Two miles beneath the mile-thick black-ice glacier covering Planet 56 (Dark-Glacier World), inside Underground Exile Cavern #19, the last fist-sized lump of low-grade geothermal coal in the central brazier flickered and died.
Hiss... crackle...
As the tiny orange ember faded into gray ash, the minus-three-hundred-degree chill of the sunless planet crept immediately down the stone walls of the cavern. Coating the ragged sheepskin blankets of three hundred thousand huddled exile families in a layer of biting white hoarfrost.
Seated by the dead brazier with his seven-year-old granddaughter Little Mei wrapped inside his threadbare coat. Eighty-year-old blind exile elder Grandpa Lin held his wrinkled, frost-cracked hands over the cold ashes, trying desperately to trap the last lingering breath of warmth for the shivering children around him.
“Grandpa Lin...” seven-year-old Little Mei whispered, her lips blue with cold as she rubbed her numb fingers against his sleeve. “My toes don’t hurt anymore... does that mean the Warm Yellow Sun from your bedtime stories is finally coming back?”
Hearing the little girl say her frostbitten toes couldn’t feel pain anymore—the dangerous final stage of deep-cavern frostbite. Several mothers and fathers huddled in the dark cavern bit their lips until they bled to hold back their sobs.
