Frontier: Book One - The Space Cadets by Laurence Moroney Read Free Book Online Page B

heard nothing. Why
is that?”
    “ There are many reasons that could
be so,” said Abby. “And the most likely explanation would be that
most civilizations are like ours, if they exist, and that they’ve
only used radio waves for communication for a very short space of
time. So, say a civilization has used them for a hundred years.
That means there ’ s only a one-hundred-year
window in which they would reach us. If a civilization is around
for, say, ten thousand years, that ’ s only
one percent of their civilization time that they use the
waves.”
    She looked around the room. “It
gets more complex when you think of distance,” she added. “Say that
civilization is fifty light years away. If they reached the ability
to produce radio waves one hundred fifty-one or more years before
we started listening for them, then those waves would have passed
us right by, and we ’ d never know they
existed.”
    Aisha shrugged “So listening for
radio waves is--”
    “ Like hunting for a needle in a
haystack the size of the moon.”
    ***
    There was a buzz around the
lunchroom as the new students walked in. Some looked on and
sneered, and Aisha more than once heard words like
“rabble.”
    She took an empty table and was
joined by Soo-Kyung. Some of the other new students joined them,
while others looked around for a different table.
    Oblivious, Soo-Kyung wolfed her
food. “Surprisingly not bad,” she said between
mouthfuls.
    “ What happened last night?” Aisha
was surprised to hear her own voice as she blurted out the
question. Since the night before -- and Soo-Kyung ’ s response to Seamus -- it had been burning inside
her. She ’ d been afraid to ask. There was
something intimidating about the Korean girl.
    Soo-Kyung looked up at her, and
Aisha could see a decision being made behind her eyes. Then,
something changed, and she went back to her lunch without saying
anything further.
    ***
    For the rest of the day, they were
paraded from class to class. They saw more of the station, and
explored the various habitats. While they lived in the rims of the
wheels that made up the station because of gravity effects, there
was a lot more to the station. They accessed these areas by
climbing ‘ up ’ from the rims towards the central hub.
    “ As we climb,” said Mister Porter,
their primary attendant, “the effect is unusual, because
you ’ ll feel yourself getting lighter. The
wheels that made up the station are made up of concentric circles,
with the outermost operating at one gee.”
    Aisha nodded, remembering how
astronauts measured gravity. 1G, or one gee, was the equivalent of
the surface of the Earth. Gravity was measured relative to that, so
that with the moon having approximately one-sixth of the gravity of
the Earth, so they called it 1/6th G.
    “ At the hub of the wheel,”
continued Porter, “there is no rotation, so you’re weightless, like
in outer space.”
    “ What happens there?”
    “ First-year cadets,” he continued,
“will fly training craft in that space. While some of you might be
familiar with flight on a planet ’ s
surface, doing it in space is very different. So, the safest way to
train is at the central hub of the station where we have a close
simulation.”
    One student was incredulous, and
Aisha noticed the French flag on his breast. “We learn to
fly?”
    “ Oh yes,” said Porter. “And a
whole lot more besides!”
    For the whole trip Soo-Kyung
walked no more than an arm’s length from Aisha, but
didn ’ t say a word. She caught her
friend ’ s eye from time to time, but the
Korean girl just gave a downward look that almost appeared to be a
bow. Aisha didn ’ t push it.
    ***
    Classes finished for the day, they
returned to their quarters, exhausted. Smith was waiting at the
door, with Seamus nowhere to be seen. There was a flicker across
Soo-Kyung ’ s face that almost looked like
disappointment.
    Smith nodded to her, and she
returned the gesture. “Can we talk,” he said