Page 77 of The Mars House

“Why do you even HAVE a press secretary!”

“Do you think this is rage that can be solved with cookies, or is it maybe more weapons grade?” Gale murmured.

January took his glasses off. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“I leave you alone for TEN SECONDS!”

“It was an experiment, Solly, we’re sorry!” Gale called.

“I could get the dog elected Consul easier than you!” Mx Francis snarled from the doorway. “I can’t believe I have to say this, but no calling the Consul, either of you! The Consul, remember, arch-nemesis Song who hates you?”

“It was my fault,” January said in a small voice.

“It was not his fault, don’t shout at him,” Gale said.

“I’m going to work for House Shang,” Mx Francis grumbled, off back down the corridor again. “They tried to head-hunt me. And you know what? Their offer didn’t basically go, oh, Solly, you’re stupid, come and work for a logarithm table that thinks it wants to be Consul . . .”

“Are they actually going to work for House Shang?” January whispered.

Gale waited till Mx Francis had definitely gone. “Born in House Gale, will die in House Gale. Anyway. If you were king of everything, with all the money in the worlds; what would you do?”

January shook his head, because he couldn’t imagine for a second that anyone would do what he wanted. “Open the naturalisation centres. Take the gates and the fences down, open it up to everyone who hasn’t naturalised. No naturalisation, but—free rooms, free power, free food, for anyone in a cage, for the duration of the dust. The funds to do it already exist, but the uptake is really low and most of those rooms are empty. There can’t be any fraud because it’s obvious if someone’s Earthstrong or not.” He had to look away. “Otherwise people are going to go to the naturalisation camps and naturalise just so that they don’t die of cold and hunger.”

There was a terrible hanging moment in which he realized Gale would probably think that was ideal.

Gale was looking down at their own hands in their lap. He watched them without any hope. It was too much of an about turn. They couldn’t campaign against cages and then say, oh, actually, it’s fine, have some free stuff.

“Okay,” said Gale. “Let’s do that.”

“Shut up,” January said, and then clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry. No; why would you do that?”

“Rather than—letting thousands of people die?”

January waited. In his experience politicians were usually very happy to let thousands of people die if it was cheaper and easier.

Gale waited too, then looked indignant and punched him in the arm. “You shut up. Now come and be my human shield while I talk to the money people.”

33

That evening, truck after gigantic truck arrived with building materials, and the great stretches of fallow land beyond the sun fields became a building site overnight, floodlit with halogens and powered by biofuel generators that rattled in the darkness. January walked out to see, along with a couple of drones. Even by the time he arrived, the work crews had marked out where the base of the tower would be, and they had begun to dig its foundations. It was the size of Songshu. He watched the truck lights flash and the cranes unloading rows and rows of steel cabins that would house the workforce. Thousands of people would be coming tomorrow; this was just the start.

Partly he was outside because he couldn’t do anything useful inside Songshu. Gale was broadcasting the message about rolling power cuts.

The weather was turning. It was cold, really cold now. Perhaps it was that the dust had obscured the sun for long enough now that the ground hadn’t soaked up any heat at all for the last few days, or perhaps there was always a cold snap toward the end of winter, but it wasn’t safe to go outside without a heat suit any more. Counterintuitively, there was no frost. Not enough vapour in the air. As he passed a gigantic machine on caterpillar tracks, some people were checking the integrity of the steel.

Down in the Valley, below the dust clouds, the blackout started, and block by block, the city lights faded to nothing.

Half an hour later he was standing with the cameras while the drone operators took light levels, studying the script Mx Francis had written for him, dressed not in the spectacular new things that worked for business life at Songshu, but his own clothes, his old ones: jeans and a checkered shirt. The broadcast was going to be in English. He had never seen an official broadcast done in English. But when it went out, it would have the seal of House Gale.

“. . . and therefore House Gale has deemed it appropriate to open the naturalisation centres for any Earthstrong person who needs a refuge whilst the blackouts occur; this will be complimentary, with meals and heat included, and no obligation to naturalise . . .” He trailed off and had to push his hand over his face.

“What’s the matter?” Mx Francis said.

“I don’t sound like this. Nobody sounds like this,” he said helplessly.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, I can’t explain!” He slid down the green screen wall and went head first into a bar of chocolate.