Axela

The characters in the story were created to advance, on just a peripheral basis, the cultural and historical perspective of this adventure – and not to be melodramatic progenitors of the novel. My intention was to concentrate on the progress of the society as a group and the institutional process necessary to that progress - to wit, a study in cultural anthropology. In this regard the story is much closer to non-fiction than a fictional novel populated by characters presented in endless depth – a depth that would not have advanced the basic infrastructure of the story and whose detailed personality development would not have allowed the brisk movement I felt was necessary to keep the story interesting - given the thousand years it covered..

Nonetheless, I felt a few characters sprinkled in here and there would bring a certain and important understanding to the reader. Among the few characters arising from these pages was Axela who represented the fifth generation of the family that the book follows throughout its journeys. Axela was developed for the interest of younger readers. She was an exceptionally bright girl, whose parents schooled her early and who were constantly amazed at her rapid advancement. By the time she was twelve, she was already attending and beginning to contribute to political leadership meetings. She would be the youngest person in the leadership council at the pace she was learning.

Axela’s parents were high officials in the leadership council and when it was decided to rescue the middle two Xran descent groups from half way around the world by ship, they deemed it necessary to go on that perhaps two or more year long voyage. Axela would be left at Nexra with her grandparents until her parents returned. Axela was heartbroken, and, at the last minute just before the rescue armada left its port, Axela became the world’s first stowaway with the help of her best friend’s brother who had volunteered as a deckhand on one of the ships of the armada.

Fully one-third of this story takes place at sea as the humex set out to retrieve the nearly 4,000,000 newly marooned Xrans fresh from orbit. Axela soon is discovered on board one of the armada’s ships and assigned to hard deck duty for her intransigence. But eventually she becomes an important member of the crew and goes on further to become a contributing member of the botanical science contingent attached to the armada. Axela, then, was the central, albeit incidental, character as the armada follows a colorful as well as educational geographic sea adventure.