Page 94 of The Mars House

He took his cup over to the piano. It was, as far as he could tell, only for show, because nobody seemed to play it; maybe they were embarrassed. He hadn’t gone to an opera-ballet school for nothing, though. He tapped out the first few notes of “I Saw Three Ships” to remind himself where to start, then remembered after the first verse. He liked the piano; it was something you had to do with your whole mind, not just parts of it. Some of the children came to see what he was doing—some of them, maybe, had never seen a piano before—and then he leaned back a little to gave a drone space to skim along the keyboard.

A few of the children’s parents came too, and he slowed down to let them sing along. He couldn’t sing, but that was a good thing, because he had to teach the words to the kids, who wanted to join in but didn’t know them. It made him sad in a papercut slice that they didn’t know. Only brief. They learned fast.

Someone had brought a battered old violin and came in with him on the next round. By then it was loud enough for the naturalised people at the tables further from the fire to have noticed and begun to stray nearer too, he hoped not because they were worried something frightening would happen.

Because people had moved, he saw through them to Gale, who was sitting by the window with the angry lady from before. All his vertebrae seized up and he almost dropped everything, but Gale didn’t look worried. They were showing her something on a tablet, and she was looking.

He forgot to explain what Bethlehem was to the children, because he was too busy praying the lady wouldn’t get upset. If she hit Gale wearing the cage, she wouldn’t hurt them, not really, but that wasn’t the point. January didn’t know how far a human being could go without having a nervous breakdown, but Gale must have been camped out in the precipice for a long time now, flicking pebbles over the edge.

“Is it to do with clothes?” a little boy asked seriously. He was about three or four.

In the time it took January to look down at him and think about it, Gale had crossed the room.

“It’s a place in the Middle East,” Gale said, settling on the piano stool, facing the other way to January, though shoulder to shoulder.

January breathed out. Thank God. Not beaten up: good start to the evening, very good.

The little boy went down to a hushed whisper. “Are you, are you a princess?” He was staring at the silver in Gale’s hair, the Senate sigils. It was, January had worked out, mandatory for Gale to wear them when they were in public, and illegal for anyone who was not a senator to wear anything remotely like them. It was about making senators recognisable. He had an uncomfortable sense that it had passed into law after Gagarin Square. But if you were four, those silver sigils were a crown.

January saw Gale take a breath to explain senates and republics, but then let it out again. “Yes.”

“Is this your real hair?”

“Yes,” Gale said, as serious as they were with adults. They had gone still and terse. Not at home around little children.

“Can . . . can I see?”

January nudged the little boy. “Hey, little bear. Don’t bother them too much, yeah?”

“Ah—no, it’s all right,” Gale said. They lifted the little boy into their lap, slowly, as though they were afraid of hurting him. In their arms, he was miniature.

The little boy looked delighted. Carefully, Gale lifted the silver sigil off—it was a kind of comb that sank into the base of a braid or a knot—and set it into the little boy’s hair instead. The little boy bounced joyfully. Gale’s shoulders tacked; he was stronger than they’d thought, though not strong. They caught him gently when he tried to lunge past them and bang the piano keys.

“Princesses keep still.” It wasn’t a command, just the quietest kind of suggestion.

“Mm,” the little boy agreed, and sat perfectly still, tiny hands clasped over Gale’s. After a minute, he twisted around to check, then straightened up too. January grinned and brushed his cheek.

“What’s your name?”

“Yuan,” the little boy said. “You’re the dancing man.”

“I am. January. And this is Aubrey.”

Yuan smiled again and twisted away from him, embarrassed, and put his face against Gale’s chest. Gale set one hand very lightly over the back of his head, watching him, not January. They looked—not sad, they were too controlled to seem sad—but muted. He had a feeling he knew why. It was how he felt here at New Year. It was all borrowed joy, from a culture that didn’t belong to him. Because he was watching for it, he saw Gale decide it was time for them to get out the way and let the Earth people enjoy Earth things undisturbed by intruders, and he was in time to catch their wrist before they could put Yuan down.

“Stay,” he said, and then realized what he’d done and let go; but when he met their eyes, scared they’d taken it as an order and not a request, Gale didn’t look worried. Instead they held his shoulder as they shifted their weight off the prosthetic again and resettled Yuan. It put a happy fizz down his whole arm.

And all the souls on Earth shall sing; even though Earth was left behind now and for most people here there would be no going back.

As January let the piano fade away, Yuan said, quite clearly, “I want to be a princess too when I’m big.”

People cheered, and one of the lumberjacks made a toast to a merry Christmas and a New Year that might be a bit above absolute zero. Gale opened a bottle of champagne, poured some for January, then passed it round.

“To mammoths,” Gale said, just for him, under all the noise.

41

The carols went on into the night, and so did the wine. After January ran out of music he knew off by heart, the violinist took over and people showed no sign of wanting to go to bed. Yuan hurried away at last to his mum, who had been watching carefully from a bench near the fire. It hurt to see him run. He was so spindly he was nearly see-through in places, and he had the fragility of someone whose heart wasn’t working properly. Born here, but first generation. January had a nasty feeling he wouldn’t live long enough to marry into any sort of royalty.