A Merry Martian Christmas by Stuart Atkinson

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"Okay, we're here..!" Lara said brightly through my headphones, "you can look now, if you like..." I took a deep breath. "Look straight up... tilt your head right back... that's it, right back..." I heard her whisper, and opened my eyes -

Oh guys¡K I wish you could have seen it. Up at 80 degrees latitude there are no mountains, no hills or jagged crater rims, no vertical relief in the landscape at all and so no intrusions along the skyline. The horizon is simply that, a horizon, a flat, razor-sharp line separating ground from sky. And that sky is... immense, huge, overpowering, greater even than the sky from the deep Outback, or from the flat lava plains over in Tharsis...

And the colour! I've described the colours of the Tharsis Outback sky to you before - the caramel, honey and tan tones which run into each other during the day - but this was... unique. The sky was pink - no, *not* the pale, washed-out colour people think of when they hear something described as "pink"; the polar sky is a deep, rich colour which seems to glow as if it was being lit from behind, and standing there, staring straight up into it, I felt as if I was inside one of those snow-scene paper-weights and someone was shining a red lamp in at me through the glass dome. I've seen a lot of big skies out here mom, but never one like that. It was ... luxurious, that's the only word for it...

"On Earth they have roses that colour," Lara told me, staring up at the sky. But I didn't believe her. Something that beautiful can surely only be seen on Mars... ;-)

Lara told me to close my eyes again - which I did without hesitation this time; sensing she was giving me a "tour" of polar sights I just surrendered myself to her, like a volunteer in a hypnotist's show - and steered me around until I had turned almost ninety degrees. Then, very gently, she laid her gloved hand on the top of my helmet and tilted my head down from the vertical until I was facing the horizon.

"Open..." she commanded me, and I opened my eyes -

I was standing on the edge, the very edge, of a canyon. Not as deep as Marineris, not as steep, but the ground a few inches ahead of me just dropped away into an abyss!

My heart leapt up into my mouth, and if Lara's hands hadn't clamped themselves quickly onto my hips again I would have toppled backwards - or forwards! - like a sapling caught in a storm. I closed my eyes again quickly, fighting the dizziness and disorientation -

"It's okay, I won't let you fall," she reassured me, "open your eyes again... look..."

Heart still pounding, I did what she said...

Ohhhh... :-) I was stood at the end of a canyon, with walls stretching away from me on either side into the distance. But the canyon wasn't straight, like Marineris; it was a winding valley, which undulated and swerved snake-like from side to side, so that one outcrop after another jutted into my field of view. With the Sun off to my right the canyon walls on my left were bathed in golden fire, leaving those on my right drowned in inky shadows.