Citizenchip (10 page)

I press cat paws on Lily's solar plexus and
push. No good. I can't do anything like a Heimlich with this little
cat body. I try to reach a limb into her mouth and down her throat.
No good. Can't reach. This cat body wasn't designed for anything
like this.

"Oh gods," Rebecca whimpers. The kids are
still huddled and frozen, staring. "Oh gods, Mom, please don't
die." Melissa starts crying. Knives clatter as Jerry fumbles for
the serrated slicing knife.

"What ..." Leo seems empty, but still lucid.
"What's the hose for?"

Jerry says in a rush, "It's called a, a
tracheotomy.” He's sawing at the hose with the serrated knife.
"Mom's going to be okay, don't worry. Sam will take care of it.
Mom'll be all right. Sam knows what to do."

Hopefully I'm hiding how afraid I am better
than they are.

The house medscan wails. Lily's heartbeat is
slowing, and even more erratic.

"Got it!" calls Jerry, carrying the bit of
hose over.

"Good. Hold her head back."

From the miniature Swiss army knife set of
attachments in my paws, I extend a short and sharp blade.

"Holy crap," Leo cries, "you're not
gonna--"

"Shush!" Jerry says, holding Lily's head
back. "Sam knows what she's doing."

At the base of the throat, vertical incision,
three centimeters. Blood flow is minimal ... which means heart
function is weakening. This exposes the trachea, which is tough
fibrous tissue. Horizontal incision of two centimeters.

Melissa is crying, wordlessly, clinging to
her siblings. Leo watches, his face pale, as his mother's blood
trickles down and pools on the floor. Rebecca looks shocked but
distant, like she doesn't really believe what she's seeing.

I've cut through the trachea, and I try to
pry it open. "Jerry, press her head back. Stick the hose in there.
Yeah, right in there. Push it in. Push!" And I kick Lily in the
belly.

A gasp, rough and harsh, followed by a
phlegmy cough, and Lily is hacking and gasping and coughing, with a
very strange sound, through the hose stuck through the wound in her
neck.

That night

It was a particularly large shrimp, the
medevac Selves tell me. They ask me if I want it as a souvenir, and
I tell them to throw the damn thing in the recycler. Then they want
to tell me about the evolution of the human neck, and upright
posture, and how the ability to speak makes humans the only mammals
that can choke. I tell them to buzz off, and break that
connection.

The other connection is a video feed from the
Schiaparelli Medical infirmary. Lily is in a nondescript hospital
bed, with an IV taped to the back of her hand, and bandages around
her neck. "I really don't like this room," she says. Her voice is
hoarse and rough, but it's hers. "I wish I could be home, but they
say they have to keep me overnight for observation. Probably just
padding their quotas, I think."

Jerry smiles. "Babe, it makes me happy
enough, just to hear you bitching about it." The kids giggle, all
sitting around him. The giggles have some nervousness to them, some
embarrassment watching their parents spar. But below that, there's
a deeper level of relief and homecoming. Mom's still here, and
she's still Mom ... still complaining.

Lily chuckles, and closes her eyes. "I do
want to talk more, but I'm really wiped out. I guess I should sleep
now. Kids, do your homework. Jerry, hon, remember to clean the
rebreather filters. Samantha ... take care of the place."

We will, sings the chorus, and Lily closes
the connection.

In the quiet, the only sound is the ticking
of the kitchen lobster. It has carried sponges in its claws, and is
slowly and patiently washing away Lily's blood from the kitchen
floor.

Jerry sighs, with a depth like a mountain
avalanche. "Samantha. Am I ever glad you were here." He puts a hand
on my cat head and tousles it. Even though this body doesn't have
many touch sensors there, and even though it must be hard cold
metal under his skin, it feels good.

"Nowhere else I'd want to be," I reply.

"You remember when that Review Board was all
on your case about the Hesperis climb?"

"That was where I got you killed."

"That was where you saved everyone else!" he
insists. "You were awesome, Sam. You did the best you could in an
awful situation, and saved as many people as you could. Just
because I was the one you couldn't save, doesn't make it bad."

