Page 102 of The Mars House

The production room stretched across the whole of the main tower, a sort of broad glass bridge that looked down into the dining room and the entrance hall with its streams and willow trees, and up to the dome thirty floors above. All of it was glass, the ceiling, the walls, the floor—he had thought initially that it was so that the producers could get a bird’s-eye view of the drones that always operated on the ground floor, but now, he had more of a sense it was so that people could see in. If you were making a show like theirs, splicing footage, making stories, it would be very easy for everyone else to feel like it was a secretive process directed behind locked doors. All the glass was reassuring.

Incredibly, it was morning already, a few minutes before six, and through the glass walls, he could already see people zombily making themselves tea and coffee in the sleek staff kitchen. Up above, some of the Earthstrong people who hadn’t stayed too late at the Christmas party were already up, getting ready for the day shift on the rig; he could see them on the balcony, not least because some people were showing their kids the production room, looking down at it through its glass ceiling.

He felt irrationally betrayed. It was just a normal morning. The normal schedule was happening: people were gearing up and going to work, the coffee machines were whirring. He wanted there to be some pause at least, or even a bit of chaos, but it was all gliding along as if nothing had happened.

The Consul opened the production room door for him with a little bow that seemed theatrically polite, as if they were taking the piss because he’d told them not to be rude about Gale. Up on the Earthstrong floor, someone exclaimed that that was the actual Consul. The Consul looked up and waved, and there was some embarrassed laughter as some teenagers waved back.

Inside, the production room was dimly lit as always, and everyone in it was either watching the drones’ footage on the bank of screens, or splicing bits and pieces together for the show, which was going out—said a big timer on the wall—in twenty minutes. Everyone looked frazzled. Some of the praetorians were there too, looking at footage, and clearly directing what was going to go into the final cut and what was left out. January looked away when he saw the footage of himself. He looked tiny among the armed praetorians as they tackled Gale.

He hadn’t been in here for a while, and there was a little stir when people saw him, the kind there had used to be at the backstage door after a show if he tried to escape to get a fizzy drink from the shop next door; it was how people were when they recognised someone they’d never spoken to, the awkward sense that they should say hello traced over the knowledge that of course it would seem very strange.

“Mx Gale,” the senior producer said, and he actually looked back for Gale before he realized that meant him. It was the first time anyone had called him that. “Can we . . . do something for you?” They looked strained, and ill. Their eyes flickered to the Consul. “Um. Any coffee? We’ve just made some.”

“I’m all right, thanks. I’m trying to find the Senator’s real partner, do you know where they live?”

“The Senator’s . . . real partner?”

He winced. Probably they’d all been sworn to secrecy. No, not probably: definitely. They probably had to scrub the person in the orange jumper from all their footage, so that the whole of Tharsis wouldn’t see that the marriage and the romance was fake. “It’s okay, you don’t have to—I just need to find them.”

“I’m—sorry, I don’t know who you mean.” They glanced up, seeming disconcerted, and when he did too, he saw why. On the Earthstrong floor, quite a lot of people had come to the balcony edge to look down through the glass ceiling, pointing out the Consul to each other. It was strange to see the movie-star fizz around politicians here affecting even people from Earth, who he would have thought would be immune. Still, he could understand it. The Consul was just as powerful a presence as Gale, leonine and weather-beaten and good-looking even at a distance.

January dredged for more patience. He didn’t feel tired, not in his bones and muscles, but he was fatigued. His brain was running low on Tharsese manners, and part of it was snagged anxiously with Gale, alone in their room. “Come on, you know and I know, and this is important. The Consul needs to see them.”

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” the producer said. “Can you describe them?”

“Er,” said January, suddenly not sure he could describe someone who was just generic Tharsis Chic. “They’re always in meetings, they’re always with the Senator. Orange jumper, usually. They write things by hand in a book?” He was describing props, not a person. “Natural, sixth or seventh generation? Long black hair, Asian?” Like almost everyone else at Songshu. “They don’t dress up though, they’re always scruffy.”

He wondered if his glasses could do some kind of image search on stuff he’d seen recently—he had a distant feeling that it was possible to do that, which now he was thinking about it was very creepy and meant that somewhere, everything he saw with them was being recorded—but he didn’t know how, and part of him stamped its foot and said no, I shouldn’t have to, this is stupid.

“An orange jumper? I’m not sure I . . .”

“We have footage of them,” January said, beginning to feel like he was being messed around and not completely sympathetic, even given what was probably a ferocious gag-order situation. “When the Senator asked me to go to the fundraiser thing, their partner was in the room with them when I came in. They were combing the Senator’s hair.”

“Really?” the producer said, sounding confused. “Well—let’s have a look . . .” They bent over a table-sized tablet and skimmed through a whirl of images, then brought it up on the big screens. The footage was from one of the drones, smooth and pin-sharp.

It was wrong.

It showed January coming to Gale’s door, and inside, at the mirror, Gale was alone. They were sitting exactly like he remembered, bolt upright and terse, but the person with the orange jumper wasn’t there. They weren’t holding the silver comb, they weren’t running it through Gale’s hair. If he stared, then maybe Gale’s hair moved, but it could have been the draught from the opening door.

“This has been edited,” he said, caught somewhere between indignant and disbelieving that the producer was being so magnificently unhelpful over something so simple. “Where are they?”

“Uh,” said the producer uncertainly, “we haven’t done anything to it. We’re legally obligated not to tamper with the footage in any way.” They sounded stiff, and he realized they thought he was accusing them of something.

“Please. I saw them at the party with Kasha a few hours ago, I just want to talk to them.”

Beside them, Kasha looked around, distracted by something that wasn’t there. January had heard people say she did that, but he’d never seen it before. She held her paw up like someone was asking her to shake. The Consul was watching her too, looking puzzled.

“Mx Gale,” the producer said, quiet and formal, “the Senator doesn’t have a partner. They don’t live with anyone. We’d know. There would have to be precautions taken, with the show, it would be—incredibly complicated, and we don’t—”

“All right, whoever it is who’s in and out of their room all the time then,” January said, frustrated. “Look, I know you have to protect the Senator’s privacy, but don’t just lie to me, it’s bloody aggravating.”

Kasha held up the other paw to her empty space of air, panting happily. Up above them, some Earthstrong kids were looking down from the balcony, grinning. He could see why. Kasha was gigantic if you’d grown up with Earth-sized dogs.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you. No one’s in and out of their room.”

“This is silly. Where’s Solly Francis? They were filming too.”

Not far off, the praetorians looked around with granite stares to warn him he had raised his voice and they didn’t like it. Always on the lookout for drama, a drone lifted into the air to film it. He could see the person controlling it—they were in the corner, their lenses flaring green, silver gloves on their hands to direct the little camera’s flight.