The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 3

Life clung precariously to this distant planet because the bright white sparkling rock was an ore rich in a mineral so valuable that it was economically and strategically worthwhile for the Service to maintain a station on its hostile, bare surface. Similarly, the miners and their families who constituted most of the population of Pristine were well rewarded for their relatively monotonous and potentially dangerous lifestyle. Again, for them, a spell in this rock could be justified as individually economically viable and as financing henceforth a new life which would otherwise be inconceivable without this initial sacrifice. Functionary reflected ruefully that he was on the standard Service pay scale for his rank. There was no hope of an afterlife rewarding sacrifice upon this planet.