Get a Child Addicted to the Real Wonders of the World

It’s easy to get a child addicted to real wonders if you start early enough. Simply point them out—they are all around us—and include a few references to what was once thought to be true. Take thunder. Explain that a bolt of lightning rips through the air, zapping trillions of air molecules with energy hotter than the Sun. Those superheated molecules explode out of the way with a crack! Then the bolt is gone, and all those molecules smash into each other again as they fill in the emptin...

 The Skrodes

Ravna looked across the surf. When the waves backed down the sand, she could see the Skroderiders’ fronds peeping out of the spray. How she envied them; if tensions annoyed them, they could simply turn them off. The Skroderiders were one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. There were many varieties, but analysis agreed with legend: very long ago they had been one species. Somewhere in the off-Net past, they had been sessile dwellers of sea shores. Left to themselves, they had develop...