"You know what the
seasons are like, at the poles of this planet. The temperature will
range from about two-fifty Fahrenheit in mid-summer to a hundred and
fifty below in winter. There's the most intense sort of thermal
erosion you can imagine--the ice-cap melts in the spring to a sea,
which boils away completely by the middle of the summer. There will be
violent circular storms of hot wind, blowing away the light sand and
dust and leaving the heavier particles of metallic ores and metals
behind. Then, when the winds fall, we move in for a couple of months.
It isn't really mining, or even quarrying; we just scoop up ore from
the surface, load it onto ore-boats, and fly it down to Skilk and
Krink and Grank, where it's smelted through the winter. The natives
run the smelters; use the heat to thaw frozen food for themselves and
their livestock while they're melting the ore. In the north,
metallurgy and food-preparation have always been combined that way."
"Yes, if you think the natives who work at the mines feel themselves
ill-treated, you might propose closing them down entirely and see what
the native reaction would be," von Schlichten told her.
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