Page 42 of The Mars House

Ariel had never spoken to this Consul before, and as he waited for the security people to put his call through, he jittered. He tried to play with Shoopy to distract himself, but she told him to go away in Cat and curled up in her bucket with her tail towards him. Trying too hard to bear in mind that there would be an after—an hour from now, he would already have told the Consul that a ghost had stolen a jar and now there was going to be the storm to end all storms—he turned on the news and jigged pointlessly.

Wildfires in America; worse than they had ever been. Fifty-eight degrees on the ground and it wasn’t even full summer there yet. The news people were using footage from reporters on Earth, filming from helicopters, because cars had stopped working. The tarmac on the roads was black mush. The story cut to local seaports, which were normally tiny sleepy harbour towns where the most bustle there ever was, was when the one local duck had ducklings. They were all heaving with people. Thousands and thousands of people, trying to take tiny boats north to Alaska, which was a doomed idea, because the war there wasn’t going how the White House said it was at all. They were going to run straight into the Russian navy.

China was dithering about sending help. So were the other rich countries; even Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria. Not wrongly, their ambassadors and diplomats were all finding different ways to say, Look, we’re already trying to feed too many people. We’re only doing well because we know how many we can cope with, and we can’t cope with any more.

Aboard a ship in orbit, which was the nearest they could get without dying of cardiac arrest in Earth gravity, the Tharsese ambassador said gravely that Jade Hill was sending ships, but for everyone listening from America to bear in mind that making the Crossing on any vessel not certified by the Tharsese navy was illegal.

Ariel doubted that anyone trying not to be incinerated would care much about the technicalities of interplanetary naval law. Even when there weren’t wildfires, hundreds of people died every year trying to do exactly that.

“Hold for the Consul,” a voice said suddenly, and Ariel dropped his tea.

For Ariel, the Consul appeared in the middle of the observatory, and for the Consul, Ariel would appear in their office at Jade Hill.

“Ariel, hello. This is a surprise, we don’t often hear from you.”

Not for about eighty years. Ariel tended not to have much to report.

“Consul, I, er . . . I’m afraid—I don’t altogether know how to say this.” He had tried to practise, but it had been hopeless. “There’s been a—break-in, here. Someone took a very dangerous substance. It, er—it was used in early weather control experiments, catastrophically. And it’s been released into the atmosphere.” Yes, that was good, he didn’t sound like he was going loopy here by himself with his cat and his telescope.

He was nine tenths sure he wasn’t going loopy. He had done all the right checks, and there was no history of artificial people going mad, but it wasn’t as though there was exactly a long history of artificial people to call upon.

“I think we’re going to have an—an extremely bad, extremely long dust storm in the very near future.”

It was the I think that made it art, he thought bleakly.

Right outside the observatory window, right now this second, he could see a tornado forming. Slow, in this gravity, but therefore vast.

“I see. All right. Well, thank you for letting me know, I’ll take it from here.”

“Oh, thank God.”

The Consul smiled. “As you can imagine, it won’t do anyone any good to announce that this storm is artificial. People will assume it’s aggression from Earth and we’ll see a rise in hate crime. Particularly given the timing, with the crisis in America. Do you see?”

“I see,” Ariel promised.

“I imagine you’re going to get a call from House Gale at Songshu before long, when they notice their solar power isn’t working as well as it should. Make up a normal reason for a storm. Under no circumstances admit to anything you’ve just told me, or Aubrey Gale will hurl it across the news cycle for weeks. People could die if Aubrey works up their supporters enough.”

“Yes, Consul. But—um—pardon me for saying, but you seem awfully calm. I don’t . . . have a big dust hoover up here, you know, I just have a few barometers and a cat in a bucket.”

“I was wondering about the cat in the bucket,” the Consul admitted.

“Rowr,” said Shoopy, archly.

The Consul said “rowr” back, looking entirely serious, then lifted their eyes to Ariel again. “I know there isn’t anything you can do about the storm, don’t worry. We’ll find a way to cope.”

Ariel felt off balance. “Consul—the last time this happened, it lasted for six months, and three out of the first four colonies perished because of it. It—it’s going to be very bad.”

“I know,” the Consul said gently. “Leave it with me. Thank you for the call.”

They cut the connection, and Ariel sat staring blankly into space. That wasn’t how he’d thought it would go. He’d thought there would be investigations and diagnostics and people yelling, and someone going through his coding line by line to see exactly how bananas he’d gone up here by himself, and whether it was enough to have accidentally started an apocalypse. He’d thought there would be Senate hearings and subpoenas.

There was nothing.

He slumped back in his chair, part relieved and part disconcerted. He couldn’t tell what had just happened, but what did seem pretty clear was that the only person who had been surprised about the theft of the storm jar was him.

Shoopy, who liked background noise, poked the button on the screen to turn the news back on, and curled up in front of the footage of the wildfires.

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