Love Among The Dunes

The story so far is about the geographical mass movement of peoples. The story concentrates on the politics, history, religion, science and administrative aspects of the movement – to demonstrate the importance of the inter-relationship of each of the aspects to the others. Although there are a few characters sprinkled sparingly throughout the chapters, it was the texture of each of the societies, as a whole, I wished to establish, and to demonstrate the complex anthropology of the two races of beings. With the core of each race established, I decided to introduce a few more characters and add a bit of drama to this largely historical adventure. 

Although we have already met Ahlu, his character is expanded as he meets and falls in love with Airam at the Desert Lake Camp. This camp is the next respite after the humex finally begin the continuation of their journey to Nexra from Plateau Lake Outpost after a more than three year hiatus. During their first encounter, Airam and Ahlu learn about each other’s lives including the fact that they were educated and practiced in the same profession of anthropology – Ahlu as a politician and Airam as a cultural assimilationist, readying new incoming humans to participate as fully as possible in humex society. They have a lot of notes to compare and in that process fall in love. Because of their existing duties on their respective wagon trains in transit, they must part until they reach Prairie Lakes Outpost still some months away.

Before reaching Prairie Lakes Outpost, two wagon trains were attacked by mounted hostiles out of the northern steppe. Many humex were killed and a few hostages were taken including Airam. Ahlu organizes a necessary major adjustment in wagon train travel. The adjustments included building a new camp on a mesa overlooking the valley, Mesa Camp, from which the mounted hostiles appeared. The humex began building weapons and began to plan battlefield attack strategies based on stories of the mounted hostiles told by the humex survivors of the two attacks. Wagon trains all the way back to Plateau Lake Outpost had to adjust their schedules by not starting out as scheduled; then, those trains already on the trail were to return to Plateau Lake or move on to Desert Camp. All wagon trains then were halted until the humex could understand their attackers and their attack plans – especially from horseback. This was the first time that the humex had ever seen horses. The humex realized that horses potentially represented a great advancement in humex transportation as compared to the reliable but slow-moving oxen. They just needed to get their hands on enough of the horses.

Ahlu now assembles a group of commandoes to find and rescue the hostages and liberate as many horses as possible. The odds of success are not in the humex favor. But the humex had overcome long odds before. The rescue attempt will be one of the most important chapters of humex history.