Chapter 4Martha saw the poster for the Pioneer Grant before she heard from any official channels.
From the Vacation Station’s stop on Io, the Winter Planet, she walked from the underground tunnel to her lab. The walk was often dull and tedious, so she slipped her headphones over her ears and loose ponytail. All the efforts she’d put into fixing her hair had now become moot; the changing atmosphere was always going to make it too frizzy. She’d still been thinking about how to rebalance the ozone from her careless hair spray when she emerged from the tunnel to the university’s foyer.
That’s when she saw Stacey’s photo. She was smiling with Samuel, another man from her lab. The two of them stood side by side in lab coats, the consummate professionals. Underneath their smiling faces was the
