Page 51 of The Mars House

He looked. Shang had put a card on the table with the sign for “person.” He said so. On the screen, the colours coalesced into lots of people, ghostly and faceless some of them, some specific. Val was there. Shang let out a delighted squeak.

“Wow! Look at that. What a beautiful memory you have.”

“It’s not that good,” January said, still more confused than he had ever been in his life, except maybe when someone had first tried to explain Russian grammar to him.

“I mean you have beautiful associations. Look, that’s me! Oh, you think I’m like a bear, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever thought about me on these things. Usually my students think I’m an annoying inbred lunatic—hah,” they added, because the screen filled with bears. January tried to picture Paddington in a purple scarf, and it worked. Shang laughed.

“Perhaps more test and less pissing about?” one of the officers said, but they did look like they might be in danger of smiling.

Shang put down new cards; cat, school, glass, car. After that, January got lost more than he didn’t. Instead of forming clear images, the tablet colours stayed murky and confused. Sometimes they showed the character itself as he tried to work it out by its component parts. All the while, Shang looked encouraging.

“Okay, perfect,” Shang said in their cheerful way. “That’s a good measure of how you think, which I have to say is very charming. Now, I want you to look at this.”

They put a sheet of e-paper in front of him. It was in English this time. It looked like a copy-and-paste job from a forum, on the cheap text-only internet people used when they couldn’t afford all the implants and virtual things. As he scanned it, he caught on particular phrases; “corner of Gagarin Square,” “cash in hand,” “Project Crocodile,” which made him think of zoos. Peripherally, he saw animals appearing on Shang’s screen, and Shang grinning.

The matter of it was that two people were talking to each other about something called Project Crocodile, and money. One was Lucy Collins. One was—someone else, with a blank avatar. Go to this address and you’ll find the shipment in a cargo container there. There was an address somewhere in the south of Tharsis, Americatown. God bless America.

Lucy had asked, How do you know where the Senator will be and when? What’s your source?

Whoever was organising it said, Me. I live at Songshu.

January looked up slowly, understanding in a kind of grey pall that they hadn’t arrested him just because he was Earthstrong. The police people were all watching Shang, though, not him.

“Well? Has he seen that information before?”

“Nope,” Shang said cheerfully. “Not even a bit of it.”

“Does that thing work as accurately on Earthstrongers as on us?” one of the police officers said doubtfully.

Shang gave them a severe look. “Brains are brains, Agent. It works on pigs, never mind different varieties of human.”

“On pigs?”

“Oh, yes. It was a major factor in banning the meat industry, didn’t you know? It proved pigs feel grief just like we do. You can have a good conversation with a pig, through one of these. They’re quite philosophical.”

January wondered if the Consul had tried it on Alice. Probably; it seemed like the sort of thing the Consul would do.

“You spend your time talking to pigs.”

“No, to mammoths,” Shang said unmoved. “Anyway. Mx Stirling is quite innocent, I assure you.”

The older officer sighed. “All right, Mx Stirling, you can go. Thank you for your time.”

They took the manacles off and held open the door, and January went through it, moving through a haze that was part relief and part ringing shock at just how close he had come to vanishing into prison forever, and on top of it, like oil writhing on the surface of the sea, wondering who in God’s name at Songshu could have been talking to terrorists. He could well imagine there were people working at Songshu who were pissed off with Gale and with struggling to pay the bills when Songshu had its own ice rink, but it was one thing to feel annoyed and something else to start sourcing grenades. How did you even get grenades? Tharsis wasn’t like America. Normal people couldn’t just walk into a shop and buy heavy artillery.

“Mx Stirling,” Professor Shang said, on their way out.

“Yes?”

They paused by him and shot a glance through the glass windows of the double doors into the waiting room. “Congratulations on the marriage. I hope it works out well. I used to work with River Gale. You know, Aubrey’s Apollo.21 Gifted linguist. Gifted.” They looked sad. “Look, I’m sure someone has said this to you already, but—please be careful. About Aubrey.”

“You’re right,” January said dully. “They have.” He still had the Consul’s card in his pocket. He had been carrying it round like a protective talisman.

Professor Shang twisted the end of their purple scarf. “I know this is in—horrifying bad taste. I know. But I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you go without—you know. Mentioning it. River would never have left their work. It was their whole life. They’d just got a tenured position at the university, they were overjoyed, and we had designed a whole new mammoth project to . . . yes. And—they never said anything about Aubrey to me, but one overhears calls and so forth, doesn’t one, and . . . Mx Stirling, please do be careful. Anyway.” They looked profoundly embarrassed. “It’s none of my business. I’m sorry to poke my nose in. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

January smiled, sort of. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Professor Shang nodded regretfully, and said, “Well, I’ll be . . .” and went in the opposite direction, still twisting the purple scarf.