Page 139 of The Mars House

He saw it on the big screen before he saw it in front of him. The news anchor was already talking about the live footage.

“. . . in an extraordinary move, Senator Gale has taken their whole campaign team into Ares Prison, where January Stirling is being held for the mandatory minimum sentence of twenty-five years for uncaged manslaughter; already sparking opposition accusations of a publicity stunt to put pressure on the High Court to change the law . . .”

Gale’s whole staff was indeed here, set up on the tables along with the prisoners, none of whom seemed to mind, and some of whom were taking the opportunity to flirt with the beautiful rich people in the cheery way people do when they know they haven’t got a hope. January would have been nervous in a prison at home, but none of these people really deserved to be here. All of them, in this wing, were in for the same thing he was. They had killed someone, always by accident. The ones who hadn’t done it by accident were on the hulks around Jupiter. They were the unlucky one-in-two-hundred-and-sixty-sevens.

Mx Ren ducked through a knot of people to say hello, looking happier than he’d ever imagined they could possibly look. He had a sudden suspicion that actually they quite liked a bit of rule breaking.

“Will you not be in trouble for taking over a prison?” January asked them both, Ren and Gale.

“Trouble is how you get people’s attention,” Ren said, clapping his shoulder. “If we lose, we can still wangle you out of here. I mean, we’ll be changing places with you for what will then be treason, but then it’ll be your turn at playing with lawyers and negotiating with House Song.”

So they all watched the news coverage together. Even the guards had come in from the staff room. A lot of them, he noticed, were wearing House Gale badges. Beside him, Gale looked serene, but he could feel them shaking. He slid his fingers through theirs, half sure they were going to push him off, but they only squeezed, hard.

“—in prison and even I don’t think we should be allowed to walk too near Natural people,” one of the other inmates was saying seriously to Sasha, who looked bewildered to find themselves roped into a heated card game about exploding cats with about eight other people.

“God, no, all this bringing new people into the city however they like is insane. The Consul’s a nutbag. Gale knows what he’s doing.”

Sasha took a breath, but then held it, and nodded. “Well. I think so.”

“Military, are you?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Me too.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Ganymede.”

“No!” Sasha laughed, pleased. “What base? I was at Jiangxi—”

“Jiangxi! We visited once and stole all your kiwis!” the Earthstrong man exclaimed joyfully.

“You bastards, I wondered what had happened!”

January glanced at Gale and grinned. “I don’t know if you can hear, but I think an important thing is happening over this way.”

Gale smiled too, and January tried hard to remember how they looked right then, in case he didn’t have another chance for a while. As always, they were sitting very straight and still, the image of perfect Tharsese chivalry, hair loose in a heavy black spill sealed back with the senate sigils. Usually if they were out in public they dressed in House colours, but today it was white and a pale, rusty gold. It was something about dress code for elections, but it looked more as though the spirit of the winter had just stolen in to see what people did away from the frozen desert and the mountains.

“They’re about to call New Kowloon,” someone called suddenly, and there was a dead quiet.

New Kowloon was the biggest constituency in Tharsis. It would swing things definitively one way or another. With it, Gale’s result would be too high for the Consul to catch up. Without it, they couldn’t win.

“New Kowloon is the Consul’s home constituency, isn’t it,” January said quietly.

“It is.”

He drew his breath in deep. “I just wanted—I know I haven’t said this to you before. But I didn’t do it on the understanding that you’d swing something legal in the Senate. I don’t expect you to be able to change anything. So just—whatever happens, promise you won’t feel guilty. Or, you know. A flattering but not totally debilitating amount of guilt.”

Gale looked down at him for a long second. “Please can you stop being so nice to me, please just fight me, not fighting feels like you don’t like me enough to bother.”

“What are you talking about? I can’t stand you,” January said.

Gale laughed.

On the big screen, the shot of the voting registry suddenly zoomed in on a steward who raised their hand. “New Kowloon calls for Senator Gale.”

Being shot at had been quieter than the noise that erupted all around them. Someone threw glitter over them; when he twisted round, it was Mx Ren, actually, properly smiling for the first time since he’d met them, and then at least eight people were pushing Gale upright, up onto the table where everyone could see, and then they were on the screen as well as there in real life.