Wind howled over the ice encrusted earth, punctured with spiked boot prints.

  The comms crackled, and a hesitant voice proclaimed, “Captain! I think I found it.”

  John Archer turned to the scientist and crunched over to the spot she had indicated. Ever since they had started to terraform Mars, the process had exceeded expected parameters. The corpos had been excited at the positive direction their timeline was headed in. After all, time was money. The scientists had been worried. But with the threat of slashed funds, their complaints vanished.

  They had been right.

  The only ice left on the new greenhouse planet was at the poles, where even there it shrank each day. And here, at the very center, an anomaly had appeared on the scans.

  “What am I looking at here, Lieutenant Kane?”

  “Sir, the origin of the quark and theta waves seems to originate from this rock.”

  “Seems? Give me certainty Lutenent.”

  It was an unassuming thing. An opalescent oval half buried in the black ground and sheer ice.

  Kane hesitantly reached out with her sensor wand to poke it. The slender tube of electronics rippled with light. Every person on their team paused briefly to read the notification inside their combat helm. John pulled open the message from where he had minimized incoming chatter messages. He scanned the information briefly and grinned. “All right, team. We’ve found our target. Tag it and bag it. I want to be back on the shuttle in T minus twenty minutes.”

  …

  Elisabeth Kane loved rocks and minerals. As a child, her parents had to empty her pockets any time they went somewhere, the zoo, the park, or even the grocery store. But Beth hadn’t let that stop her. When they turned out her pockets, she kept them in her sweaty fists. When they demanded she uncurled her fists, she put them in her shoes, her mouth, and her ponytail when she could manage it. On and on they fought until they sent her to a behavioral psychologist, Aileen Bridger.

  Beth liked her. She was an eminently reasonable woman who also liked rocks. Although her collection was stunted to the small, shiny, and very expensive kind.

  Afterwards, Beth and her parents signed a truce, which was overseen by Mrs. Bridger. The contract was simple. Only one rock per day may return home. And when her rock cabinet was full, she would need to get rid of a few rocks before she could collect more. This was somewhat of a problem at first. But Beth found that a great solution lay underneath the bushes of the backyard. It was a spacious place that left both parents none the wiser, for neither knew rocks like her. And when father trimmed the bushes, what lay beneath was of no concern to him.

  They didn’t find her fine deception until blight had taken the shrubbery to its twiggy grave. But by then, they had come to accept her quirk, and she had become more selective of her collection. All through middle school, every paper was about rocks. It didn’t matter what the prompt was supposed to be. In her mind, all roads led to rocks.

  And when the call for scientists and soldiers went out to outfit the Mars mission, Beth realized that there was only one thing better than rocks. And it was rocks in space. Ones that she could collect, study, and name. Ones that had never been touched by human hands before. A true goal worth dedicating one's life to.

  By then, she was in high school, and her hopeful boyfriend was crushed to realize he could never compete with a rock in her eyes. He had been her friend since kindergarten, and she didn’t know how they ended up dating. But now that she knew what she wanted to do with her life, there wasn’t any room for a relationship that would take up so much time.

  “I’m sorry, Markus. It’s not you. I just want to pursue something more than what’s on Earth, and I would have no time to spend with you. It wouldn’t be fair for either of us.”

  He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and handed it over, “Guess it’s more farewell than an anniversary gift.” Beth cringed.

  She had forgotten that.

  He smiled tremulously, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Are you sure there isn’t any way we could compromise? We could work this out together. Come up with a plan.”

  Beth shook her head slowly. “I won’t compromise on my dreams. And you just aren’t there.” She held out the box, “You want this back?”

  Markus slumped his shoulders. “Nah. It’s not my size anyway. Wear it. Dump it. I don’t care. Let me know if you’ve changed your mind.” Then he slipped out of the classroom.

  She opened the little box and gasped at it in delight.

  It was a small opalized ammonite ring. The band was simple and unadorned.

  Beth paused.

  This was the kind of ring Mrs. Bridger might have in her collection. A treasure trove of gifts from her husband. But she couldn’t give up her dreams to be someone she wasn’t. It wouldn’t be fair for either of them. This was the right decision, and she couldn’t afford to back down now. There were eight years of school to finish if she wanted to go to Mars soon. Because if she went too late, every stone would already have been turned over.

  So Beth put everything behind her and focused on her studies. Rocks, minerals, volcanoes, and space debris were her best bet at an invaluable astronaut. Her normal studies suffered to a calculated degree. Just enough effort to give her a low B across the board, and an A+ to anything that would serve her well in space. With dual credit at the community college, she graduated from high school on time and with her associate's degree in geology.

  It was at this point that her parents realized that this “space” thing was not going to go away. They argued with her, threatened, and pleaded to keep her safe on Earth.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “It’s the only sensible place for you child. It’s where humanity belongs, for goodness sake!”

  Day after day, month after month, they fought until they reached a mutual standstill. Nothing worked to resolve their differences, so they did the same thing they did every time they fought like that.

  …

  Mrs. Bridger looked the same, if a bit more laugh lines on her face and a larger diamond on her finger. “Is this truly what you want to pursue, Beth? You are not likely to ever return to Earth and its natural beauty.” The array of precious stones winked under the fluorescent lightbulbs. “The return trips are far too costly for return passengers as I’m sure you are aware.” She steepled her fingers. “You will likely live the rest of your life on Mars and be buried there for fertilizer. You will never see your parents in person again, and will have to leave the entirety of your rock collection behind.”

