In pictures, Mars is red. That's how it always looks on TV - a dusty chalk red color, like the residue leftover from a flare.
In reality the planet is murky brown and swathed in fog. It looks lumpen and dull, and mostly like a baked potato.
It's only as they sink down through the atmosphere that Leela realizes the gray cloud surrounding it isn't fog - it's smoke.
Mars is on fire.
She can smell it when they step outside. Scorched earth, hanging smoke . . .
She grips Fry's hand and chokes down the rising tide of memory, the flood of adrenaline that tells her body she's back in the arena, blistering, coughing, as she listens to Celgnar burn.
Stop it, she tells herself. You're not back there. It's not real.
Fry squeezes her hand, pulling her back to herself. Leela squeezes back in silent thanks.
The Governor is waiting to greet them. He seems unperturbed by the smoke hanging in the air.
Maybe they're wildfires. Does Mars have wildfires? Does it even have trees? Leela can't see any.
Governor Liu. Governor Liu. Leela combs back through her memory as they approach.
Amy described him as a sycophant who was jealous of her father. After some investigation, Leela had discovered sycophant meant "kiss ass", which seemed about right. Mars is a cushy post. Big planet, close to Earth, with enough buggalo to feed ten planets. There are gold reserves too, and sometimes they still find precious stones as big as a person's head. Amy's family were the richest in the Empire, before, and even now this post is a sign of favor. Only someone Nixon really likes would be allowed to amass this much wealth.
Kif said Governor Liu was a General. That makes sense. Nixon doesn't like anyone as much as his warlords. Liu helped him secure the Amphibios cluster, and Neptune. He even subdued the Carcarons. This post - and early retirement - was his reward.
Liu is supposed to have three kids, but Leela only sees two of them standing alongside his wife - a boy and a girl. The girl looks around five, and is hopping up and down, flushed with excitement. The boy is nearer ten, and a mini-me of his father. He manages to look haughty even while blinking dust out of his eyes.
Liu is wearing full dress regalia, and glaring at the clouds of dust the ship kicked up, as if he wants to flatten each mote back down again. As if they've personally offended him.
"You're late," he snaps at Amy.
Amy swallows, and tries - with a visible lack of optimism - for her usual mega-watt smile.
"General Liu! How -"
"Governor Liu," the Governor corrects. "It's Governor now." He gives her a disdainful look. "You always were a stupid girl. Stupid and late."
Amy's smile freezes in place.
"Don't forget fat," she says coldly.
"I was getting to that. Fat, lazy, and disrespectful. Our exalted President - may he live forever - should have sent you to the ice mines, to learn the meaning of real work. It is tribute to his benevolence that he did not."
Liu waves over the cameras and pastes on a smile, spreading his arms wide to indicate the show is about to begin.
"Honored Victors! We welcome you to Mars! I am Governor Liu."
He inclines his head in a half-bow, and the Victors awkwardly half-bow back.
Liu reaches behind him and tugs forward the woman standing in his shadow. She's slim and pretty, and at least twenty years younger than him.
"My wife," Liu says irritably. "Constance. And our children." He beckons them forward. "This is my oldest son, Richard. His brother Milhouse is sick with the fever and could not be with us today."
Richard, Milhouse . . . Leela and Fry come to the same realization at the same time, and swivel to face the youngest child.
Liu looks annoyed.
"Yes, yes. We named my sons in honor and glory of President Nixon. Unfortunately" - he scowls - "our last child disappointed me by being born a girl. I could not dishonor the President by giving his name to a girl, so we call her after her mother."
"Connie," said mother mumbles, in a tone of soft apology.
Which is crazy. Even Leela knows that's not how . . . that . . . works.
Even Fry knows it.
Little Connie doesn't seem too bothered by her father's blatant distate for her. She's too busy staring at Fry and Leela in fascination.
She tugs on her brother's arm.
"Richie. Richie. What happened to her eye?"
The whisper is just loud enough to hear. Leela can feel the frustrated flush rising up in her cheeks, even as she stares at a fixed point on the horizon and pretends it isn't.
Richie shakes his sister off.
"Shut up, stupid!'
"But it's one big eye! Look!"
"Shut up! You'll get us in trouble!"
