The Further Adventures of Desa Series

The first adventurous incident in Desa's life that she could relate in detail took place in March of 2023 on Earth. She was 161 Earth years old at the time, but had still never met a person who had experienced old age. She grew up in a land that was settled by people who never knew age. At this time in her life, she was still considered something of a youngster, and she might have still felt she had something to prove. She is just returning from her first experience with distant travel and another culture. She had not known how being in a different culture could convert a person to that culture. She had been away for a decade and a half, all the way to the distant Kassikan, researching a text. She was very glad to be back in her own land again, most of all she was glad to return at last to her grand and beloved home. This novella examines what one must do to overcome a theft when there is no government, no courts, no means to force the thief to give her house back. This is also the first time Desa really experienced a mob and what a mob could do. It was also her first experience with the type of person who would raise and wield a mob, a demagogue. This was written back in the late 90’s - early 00’s, and first published in 2011, all long before the events of Jan 6, 2021, but the dynamic is the same.

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.

It is 3039ad, almost eight hundred Earth years have passed since Desa emerged from the pass thru the Kinsheeta. The starship age has come and gone. If anyone has seen the report of the second expedition to 61 Cygni, you know that Desa was involved in some adventures during the early starship age. Its only lasting effect was cheaper suntower service to more places. That was so long ago that it is now taken for granted and many electronics companies are centuries old and their names are household words. But even now print media holds more of the market than it's had on Earth since its 20th century. It is still the main media of the average person. The average person in the city where and when this takes place uses an 'eye' (data terminal) once or twice a month at this time. Desa never took the threat of celebrity seriously. People had warned her since the 55th, but it had eluded her so completely for four centuries that she didn't believe the threat was real. Yes, this same story could take place in New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris or Los Angeles and appeal to lovers of that time in Earth's history when music was important. Those stories have been told, those all have governments to appeal to and contend with, the scene in Zhlindu does not. In this Desa also has to come to grips with her ambivalence toward fame and her lack of empathy for one of her closest friends. In here we also get a first-hand look at the music scene and music business of Zhlindu. This city is known for music and is probably the home of the culture where music is the most important of any human culture known to date. It is one of the biggest businesses in the city and one of the most important aspects of their culture.