A Mixed Mining Crew

In the eastern coal districts I spent several days underground with a mixed crew consisting of Humans, Dwarves, and two Aesir labourers. The social division of work was not what I expected. The Dwarves were, unsurprisingly, trusted with structural judgement, and the Aesir handled the heaviest loads. The Humans performed most of the rapid movement between work areas and served besides as the crew’s practical warning system for air quality.

That last arrangement developed for physiological reasons. Humans became uncomfortable in poor air before the Dwarves did, while the Aesir, though tolerant of exertion, produced enough heat and consumed enough oxygen that they preferred not to remain in stagnant galleries longer than necessary.

At one point a Human miner announced that the air felt wrong, and the Dwarven shift captain immediately ordered everyone out. A newly hired Dwarf objected that he felt fine. “That is why I am listening to him,” the captain replied.

The Human later told me that this had taken years to establish. Earlier crews had treated Human discomfort as weakness until several accidents demonstrated that weakness which detects danger first is sometimes better described as instrumentation, a principle which ought to be engraved above the entrance to every university.