As a boy, I never had much. My Mother lived in the poor wing of the station. It was dirty all of the time, and there were all sorts of unspeakable people wandering, and unspeakable activities going on all around me. I participated in some of these morally questionable pursuits during adolescence, and I have come to see the flaws in the ways I have lived. I have pushed these things from my mind, so that they are nothing more than ephemeral whispers of a time long past.

When I was born, my Mother said a prayer for me:

May this child grow to be big and strong
May this child grow to see what is good in this universe
May this child grow to change his surroundings for the better
May this child grow to make me proud

I of course did not know this at the time. I only found out about her prayer recently, as I browsed the data banks at the stations public uninet access terminal. My father kept all of his most sacred memories for me on a disk back at my birthplace, and he gave me the instructions to look them up when I felt ready to do so. I have been tempted to look at them many times before, but some inner force has kept me from them until now. Perhaps it is the stories I have heard from travelers about the parts I come from, for they are not pleasant to listen to. Perhaps it is the conversations I have had with acquaintances from the old time, for they are not fun to have. But I think that the biggest reason for my hesitance was the one thing I knew about my father before I accessed the disk. He was the leader of the station, and one of the richest people in the galaxy.

On my 4th birthday, my friend and I climbed to the top deck of our wing to look at the stars. I had done this many times before, and when I went to that place, I felt right at home. There was a new sight in the sky that night. A star that I did not recognize was shining just above the constellation of the dolphin. I had no idea what a dolphin was, other than a general outline of its shape, and that they didn't exist anymore. Mother said they were living creatures like you and me, but it looked so different that I had a hard time believing her. I spent a long time looking at that new star. I wondered how it had gotten there, and why. No star had done anything other than sit where it was for as long as I could remember.

On my 5th birthday, Mother and I moved to a new station. I did not understand why we were doing it, but Mother said not to ask why, we were going to a better place. The first night on that station was the hardest of my life. Sure it was cleaner, and quieter, but it was so different from everything I was used to. I longed to be back in my bed, with noises and smells surrounding me. I felt uncomfortable in the new place. In the morning, I told Mother about my desires. She said not to worry, feeling lonely, or lost was normal when you come to a new place.

I tried to believe her, I really did. I went around and looked at all of the nice things in our new home. The doors to the rooms were shiny, and made smooth whooshing sounds as they opened. The lights were all the same color, and they all worked. There was no trash in the halls, and no smells. The other people seemed nice, but never wanted to talk to anyone. All of these things were nice, but they left the place feeling only half there. There was nothing to give it personality. No life blew through the halls. I could feel my soul shrivel by the day. I feared that if I did not change something about my life, my soul would eventually disappear and I would die.

I passed time on that station reading extensively from the archives of history. There was information in there on every conceivable topic. I read about the Roman Empire on old Earth, about the colonists voyage to Sol II, and the war that followed. I soaked as much information into my head as I could, hoping that someday the knowledge would be useful. I did other things on the station too. I explored every passageway, and every room that I could get into. I tired to talk to the people, but they mostly kept to themselves. I would take a datapad down to the docking bays, and read while talking with travelers. I heard some pretty amazing things about the universe and its people, the kind of thing that cant be told by a book. I learned that the universe was not just something that happened. It was full of emotion, full of happiness, sadness, joy, anger, grief, and sorrow. I was appalled by some things I heard, and amazed by others. I yearned to go out and explore for myself.

On my 9th birthday I got that very opportunity. A trader had stopped by our station after a long voyage, and was ready to depart again. I had talked with him every day during his stay, and he felt like a friend to me. I asked him if I could go with him when he was ready to leave. He said okay, but I would have to do some work on the journey. I was overjoyed. I ran back to the room to ask Mother. She asked if it was what I really wanted to do, if I would miss the station, and its people. Of course I wouldn't, so she allowed me to go. I promised that I would return when I was done seeing the stars.

