"Sure they're best taken with me? Your world might need them more."

"There are other seed vaults. They took a dozen times more, from all around the world, to the north with a small army of automata. The Oxford-Cambridge mission is the world's hope for crop variety after this awful eternal winter abates. If it ever does."

"Okay. This is the northern hemisphere, right? Why didn't they take them south instead?"

"Hm? I don't know the details of that... I think the north was unsettled, so no starving people to come steal the spots we were making for ourselves. Desperate times make for cruel, desperate actions, eh? We may feel awful about it, truly gut-wrenchingly terrible, 'tis one of the worst betrayals since the slaughter of Rome... But abandoning most of the population to the cold may be the only reason some of us survived."

"I wish we could have done better..." Liane says, after she translates this.

They're not his people to mourn, he's just here to get this job done. He doesn't say anything.

Liane might be able to hear how shaky his breathing is suddenly.

"It's going to be better now. You're saving people with Milliways and immigration. I'll save people with heat. We are helping."

"Okay. Yeah. That's right, these people will be okay now."

Katherine stows the seeds and starts preparing the little airship to continue on.

Skyward. Valanda's starting to dislike all the icy ruins.

They're beautiful in a brutal, austere sort of way if you don't realize how much death it all means.

They arrive near the group of basement dwellers soon. A large walking construction, an automaton, plods towards a cluster of buildings that are emitting smoke, carrying a sled loaded down with coal.

"Careful of the automaton. Most of them don't see, it'll run right over us if we're in the way."

He stays out of its path on the way to the buildings and keeps an eye out for anyone visible from outside.

He can see figures moving around in a greenhouse built on the back yard of one of the ruins. There are a couple of watchers who wave lanterns at them and seem to be pointing them to a clear area.

He goes where the watchers seem to want.

Katherine walks out first, boldly, and declares, "Hello all! There's some good news. A new place for you all to go, if you want! I'm told a scout by the name of Liane visited here a while ago?"

There are nods. "She's a saint, she is. All of us who are left probably are only because of her automaton an' the greenhouse."

"Well, Liane discovered this place. I've seen it myself. Though... It's very strange. Valanda here doesn't speak English but he has a translator, he can explain - and prove it better than I can."

"There's a place called Milliways. Sometimes by magic a door goes there instead of where it usually goes. It's warm. There's food. From Milliways you can get to other places it's borrowed doors to, like where I'm from. I can show you some of the magic we have where I'm from, I brought some heaters that will never cool off, you can have one if you want, even if you don't want to come to Milliways."

"It's magic? And you, that's an Oxford crest on your coat, yer a proper scientist, you believe it?"

"I have been convinced that they can do things you might call magic, yes. You can see for yourself - I'm going to bring out an extremely hot rod of metal. It will stay hot without any fire - the temperature not varying so much as a single degree. I'm going to touch it directly and not burn."

"-Like a miracle, the touch of God-"

"-We can put it in a boiler and never have to fill it up with coal again." She turns around and gets a heat core out from the box. The locals can feel the heat even ten feet away and see Katherine, untouched. It certainly causes a stir. More survivors come out.

"Is there a leader here?" Katherine asks.

"No. We're just families who found each other, we haven't had disputes that we couldn't work out or anything..."

"I think we should have a meeting with everyone here and explain the options. Can you all go gather everyone you can?"

The crowd goes back into the ruined buildings. Katherine follows, putting the heat core back in its box.

Following them is probably a good idea, right? Unless someone steals the airship but anyone who would probably needs it more anyway.

Katherine doesn't seem worried about airship theft, anyway.

It takes a few minutes to gather everyone. More human faces than Valanda has ever seen at once, about four dozen. Children, babies, teens, adults, and older people all.

"Everyone, please calm and listen. We're here to help you! I hear there's no leader here - that's fine. The ways we can help can be a choice everyone makes for themselves."

She briefly explains Valanda, magic, as much of Milliways as she knows, and a politely phrased version of Har's laws and Valanda's mission for it and the offer of land. People mostly seem confused about all this, not knowing what to make of it.

"The way I see it," Katherine concludes, "Everyone here has three options. One - stay here, with the powerful heat cores to help brace you against the winter. It will be much easier and safer than before... But we still do not understand why the great frost has come, or when - or if - it will ever abate. Two - go with us to Milliways and live there, warm and fed, and hope to find a new world warmer than ours and with pleasanter laws than Har's, though it is far from certain that you will. Three - take a homestead on Har and build a community with the others who choose to do the same. The laws are not what we're used to, but we will all have land, and warmth, and space to grow and build once again, and the prospect of changing it for the better, if we choose so. Valanda, have you anything to add?"

"Your prospects will be better from Milliways even if you choose not to come with me. It's been having a slow day today and what I mean by that is I've only met people from three other worlds. It's winter in Ira Sani, too. It's icy. It snowed yesterday. But it's warmer than here and that winter will end. If you come with me, before the year is out you'll see summer."

Summer sounds lovely, a lot of people agree. They miss being able to just walk around outside without getting frostbite. But the slavery thing is awful. A couple of the teenage boys end up arguing with their parents over it, refusing to even consider it.

Milliways has a summer, doesn't it? They don't need to move into the weird slave place to have summer. But they'll have nothing but what they can carry in, if they take that option. And why is staying here a bad idea anyway? They have food, they'll have the heat cores next.

He ambles over toward one of the arguing families. When he gets Liane's translations he makes sure he's loud enough for the others to hear too. "What's the problem? You look like an adult, though of course I don't have a mage with me who could check, just have to go by what I see and what you tell me. Just to be clear, the age of majority is seventeen. You're over that, right?"

"...I'm sixteen, sir. And it sounds awful anyway."

"Daniel-"

"No, mom. You say I have to grow up? I am. I'm saying no. I won't go to that place."

"That's probably a worse loss for me than for you. I wouldn't try to make you."

"Good. 'Cause I'm, uh, putting my foot down."

"Your father'd lecture you over being so disrespectful to me, Daniel. He's offering land, for all of us. Me, your little brother, and you. Our family's been badly off ever since we lost our plot in the shires..."

Daniel just shakes his head and says to Valanda, "You can go, sir. Please?"