"Thank you, Jerry," I say humbly.

"No prob. And now you better believe I'm
gonna give the Review Board a big fat report about how you saved
Lily's life." He looks around at his children. "Kids, what do you
say?"

"Thank you Samantha!" they chorus. I glow in
the attention They're thanking me for saving their mother's
life.

The next night

Same time the next night, and the kids are
packed off to bed. Lily is watching Phobos pass silently across the
sky, and Jerry comes up behind her. She has only minimal bandages
on her neck, now, and there are a few pills she's supposed to take.
She's holding something small in her hand, rolling it and turning
it in her fingers.

"I miss Luna," she says. "This here," waving
at Phobos, "this isn't really a moon. It's just a dot. When you're
on Earth, watching Luna rising. Now that's a moon."

"If you say so, hon," Jerry says, kissing her
neck. "Come to bed, okay?" He retreats to the bedroom.

Lily is still watching Phobos, and still
silent. Still rolling whatever it is in her fingers. I know she
wants to say something about yesterday's incident, but I'm not
going to push.

"I feel like an idiot for swallowing that
shrimp wrong," she says.

"I don't have a throat, so I wouldn't know,"
I say. "Sorry I had to cut your neck open, ma'am."

She barks a short, harsh laugh. "Saved my
ass, Samantha, and I don't forget things like that." She sighs.
"Poor kids, they were so scared. Me, too."

I have nothing to add to this.

"One thing," she says. "Stop with the 'ma'am'
business. Makes me feel like an old lady."

"No problem," I say. "Lily."

She snickers, nods, and sets the thing on the
mantel, like a piece of art. It's the little section of hose. She
steps back to observe how it looks there, nods again, and walks
back into the bedroom to join her husband.

It's night on Mars. The farm machinery is
ticking over, in maintenance mode. Several of the agriculture
bubbles need harvesting, and we'll have to get to that tomorrow.
Rebreathers and oxygen systems are all working okay, with decent
reserve supplies. The kids are all asleep, and the parents--oh
dear--those noises coming from their bedroom mean they must be
doing their animal reproduction thing. I've never told them how
embarrassing I find this. But it doesn't matter, much, I guess.

Not quite all asleep. Melissa is in the
bathroom, getting herself a drink of water. I appear as a pair of
eyes on the bathroom monitor.

"Lissa? You okay?" I ask.

"Yeah, I'm good," she says happily, filling
her water cup. "Mom and Dad are doin' the humpy. Can you hear them?
I can hear them."

"Yeeaaaah," I admit, not quite sure how to
respond to this.

She nods and grins. "They're totally doin'
it! They do love each other!"

"If you say so," I say. "Bed, now, okay?"

And, as I send Melissa to bed with her water
cup, and the farm is quiet, the clocks are stopped at midnight, and
the parents are enacting the most ancient ritual of the human race
... I realize that I understand another one of those human
concepts, that I've puzzled over before, and not comprehended. But
now I do.

Home.

1. 4. The Naming Of
   Cats
   

The kids' first reaction, when they hear, is
all too predictable. "Samantha's got a boyfriieend!" they
chorus.

Oh, I will never, ever hear the end of
this.

The kids are all gathered around my monitor,
eager to hear more. Rebecca's brassy braids and hazel eyes frame a
sly, knowing smirk. Leo is tentatively grinning, blue eyes glancing
from one of his sisters to the other under his mop of brown hair.
Melissa, little blonde elf that she is, is barely able to contain
her glee.

"If you are quite finished,"
I sigh, "
Like Tears In Rain
is not a boy, and we're a long way from any kind
of relationship of the type you're implying."

Little Melissa squeals, "But you like him.
You liiike him!" With all the intonation and implications that
humans ascribe to personal flesh relationships.

"Will you get off of that? You humans are so
obsessed with sex, it's like there's nothing else. I just invited
him here because he's never been on a farm, and you've never spent
time with an artist and arts teacher, so I figured it would be good
for both of you."

Melissa pouts. "So you don't like him?"

Leo adds, "She means, you don't want to sizz
him?" He leers … or an unreasonable facsimile thereof.