We were bound for a star system less than a weeks travel time away. My tasks aboard the ship were basic. I was to check on the cargo twice a day, once when I got up, and once when I went to bed. I also had to make drinks for the trader. I could handle both of these with ease, and the rest of the time I spent either talking with the trader, looking through his logs, or listening to his communications. I was surprised how much information he trusted me with. All of his most profitable runs, I found out about. All of the places he went to, I knew when and where they were, and why he had gone there. I learned all there was to know about being a trader in space, and I was impressed with the skill it required. He operated alone, but was able to talk with other traders. I marveled at how some of the largest trading empires worked together, and how this one person was able to match them, if not dollar for dollar, then by the knowledge he had of the universe.

When we arrived at our destination, it was like flying into a different world. There, instead of a few lonely ships flying in and out once a month, as was the norm where I came from, there were ships everywhere. I marveled at the different designs, and different sizes. I had never seen a ship longer than 20 meters, but there were some there that must have been over a kilometer long. We slid past them slowly, making our way to the largest man made thing I had ever seen. At first I wondered if it wasn't a small asteroid, but I realized that it was a station. It took us a good half hour to get to the docking port, and there was a line of 10 ships to dock. The line was steadily going in, and more ships were forming up behind us all the time. Three speeders zoomed overhead as we waited. They were the fastest things I had ever seen. The place was a dream come true for me. There was so much going on in every direction, it was hard to know where to look.

When we got into the station, robots began to unload the traders cargo. I watched as he went over to a counter, and began bargaining with the person for his goods. As he came back, I heard him muttering under his breath. Something about prices just aren't what they used to be. I was concerned about him. Up until now I had pictured him as a perfect person. I now began to see that he was motivated more by money than anything else. I asked him about it, and he told me that it was his way, he had been trading ever since leaving home in his fathers ship, and he didn't know how to do anything else. I politely asked him if he didn't mind me leaving him at that point. I wanted to find out more about the universe, and I wanted to meet as many of its people as I could. We hugged, and he gave me a coin with his seal on it. He said if I ever wanted to talk again, to show someone the seal, and they could help me find him. I thanked him, and he turned away, back to his ship.

I watched as he walked back to the docking bay. He donned his flight suit, and climbed into his ship without so much as a backward glance. I looked down at the coin he had given me. On its front face was a design that I assumed to be his logo. It was five lines arranged in the shape of a pentagon, with the lines extending beyond the corners to form a kind of star. On the back were these words:

Independent Riches

I marveled at how someone could make that their motto. I would never have dreamed of putting anything other than people first. It seemed to me that trading was an acceptable thing to do, but the trader should use his skills and money to help others. I would think on this matter further.

I walked over to the window and sat down on one of the benches. It was hard, and I couldn't imagine wanting to sit on it for very long. Outside, ships were flying by by the hundreds. There were so many it was hard to know which to look at, so I decided to look at them all. After about 5 minutes of just watching, a particular ship caught my eye. It was smaller than most of the others, and was moving considerably slower. It was lining up to dock, and was being pushed around by some of the other ships. I wanted to talk to the pilot of that ship, so I went over to the docking bay to wait for its arrival.

The pilot climbed out of his ship, and lay down on the floor. I wondered what was going on, and why he wasn't moving, but I didn't go over to see what was going on. I watched as 2 robots came over to him and moved him to the bench I had been sitting on a few minutes earlier. I felt sorry for the guy, just laying there on that cold hard surface. I watched him for another minute, when it occurred to me to look back at his ship. It was being covered in a green cloth, and moved to another docking bay. I went over to the bench and found the end that wasn't taken up by the man. I sat down, and looked out the window. It was relaxing to watch all of the ships go by.

The man sat up with a start. He hadn't been doing anything, and then all of a sudden he was sitting up. I looked at him, and he looked out the window. I wanted to talk to him, but I had no idea of where to begin. I didn't need to worry, for he turned to me and asked me what I was doing there. I told him I was sitting, and I didn't have anything else to do. He made it clear that this was a bad response. He exploded and was shouting for a good 10 minutes about sarcastic youth ruining society. I apologized profusely, and when he had calmed down, I figured that it would be good to answer his question in a more thorough manner. I told him about how I had come with a trader from a distant station, and how I was trying to learn all I could about the universe. He seemed to like that idea, and offered to show me what he knew about it.