"But -"
Liu whirls around and hits his children. One quick slap for each of them, open-handed, across the top of the head. They flinch at the sting of the blows, and subside immediately into meek silence.
"Be silent," he snaps at them. Then, "Control these children!" at his wife, who nods and hurries to pull them away.
"Tough break," Fry mutters.
Leela presses down on his foot to shut him up. She wouldn't put it past Liu to hit him too.
Luckily for him the Governor's annoyance is still mostly directed at Amy.
"We eat in ten minutes," he tells her. "Make your tributes presentable. Don't be late."
They change in a hurry. There is no time for hair and make-up. Amy daubs some fresh lipstick onto Leela and beats the worst of the sand out of Fry's hair, and then it's smiles on and showtime, again.
The food is good, but Governor Liu's glowering presence has them all too on edge to eat much.
The kids eat at a separate table. They both look like they've been crying. The little girl keeps trying to talk to her brother, but he's giving her the silent treatment. The longer it goes on the more upset she becomes, until she stops trying and just stares down at her plate instead, lip wobbling dangerously.
Before Leela can stop him, Fry has loaded a pea onto his spoon and flicked it into the air. The tiny green dot soars over the intervening two tables and lands in Richie's glass of orange juice while he's not looking. The splash catches his sleeve and he whips round, yelling at his sister.
"Now look what you did, stupid head!"
Connie blinks, surprised . . . and then laughter breaks like a sunburst over her face.
"What? What's so funny?" Another pea bounces off the back of her brother's neck. "Hey! How are you doing that? Stop it! Stupid! Stop it!"
Connie just giggles harder.
"I have magic powers," she says. She wiggles her fingers like a witch. "Ooo-woooo!"
Leela glances over at Liu. He's not looking their way. Too busy berating some unlucky member of his staff.
The cameras don't seem to be on them either. They don't film all through dinner, just the good bits.
Surreptitiously, Leela slides Fry another pea.
This one drops right into the gap at the back of Richie's collar. He howls in rage and flings an entire fistful of his own peas at his sister.
"Stupid! Stupid head! I hate you!"
Connie pelts him with peas from her own plate, laughing hysterically, until their mother notices and sends another member of the staff to take the children away.
Fry is now laughing uncontrollably. Leela sends Connie a little wave, fighting her own smile, as the kids are dragged out of view.
Connie waves back at them, grinning despite the crushed peas in her hair.
"That was fun," Fry says, wiping his eyes.
"That was terrible," Leela tells him.
"No-one saw!"
"You're like a five year old."
"Aw, c'mon. She's just a little kid. And he was being mean to her. You saw it!"
"Kids are jerks," Leela agrees.
Fry grins back.
"Bet I could get Governor Liu."
And just like that, it's not funny anymore.
"No," Leela says. "Are you crazy?"
Fry winks at her.
"Crazy for you."
Leela kicks him under the table, and he grins harder.
"What? What's so funny?"
"Your face does a thing when I flirt with you," he tells her. "It's funny. I should flirt more."
Leela kicks him again, and dollops another spoonful of peas onto his plate.
"Shut up and eat your peas."
After dinner they move to another huge room, this one full of chaise-longue couches and little tables of coffee and hand-crafted desserts. There is a Native Martian lady playing piano in the corner, smooth after-dinner jazz, and some of the guests are dancing. It's not real dancing, more of a lazy drift as they keep up their conversation.
"We could dance," Leela suggests.
She's not sure what exactly they're supposed to do now. Dance? Talk to people? Kif is on the other side of the room with Amy, trapped in the orbit of Governor Liu. It's not a conversation Leela has any desire to join. Maybe if she and Fry look busy, they won't have to.
Fry studies the dancers.
"It looks boring," he says. Then he seems to remember himself, and gives her a sidelong glance. "We could dance, or we should dance?"
Leela hesitates.
"I want to dance," she says at last.
It's half true, and the safest option here, where everyone is much closer together and anyone could drift into eavesdropping range.
They make their way to the dance floor and drift for a while, keeping the conversation light. The day is starting to drag. Fry stifles a yawn, and that almost sets Leela off. But no-one else seems to be thinking of bed yet, so she reluctantly leads him off the dance floor, and back in the direction of the nearest coffee pot.
