The chief wingless species found in Otz Trench are centahs and veltaurs in the drier stretches, along with bos in the rainy southern end of the trench. If only Tharn had had a little more air! Flight and intelligence wouldn't be quite such. The flyotes living down in Otz Trench itself are quite large (and thus large-brained) but packs dwelling in the surrounding mountains and plains are (like plains wingbok) dwarfed and childlike. The only uncertainty is whether we should call them people. On the other wing, flyotes are everywhere on Tharn, of course. Thus, their descendants in Otz Trench and Heloon Crater are essentially island populations, slowly diverging from their ancestral race to the east and their numbers are still quite small, except in the south around Lakes Hinla and Foosh. Most survived without permanent brain damage, but they never dared return. Only a stubborn handful insisted on being carried through, on animal-back. The few lebbirds to dare the pass collapsed most were carried back out. The pass is nearly 10 km above their native trench, and the air-pressure drop feels much like a climb from Terran sea level to 20,000' does for us. Trunzip has a dire reputation among lebbirds-with good reason. Otz would be ideal for lebbirds too, but very few of that second flying people have trekked into this hemisphere over Trunzip Pass yet. Clumsy? Limiting? But 'Many tongues make skilled work,' as the wingbok say. No, make that cultures.ĭeep in the trench, the shores of Lakes Hinla, Teina and Foosh are the very heartland for one intelligent species, wingbok, a shy, nervous people resembling winged deer-but with forked prehensile tongues-a hand, in fact. Thus, even the central stretch of Otz supports a vibrant ecology-and culture. Storms from rainy Barsoom Basin to the west rain directly into the trench and snag on the bordering mountains, feeding hundreds of steep short streams. But in orbital summer, the high pastures of Thuvia warm up and the winds reverse. The middle of Otz Trench is analogous-most of the year, cold dry winds descend from Thuvia Upland to the west, keeping rain away. But if the winds blow from land, even a seacoast at these latitudes will be dry-like Mauritania or Namibia or Western Australia. If they cross a sea, they'll absorb moisture and generate rain downwind-that's why Florida's green.

Just as on Earth, regions of Tharn around thirty degrees north and south tend to be high-pressure zones with weak, dry winds blowing westward. Thus, the southern tip is hotter and more humid than our Amazon, yet the central trench is quite dry, and the far northern branches (though surrounded by deserts, snowy peaks and windy steppes) are mild and fairly green-like great sunken terrariums. Like most deep trenches, Otz creates its own climate to a large extent, but it runs from the equator up to 50 north, crossing climate zones as it goes. Otz Trench is one of the longest on Tharn-nearly 5000 km (3000 mi). Map, Tharn's homepage, Peoples of Tharn, Regional tours, Geology and Evolution, gazetteer, terms explained.

Valley of otz barsoom