Cold weather was not an epic test of frontier courage.
It was a glitchy loss of heat-powered energy.
Lord Giles Croft knelt upon the dark stone asphalt of Runway One. He held a sight fire gauge and a brass flow-meter.
A biting arctic squall roared across the jagged crags of Grey Crag. He carried driving sleet that froze upon the stone low roof walls in jagged rime.
The wind chill had dropped the surrounding air heat to fifteen degrees below freezing.
Across the mountain province, roads were impassable and stone bridges were slick with black ice.
Yet beneath the soles of Giles’s work boots, the dark asphalt radiated a steady, comforting heat.
A thin veil of pale steam rose silently from the three-thousand-foot runway, evaporating the falling sleet before it could form crystals.
