Page 14 of The Mars House

The press officer who had complained about Jedi before was smiling in the way sharks do. “Oh yes. That was wonderful.”

January couldn’t move. “I’m sorry,” he said to Gale. “I didn’t mean—what I meant was, of course I wouldn’t hurt you. Really, I’m so sorry, that—sounded wrong as soon as I said it.”

“It’s all right, it was a joke.” Gale glimmered. “Of course, nobody will understand and you’ll probably be lynched.”

It was only a dose of his own medicine. Both were things that should have been ironic but were, without knowing enough context, without knowing the opposite was true, terrifying.

“I don’t—I’d rather not do this,” January managed.

He felt sick.

An hour later, the supervisor called January into the main office and tilted the screen so he could see it. He looked away, because he had seen the clip already. The people who smoked and the people who were addicted to social media did both of those things together in the bleak concrete intake bay, out in the freezing cold and the dust. He had been addicted since he was five, never really found the time to quit, and so a quarter of an hour ago he had seen the hundreds of posts, hundreds of links to that clip.

“Senator Gale has PERFECT response to bigot Earthstronger,” the supervisor read, slow and hard. “That one’s been viewed four million times. That’s nearly everyone in Tharsis.”

January nodded slightly. He couldn’t speak. He’d never been more afraid or more ashamed in his life. Waiting outside just now, he had stared at the floor and tried to think what had happened to his brain, why he had imagined for a second that it was all right to snap.

If the supervisor had wanted to put him into the machine that crushed suspicious packages into a tiny ball, he would have gone gratefully. He almost didn’t hear what came next, because he was concentrating on not crying. It wasn’t working.

“Senator Gale isn’t pressing charges, but the factory is. That was hate speech. The police are outside. Needless to say, this terminates your employment here.”

7

He had a horde of waking nightmares while he waited to go before the judge. All the government signs for Earthstrongers across all of Tharsis went through his head: YOU MUST WEAR A CAGE OR BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW. If the prosecution argued he was illegally uncaged, and that he had any intention of even touching Gale, he was going to a labour camp in the desert for ten years.

His own lawyer—provided by the state—didn’t help with the horror-visions.

“A lot of construction projects now are built with Earthstrong prison labour. Cheap and safe. The courts have a huge incentive to give Earthstrongers long sentences.” They were flicking through documents on a tablet, looking harassed, and not at all like his case was even in their top five considerations for the day. “Actually, one of the reasons Senator Gale is pushing for mass naturalisation is to stop that happening.”

Superb. Not only had he snarled, on a live broadcast, at a Natural senator who was the survivor of a horrifying Earthstrong attack; it also turned out that his own lawyer was voting Gale. He had to stare at the floor and concentrate on breathing normally. He had always thought that when people in films panicked and had to breathe into a bag, it was an unrealistic way of making it clear to the audience that they were having a bad time—like ladies fainting in old novels—but his lungs really were trying to work too quickly. He couldn’t think. Thinking was like trying to walk through hail. Everything stung, and what was the fullest extent of the law, and did it even matter that he hadn’t meant it?

“Stirling versus the State of Tharsis,” someone called in Mandarin.

He dug his fingernails into his palms. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

The lawyer knocked his arm. “Stop clenching your fists, you look like you want to kill someone.”

He must have had a natural way of holding his hands and arms, but suddenly he had no idea what to do with them. He flinched when a drone took a picture of him. It said XINHUA on the side: international press.

The court room was mainly glass, with a beautiful view across a dust-fogged Tharsis. It looked across the Senate and Gagarin Square, directly at the memorial for the senators who had been killed in the protests. January’s throat was turning to sand. It was hard to swallow.

The judge, who was elderly and quiet-mannered, gave everyone an irascible look and announced they were in session.

He felt like he might collapse. Whichever part of his brain dealt with being upright, it hadn’t had any oxygen for at least a quarter of an hour.

The prosecution lawyer was much more polished than January’s lawyer. “The prosecution would like to—”

“Oh, shut up,” the judge said. “I saw the interview. Just because Senator Gale uses a wheelchair sometimes does not mean it’s okay for them to run over puppies with it. He’s getting two weeks in medium security and you should consider yourself lucky there isn’t a law against being a self-righteous asshole.”

“Yes, Your Honour,” the prosecution said quickly.

January had had whiplash once, from a boat crash. He had been less confused then.

“Mx Stirling, I suggest you refrain from making any more jokes about killing senators who have almost been killed by people who look like you,” the judge recommended, and waved at the steward for the next case. “Two weeks. Be very careful. A second offence will see you into a labour camp. Next!”

“Oh, that’s nice, isn’t it,” January’s lawyer said to him absent-mindedly. “That’s much better than I thought. Keep your nose clean, won’t you? Bye.”

He watched them go, torn between relief and a kind of numb shock, and two officers of the court came across to collect him and load him into the back of a van bound for Ares Prison.