A/N: Ok, here is a bit more on Wash's childhood. I seem to have lost the original narrative style. It irks me, but this is as good as it gets for now. I'll keep working at filling in the gaps and bringing it all together. This bit needs a lot of work, it is by no means the final form. Tell me what you think.

*** Pa took only me to the first museum. It was amazing to be alone only him and me. I'm not sure why he took only me, but I was grateful. After all, he took only Fliver to the Grand Theatre the week before and Taggral to the cortex mainframe of our area. He seemed to like to spend time with one child at a time. And I knew was that we all enjoyed it.

The museum Pa took me to displayed molds of ancient fossils from animals that had roamed Earth-that-was a huge long time ago. There were beasts that had once stood taller than a Way Cruiser and half as long.

"I bet they're not real." I said to Pa.

"Don't say that!" He looked aghast. "You can't discount the past."

"It can't be proved." I stated.

"You can't be proved." He grinned and shook his head. "These creatures are real, Hoban."

"Were."

He knelt to my level. "No, if you believe in them hard enough, they're real now. If you believe in anything, it can be made so." I didn’t know it at the time, but that was probably the most important thing my father ever said to me.

We spent nearly the entire day at the museum. I became more and more interested in the huge ancient creatures the deeper we explored the halls. I learned about the Tyrannosaurus Rex being the king of the beasts in the ancient Greek. I learned what all the ridiculous plates on a Stegosaur's back were for. The museum was huge. Its white marble walls provided a somewhat unnatural yet fitting background to the suspended bone molds. Pterodactyls swooped overhead in holographic simulations. All sorts of strange noises were siphoned through microphones placed near each exhibit.

I was very reluctant when it came time to leave. But as we walked the final stretch Pa drew me aside to the shop. There he bought me brightly colored toy replicas of my favorite dinosaurs.

*** It was my uncle who took me and my brothers and male cousins to the second museum. As much as I loved the dinosaurs, this museum was to be my life. It was a flight museum. The history of flight on Earth-that-was was laid out and even demonstrated for us. I watched in fascination as two young men with really weird names made the first flight in a goofy thing with big long wings. Further on I observed the first object projected into space. From then onward were space exploits. Explorations, battles, and terraforming were all described in appropriate detail.

I walked in fascination down the aisles and aisles of ship models. Most of them were scaled down to fit in the building, but some were actual size. I had never before been so close to ships that had actually been to the Black.

Before me sat the most ungainly ship I'd ever seen. It was a full-scale ship, an old outdated model. A freighter in fact. I read the plaque and it said that the engines of the Firefly class transport were a unique design. I glanced the ship over. Its hull was scarred deeply by something, and it was quite obviously not operational. The bridge hung out way above my head and the huge cargo bay doors yawned in front of me. A sign on a rope in front of the ship read: DO NOT ENTER. I didn’t, but I was surely tempted too. It was the ugliest ship I'd ever seen, and I'd only seen a few. It was beautiful, though, just the same.

After viewing the exhibits, I spend the rest of the day poring over the star charts, learning the names of each star, its planet the moons and the major cities. My brothers and cousins were bored stiff. They had been interested in the ships, but the stars did nothing for them that they did for me.

"Can we go now?" Fliver asked impatiently.

Uncle Vernis shrugged. "Looks like, uh, Bram—"

"I'm Bram." Said Bram.

"Right, uh," Uncle Vernis was never good at coherent sentences. "Well, we can leave if you like."

They wandered off. I didn't. I got in a great deal of trouble that night for staying away so long. But I Uncle Vernis got yelled at more for leaving me all by myself.