Bundling the cores turned out to be more of a chore than expected, though, because other crew members kept getting in the way. Every time Ivan and Tenn tried to sleeve a core, someone was there, poking at it, trying to identify the ore.

Finally, Tenn lost it. “Fucksake, you jackasses. We’ll be out here forever if you don’t back off. And by the way, I’m pretty sure there are more people here than are on-shift. Since when do you volunteer for work?” Tenn placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the crowd. He was probably glaring, but it lost something in a space suit.

“C’mon, Tenn, we’re just trying to—”

“Deep radar readings showed iron, nickel, platinum, palladium, and osmium. You heard the lady. What’re you gonna do? Lick it to lay your claim?”

Tenn got some chuckles, and the group broke up to make room. Ivan and Seth were soon finished sleeving and labelling the samples. They wrapped the tubes with some bungees and Seth held up the end of a tow cable.

Aspasia grabbed the bundled cores from Seth, attached the clip to the scooter, then shot toward the Astra, showing nowhere near as much care this time.

“Hey, Spazzie,” Tenn called to her over the common channel, as she disappeared rapidly into the distance. “Feel free to splatter yourself over a random rock. More for us.”

There was no response, but the jets cut off abruptly.

Seth turned to Ivan. This far out in the solar system, the helmet autoshading hardly kicked in at all, so Ivan could clearly see his happy grin.

“Okay, sprout, we’ve got some time until Cirila completes her assay. Feel like checking it out?” Seth inclined his chin upward. There was no doubt what he was referring to.

9.Checking it Out

9.Checking it Out

Seth couldn’t help chuckling to himself. The sprout was like a puppy, with his eagerness and fresh-faced curiosity. Seth tried to remember if he’d ever been that energetic. Probably. But each tour wore a little bit of the edges off you. Especially the disappointing tours, where you came back empty handed, a half year of your life gone with nothing to show for it. You returned from those with a little bit more of yourself ground off, a little bit more of the shape of you missing. After a while, you became like Tenn—just a walking, talking lump of cynicism and fake boredom.

But today was a good day. Today was for adventure and dreams. Seth could almost hear Ivan vibrating with excitement.

“Okay, sprout, let’s go. I’ll lead.” Seth reached for his jet controls.

They were about to launch themselves, when Tenn broke in. “And where do you think you’re going?”

Seth turned to face him. “Just a short flight to Baby Rock. No big deal.”

“This could be an alien artifact,” Ivan exclaimed. “Actually, what else could it be?”