I followed him past his ship, down a narrow corridor. There were doors leading off of it on either side. I tried to look through the windows, but he was moving quickly, and with such purpose, that I figured I had better keep up. We finally arrived at the door he was looking for. He took out a key that looked far different than any key I had ever seen. It was metal, and there were bumps and grooves all along its edges. Seeing the confused look on my face, he explained that it was an ancient way of making keys. No one remembered how to make them anymore, so it was a perfectly safe way of locking things up. He told me not to act too shocked when he opened the door. I agreed to this, but acted plenty shocked anyways. In the room was the fastest looking ship I had ever seen. It was much sleeker than any of the racers I had seen outside the station. He asked if I would like to take a ride. I was honored.

As I put on the flight suit, I wondered just what it would be like to fly in the racer. I pictured it as flying in the trade ship, only faster. I asked the pilot if this was what it was like. He said that it was nothing like anything I had ever experienced before, and that the feeling couldn't be put into words. The only way to truly feel what it was like was to go out there and fly. He sat in front, in the pilot's seat, and I sat in the only other seat in the ship, just behind him. My seat was raised up just enough for me to have an awesome view out of the cockpit. I asked him if he flew like this a lot. He replied that he did racing practice almost every day, but this ship was saved for special occasions. He said that I seemed like the kind of person who was worthy of taking a spin in his best ship.

The bay opened slowly, revealing the stars beyond. There were less ships in this area than in other areas around the station. I asked why, and the pilot responded that this area was the private docks for pilots, and was only used for docking and undocking of ships. I looked around behind me, and saw many rows of doors all like the one we had just flow out of. I asked the pilot how he knew which one to go back to, and he said that it would open as soon as we were near it and ready to dock.

He flew me around this part of the station, and back into the open. We paused, and he pointed out some landmarks. A big ship here, a station feature there. He said that the whole area was free for racing in, and asked where I wanted to go first. I had no idea, so I asked to see some of his favorite spots. He chuckled, and powered up the turbo engines.

We suddenly blasted forward. I was glued to the back of my seat, and my mouth was held open by the g forces. I looked at the ships speedometer. We had accelerated from 0 to 200 meters per second in about 2 seconds. "How do you like that?" he yelled back to me. "Faster!" I yelled. He hit the turbo again, and the next time I looked at our speed, we were going well over 500 meters per second. When the turbo burn had ended, we were pointing right at another parked ship. He hit full reverse thrusters, and pointed the nose of the ship to the right. I wasn't experienced in this kind of flying, so I had no idea what to expect. I thought we were going to turn away from the ship to the right, but instead we stopped less than an inch from its hull, and swung around it backwards. I felt dizzy.

"How do you like that?" he asked after bringing the ship to a stop.

"Uhhugh." was all I could reply. He laughed and told me that my stomach would get used to the sharp accelerating and turns with time. I sure hoped so, and was glad for once that I hadn't had anything to eat for a day. I asked to have a tour of the station, but with less turns than before. He obliged, and we proceeded over to a grouping of large ships that had caught my eye before. He told me that these ships were all large trade ships, and that most of them belonged to either the Riarvian Trade Federation, and the Ghungh Trading Empire. He said that these were the 2 largest trading conglomerates in the universe, and together they accounted for more than 75% of the trading that went on.

We were flying very close to the ships, almost brushing the sides. They were close together and they were all moving, but they never touched each other. Either they were being run by computer, or their pilots were very skilled. I suspected that it was the former. I didn't know where we were going, my pilot seemed to be on a course, but it wasn't clear where to. We were flying in and out of the maze of fins, and antennae, and other ships that were ferrying cargo to and from the station and the big ships. We slowed, and I noticed that we were coming up to a docking bay on one of the ships. I asked what we were doing, and the pilot replied;

"I have a friend I want you to meet."

