Free Citizenchip by Wil Howitt Page A

handle, and
then some. Their parents have been going all day, and need a well
earned rest. So the end of the working day has a holiday feel to
it.
    The kids make a little parade of bringing in
basins and baskets of vegetables fresh picked from our garden
bubbles. Rebecca leads them as they march along in step, and their
chant is a neo Greenpagan prayer: "Mother Ground, we love you, feed
our bodies!" Stamp, stamp. "Father Sun, we love you, feed our
souls!" Stamp, stamp. The kitchen lobster has learned about this,
clearly. It bobs up and down on its little legs and waves its claws
in time.
    (Lily and Jerry haven't spoken to me about
religion. Nor about what they want their kids to hear about
religion. I still don't really understand this aspect of humanity
... I should probably ask them, when I can find a good moment.)
    Everyone needs to wash up first. The fine,
pervasive Martian dust is more persistent than anything American
Okies had to deal with, so I chide the kids into washing at least
their faces and arms. (It doesn't do to look too closely after Leo
or Melissa have washed ... but, no harm, no foul.)
    Then they all set to work in the kitchen,
chopping vegetables. I don't have to help, and I don't need to tell
them what to do--they know, and I relish a rare feeling of
freedom.
    The Greenpagan movement has a lot of support
among the people in this part of Mars ... and I'd have to say I
approve, pretty much. It's as healthy a paradigm for humans to
interact with their animal roots as any I've seen. We are life,
they say. We come from a green world, and we grow, and we spread,
and we will make this world green too.
    The Redpagans, on the other hand ... I've
listened, but I really don't get them. They're the ones who say
Mars should stay the way it is, without terraforming, and be
respected for what it is. Sort of like a planet-sized museum, seems
to me. They talk about the rights of the rock ... as if we have a
shortage of rock, in this solar system? Does rock need rights?
    (and then I think, coldly, does silicon need
rights? This is exactly the argument used by human lawyers to deny
Selves personal rights ... isn't it? When derogatory they call us
"chips" but that's not far from the truth ... are we not bits of
rocks?)
    I shake off the thought, as Leo shoves over a
bowl full of chopped onions, and Melissa is dutifully snipping away
at the scallions. Lily dumps both into the hot wok for frying, and
they make a grand sizzle.
    Rebecca is cutting the greens, a big job
because there's a lot of bulk to them. She's about done when Jerry
pulls out a big frozen bag from the basement cooler and says, "This
is what we need for dinner tonight. Shrimp!" The bag is full of
flash-frozen shrimp from Kamir's salt water farm, down the valley
where he keeps extravagant open water ponds for raising shrimp and
fish.
    Rebecca exults, "Wow, seafood. Awesome!"
    Melissa squeals, "Ew! Too many legs.”
    Leo assures her, "I'll have yours, Lissa. Take care of em for ya.
Yum!"
    So the frozen shrimp go into the wok on top
of the half-cooked onions, with a huge blast of sizzling steam.
Lots of hydrocarbon and ester compounds in the local atmosphere,
which must smell good to the humans. (Smell is that reptile sense
that a chipgirl like me can never know ... I register chemical
trace sensors, of course, but I'm sure it's not the same.)
    The kitchen is full of bustling bodies and
chatter about everybody's day ... I notice that the whole family is
together and working as a unit. Even Lily is chatting and laughing
as she cooks, and it's far too seldom she does that.
    "Ah," Lily says. "Samantha, can you stir the
wok for me?"
    "Sure," I say. I extend the spachelors from
the two sides of the stove. This is Jerry's word (he says, bachelor
spatulas), but they're really just little robot arms. I use them to
stir and turn the shrimp and vegetables in the sizzling wok, until
Lily returns and takes over the task, and I retract them.
    Dinnertime
    Leo says to no one, "So