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(Page 2 of 57) Martian Autumn: Transit Day by Stuart Atkinson
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They never did.
Callie smiled again. "If you're going to kill him, kill him quietly Cat, ok? I've got work to do before we land."
"Okay, deal," the young girl agreed, reaching out towards her brother, her hands clawing for him menacingly, "Blare, come here..."
"Leave me alone! Mom! She's...ow! Ow!" Blare laughed, the musical sound sending ripples through his mother's heart as he fought off his sister.
Callie smiled to herself and, knowing the two children were too busy fighting to see her, allowed herself a short peek over the back of her chair. She couldn't help herself. God, they were beautiful. Look at them... Supremely self-confident Blare, with his sapphire-blue eyes and ragged mop of night-black hair, melted every female heart – regardless of age – wherever he went. Catriona, a genuine pale-skinned martian princess, with hair the colour of spun gold and a heart as big as Phobos... How had she and Conn, probably Mars' two ugliest ducklings, managed to produce such spectacular children? she wondered, not for the first time.
The ever-present nagging voice which kept her on schedule reminded her then that she had work to do, so reluctantly she reached into her breast pocket for her computer, setting it down on the small table in front of her. Barely the size of an old-fashioned cell phone, the mini-com contained more information than a dozen desktop pc's, literally tens of thousands of files and documents – among them, unfortunately, several urgent Parliamentary reports which needed reading and replying to before they reached their destination...
How the hell did I become a politician? Callie wondered, for possibly the millionth time. It was a mystery, and crazy, too. She'd never intended to enter politics; had never had even a passing interest in joining the Parliament. True, as a student, when she wasn't buried beneath geology texts or stalking her way across Mars's most desolate deserts, gathering rock samples, she'd been a "red", or an "activist", to use either of the quaint old terms, but her involvement in politics had been limited to speaking in the college debates about terraforming, where she was always passionate and sincere, always ready to listen to the views of others whilst steadfastly refusing to change her own views...
Somewhere along the line her Guavarian banner-waving had stopped and she had stood for, and been elected to, the martian Parliament as an official Red. How?
It didn't matter. All that mattered now was that here she was, the most famous – and some said best-loved - single mother politician on Mars, travelling half-way around the Red Planet with two kids to watch an event which, inspired by accounts of it in science fiction stories from the past two hundred years, the media both on Earth and on Mars had been going crazy about for months; an event no-one would see again from the planet's surface for perhaps centuries -
How the hell did this happen, Conn? She asked, closing her eyes.
God, she wished he was with her, wished that he hadn't gone on that damn foolish climbing expedition to Marineris, wished the rock ledge hadn't given way beneath his feet and -
No, there's no time for this... she told herself.
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