maple Syrup (grade B), Rose’s Lime Juice. 65 bottles reserved for onsite sale/barter.

  370 pounds Nereid roe (Interplanetary Quarantine cleared 2.5.44, Exotic Foodstuff Record #777121Ne, see attached form. Reserved for sale/barter in tot.)

  250 pounds coffee

  200 pounds tea

  100 pounds potted fish (anchovy, salmon, herring, monkminnow)

  900 pounds moist sugar (350 pounds reserved for sale/barter)

  300 pounds lump sugar (100 pounds reserved for sale/barter)

  660 pounds salt (200 pounds reserved for sale/barter)

  510 pounds black pepper (200 pounds reserved for sale/barter)

  825 pounds butter (various grades)

  2 tonnes potatoes

  1 tonne other vegetables

  400 chickens, ducks, moonquail (live, egg-laying, to be bartered/sold upon landing in White Peony Station; buyer secured)

  1.25 tonnes lard

  78 barrels wheat flour

  56 barrels rhea flour (Interplanetary Quarantine cleared 9.6.44, Exotic Foodstuff Record #413066Sa, see attached form)

  40 barrels Phlegyas flour (Interplanetary Quarantine cleared 9.6.44, Exotic Foodstuff Record #900142Ma, see attached form)

  7564 gallons fresh water

  250 gallons callowmilk (Promotional Consideration Provided: 125 gallons Hathor Brand, 125 gallons Prithvi Brand)

  21 quarts Prithvi ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, fig-pistachio, blueberry cider, black caramel, green-tea pink pecan, sweet potato, Saturn’s Bounty, Ionian Fire Tart, Quandong Ripple, Phobos Macadamia Surprise, Morning on Ganymede. Reserved for landing)

  21 bottles Domain Aphros champagne (reserved for landing)

  16 cosmetic cases (Provided by Elizabeth Arden, Fifty Daughters. Unused supply to be sold/bartered before departure)

  27 cases perfume (Provided by Chanel, Madame Zed, Saturnalia, reserved for sale/barter in tot.)

  4 Underwood typewriters

  50 reams paper

  46,500 feet Eastman 35 mm film

  3 dollies (custom + collapsible tracks)

  10 Pharos lenses, various lengths

  3 cases Jotunn brand batteries

  2 Aitnaios generators

  2 jib cranes

  3 tripods

  5 Eastman light meters

  4 Edison microphones + sleeves

  4 cases flares

  Assorted gels, lights, blackwrap, filters, tape, mixer, recorder, boom, cables

  3 cases clamps

  2 Edison Model G III handheld 35 mm camera

  2 Edison Model B II handheld 35 mm camera

  3 diving suits

  1800 m. breathing tubes, various sizes

  (Primary funding provided by Oxblood Films, Inc. Secondary funding provided by Prithvi Dairy Products, Hathor Brand Callowmilk, Crosse & Blackwell, Redrose Deep Mars Mining Corp., Chanel, Carnegie Steel Company, Lumen Molnar.)

  I Left My Sugar Standing

  in the Rain

  Transcript from 1946 debriefing interview with Erasmo St. John, property of Oxblood Films, all rights reserved. Security clearance required.

  CYTHERA BRASS: Begin recording. Session one, day one. The time is eight-fifteen in the morning on Tuesday, January third, 1946, at the Oxblood Industrial Park, 1770 Endymion Road, North Yemaya, Luna. I, Cythera Brass, Chief Security Officer for Oxblood Films, Ltd., am the sole conductor of this final postproduction interview. Would you please state your full name, age, and place of birth for the record?

  ERASMO: Erasmo Leonard St. John. Thirty, Guan Yu, Mars.

  CYTHERA: Am I then to assume you hold dual citizenship?

  ERASMO: I believe my Chinese citizenship can best be described as “lapsed.” Why? Will I need to call down to an embassy for lunch? Or are you just wondering who might find my incarceration irritating?

  CYTHERA: You are hardly incarcerated, Mr St. John. Don’t be absurd. And your last employment?

  ERASMO: Director of Photography on The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew.

  CYTHERA: [sound of a ballpoint pen clicking] All right, then. Are you ready to begin, Mr St. John?

  ERASMO: Nope.

  CYTHERA: I think we’ve been exceedingly patient. It’s been nearly seven months. If you prefer, we can provide you with materials and you can prepare a written statement, but either way, we see no reason to delay further.

  ERASMO: Then why bother asking if I’m ready? You’ve decided I’m ready. And you didn’t even bring me a cup of tea. Some interrogation this is.

  CYTHERA: This is not an interrogation. This is a standard debriefing conducted by the studio at the conclusion of all off-Moon shoots.

