Page 99 of The Mars House

“Me. Why?”

They shrugged a little, contrite, as though they really were worried he was going to get angry with them again. “It’s harder to lie to someone you like.”

He breathed out slowly. “Give me a minute to collect my thirty pieces of silver then.”

“Sorry, what? Silver?”

“It’s just an old story about someone who was a real bastard to someone who didn’t deserve it,” he mumbled.

The Consul caught his shoulder. “January. The chances are that they really, absolutely deserve it.”

He nodded, and couldn’t talk again over the noise in his head that was the consular campaign—and the whole of House Gale—smashing down around him.

Kingmaker indeed.

“Can I leave Yuan with you?” he asked.

“Oh, er . . . I’m sure we can find someone to look after them,” the Consul said, not looking very confident. “It’s probably dangerous for me to carry around an Earthstrong child.”

January thought it was a joke and laughed, but then realized it wasn’t, and the feeling that settled down over him wasn’t a very good one. He didn’t like words like “disturbed,” because they were usually used by people who’d never seen anything more disturbing than a streaker on a football pitch, but disturbed was right; disturbed in the sense of water, and seeing something big writhe just under the surface which didn’t move much, but did move all the same. “He’s tiny. He couldn’t break into a packet of biscuits.”

“No, no, no,” Yuan said suddenly. He must have realized what was happening. “No, they’re scary, I want to . . .”

“I’m scary?” the Consul said, somewhere between tickled and incredulous.

January watched them for a second and almost said that Gale had been carrying Yuan around all evening, but he didn’t. You couldn’t control what frightened you. He was scared of spiders and it wasn’t as though any of them were bigger or stronger than him, unless there was some horrifying low-gravity variety nobody had told him about.

Jesus Christ, maybe there were giant low-gravity spiders.

“I’ll ask someone else to . . .” he said, then trailed off, because he didn’t know who to try. If all of Gale’s staff had been arrested, then everyone he was knew was locked in their rooms. Yuan was looking up at him with big eyes and no hope.

“I’ll take them,” one of the praetorians offered, with a smile that managed to be friendly despite all the combat gear. They bowed a little to January, careful and apologetic, just a normal person now that they weren’t arresting anybody. “We didn’t mean to scare you before, little person. We’re really sorry.”

January thought Yuan would only be more scared, but in fact, he straightened up speculatively. “In, in movies and things, soldiers have those things that go puff and then fireworks come out.”

The praetorian thought about it. “Flash bombs?”

“Have you got any?” Yuan said hopefully.

January prodded him. “Okay, mate, no bombs for you, but . . . you’ll be all right with the nice praetorian, yes?”

“Okay,” Yuan said unwillingly.

“Who will definitely not set off some flash bombs outside and it definitely won’t be massive fun,” the praetorian said, doing an innocent face.

Yuan dived at them.

January took a breath, then decided that some things were out of his control, he wasn’t Yuan’s dad, and anyway, it would be massive fun. He wished he was playing with flash bombs outside. He bowed to the praetorian, who bowed back and gave him a little smile, one that promised they were just violent for a job, not as a person; as a person they had to go home and worry about laundry and running out of milk just like everyone else. He smiled too, knowing it was true even though every fibre in him howled that it couldn’t be. The thing about fibres was that they weren’t very bright.

The Consul gave him a strange look. “You are . . . a very graceful person.”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing, really,” they said, but they laughed, and he followed them, feeling confused.

Gale was locked in their own room on the fifth floor, just along from the production lounge. Two praetorians were at the door, one with a halo readout playing on a tablet. They nodded him through. When January went inside, Gale was sitting at the desk by candlelight, though there was power for the lamps now, writing on a tablet. Mammoth double-staves again. Someone had already been in and put a halo on them, a dim purple light just glowing against their temple from the reader. They watched him come in, but they said nothing. They looked afraid.

“Did you do it?” January asked. He moved a chair across and sat down in it, not too close. All his thoughts had turned sharp and serrated, and he was cutting himself whenever he tried to think.