Page 121 of The Mars House

Gale touched his arm. He surfaced and saw that for the first time in hours, no one was waiting to talk to either of them. “Come upstairs with me. I, er . . . need to stare at a wall for a while, I think.”

What he meant to say was, Yes, that sounds great, I’m so tired. What came out was: “What did you say to the Consul, to make all this happen?”

Gale rubbed Kasha’s ears and lifted Yuan up. “Can I tell you when I can think in a straight line?”

He nodded. He hadn’t meant to ask in the first place. He was dreading finding out, and childishly, he wanted to put it off. Whatever Gale had agreed to, it was going to be horrible, and January would be angry and the two of them would probably have a huge fight, and he didn’t have the steam left for that. He wanted to just pretend, for a bit.

Gale eased Yuan into Solly Francis’s arms.

“What have you done?” Solly asked quietly. “How did we go from people trying to kill you, to you and the Consul being best friends?”

“I’ll explain when everything isn’t made of sandpaper.”

“Do I need to be getting my résumé in order? Have you sold Songshu? Have you sold January? Firstborn child, kidneys, what?”

“I just—want a few hours where no one is yelling at me. Please?”

“You’re a senator, it’s your job to be yelled at!”

“Do not wake that child up.”

Solly gave them a narrow look. “You strategically handed me a child, didn’t you?”

Gale nodded.

“You’re a bad person,” Solly grumbled, but went away holding Yuan like they knew how to hold children, and January wondered suddenly if they had children. He had never asked.

He didn’t know he was unbalanced until Gale took his hand. He had to concentrate to walk. When he blinked, he kept seeing teeth on the floor. He had to pull his hand over his eyes. The green flashes from the pressure looked like the muzzle flare of the gun. Kasha pushed her head under his hand and gave him a sympathetic look.

“And meanwhile,” said a news anchor on the screens, “there seems now to be some order at Songshu, with footage from inside the building restored and joint statements issued from Houses Song and Gale calling for calm. How long that calm can last, however, is the question at the front of everyone’s minds.”

They really weren’t helping, January reflected grumpily.

Back on the fifth floor, Gale pushed their door open. The lights were set low to save power, and so was the thermostat. It couldn’t have been more than ten degrees inside. January had to lean against the wall. He wasn’t in pain exactly, Dr Okonkwo’s medications were doing wonders, but it was miserable to think how long it was going to take to get just a bit warm. He wondered about fetching his heat suit again.

Gale bent a little to catch his eye as they turned the thermostat right up. “You’re still freezing,” they said quietly. “Go through there, the water’s hot.”

“The water . . .” January trailed off when he saw. In the next room, beyond a glass door, there was a pool. “How do you have that much water all to yourself?”

“Same monthly allowance you have, but I couldn’t stand up till lately,” Gale pointed out. “Go on, I’ll go and get some new clothes for you.”

January had a horrible vision of that silent figure following them, walking next to them, invisible. “You shouldn’t—”

“I’ve got the dog,” Gale said gently. Kasha, who always knew when she was being talked about, yipped helpfully. “And—you need them.”

January looked down at himself. He was covered in dirt and blood. Gale tilted the glass door open for him and then bowed a fraction as they went out again.

There were steps down into the pool, and a bench around the edge, underwater.

A little current tugged at the water—it was circulating from somewhere else, and somewhere close by, maybe under the floor, there was a thrum that might have been the hydraulics that filtered it. As he peeled off his filthy clothes he saw that the wall opposite was glass and beyond it was another of those fantastic, dense gardens, half lost in the gloom. He eased down the pool’s steps into the water, sinking up to his shoulders, and watched hummingbirds flit between the blooms. He closed his eyes. Breathing was a lot easier in the steam. It felt amazing to be warm, really warm.

He pressed both hands over his eyes and stood still in the middle of the pool, concentrating on not letting his breath catch. There was probably a camera in here somewhere. He didn’t need all of Tharsis watching him break down.

The door clicked. Gale sounded uneven on a hard floor; one step fast, one slow. He ordered himself to turn around, but a much stronger part of him didn’t want Gale to see the tear-tracks. He was the big scary monster here. He shouldn’t be crumbling. Gale had lost a leg and had made, as far as January could tell, anyway, less than zero fuss.

He heard cloth falling to the floor and still didn’t look back; not until Gale touched his good shoulder.

“Don’t—even with a cage I don’t think . . .” he said incoherently.