Very nice, but I want to point out to you that you should be going over your writing and deleting and then reentering all quote marks and apostrophes—the "smart quotes" that Word (and probably some other word processors) uses are not compatible with standard text input in html or whatever interface we're using here.

Essentially, if you don't, all your "smart" quotes come out looking like (in my case) “ or †and a box. (Small letter a with a circumflex, euro sign, and a small ligature oe or box.) Not so "smart."

This docking bay was different from some others I had been in. Instead of the regular white lights, the lights here were blue tinted. The pilot said that this was to distinguish the ship from the others. All of the ships in the Riarvian Trade Federation had this color scheme, all of its lights were blue. The door opened to reveal a huge hangar. Inside the hangar were all different kinds of ships, fighters, racers, cargo ferries, personal transports, and many other kinds of ships. Our ship was locked into a tractor beam and slowly put into position at an access hatch to the freighter. The airlock was opened, and we slowly got out of the ship. The pilot told me to go first. I didn't know why, but I thought it could have to do with the customs of the Riarvian's.

As we entered the ship, we were greeted by a middle aged man wearing a green shirt with gold stars all over it. His pants and shoes had the same color scheme. He greeted the pilot and they had a brief conversation. The pilot told him where we were going, and he directed us to follow him down a hallway to the left. He walked surprisingly fast, and I had to jog to keep up. He led us on a winding path of walkways, tunnels, and doorways. There was no way I could remember each turn we took. Finally we arrived at the door of what I could only assume was a high ranking official. This door was bigger than most of the others I had seen on the ship. The man pressed a button on the wall near the door, and then motioned for us to step back, doing so himself.

As the door slid open, my eyes widened. Inside were all kinds of luxurious items that I was experiencing for the first time. The walls were glowing slightly, and were semi-transparent. Beyond them was what appeared to be wild landscapes of all kinds of planets, wonderful views of nebulae, and through one wall was a rather boring looking room with a table and a chair. I was intrigued about what these different things were, and why that room with the table and chair were so important, as to be placed alongside the wonderful scenes on the other walls.

In the center of the room was a man, laying in a bed. He sat up as we entered, and greeted the pilot. They spent some time talking. I didn't pick up all of the conversation, but it sounded like they were reminiscing. Eventually the subject of me came up, and the mad in the bed motioned for me to come forward. After hesitating, the pilot nodded, and I walked up to the bed. He asked me where I came from, and I told him that I didn't know the name of the place. I described the different stations where I had lived to him, and he sat there staring at me with the deepest eyes I had ever seen. He nodded when I was done, and instructed the pilot to take me to deck F-2A. The pilot nodded, and he led me out of the room.

As we left, I asked him about the different pictures on the walls. He told me that they were visions that the man was having, or that he had had. I wondered about the room. He had seen it too, and he told me that my guess was as good as any.

When we arrived at deck F-2A I had no idea what to expect. I had no expectations for this reason, and was quite surprised when we arrived. Inside was a ship. The pilot said that this was to be my very own ship. I was elated. I jumped up and down and yelped with joy. I quickly calmed down, and asked the pilot about the ship. He said it was a racing ship, and a basic one at that. It did look quite less sleek than the one the pilot and I had flown in with. The pilot told me to strap in for my first flight. We would fly to his dock so that he could get his ship. I was nervous about flying, but he reassured me that he would have an alternate set of controls in case I flew too wildly. He advised me to go slowly if I was nervous.

We strapped in, and the docking hatch was opened. I tried to ease the ship out, but the thing was much more responsive than I had expected, and indeed more than it looked. "Woah there!" the pilot called to me, chuckling. I smiled to myself, and as soon as we were free of the docking bay, I hit the forward thrusters full blast. The acceleration was amazing. I was plastered to my seat, and could barely move my hands. I managed to slow us down enough to hear anything over the roar of the engines. I looked up at the pilot, and he just smiled back, shaking his head. He pointed me in the direction of his docking bay, and I pointed the ship in that direction, going slower this time. When we arrived, he got out, and got into his ship. He said he was going to take me to one of the race courses to show me around. I thought that sounded like a wonderful plan.