tamaranth | Story link: 'Eight Miles' -- Sean McMullen

Following a discussion with

groliffe about the perils and problems of winnowing out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to online fiction, I'm aiming to post a link a day to good short stories available, at no cost, online.

Your starter:
Eight Miles, by Sean McMullen. Steampunk! Mars! Werefoxes! Hugo nominee! I like this a lot.

Consider a journey of eight miles. One could walk it in less than an afternoon, in a carriage it would take an hour, or one could conquer the distance in one of Stephenson's steam trains in fifteen minutes or less. Set two towers eight miles apart, and a signal may be transmitted by flashing mirrors in less time than modern science is able to measure. Eight miles is not all that it used to be, yet seek to travel eight miles straight up and you come to a frontier more remote than the peaks of Tibet's mountains or the depths of Africa's jungles. It is a frontier that can kill.