Survival class is every thirteen-year-old's preparation for Trial, the Ships' rite of passage into adulthood required within three months of turning fourteen.

Both in and out of survival class, sometimes with Jimmy and sometimes with other children, Mia has a series of adventures that build her confidence, broaden her world, and prepare her for Trial.

Her moral awareness also grows during this time, both through formal study of ethical theory and through reflection on the errors she inevitably makes as she risks new experiences.

Mia escapes the Losel herders' attempted kidnapping, and when she reaches the nearest town, she is repulsed by the fact that all Tinterans are "Free Birthers"—they have no population control.

After a second run-in with the Losel herders leaves Mia badly beaten and robbed of the signalling device she will need to return to her Ship, she is rescued by Daniel Kutsov, an old man who has been reduced to a simple, manual job as a result of past political activity.

Singlehanded, Mia stages a jailbreak and escapes to the wilderness with Jimmy, but not before the two witness the brutal killing of Kutsov in a roundup of political dissidents.

The coming of age theme is dramatized through the events of Mia's Trial, a rite of passage that ensures her adulthood will be earned and meaningful.

Mia's final moral stance is broadly Kantian (Kant is the only philosopher she mentions by name) in that it demands respect for the personhood of others and forbids treating others as mere means.

Mia's moral maturity comes with her recognition that “the universe is filled with people, and there is not a single solitary spear carrier among them.” Many classic science fiction novels end with the destruction of an entire planet and its inhabitants.

Typically, as in the Skylark and Lensman novels of E. E. “Doc” Smith, such destruction is presented as a starkly necessary defense against alien beings who are incorrigibly dangerous or evil.

Mia and Jimmy's mentor, Joseph Mbele, believes that the Ships have an obligation to assist the colonists by sharing their knowledge, which Daniel Kutsov says is the heritage of all who survived the destruction of Earth.

Both sides of the debate receive a respectful hearing at various places in the novel, and neither is presented as indisputably correct, but by the end of her story Mia has clearly come around to the view that the Ships have an obligation to the colonies.

Many of these themes appear in three other Panshin stories set in the same fictional future: “The Sons of Prometheus” (Analog, 1966), “A Sense of Direction” (Amazing, 1969), and “Arpad” (Quark 2, 1971).