Page 49 of The Mars House

Gale started to laugh, really laugh. It was the most fantastic laugh, like boiling brandy, and it was infectious; it made him laugh too, and the doctor in the corner, and whoever was outside watching the drone footage. “Solly Francis is far too young for me.” They kicked his ankle very gently. “You’re too young for me.”

“I’m not young,” January said, embarrassed now. He coughed. “Wow, that was a bit tragic, wasn’t it.”

“I mean, I’m feeling very good about the whole thing honestly,” Gale said cheerfully.

He felt himself going pink, and then all at once, it dawned on him warm and golden that Gale didn’t look anxious to be near to him. Not even the hidden tight anxiety that was only there if you stared. He stayed very, very still even so. He felt like he had done once years ago when he was sitting on the roof at home in London, soaking in the evening heat, when out of nowhere, a fox sat down next to him.

“I broke my phone,” he said pointlessly.

Gale glanced at it, then again. “That’s a Mori, isn’t it?”

He nodded, and waited for Gale to ask why in God’s name he hadn’t sold it and bought a house.

Gale didn’t. From an inside pocket they took out an almost identical one, though much newer and protected by a beautiful leather case. January stared. Gale studied his for a second, then pressed the broken screen. It slid straight off, designed to be easily replaced; they did the same with theirs, unbroken, and slipped it onto January’s. It locked into place. “Perfect,” they concluded. “I’ll get this one sent in later.”

“No, but . . .”

“Quiet. Family heirloom.” They held up January’s. “Bribe from a banker trying to buy my vote on financial regulation.” They held up their own.

January thought he really might cry now. Gale met his eyes for a second to ask permission, then took his other hand to wash the blood off that one too. His looked small in theirs. Some of the sharp edges of the panicky miserable feeling started to smooth down. After a little while, thinking wasn’t painful any more. He let his breath out slowly, floating on the new calm.

With no explanation, the doctor poked a needle into him and he yelped.

The blood went into a little machine. “Checking your testosterone level,” the doctor said unsympathetically. “Stress in someone with gender traits as extreme as yours can mean uncontrollable aggression.”

“In kids and idiots,” January said indignantly. “I don’t—”

“I’d still like to give you an inhibitor—”

“I’ll inhibit you in a minute!”

“See? This is very aggressive behaviour—”

“Leave him alone,” Gale said. He was starting to get a sense of when they were annoyed; they never sounded it in the usual way, they were too controlled. But when they were, they could bring their voice up from a deeper chamber than normal, one that coiled with fumes, like there was something radioactive in storage there.

The doctor pursed their lips, disapproving, but moved away.

“The lady who did it, did she leave a note?” January asked. He didn’t care, but he wanted Gale to keep talking to him. “Why did she do it?”

“Her children died trying to naturalise,” Gale said. They opened a packet with a sterile bandage inside and dried January’s hand off with it, balancing his knuckles on their knee. It was the artificial one. He could feel the steel through their clothes.

“And that’s better than letting them have cages?” he asked. It felt mean and hateful to grind that axe now, while they were both bleeding, but he didn’t like the look of the kind of person he would become if he didn’t.

“It is,” Gale said, a little too slowly, as if they thought it was obvious but didn’t want to blame anyone for not keeping up. “Far better. Far fewer Earthstrong people die naturalising than Natural people die in cage-related accidents.”

He knew they didn’t mean it personally, he knew they weren’t calling him selfish for wearing a cage—even on so short an acquaintance, he was certain that they were too well mannered to even consider meaning that—but it was hard not to take it that way. “It’s still horrible.”

Gale lifted their eyes, very black now in the low light. There was no glibness there, none of the frightening joy in war they’d had at the factory; only resignation. “Yes. It’s Mars.”

From somewhere down the corridor, there was a new flurry, and new voices.

Gale sighed. “This is going to be ugly, but I’ll come and get you. We have all the lawyers in the world.”

“What? Lawyers?” January asked, confused.

Sasha banged the door open, and with no explanation, snatched January upright by one arm. “Move. The police are here. They want to talk to you.”

20 What Los Angeles was, was a big hole in the ground, which was why he hadn’t heard of it. It had used to be a city, locally remarked upon for fringe art films. As far as he could tell, the Tharsese news services had given the massive explosion a cursory once-over before moving on, because giant national disasters were just what happened in countries governed by gibbering religious extremists, nobody really knew where America was anyway, and the Olympics was on.