The Pass

Desa has never faced as physically difficult a situation as she had to endure in the years 552411 and 552412 when she made the journey from the Dos basin to the Zhlindu basin thru the Kinsheeta waste. On Earth, this happens during May, June and July of 2212. She is 350 Earth years of age at the time, about a century and a half by her own calendar. By this time none are considered to be a youth any more, so her judgment should be as good as it's ever going to get.

Between the great basins of Dos and Zhlindu lies the desolate highlands of Kinsheeta. Up there the temperatures can pass 140° during Afternoonday, -40° during Dawnsleep. Over most of the Kinsheeta the air is too thin to sustain human life, but there is a narrow and difficult passage thru that wasteland that a human can get thru, though there are large segments of Kassidor's population that would find the air at sea level way too thin. Crossing this pass involves going to over thirteen thousand feet, twenty two thousand feet higher than her original home. There is little if any water in these wastes and what little there is, is hotly contested. There are many dangerous forms of life that can live there, even the most dangerous life form of all, feral humans.

In this passage the physical abilities of Desa’s little family are tested to their absolute limits, but what is also tested are their relations with each other. They have to re-examine why they came on this trip in the first place, what it meant to each of them and what it means to their relationship once this is over, if they make it at all.