 The Mediterranean Basin thus remains dry to the present day in this time line, as a vast sunken desert called the Bottomlands, averaging nearly two kilometers below mean sea level, with summer temperatures reaching well above 40 °C (104 °F) and with little or no rainfall, and brine lakes.The story concerns a field biologist working at "Trench Park" named Radnal vez Krobir.He is a citizen of Tartesh, a "Homo neanderthalensis" nation which seems to take in much of the west part of the Bottomlands and what in the real world is France and Spain.