Free Moonsteed by Manda Benson

sun, hoofs clapping on the ice, snorts of breath rushing from the horse’s nostrils over her shoulders and Verity’s knees. With the swaying motion of the gallop and the undulating ground opening before her at exhilarating speed, Verity felt the horse’s heartbeat as if it were her own, as though the beast and she were one.
    About here would be right. She leaned back, tightening the reins and giving the command to slow. When the horse had come to a halt, she looked back to see Vladimir following some distance away, at an uncontrolled and wobbly canter.
    “There’s no point trying to go medium speed in this gravity!” she shouted as he closed the distance. “Trotting and cantering has too much up-and-down movement! If you just gallop flat-out it’s smoother!”
    Vladimir’s horse slowed to a jolting trot before stopping beside Verity’s. He looked uncomfortable and unnatural in the saddle, leaning too far forward and with his legs bent at the wrong angle. Verity kicked her feet out of the stirrups and slid off. She pulled the bore kit from the bag and began connecting the rods.
    Vladimir slithered off his horse, landed off balance on his heels and grabbed hold of his horse to steady himself, wisps of vapor escaping the dehumidifier-warmer on the mouthpiece of his helmet.
    “What’s this for again?”
    Verity set the drill point on the ice and fastened the handle onto the rod. “It’s for monitoring the temperature and composition of the ice. The idea with this moon is that the Meritocracy eventually wants it for a permanent colony. Callisto’s not like Earth and Mars. It’s made of ice and dust, and if it heats up too much it’ll melt and turn into a ball of slush. One of the base’s functions here is to monitor the temperature and make sure it remains stable.”
    “So what happens if it isn’t?”
    “If it gets past twenty below, that’s not good. There’ll be a report on that and it goes back to MANTIcore, then probably the Electorate will nominate it for referendum, and then it’ll have to be decided.”
    Vladimir set his arms akimbo and turned his head to survey the landscape. “It’s not my field, but I’d imagine heating it up to a habitable temperature, but not going so far that the ice melts, must be a pretty delicate balance.”
    “It is.” Verity leaned on the handle with both hands, pressing down on the drill. She turned the handle and felt diamond teeth bite into the ice. “When they terraformed Callisto, they extracted carbon, nitrogen and ice from the crust, split the ice into oxygen and hydrogen, and burned the carbon in the oxygen to produce a nitrogen, oxygen, carbon-dioxide atmosphere to kick-start global warming.”
    Vladimir looked vacant for a moment. Verity fancied she could see gears turning in his head. “What about the hydrogen?”
    “That’s what’s used to power the fusion engine that generates power for the compound.” Verity turned the handle again. “Here, you have a go at this. You’re heavier than me so it might work better.”
    Vladimir grasped the handle and twisted it. The point slid out of its indentation and scratched a white scar across the dark ice. Verity rolled her eyes.
    “This thing’s rubbish!” he argued. “Why don’t you have a machine for doing this?”
    “There’s a motor in it. You need to start it off by hand. You hold the bottom of it and I’ll do it.”
    Vladimir knelt on the ice and held the rod with both hands. Verity leaned on it, turning the handle again. After a few turns it was in deep enough to start the motor. They held the bore mount still and watched as the depth gauge on the readout in the center of the handle rose.
    The motor stopped and a few seconds later a figure flashed on the dial, and the handle beeped.
    “Do you need to write that down on a computer or something?” Vladimir asked.
    “No need. I just record it real-time into a spreadsheet on the ANT.” Verity had already sent the recording back to the base with