Location:Wild Confederacy — Settlement Windbreak; The North Gate; Jessa's Lane; The Pavilion
Date/Time:TC1858.02.24 – TC1858.02.25
The iron was colder than the air.
Mei had it under her left arm, wrapped in its sacking, and the cold of it came through the sacking and the coat and the sleeve and found the healing line on her forearm and settled there. Eight kilometers of crust. She could have put it on the sledge. Twice the man on the rope ahead of her had looked back at it and then at her, and twice she'd shaken her head, and he'd turned around again and gone on hauling.
His name was Esker. She'd learned it at the bore, after, from the deck five's head, who'd said it the way you'd mention a tool you'd been glad of. He was the one who'd walked beside the sledge when they brought Jessa in. He was broad and slow and pulled like a man who'd settled years back on how fast he went and saw no reason to change it.
