Her mild annoyance at his curiosity finally gave way. Maybe he could help. She turned her head toward the window and nodded at the familiar bulk of Amalthea, a few meters away. "That’s been my career, and my family’s career," she said. "Working with minerals. Hard rock. Metallic ore. All of the robots are optimized for crawling around on a big piece of iron. They use magnets to stick to it. Their tools use plasma arcs or abrasive wheels to work it. Now, Sean’s basically telling me to shelve all of that. The future is ice, he says. That’s all he wants to hear about. All he wants me to work on."