Citizenchip Read Free Page B

Like you do with
ships –- all your ships have female names."
    "Hurricanes, too," he says wryly.
    "Anyway. We don't really care about the
gender thing. But thanks, anyway."
    "You're welcome, Sam. Samantha!" he catches
himself, and laughs.
    "And hey, here we are!" he cries, as we take
the last few steps up to the top of the cliff rim and finally see
over the vastness of Hesperia Scarp. And the view is truly awesome.
From horizon to horizon, one huge sweep of planet, and we're so
high above it that we're practically flying.
    The humans come together, exclaiming over the
tremendous view, slapping each other on the back, congratulating
each other on the accomplishment of making it here. The guy with
the twisted ankle is watching through my eyes, and they exchange
some good-natured ribbing over the comm.
    "God damn!" hoots Jerry.
"You can't even see the other side of this valley!"
    "Planum, not valley," I say (gripping his
clothes with my little paws, to hold on), "and yes, the planum of
Hesperia is hundreds of kilometers wide, so the other side is
beyond the horizon--you can't see it from the ground." Epsilon has
just grabbed that information and fed it to me.
    "Hoo baby!" Jerry bellows, and takes me in
his hand, holding me out at arm's length, so that I see the vista
all spread out behind him. "Sam, take my picture!"
    (Cross reference: Photography used to be how
humans recorded visual images. Obsolete now, since all digital
images get archived automatically, but some humans still like the
idea, apparently. Stock phrase: "say cheese.")
    "Okay," I tell him. "Say cheese!" Several
other humans crowd into the shot, which is another thing they do,
and I dutifully archive several hi-res images, tagged for easy
retrieval later. They're enjoying themselves greatly. I can
appreciate that. This is what they call "fun" ... another concept I
didn't get until now.
    "Alert," calls Delta. "Dust storm on long
range, from the weather satellites. Not urgent, but it'll be here
in a few hours. We've got time to make it back to base camp, but we
should be moving along soon."
    I relay this information to the humans, who
collectively groan, but agree that we should get moving. They don't
want to leave this awesome place, and I don't blame them, but dust
storms on Mars are no joke. Not deadly on their own, but they mess
up most sensors, and comm channels tend to get noisy, so it's a
good idea to shelter from them.
    So the humans gather up the packs and other
portable containers that they've brought (they need an awful lot of
stuff), and start the descent. They are much more animated now than
during the ascent--energized by the view and the accomplishment of
reaching the summit, apparently. They chatter away at each other,
inanely, to the point where I'm getting a little sick of it. In my
ferret body, I scamper off to the uphill side of the trail,
following a parallel path to the trudging humans. I'm wishing for
this to be over.
    And then, with ghastly surreal slowness, the
trail falls away ... with most of the humans on it, sliding down
into the crevasse below us. In the low Martian gravity, it takes
longer than you might expect, which makes it an eerie and dreamlike
horror ... and, even in low Martian gravity, the drop is easily far
enough to cause major damage, at the very least.
    (Cross reference: Snow cornice, which on
Earth is an overhanging structure of frozen water. On Mars, usually
called an ice shelf, and often made partly of carbon dioxide ice. A
legendary danger for mountain climbers.)
    I scream. And, as I scream, my other selves
are alerted and leap into action. From the sandcat, Gamma fires a
salvo of remotes down after the falling humans. Epsilon activates
the distress transponders, screeching for help on all channels, and
launches a couple of emergency flares for good measure. I dive my
musteliod remote down after the humans as they fall, set it to
autonomous mode, and snap myself back into the sandcat.
    Meatrot, meatrot, why didn't
I see