This distinctively Canadian hard-SF story has been published in
ANALOG SF & Facts, vol XCIII, 5-6 (May-June 2023) 

Kuiper Pancake

by Michèle Laframboise

The thick smell of maple syrup welled up in my olfactive memory when I rolled into the kilometer-wide depression under a bowl of clear, unblinking stars.

A long time ago when I still had legs under my body, I had tasted my grandmother’s warm pancakes, flat wheat flour disks covered with bubble cavities, looking like the face of the Moon. We didn’t get real, grown wheat flour often, maybe it had been contraband from northern Alberta, but wow! did it taste awesome with the reconstituted maple syrup! I called to mind the homey scents of the kitchen and the rumor of the city behind gran’s windows, the basil and spice and coffee (not for me, that), to help me face reality.

My gran’s kitchen was hundreds of millions klicks away now. Her smile had evaporated decades ago, the price every Scout or Explorer paid for getting an extended life span.

Here in the Kuiper belt, I didn’t possess any sense of smell, except in a very practical, this-could-save-your-life row of chemical gas samplers, apt at identifying the spicy sting of toxic compounds that could eat my hull and nibble at the precious wetware inside. Mechanical vibrations were similarly filtered and transcribed into sounds, along with the IA voice of the Explorer talking to me.

My current body had grounded to a stop, a six-wheel tank spiked with sensors and samplers, its huge swiveling head crowned with an array of cams and antennas and teacup radio-receptors.

Presently, that huge swiveling head was stuck in the throes of indecision, like a teenager.

Should I call or not?