Chapter Twenty-One
Connections and Disconnections
The day passed quickly. Valentina scarcely noticed the gentle throbbing of her wounded calf, occupied as she was with describing every element of life under the polar ice cap. Hero listened intently, always with another question at the ready when she had finished answering the last one.
“You don’t have a residual corporate structure, but it’s not so different on the pole as it is in the equatorial cities,” Hero said. “There is an uncrossable line dividing the people who have the power and the people who do all the work.”
“Actually, the cartel power structures are quite fluid,” Valentina said.
“Not them, the scientists who sit inside the station proper and never come out. Or more properly the descendants of scientists, like the rest of
