Read IGMS Issue 18 for Free Online Page B

Miranda is different. It's a jumbled, jagged mish-mash of ice and rock, as though someone broke it apart with a hammer and glued the pieces back together."
    Wil and Katherine had finished their break and were now heading back toward the descent rope. I'd locked a splicer to the line so they couldn't leave without me, but still.
    "Time to go," I said. Shelley scooped up her samples and stood. I gripped her arm, not to help her up, but to keep her from flying off her feet, then steered her to the rope.
    "This canyon is important, Lance. It's not just another of your trophy climbs. It descends ten percent of the way to the core. If I can collect samples from the bottom, we might finally learn what happened to this moon."
    I cut in front of Wil, beating him back to the rope. He gestured grandly toward the canyon floor, grinning. You first.
    I stayed on Shelley's private frequency. "This isn't Mars, Shelley. If you want to reach those depths without running out of air, then keep my pace. Sample all you want from the ledges, but don't stop your descent. Understood?"
    "Fair enough," she said.
    I unlocked the splicer, hooked in my carabiner, and stepped off the ledge. The others followed.

    For the next several legs, we made better time. Shelley slowed to take mass spec data but didn't chisel any samples, except during breaks. She was also getting more proficient at using friction to control speed, rather than squeezing the rope and jerking to a stop. We settled into a steady, quiet rhythm.
    I'd positioned Shelley between me and Wil on the line so I could keep a closer eye on her. As I watched her slide through the inky darkness, I found myself doing something I rarely do: thinking about the past.
    I met Shelley sixteen years ago, back when I worked for MME, the Martian Mining Enterprise, testing new pressure suits for extended external operations. The job was an excuse, really, to explore Mars' untouched equatorial chasmas before they were inevitably mapped and defiled. Shelley was a young geologist stationed at the colony, part of MME's science outreach. A week after she arrived, she loped into my lab, a pressure suit draped over her arm.
    "They call you the Martian Magellan," she said.
    I had both arms deep inside the polymer press, stretching out my latest prototype. I turned off the machine and glanced up. She looked young -- younger than her years, even -- with a pleasant shape and an eager smile. She gripped an edge of the plastic wall, still unsteady in the Martian gravity.
    "They tell me you've been up the Tharsis volcanoes, down Melas and Cando Chasmas, only you never tell anyone where you're going or where you've been."
    "I'm testing prototypes."
    She smiled, knowingly. "When do you head out next?"
    "Day after tomorrow." I pointed at the suit taking shape in the press. "As soon as this congeals."
    "Take me with you. I'm fully certified for exterior. On your suits, in fact."
    I took her on a three day jaunt across Juventae Chasma, a deep lake bed below the Ophir Planum. I'd traversed it once before, but the colored canyon walls and hidden caves were worth a second look. After the trip, we began sharing quarters.
    For awhile, the relationship was satisfying. We were compatible physically, and she seemed to understand my need to see new things first. She only accompanied me on short range outings, and when we'd discover a hidden cave, she'd let me venture inside first, alone, and only follow if I called for her.
    Over time, though, her demands changed. She began requesting that I bring back rock samples from my excursions, something she knew I wouldn't do. When I refused, she stuck geology texts in my inbox, with pithy notes about the "rush" she gets from a scientific discovery. She dropped hints about degree programs back home, near her family's compound in Colorado.
    Eventually it ended, like they all end. MME began experimenting with exploration bots, tiny crawlers set loose in the canyons, scurrying, imaging, sampling