Page 52 of The Mars House

January drew both hands over his face. He wanted to think that rumours were just rumours. Gale had been good to him, so far. Incredibly rich and powerful people always had rumours vapouring around them. And it wasn’t insane for an academic to fall in love and run away. It happened, however scholarly River Gale might have been. But what also happens, the Swan King voice in the back of his mind said, is that rich, powerful people go quietly mad and kill someone who betrays them. It’s a fairy tale for a reason.

He took a deeper breath and pushed open the waiting room door.

Gale was there, looking like a jewel someone had lost. They got up fast.

“Are you all right?” they asked, intense, and he had a total certainty then that lives were going to hinge on his answer, because Gale looked like they did when they were about to fight. Someone was going to end up as sludge on the arena floor, and it wasn’t going to be Gale.

He almost said, Please can you kill those agents for me, the world would be a lot better if they were sludge, thanks, but he breathed out and told himself firmly that nobody needed to be sludge. And in any case, he wasn’t sure Gale cared whether he was personally flustered; they cared about the integrity of their House, and whether the agents here had a sufficient fear of it not to be too rough with one of its number.

“I’m fine. Thanks. You—you didn’t need to come yourself,” January stammered, the enormity of what they’d done in coming here cracking over him. Even after such a short time involved with House Gale, he was starting to think like Mx Francis, about how any particular moment would look if it were splashed across social media. Aubrey Gale at a secret police facility, fishing out their new consort who’d been accused of terrorism. It was a gift for anyone who wanted to attack them. How are we supposed to trust anything you think? You accidentally married a terrorist.

“I did.”

“Thanks,” January whispered. “Senator, they showed me messages, from the people who did it. The person who arranged it—they’re inside Songshu. Or they say they are. And there was a test, but—even the agents in there weren’t sure it was working properly on me,” he said, and then heard how incoherent that sounded.

Gale seemed to understand all the same. “The halo, yes. It does work on Earthstrongers; it works on some fungi. Would you mind if we were to subpoena the footage of your test?”

Would and were to, January thought feverishly. Gale’s English was better than his. “What does that mean?”

“We would take it and broadcast it, so everyone can see. If you don’t mind everyone seeing the inside of your brain.”

“If it stops them thinking I did it,” he said, having never minded anything less. “But Senator—someone inside Songshu talking to Earth Rights terrorists . . . ?”

“Everyone will take the test, but I don’t think anyone was talking to Earth Rights. They were talking to the Consul.”

“What?”

“Half of Earth is on fire and millions will inevitably come here, I’m a nationalist politician with a decent chance of becoming Consul in time to stop them landing in the city. If you were the current Consul, this would be the perfect time to blow me up and blame it on the new Earthstronger.”

January had to absorb that for a few seconds. He nearly said, I don’t think the Consul would do that; but then Gale would ask how he knew what the Consul would and wouldn’t do.

Gale was looking over his head, to the double doors. “Right; the press are outside. Would you mind if I speak to them, or should we go straight home?”

January wanted a lot to go home. But if they went home now, without saying anything, then the story would be that he was probably a terrorist who had been released because of an esoteric test nobody quite trusted. Gale would deal with the fallout for the rest of the consular campaign.

He could have said let’s go and let Gale deal with it. It would have been a nice subtle way to make things hard for them. Maybe he would have, even; if they hadn’t asked him.

But they had. They were watching him, waiting for him to speak, and he could see they were going to do whatever he decided. He couldn’t tell why it mattered so much, to be allowed to decide, but just then it was everything.

Which, said the hard Swan King voice in his head, is really stupid, because however nice they are, Gale is going to put you in a naturalisation centre if they win this. This marriage isn’t a five-year stay of execution, if they win. It’s two months.

“No, let’s see them,” he said.

You’re such an idiot.

The air outside was swarming with drones, all gleaming rainbow colours, like purposeful bubbles. Some carried the logos of companies that weren’t even based on Mars, but in China and Nigeria. January tried not to think about whether this was going to make headline news in those places. It couldn’t. It would just be on some obscure part of the foreign news service that nobody read. Surely. America was on fire.

There was a roar of Senator! from all the journalists with the drones. They must have been waiting for nearly as long as Gale. Some of them were wearing dust masks and heavy winter coats.

“Senator, do you have any comment about Mx Stirling’s arrest?”

“When have I ever not had a comment? You know how much I like you all,” Gale said, and people laughed. “By now you’ve all seen the footage. January saved my life, and a halo scan has just confirmed he had nothing to do with the attack. House Gale will broadcast that later today.”

“Senator, there’s some evidence to say the halo doesn’t work so well on Earthstrongers. Is there any room for uncertainty?”

“No. The halo works on anything sentient. The evidence you’re talking about is one study of eight people by a postgraduate who had fitted the halo improperly, and it’s from twenty-five years ago.”

January shouldn’t have been surprised Gale knew that.