Ali Nazari raised an eyebrow at his colleague, Victor Talbot, even though his mirrored visor hid the gesture. The pair bounded along the dusty lunar surface toward their rover, carrying a loaded rectangular container between them. Gravity was more suggestion than imperative, which helped. On Earth, there was no way the lanky pair would have managed it. “What breeze?” Nazari asked. “If you smell anything in there, I guarantee it’s not slag.” Talbot cackled over Nazari’s transmitter. With his free hand, he pantomimed tugging at the collar of his environment suit. “You buffed my poetic streak right out of existence. Congrats. What’s the fate of this batch?” “Probably nothing we haven’t already seen,” Nazari replied. “I can think of so many better things.” “Like what?” “Well… like building a fort.” “Complete with slag-snowballs?” “Seriously. Shape bricks, make a slag-based cement, see how it works. When pyrolysis takes off, slag will be cheap.”
