Page 123 of The Mars House

On a launch pad, a ship with a full cargo of photovoltaic panels was ready. The Songshu mirror array with its salt towers wouldn’t work in the atmosphere, but these would. If this worked, and if the dust storm ever blew itself out, which January was starting to doubt, House Gale would be producing double the supply they had before. For the first time in history—news anchors were intoning this—the Tharsese energy supply would far outstrip the demand, and that would drive down energy prices, which would encourage new infrastructure projects. If House Gale could pull this off, it might be revolutionary.

Beside him, Gale let out their breath long and slow, both hands over their eyes. Around them, there was an ordinary stream of last-minute checks and safety protocols, and it felt like it went on for half of forever. Camera drones hovered everywhere, broadcasting live.

“The internet likes us,” Mx Francis murmured. “All my haptics feel like I’m getting a big hug.”

An engineer waved. They were wearing a halo that connected their haptics to the ship. As far as January understood, if there was anything wrong with the machinery, they would feel it just as much as if there were something wrong in their own arms. “Clear for takeoff.”

Everyone went quiet to see the engines fire, and the docking clamps tilt away, and the ship rise impossibly slowly in clouds of flame that soared out on the dust streams.

There were newscasts up everywhere, here and at the sky harbour.

“House Gale has said they expect the solar array to be fully functional in eight and a half hours. Good luck everyone.”

The drones began to float away, and as the call ended, the image of the control room at the sky harbour faded and it was just a neat grey space with a picture window looking out towards the solar towers and the Plains. There was a kind of hiss as everyone breathed out, and then an awkward pause as they all realized no one had thought beyond this point. What were you supposed to do for eight and a half hours while everything lay in the hands of engineers working in the atmosphere? If this didn’t work, House Gale was finished. If it did, they had to get ready to move to Jade Hill.

If January had been feeling a hundred per cent, he would have made the ride out to the part of the railway that wasn’t damaged and visited the naturalisation centre to see how everyone there was holding up. But even thinking about walking as far as the front door made him feel tired.

Gale buckled down onto the floor. It was slow, not a fall, and so silent that January wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been right next to them. He dropped onto his knees too.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Mei shi,” said Gale, and then blinked. “I mean, I’m fine.”

He wanted to hold their hands but didn’t know if he should. He wasn’t sure what yesterday had been, for them. Tiredness and relief, most likely. He couldn’t go round assuming things just because he wanted them.

He looked around for the hundredth time. He hadn’t seen the Consul yet, nor any sign of Real Aubrey, and that felt a lot more ominous than seeing them. His chest with tight with waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the certainty that it wasn’t a normal shoe but one of those horrible iron boots they’d used in medieval torture chambers when someone thought you might be a witch.

“January,” Gale said, holding his eyes properly.

“Mm?”

“What I promised the Consul.”

Dread kept him still.

“It was me. I promised to step down from the election. I’ll be in prison for the remainder of their consulship.”

January set his teeth, because he had known it would be terrible; but not this terrible. “You can’t just vanish, the Consul can’t just . . . you’re the favourite to win now, there’ll be riots if you go to prison for . . .” January stopped, because Gale was watching him and just waiting for him to see it himself, without interrupting. “I’m missing something.”

Gale nodded. “You know how we couldn’t understand where Lucy Collins managed to get accurate information?”

January had to push his hand across his face. The gunshot wound was making him slow. He had seen that figure in the orange jumper duck out just before the bomb, and he’d even wondered why at the time. “Aubrey’s working for the Consul.”

“Right. No one will know I’m in prison, because the Consul is going to swap Aubrey back in. I imagine that in exchange for covering up what they did to Max, the Consul will get control of Songshu, and House Gale’s vote in the Senate.”

“River . . .”

“I have to honour this or we’re both dead. If they think I won’t, then we’ll be shot behind the grain shed and they’ll blame it on another flare-up of violence.”

January dipped his eyes and nodded. Gale was right; it wasn’t like getting in a fight with another politician. The Consul was the head of state and things had gone too far now to row back. “When?” he asked at last.

It was only then he realized there had been a pair of praetorians at the door for last couple of minutes. One of them, incredibly unusually for Tharsis, had red hair.

“Now,” Gale said.

The praetorians made it look quiet, and ordinary. They led Gale away from everyone else, to another room down the hallway. Two more praetorians appeared on either side of January and ushered him through as well.

He had never known the room existed, never mind been inside.