  ERASMO: I’ve worked on…twelve? No, fourteen Oxblood pictures. I’ve been debriefed ’til I can brief no more and I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a swot over the age of twenty. Debriefing is intern’s work. The CSO wouldn’t shine her shoes with a DP’s report.

  CYTHERA: [intercom crackling] Would you bring two espressos, Jane? And some toast with butter. Thank you. And yet, you still decline legal representation.

  ERASMO: Oh, entirely. And I asked for tea.

  CYTHERA: Mr St. John, you are entitled to access the full resources of our legal department, as an employee of the studio. These resources are both substantial and free of charge. Given the circumstances, I highly recommend you use them.

  ERASMO: [short, sharp, quite humourless laugh] It strikes me as more than a little backward to allow a gaggle of Oxblood suits to look after my interests when, at the moment, you lot are the only ones accusing me of anything.

  CYTHERA: I don’t know what accusations you’re referring to. This is just a conversation between colleagues. It doesn’t have to be anything more stressful or unpleasant than that. Everyone else has already given their statements and gone home.

  ERASMO: Then you already know more than I could possibly tell you. How about I get my own tea down at the Savoy and never have to look at your fucking face again?

  CYTHERA: Don’t you want to go home, Mr St. John?

  ERASMO: I couldn’t possibly give less of a shit.

  CYTHERA: There’s no need for belligerence, Mr St. John. Let’s start with something easy.

  ERASMO: [laughs]

  CYTHERA: You were involved in a romantic relationship with Severin Unck, correct?

  ERASMO: You’re right, that is easy. Yes. Please do not use the past tense, or I shall have to start swearing again.

  CYTHERA: When did this relationship commence?

  ERASMO: Officially? Christmas…um…1937. At the Phobos wrap party. Unofficially, I met her when I was ten and she was twelve. Felix—that’s my father—contracted on Atom Riders. Mum was off working on some Blom flick. They never worked on the same film at the same time. People felt uncomfortable with a black man and his white wife just walking about, holding hands, laughing, other assorted sins against civilization. So I was helping Dad paint the flats for the shadow rodeo scene, shading depth on the radioactive lassos when Rinny wandered over to me. I saw her shadow on my shadows before I ever saw her. She said: Gosh, that’s just splendid! I feel as though they’re about to leap out and snatch me round the neck! And that was it for me. The rest of us just took a while to catch up.

  CYTHERA: Very romantic. Did you ever have similar trouble when you and Severin worked on the same projects? On Radiant Car?

  ERASMO: If we did, it didn’t matter. Come now, you know better. The director can do as they like. My parents were just set painters. Instantly expendable, if a producer happened to glance at them and get a crick in his soul.

  CYTHERA: [amused snort] So you and Unck were together from 1937 through to 1944, is that right?

  ERASMO: We broke up for a while on the way back from Neptune. There was another girl, a levitator. Rin was crazy about her, too. That was the problem, I guess. We both strayed. Took most of a trip across the solar system to spackle over it. That, and Rin didn’t want to get married. You can’t blame her, given her history. Then we split again when she was doing p
reproduction for Radiant Car. I thought she was being pigheaded, refusing to go into the shoot with an open mind. It wasn’t like Self-Portrait or And the Sea, which were personal and confessional, or even like Phobos and The Sleeping Peacock, where we were in the right place at the right time and filmed what was happening; the food riots or the proxy war on Io. Radiant Car was supposed to be almost…journalism. We were seeking answers. And if you think you’ve already got all the answers before you start investigating, you…alter what you find. You miss things. Ignore things. I told Rinny Bart Worley wanted me on Let Them Eat Death, his big French Revolution epic. Would have been a good gig for me, a huge production like that. But she gave in for once. Maybe she shouldn’t have. We would have patched it up anyway. Being apart never really stuck.

  CYTHERA: But you would describe your relationship as stable during the Venus expedition?

  ERASMO: As stable as we ever were. We’re not…easy people, either of us. We’re both selfish and stubborn and want our own way all the time, every time. We fought. We’d start laughing in the middle of the fight. Then pick up the argument a week later like we hadn’t even taken a breath.

  CYTHERA: [clears throat] Are you sure you want to say that you and your girlfriend were having problems when her whereabouts are in question?

  ERASMO: What the hell does that mean? We fought about what to have for breakfast. Who’d left their washing all over the trailer and thus was the bigger pig. The shooting schedule. Whether she or I or everyone on Venus was drinking too much. Normal couple things! Are you insinuating that I did something to her?

  CYTHERA: I’m not insinuating anything, Mr St. John. I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to easy questions. What was your crew compliment at launch?