They're examining a plate of miniature black forest gateaux when Amy appears and snatches one.
"Hey morons," she says, through a mouthful. "It's a party. You're supposed to mingle."
Fry groans.
"Do we have to?"
Amy snatches another gateau.
"You know you do."
Leela eyes her curiously as she goes in for a third. Normally Amy takes some kind of amphetamine for parties. Drugs that boost her mood and keep her going for hours, artificially keyed-up and interested in her surroundings. They kill her appetite and shrink her pupils down to dots. Whatever she's taken today has had the opposite effect. She's loose-tongued and languid, and eating all the things she normally wouldn't touch.
It must be a sedative. Or a tranquilizer, or something. She's trying to self-soothe.
Leela wonders how hard it is for her to be back in her childhood home.
Fry knocks back his espresso, makes a disgusted face, and chases it with a miniature banoffee pie for sweetness.
"The Governor scares me," he says. "And what's with the bowing?"
Amy rolls her eyes.
"It's a cultural thing. It's a mark of respect."
"He didn't respect you," Fry points out. "And I don't think he respects us either. He barely said two words to us."
Amy rolls her eyes again.
"G'uh. Of course he doesn't." She selects a mini apple pie and examines the pattern on the pie crust. "It's not real respect. It's manners. You're the guests of honor, so he bowed. It's what you do here."
"Wait." Leela panics. "Does that mean we shouldn't have bowed back? I thought it would be more respectful."
"No, you bow back. He's the Governor. And a General."
Fry frowns.
"If he's a General, shouldn't we salute or something?"
He rips off a mock-salute. Amy slaps him down.
"No! You can't salute if you're not in the military! Smeesh, it's basic manners. Were you raised in a hole in the ground?"
"Yes," Leela reminds her, with a trace of coldness.
Fry just shrugs.
"I was raised in New York. We didn't have time for all these fancy-pants manners. Where I come from, you want someone to move, you say "Shove it!". They don't move, you yell at them." He nods, sanguine. "And everyone knows where they stand."
"You're an animal."
"Some of us weren't going to dinner parties before we could walk," Leela says sharply.
To her surprise, Amy actually laughs at that.
"Oh, yeah. I forget you guys were poor."
She pats Leela's arm, in a gesture that is almost fond, then indicates the raspberry cheesecake in her hand.
"You gonna eat that?"
If Kif is in need of rescue, it doesn't show on his face. He's wearing the same blank expression he always wears, as he listens to Governor Liu complain about the worker shortage on Mars.
Liu only stops when Amy shepherds her tributes towards him.
"Ah. Victor Leela. Victor Fry." He inclines his head. "I trust you enjoyed your meal?"
"Actually," Amy snags a flute of champagne off a passing plate and takes a sip, looking gleeful, "Leela is Leela's given name. In her culture they reverse it."
Liu scowls.
"I was not aware of that."
"It's fine," Leela says quickly. "Everyone calls me Leela. I don't mind."
"Yeah," Fry agrees. "And everyone calls me Fry. It's funny. Leela's last name is really her first name, and my first name is really my last name. But no-one calls me Philip. It'd be weird if you did. Like you were my mom."
There is a moment where everyone stares at Fry and tries to decide on a response.
Eventually Liu decides to ignore him.
"Governor Liu was telling me about the shortage of workers on Mars," Kif says, to fill the silence.
Liu scowls again.
"It is the fever. The Martians have no defense against it. One little fever a child could beat, and they die."
"Fever?" Leela blurts out. "What fever?"
Liu waves a dismissive hand.
"Blue spot fever. My doctor will explain it to you. Carlo! Carlo! Get over here!"
The crowd parts as they push a man through, then closes off again, leaving him out in the cold against a sea of turned backs.
He's young. Mid-twenties and Hispanic, with thick, wavy hair. He's good-looking, but he's wearing a sweater vest in a room full of tuxedos. Either he doesn't care much about his appearance, or doctor is not a high-status position on Mars.
It could be a little of both. Up close, the man's expression is distant and fretful.
"There you are," Liu says. "This is my doctor, Carlo."
"Carlos," the man murmurs, gently stressing the last syllable. He's swaying with tiredness. "Hello. Nice to meet you."
