Page 84 of The Mars House

Mx Francis shrank two inches from a relieved sigh. “Okay, good. Okay—and, and Jan—you haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Um—assume I have,” he said, and wondered if there was a word for the feeling that uncurled when you knew for absolutely certain that you were about to be very embarrassed, because although it hadn’t happened yet, there was no avoiding it.

“It’s Sunday,” Mx Francis prompted him.

“It . . . is?”

“It is, and remember a thousand years ago when we came up with a schedule . . . ?” Mx Francis said. They tied another reef knot.

January was blank for a good few seconds, and then his brain restarted properly and he couldn’t believe he had forgotten. It was why he was here, after all. “Start of romance day.”

“So don’t scream and punch my boss please, it isn’t sexual assault, it’s scheduled, has been for weeks.”

“I have never screamed and never punched anyone,” January said.

“Only you kind of look like you have,” Mx Francis said, sparkling tentatively. “Are we absolutely sure the Royal Ballet doesn’t have its own haka?”

He nearly spat out his hot chocolate and Mx Francis laughed too, and neither of them said, Christ, that came around quickly. Start of romance day; when Mx Francis had given him the schedule, it had seemed so far away that you’d only need to worry about it imminently if you were a beam of light.

“With all this, is it really that vital?” he asked. His insides were tying their own reef knots.

Three of the Earthstrong construction men were telling Gale an involved joke, with gesticulating and one diagram on a notepad. Gale was giving it all their attention. Still all right. The Earthstrong men looked enchanted already. He didn’t know why he was worried. Even if someone cut Gale off from all this money and power and dumped them in Americatown with short hair and overalls, he was nearly sure that they would have befriended the local gang, spell-checked the graffiti, and ended up being owed dinner by at least four different people by the end of the day.

A kneejerk instinct in him wanted to huff that if other people had had the kind of education Gale did, then they would have learned to do that too, so it wasn’t so remarkable. But he didn’t think that that was what was happening at all. It was—and he was askance with himself that he hadn’t noticed this before—that Gale was a lot like Val. They basically liked ninety-nine per cent of the humans they met. He just didn’t think you could fake interest in the weird and possibly indecent diagrams and still laugh like Gale was laughing. They could be afraid, or at moral loggerheads, or right at the other end of the political spectrum, and still enjoy someone.

That wasn’t a class thing or an education thing. It was an intrinsic Gale thing.

“More than ever,” Mx Francis said. They gazed around, and though they were trying not to let it show, they were thrumming with nerves. “Not just for the show. People need to see that the two of you are in this together.”

“I don’t understand.”

“January,” Mx Francis said, with an urgency that sounded like they’d restrained it so much only with great difficulty. “Look around. If the Senator wins the election, all these people are going to have to naturalise. Liking you is all that’s between the Senator and a broken neck.” A fleet of drones sailed past and both January and Mx Francis looked that way. “Oh, God. The Senator’s about to do the broadcast about the internet. If this doesn’t cause a riot, I’ll wear that repulsive shirt of yours all week.”

January lifted his eyebrows. “You sure? These stains are white spirit. I think this one is the Weird Mystery Sludge from when we cleaned out Silo 3.”

“Weird Mystery Sludge and all,” Mx Francis said, tying another knot as, between the willow trees at the front doors, Gale stepped up to the podium.

38

“In one hour from now, at eight o’clock, all internet servers in Tharsis will be powered down overnight. We do not take this decision lightly. But it’s this, or Tereshkova Wharf.

“Everyone has been incredibly patient, and the building work on the tower is on schedule. This is a terrible but necessary step to take for the final two weeks. For those of you who have had haptic implants for many years, there is a high chance that you’ll go into shock when the signal drops. Our medics recommend that everyone stay sitting down when this happens, and if you don’t have anyone with you who doesn’t have those connections, it is important that you find a neighbour who knows to look in on you. For those of you who do not have internal connections, please take care of those who do. Do not call the emergency services for anything less than life-or-death problems: they are already overrun. This is going to be very difficult. But it won’t last long. The signal will come up again at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Thank you.”

Gale trudged down from the podium.

“Is it really going to be that bad?” January asked. He’d gone to the front to wait.

“Dr Okonkwo thinks so. We’ll see in an hour.” They sighed. “I can see you gearing up to draw something embarrassing on me in marker pen if I do collapse, but bear in mind that my revenge will be immediate and lengthy.”

“Me? What? Why would you accuse me of something like that? I don’t have anything behind my back. Sad.”

Gale smiled, but they looked away suddenly, at nothing particular.

January claimed their arm and steered them away from that podium. It had its own gravity, and it only got heavier as the weeks ground on. Everyone was starting to look at it with a leaden dread. Gale didn’t, but that was only because they could hold themselves too still for it to show. To walk up there every night and explain the latest horrible news was getting harder and harder, that was obvious, but Gale wouldn’t let anyone else do it. If it all failed, they pointed out, it was going to be their face on that failure, not anyone else’s.

“Let’s go and see what horrifying news Dr Molotov has,” he suggested. “I bet that’ll cheer you right up.”

Dr Molotov had two pieces of good news and one piece of horrifying news. The good news was that they’d worked out, to everyone’s huge relief, that there was enough steel on site already to finish the tower, as long as some people could make the ride to the Valley for smaller parts like bolts. The second good thing was that if the Songshu pine forest were to be cut down, then that timber could heat a good deal of Tharsis for the next two weeks; people wouldn’t die of cold in order to keep powering Tereshkova Wharf. When Mx Ren asked if the forestry equipment would still work in the dust, Dr Molotov brightened and said yes, of course it would, because it was built to withstand gales of sawdust. There were enough ranches on the Plains to requisition horses to get the timber to the train down the Valley. It would work. A little cinder of hope flared up through everyone.