  Beth bit her thumbnail and chewed on the piece that came away. Keratin was purely biological, but it was a durable protein that became preserved in the fossil record reliably.

  Did she really want to go so far that she could never return?

  She spun the ammonite ring on her necklace and spat out the nail discreetly. “Mrs. Bridger, I don’t want to live here just to fit the image that someone else places upon me. I’ve been preparing for this since the call to the stars went out. And I will be there, at the edge of discovery if it is the last thing I do.”

  Her mother cried.

  Beth felt guilty, but the feeling was not new.

  She didn’t take back her words then, or now.

  Mrs. Bridger nodded. “Very well then. You know the drill, folks. I brought a nice piece of creamy paper to write your new agreement on and sign.”

  Their agreement was more of a timeline than a guideline. Either she made it safely to space before she turned thirty, or she gave up. Twelve years seemed a long way away. Practically half her lifetime. But it was also more lenient than her personal goal. She had four years before they started picking candidates for the fourth wave of ship personnel. She would be twenty-two by then, and the people on Mars would have had eight years to set up their gear and start uncovering all the secrets the red planet had to offer. If she waited till she was thirty, the window of discovery would have long since passed.

  So, Beth worked herself to the bone, the very thing that would outlast her if properly nested within the Earth. To be cleaned by bugs, and maybe petrification would occur to the white pillars that held her upright. The bones would undergo slow permineralization, the replacement of calcium, carbon, and collagen with minerals. Just like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. The very thing that had happened to her ammonite necklace.

  If she were lucky, she could get herself interred in a silica-rich area where the water table was high. Then, if she were even luckier, her bones would become opalized. And as all things, this brought her back to Mars, where the silica content was high due to the abundance of ancient volcanoes.

  …

  Many students avoided the crazy rock girl. Though there were a few students who had the same goal as her. Beth saw them as opponents and obstacles to overcome.

  Through many caffeine-fueled nights, days, and nights again, she graduated in two years as the top student in the geology department.

  Beth grinned viciously at the summa cum laude on her graduation certificate. She hung it in her apartment, then left for her summer job as a researcher with the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program. They were to survey several active and dormant volcanoes in the Ring of Fire. Not necessarily her exact subject of interest, but it was close enough. Especially when the experience might boost her chances in the space program.

  After two more years, Beth took down the bachelor's degree from her wall and packed it away with her master's. An MS in planetary geology and a BS in environmental geology. In her pocket was an acceptance letter from NASA.

  …

  Elizabeth Kane felt uneasy at the rock she had carefully chiseled it free from its ice and obsidian casing. It appeared like a giant blue moonstone that had started to take over its shiny black host rock. It was the unnatural shape of a polished oblong orb. Its iridescent blue and silver shift was easily explained by the high silica content of the area. Its shape, however…

  She chipped it free and packaged it up like a delicate fossil. Layers of linen and plaster cocooned it like a mummy. And then she had placed it in a cushioned metal box that she could easily carry. Though her initial field tests showed a somewhat sturdy material. Definitely above a six on the Mohs scale. Though its overall density was abysmal. Perhaps a geod with some as of yet undiscovered crystal that released the anomalous waves. Based on the beeping monitor, they would be dead already if it were radioactive. But it wasn’t. It was something… else.

  Beth held the rock possessively. Once back at the lab, she could test it, name it, and peel it apart layer by layer. The scientific journals she could write based on it would take years, if not decades! Surely she could secure a fully funded program and lead a team of researchers.

  The only thing was…

  She tried to shift the box to a more comfortable position. But just couldn't manage it.

  Beth grunted in frustration and gave in to the awkward hold as several of the space commandos glanced her way mirthfully.

  She ignored them.

  It was much harder to ignore the box, however.

  What she couldn’t shrug off was a… feeling. If Beth had believed in the existence of beings beyond normal human perception, she would have written it off as her sixth sense getting triggered.

  However, she didn’t believe in such things.

  Elizabeth hefted the box and walked faster to the all terrain vehicle. The quicker she was back at the hab, the quicker she could run those tests.

  Tests no one had run before.

  Giddy triumph filled her while unease tickled the edge of her awareness as she boarded the rover.

  Yes. Once she had run the tests, everything would make sense. Rocks had always been a comfort. Cool to the touch, a comfortable weight, and earthy taste on the tongue.

  They could be relied on to be sensible.

  Scientific.

  Unlike humans.

  Mother had cried when she heard about her acceptance. They were not tears of joy. Father had looked betrayed and had even tried to convince her to stay. But it was they who had betrayed her. They had broken their treaty and refused to see logic in the matter. She was lucky not to have anyone else who bothered to send her messages. Beth had stopped listening to the stern admonitions of her parents before she had boarded the ship Ceres XI.

  A bump made her curse the commando at the wheel.

  They were much too fond of betting on the weakest stomach among the scientists. It was a sort of hazing that everyone experienced, but those near the bottom had to be tested again when others near their rank were on the same mission.

  Beth ignored the green face of Walter Haines.

  If she were to be a part of the stupid game, she might as well get the stupid prize money, too.

  The rover veered right. Beth jerked left and was caught by the straps.

  But despite the laws of nature and sanity, the rock leaned right.

  Cold fingers played down her spine as she noticed it happen again.

  The rock didn’t lean left or right.

  No.

  It remained vertical to the planet.