Page 82 of The Mars House

“Immediate problem number two,” Mx Ren said, “the herd didn’t just smash up the railway. They went through Fields Eight and Nine. Destroyed the salt towers. We’re going to have to lose the internet in about—mm, six hours, or there won’t be enough power to run Tereshkova Wharf.”

There was a little quiet. The fire snickered. January stared at the floor, where there was a film of frost that disappeared only about four feet away from the fire. It only formed near people. It glittered, and between him and Gale, Kasha was patting at it curiously, making paw prints.

“Solutions to either one of those then please,” Gale murmured.

“The last gravity train hit the Valley floor this morning,” Dr Molotov said, shaking their head. “We have no reserve power left. All we have is the tiny amount coming in from the remaining sun fields.”

“We can’t lose the internet,” Mx Francis protested. “Anyone who’s grown up with implants—they’ll go into shock.”

“We don’t have a choice. It’s cut power to the servers or cut power to Tereshkova, which will explode if it’s without power for the cooling towers for longer than ten minutes,” Dr Molotov told them, with an edge.

Gale was staring into the middle distance, toward one of the fires, unblinking. January couldn’t tell if they were even listening any more.

“Can we set up a temporary camp, for the Earthstrongers?” someone asked.

“With what? We’re not the army, I don’t have a thousand heat-sealed tents stuffed down my trousers, do you?” Mx Ren growled.

“There’s a lot of horses on the farms up here,” someone else offered. “We can get everyone to ride back. The funicular train down the Valley still works, so that’s only a few miles.”

“A few miles on horseback in minus forty degrees might as well be five hundred,” January said, trying not to sound too frustrated. He had spent a lot of the last month trying to make people understand that even though a Natural person could happily go for a stroll in a jumper in minus ten degrees, anyone like him was going to be busy dying in a hedge. “You can’t ask people to go on a gigantic hiking expedition just to get home—and then to do it again, twice a day every day, after a full shift at work. We literally couldn’t eat enough calories to live through that. I need ten thousand a day just to function in this cold, and I’m struggling. I’m not being difficult, I’m telling you what we can and can’t survive. I know no one’s saying this because no one wants to think about it, but can I say the really obvious solution?”

All he got were blank looks. “What?” Mx Ren said.

“Songshu is enormous. We can bring them here.”

It got a very deep silence.

“Any objections?” Gale said.

An appalled stir went through first the security people, then everyone else. In the end it was Mx Francis who sat forward.

“Er—yes? All they’d have to do is take off the cages and Songshu will immediately change hands. You’re not talking about an ordinary workforce, Senator, you’re talking about a thousand super-humans who all hate you. This is nuts!”

“They’d be filmed one hundred per cent of the time,” January said, as softly as he could. “No one could do anything even if they wanted, not without immediately being shot.”

“We all said that about Gagarin Square!”

Gale gripped the edge of their chair.

“Someone threw a bomb in through our window and we still don’t know how she knew where you’d be!” Mx Francis pushed. “Are we genuinely saying this is a good idea?”

There was a surge of agreement from all round the fire. All the security officers might as well have just heard that Gale was planning to go swimming with some great whites who had promised that they weren’t hungry.

Beside him, Gale looked ill. “Be quiet.”

There was a strange, instant silence, because Gale didn’t sound like the easily amused academic any more.

“The issue here is a thousand people who will die tonight if we don’t help them, a thousand people who are working for us despite the reputation of House Gale among Earthstrongers. We are not going to let them freeze to death just because some of us wish to say that our varying anxieties carry more weight than a thousand lives. When I say, does anyone have any objections, I am not consulting you as your psychologist. I do not care if you have a vague sense of unease; I’m asking for numbers. I’m asking if we have the supplies and space to accommodate a thousand people. If it doesn’t go on a graph, it is irrelevant. Does anyone have any objections?”

Nobody said anything. A lot of eyes were suddenly on tablets and styluses.

“Good,” Gale ground out. “Make all the tower floors as safe for Earthstrong guests as they can be made, and get someone up to the building site to explain they will be welcome here. Dr Molotov, let the internet servers know we’re going to have to cut power to them at night; it will go back on in the day. I’ll tell people to make sure they’re—that they’re sitting down when it happens. Go to work.”

There was a rush to get away. Gale was very still, and very pale.

A drone bobbed down to look more closely at Gale. January shook his head at it, but the operator ignored him and came nearer and nearer. He would have liked to throw it across the room, but then there would be a whole show about him losing his temper.

“Senator,” he said quietly, “I’m not feeling so good, I think the altitude medication isn’t working. I can’t remember where Dr Okonkwo’s office is; would you come with me?”