One Day on Mars

The FM-12 mecha pilots claim to have found the signal center frequency.

Yeah? Moore landed just behind the stone outcropping and sat his daughter down against the largest rock. 'Stay down and don't move.'

'Yes, Daddy,' Deanna said.

It has a center pulse at two three three six megahertz, sir.

Well, that narrows the search down to a bandwidth around that peak. Look for the hopping frequencies around that one. Alexander knew his AIC would have already thought of that.

I'm doing that sir, but without more information that is still an excessive number of combinations. It might take a while.

Well, keep at it.

Of course, Senator.

'Alexander, what now?' His wife Sehera bounced beside him. She was panting for breath, her e-suit inner layer slowly absorbing and recycling the sweat rolling off her face.

'Dig!' he started digging a foxhole behind the rocks. 'We dig a hole and hide until they can get us out of here. Where is our goddamned evac?' He looked around the horizon for an aircraft but saw none.

Abigail, where is the goddamned evac?

Hold one second . . . the area is too hot right now, Senator. There is a squad of Starhawks in orbit waiting for a green light.

Shit, get word to them that we have a child with us!

Yes, sir.

They all started digging. Alexander and Joanie used the butts of the Seppy HVARs for shovels. The Martian regolith pushed out of the way slowly as it was cold and hard and filled with lava stones.

'Allow me,' a voice said as a shadow loomed behind them.

'What the?' Moore spun around with the rifle but the large Marine standing there quickly blocked the barrel and held up the palm of his heavily armored hand at the senator.

'Easy, sir. We're the good guys,' Sergeant Jackson said, and pointed at the E5 markings on the shoulder of his e-suit. 'I hear you should understand what that means sir?'

'You're damned right I do, Sergeant. Semper fuckin' Fi!' Alexander shook the AEM's hand. The armored hand engulfed the hand of the standard e-suit Moore was wearing. The sergeant motioned the senator out of the way so he stepped back to let him through.

'Lieutenant, I've found them.' The sergeant alerted the other AEMs and then knelt to the rocks and started digging. The added strength of the armored e-suit enabled the Marine sergeant to dig faster and deeper than all of the civilians put together.

'Need a hand, Sergeant?' Private Kudaf and Corporal Shelly bounced into the beginnings of a nice foxhole and started digging, too.

'That was an interesting ride you folks had.' One of the AEMs offered the senator his hand. 'Second Lieutenant Washington, sir. I assume you are Senator Alexander Moore?'

'Lieutenant.' Moore nodded. 'That garbage hauler AI turned out to be pretty damned useful.'

'Well, if you ask me, Senator,' Corporal Shelly added, 'spiders, mechanical or not, are just plain creepy. Why not make the thing look like a dog or a cat or something?'

'You got nothing better to do, Corporal?' Sergeant Jackson looked over at the Marine, warning her to keep her mind on her job.

'Ha, I wouldn't have minded if it had been a pig. It got us here,' Reyez said. 'Smelled like a pig though.'

Something the female corporal had said triggered a thought cascade in Abigail's neural network. There was something about animals that seemed to have a familiar pattern to it that she had trained herself to learn before. There was something just at the tip of her software mind but she couldn't quite place it. The AIC knew there was something important here. Something about animals . . .

Abigail! Cats! That's it! A cat! The senator was excited.

I know there is something about a cat, Senator. But what? Abigail could just taste that she was near the answer to the jamming signal.

No! Don't you remember? Ahmi had that goddamned AI kitty every day in that fuckin' POW hell hole! A cat! What frequency do commercial AIKs use?

I don't know, Senator. And, honestly, I'm not certain why I didn't remember that piece of information. But BIL is still in range. I'll have him look it up over the infrastructure communication line. Somebody on the Madira should know. I'll get started on it now.

'Does anybody here know anything about the spectrum of AI Kitties?' Moore asked the AEMs as they spread out the foxhole and prepared it for battle.

'Sorry, Senator. Look, we should get in the foxhole,' the second lieutenant warned.

BIL, I need all the technical info on AI Kitties I can get as fast as I can get it. Can you help me? Abigail QMed to him on the infrastructure channel.

I'd love to help you, Abigail. You are such fun to talk with. Please stand by, BIL said.

Senator? BIL is searching.