The Ne Theras highlands are one of the few places on Anarres where streams run quickly, a striking exception in a world of low water tables and short rivers. During a ten-day hiking excursion, Shevek and Takver find themselves alone above a gorge; in the high, spare landscape, their attraction becomes explicit and their relationship begins.

Setting and Scarcity

Anarres has little running water: the water table is low across much of the planet, and its rivers are short. The Ne Theras highlands offer a marked contrast, with quick streams cutting through the gorges. To Shevek and Takver, the clatter and song of flowing water is unfamiliar, so the mountain setting registers not merely as scenery but as an encounter with a natural abundance uncommon in their home world.

The Excursion

Shevek joins Bedap and several companions for a ten-day hiking tour in the Ne Theras. The party meets behind the Eastern Points trucking depot and travels toward the mountains. Their excursion is supported by shared facilities: a stone Wayshelter built for vacationers, maintained by them, and a firewarden who lives there in summer. The Ne Theras Federative, one of Anarres’s active volunteer groups, manages and protects the planet’s limited scenic areas.

Shevek and Takver

On the fourth evening, after a day of scrambling up and down gorges, Shevek and Takver sit on a bare, steep slope above a torrent. Their companions are at the Wayshelter preparing dinner, and the two have gone out separately without announcing where they are headed—or knowing their destination in advance. Shevek finds Takver among the silvery, lace-like branches of moonthorn. As moonrise brightens the gap between the eastern peaks, the stream’s noise fills the otherwise still high hills. They sit together for a while without speaking. Shevek then tells Takver that he has never been drawn to a woman as he has been to her, and that this has been true since the hike began. The highlands thus frame a personal change within the novel’s larger concern with shared life: an unplanned walk away from the group becomes the setting for a bond formed through freely chosen companionship.