Radiance

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