Page 108 of The Mars House

People scattered into the forest, following the mammoth roads. Sasha’s officers were waiting at forks in the paths to keep directing people onward towards the broken railway, and it was just as well, because the darkness under the trees was deep. The dust was like brown smog even in the day, but at night, lamps barely did anything but show the patterns of the wind. The ground was thick with it even under the densest parts of the canopy, and their boots left deep, clear prints that started to wisp away as soon as they were made. That was good, at least. It would be impossible to follow them.

January couldn’t decide if he kept hearing gunfire behind them, or if it was only the rattle of the trees way above. When he looked back, there was nothing behind them but the dark.

Dr Okonkwo had given him some anaesthetic and it was good, but he felt a lot like those dust-prints must have. Like the wind was hazing him away.

Sasha stuck close; so did Mx Francis and Mx Ren, and Drs Okonkwo and Molotov. January still hadn’t seen Yuan’s mother, so they had him too. Yuan was curled up in Gale’s arms; he’d run out of steam all at once, while he was being wrapped up against the cold. January was worried about him. There were no toddler-sized heat suits, so he was tucked into Gale’s sealskin jacket, with a blanket over that. And January was worried about Gale too. They were bloody fit—Sasha enforced a serious regime in the gym, January had seen that more than often enough—but fit wasn’t the same as able to walk for twenty miles on a prosthesis that had only been fitted a few months ago. They wouldn’t be able to walk on it for even half as long as it would take to reach Tharsis. He kept looking round and hoping to find a horse to snag, but even if a horse had passed within ten feet of them and stopped obligingly, fully saddled, he wouldn’t have seen it.

He was about to say something when everyone else collapsed. They went down like marionettes whose puppeteer had just been called down to dinner. He yelped and managed, just, to catch Gale and Yuan before the two of them could hit the ground, then choked when it shot agony up his shoulder. He had to lever Gale down into the dust and the grass. Yuan scrambled away, confused. January pulled him close, terrified of losing him in the dark, or of letting him get too cold again.

“What’s happening!”

“I think it’s the internet,” he said, trying to make his voice come smooth and calm. “I think they’ve cut the internet so we can’t keep broadcasting. Can you be super grown up for me and see if you can wake Dr Molotov up? They’ll be really confused at first, so you have to explain that it was internet, all right?”

“Right,” Yuan said firmly.

January didn’t dare touch Gale. He wasn’t wearing a cage and he hadn’t done any of the exercises, and the thought of touching them made him hear the snicker of bones breaking and teeth skittering on the floor. “Aubrey,” he said, close to them. He wanted to hold their neck and check for a pulse, because he couldn’t see them breathing, at all; his fingers ached with it. “Aubrey, can you hear me?”

Gale breathed deeper, then sat up fast. “Suffering Christ.”

Feverishly, January thought: I say that. They’re learning to swear in English from me.

“What the hell was that?” Mx Francis managed, levering themselves up on both hands. “There’s power from the gravity trains, why’s the internet . . .”

January wanted to say it was the praetorians, but he couldn’t gather up the words in time.

“That was the Consul,” Gale said grimly. “They don’t want any more footage getting out of their praetorians firing at people who are running away.”

“Surely that screws up their own people?” January asked, horribly aware that they were all prone here in the howling cold.

“Soldiers train without internet. Hold that,” Gale added, and gave him a loop of cord that was attached to something he couldn’t make out. They walked backwards with it, unspooling the string and kicking old branches and gorse out of the way to make a clear space.

It was a tent. It didn’t start out looking like a tent. It had fitted into a bag the size of a jam jar, but once Gale shook it out, it snapped into a tent shape, tall enough for January to stand in. Then you pulled the string, and there was a hiss, and it sealed to the ground, and January jumped, because it glowed inside. Gale held the flap open and saw him in; without discussion, the others came too. Incredibly, when January took off his dust mask, it was warm. He must have looked bewildered, because Gale pointed to a webbing built into the ground sheet that seemed to be glowing.

“Heat silk. The filament should be good for twelve hours.” They breathed out slowly. “I’ll be back in a second. I’m just going to see if I can find any of Sasha’s officers. They’re all separated out.”

“I can—” January started.

“Stay where you are or I’ll tie you to a tree,” Gale said, and lobbed two more tents in their tiny packages to Sasha and Mx Ren.

So January, Yuan, Sasha, Dr Molotov, Dr Okonkwo, Mx Francis, and Mx Ren waited in miserable silence. Mx Francis was suffering the most. They were shaking and breathing too hard. Mx Ren looked ill. Dr Okonkwo seemed best off out of all them, and January wondered if that might be because they were the oldest; they must have been around for a good while before haptics were invented, or at least, before they were widespread. January kept both hands pressed flat to the ground sheet. It was hot. Yuan was flat on his front, soaking in the heat.

“Is this really happening?” Dr Molotov said finally. “Is the Consul really using an Earthstrong riot as cover to—to assassinate the Senator?”

“I guess it makes sense,” Dr Okonkwo murmured. “The fleet is still two weeks away and against all expectations, we have enough power to finish the solar tower. Nobody could have foreseen that we’d get mammoths to raise the gravity trains. The Senator’s going to win the election at this rate. They’ll turn those ships around, or send them into the desert.” They frowned. “Insane timing about Max really. Exactly when it would have . . . maximum impact.”

Sasha shot January a black look. “Anyone would think it was on purpose.”

“I didn’t find the body on purpose just to screw up your campaign, Martinez,” January said, and then had to put one hand over his shoulder, because despite the anaesthetic, it was hurting now. Beside him, Yuan settled down with his head on January’s knee.

“Only it’s funny how great it was for the Consul, just at that moment.”

January had, suddenly and completely, had enough of trying to make himself little and obliging. “Okay, dickhead, so if you were married to someone whose last consort had vanished and whose excuses about it were all about as clear as a swamp, would you definitely trust that all was well and of course you shouldn’t call the police when you found the sodding body?”

“Speak Mandarin, no one can understand you.”

Dr Okonkwo sighed. “He said—”

“I know what he fucking said,” Sasha snapped.