More On Ivar And Aeneas

For more information on Poul Anderson's fictitious colonized extrasolar planet, Aeneas, see here and here. ("Life on Aeneas" and "Aenean Society.")

I had thought that "the Dreary" was simply the tineran name for the Ironland desert but it turns out to be a cold and lifeless plateau in Ironland. When the Waybreak Train crosses the Dreary, the tinerans must:

struggle over stonefields and around crevasses;
ration water;
eat uncooked food;
clean utensils with sand;
erect tents for their animals.

If Ivar had been unable to cross the Dreary unaided, then he would not have been abandoned but would have been resented and his keeper might afterwards have tracked him down. Before departing:

"Ivar expected that a journey with these people would stretch him to his limits. He did not expect he would snap."
-Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), p. 112.

Our first sight of Ivar is his leadership of an ill-advised and botched military adventure. After that, he is dependent on others to keep him out of the hands of the Imperials. So we might regard this future Aenean leader as naive and incompetent. But he proves to have hidden depths and inner resources.