His accent is pretty soft, but Leela can tell by his inflections he's not a native English speaker. Like Liu, they give him away.
He frowns at Fry and Leela, bleary-eyed.
"The fever," he says. "Blue spot fever. Did you have it?"
Leela nods.
"Yeah, when I was a kid."
The doctor looks relieved, and turns to Fry.
"What about you?"
"I 'unno." Fry shrugs. "I had a bunch of fevers. One time, I had this one fever, and my tongue swelled up like a grapefruit and I couldn't get it back in my mouth, and for a week I - alked - ike - iss -"
"That's interesting," the doctor says patiently. "But blue spot fever would be different. It causes spots. Little blue dots on the skin, like the point of a pen. In clusters. Do you remember that?"
Fry casts his mind back.
"Maybe. I don't know. We were always getting sick. We didn't have good medicine in the orphanarium."
The doctor takes a step back.
"Governor, he should leave. It's not safe for him here."
The Governor hoots with laughter.
"Because of the fever? Don't be ridiculous. It's a childhood disease. A week in bed and he'll be fine."
"With respect, Governor . . . the fever can be dangerous, even in humans. Especially in children. If ten children contract it, seven will recover. But two could suffer lifelong consequences and one may even die. Would it not be better to -"
"Weak children," Liu interrupts.
"Please." Carlos pushes a hand through his hair, agitated. "I beg you, reconsider. Send the children away. Halt work on the farms. Halt work in the mines. You burn people's homes to halt the spread, but every day they go into the mines, they go into the fields . . . you must see, this is -"
"It stops the spread of contamination."
"With respect . . . that's not true. Your workers are living in tent cities now, closer than ever, with no good hygiene -"
Liu waves a dismissive hand.
"They're in the fresh air. Fresh air is good. It slows the spread of disease. Did your mother never teach you that?"
The doctor looks like he might cry.
"Reconsider the parades," he pleads. "At least. Please. I beg you. The Native Martians have no immunity. If you force them to attend, thousands will die. Is that really what you want? Governor -"
But Liu isn't listening.
"Force them?" He narrows his eyes. "They attend for the honor and glory of Mars. They attend to celebrate our President. As will you."
"I -"
Carlos wants to argue. Leela can see it in his eyes, the desperation as he weighs his ethics against the sure suicide that is speaking his mind. She wonders how many patients this conversation is keeping him from, right now. She wonders if he's the only human doctor on Mars.
The only one who knows a thing about this disease.
But he seems to realize it's hopeless, that he's pushed too far already.
He stares down at his feet.
"Yes," he says quietly. "I'll be there. Of course."
"Good." Liu's gaze bores into the younger man. "I remind you, I hired you to be doctor to my family. My staff. My guests."
"Yes. I know."
"See that you don't forget it."
A heavy silence falls.
Liu claps his hands suddenly, summoning a member of his staff.
"This evening is over. Show my guests to their rooms."
"Yes, Governor. Of course, Governor."
The servant is Native Martian, like all the rest. He has a ramrod straight posture and a gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. He doesn't speak as he leads them to their rooms, or even look directly at them.
"Your rooms," is all he says, as he points at doors on either side of the hall.
"Thanks," Fry mutters.
"Thanks," Leela says awkwardly. "I -"
She stops.
She has to say something.
"I'm sorry about the fever," she blurts out, as he turns to leave. "I - my mom - when I was younger -" She can't say it. "I know what it's like, to watch - to feel like - there's nothing you can do."
Silence.
"I'm sorry," she says uselessly.
The man blinks, then straightens up as if she'd never spoken.
"Your rooms," he says smoothly. "Good night."
Leela sits on her bed, staring into space.
Up high, with the windows open, she can smell the distant smoke. It's worse now she knows what it is.
Fry enters without knocking. Or maybe he did knock, and she just didn't hear him. All she knows is, one minute he's not there and the next he is, sitting beside her like he's been there all along.
"It's easier to sneak into your room here," he says quietly. "No cameras."
Leela nods.
They don't get into bed. They stay sitting in the middle of the mattress. Fry picks up the comforter and wraps it around them like a cocoon; a heavy, comforting weight.
"He's burning their houses," Leela says dully.
Fry says nothing, and she knows it's a horror he can't process.
It's hours before they fall asleep.
