Only the harshness of the jagged peaks which enclosed the cup of the valley were muffled—one could not say softened—by a thick growth of vegetation on the lower slopes. This vegetation existed in the cold months as odd spongelike skeletons with stem surfaces which could withstand even a tri-steel blade, and was a slate-blue in color.That blue stain spread up to meet the snow. And always the cold bit deep, through thermo underclothing and furs, through the heated walls of the living domes, stinging inward to a man’s bones.Fenris was alibite. Men went to the mines, ore came back. A fringe of businesses based on that two-way traffic made up Siwaki. And there were a few fools mad enough to try trapping for furs in the river valleys. But they were only a handful, the remnants of men who had pioneered Fenris before the companies fastened their strangleholds on the port and the three-quarters-frozen world.This morning four of those independents had paused to scan the notice of an E-ship auction posted on the government board.