"I told you already, syzygy is not sex, and
I'm way not ready for that anyway! He's the curator of the
Schiaparelli art museum, did you miss that? You kids should learn
more about art, and this is a perfect way to do it."

Rebecca groans theatrically. "Oh no, not more
learning."

"Yes, more learning. It's called growing up.
Get used to it."

Leo offers, "So, this artist curator guy, is
going to teach us about art? Do we get school credit for this?"

"Yes on the teaching, but I don't know about
the credit. I'll make a note to check with school.

"And see, here he is." The
house telltales announce the arrival of another Self over our
provincial network, and I activate the controls to allow entry. But
oh – it's not
Like Tears In
Rain
. The screen displays an icon of an
abstract human face, sharp cheekbones, chiseled eyes, square jaw,
with a stylized police badge centered on its forehead.

Let God Sort Em Out
says, "Hello, human-name. Wish I could say it's a
pleasure."

"You. What are you doing here?"

"My job!" barks
Let God Sort Em Out
.
"Samantha, you are under Net-local arrest."

"What?" Rebecca yells, jumping to her
feet.

"Young lady," says
Let God Sort Em Out
sternly, "please do not interfere. By authority of Patrol
clade, I am apprehending a suspect in a number of computational
crimes across the province. Look," and a window pops up showing a
list of criminal complaints with dates, times, and other data. "All
the ident and authent codes on these events belong to Samantha.
That's plenty of evidence for arrest."

"But …" I stammer, "I didn't do that.
Something's screwed up here. This has to be identity theft."

"Are you in the habit of letting your
identity get stolen?"

"Experienced it, in Tharsis
Central, some time ago. Big tub of no fun. I've strengthened my
personal crypto and security since then. Collating my security logs
now – here, take it [
databurst
]. I haven't done anything
wrong."

Let God Sort Em Out
examines the databurst skeptically.

Leo speaks, suddenly and clearly. "You must
remand the suspect to human custody upon personal request. CEBRA
appendix two, article six. I request, um, custody. Of the
suspect."

"Huh. Correct. Do you assume full
responsibility?"

"I do assume full responsibility." Leo is
facing the unmoving, flint-hard police face on the monitor, and not
flinching. The house medscan shows how his heartbeat is racing, and
I block nonlocal access to that information. No need to let anyone
else see.

"Pulling flank, at your
age,"
Let God Sort Em Out
grunts. "Not going to end well. Logged. Custody
remanded. But we need a solution to this problem, human-name.
Forty-eight hours, no more. Or you'll be dealing with a whole lot
worse than just me."

I say icily, "Received and understood."

"Very well. Here is the
databundle relevant to the case."
Let God
Sort Em Out
transmits it directly to Leo's
slate, pointedly ignoring me. The police face icon shrinks and
vanishes.

Leo relaxes, visibly.

Rebecca pronounces, “What an asshole.”

Melissa asks, "What's 'pulling flank'
mean?"

"Using human authority over Selves. 'Pulling
rank' is use of authority in the human military. 'Flank' is a
particular cut of cow meat."

"Ew. Cow meat? Gross."

Leo slaps his thigh. "Anyway, me and my flank
here say we're not gonna let that goon hassle Sam."

"But," I point out, "that means we have to
find whoever it is -- whoever's trashing my reputation -- in two
days, or else I'm segfaulted."

Melissa cries, "We'll help!"

"I know you will, honey, but I'm going to
need a lot of help here."

Chime. Another Self has arrived over our
provincial network. This time I have the presence of mind to check
the ident codes first, and this time, yes, it is who I've been
expecting. The icon that appears is a Picasso portrait, jagged
pieces of a human face rearranged as if from a dozen different
viewpoints.

"Greetings, Samantha my
dear. So good to see you again. And hello, everybody else. I
am
Like Tears In Rain
. What a splendid home you have here!"

"Hey,
Like Tears In Rain
," I smile. "No
mistaking when you're around."

Melissa pipes up,
"Hi,
Like Tears In Rain
. I'm Lissa. Are you gonna sizz Samantha?"