The Search For Truth (and other things I was wrong about) --Beta title

Chapter One

"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever." 

-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Pioneer of Astronautics

Many hundreds of years after the world was brought to tears by one small step for man, humanity has lept into the stars. It might be kind of hard for you to imagine what life is like thousands of light-years away. To stand on Earth as you are now and look up into the stars to see more than just what your imagination can bring you.

There was once a time, perhaps the time in which you are reading this, when humanity would stand among the animals and stare at the night sky with wonder. We would look up and we would hope. We'd hope for life beyond. We would hope for a future where we might walk among the asteroids and fly through the belt.

A time when the stars bore fairytales and nightmares because we could dare to dream of what could be out there. The truth, as it usually goes, is so much more complex.

...

"And see if you look closely over there you can just catch a glimpse of Perseus peeking out behind Andromeda," the man in front of her stretched his hands out to zoom in on the stars he was recounting. Alexiea sighed inwardly and smiled politely as he attempted to woo her with his astronomy prowess.

While he prattled on about Andromeda and all her glory, Alexiea Robbins turned from the screen which served as a window here on Eureka Lunar Station, and quickly surveyed the party, searching for her best friend. Harriet Hitachi-Flint — heir to Hitachi-Flint Enterprises, society's perpetual It Girl, beloved by many and envied by all— was in deep shit. She had once again hosted an elaborate "event" (it was strictly forbidden to refer to them as "parties") in their shared apartment and had left Alexiea, known as Lex to her friends, to fend for herself with yet another boring respectable man whom Harriet had deemed "her type."

And he was very boring. Admittedly, most children who grew up on Luna received very minimal education on the subject of astronomy. Many could recite a few constellations and perhaps various moons throughout the system but for the most part, the subject of astronomy was not a high priority. The irony was not lost on Alexiea; we live in space! You'd think we'd put a little more effort into knowing it better. So yes, this man who stood in front of her zooming in and out of the system showing off his fountain of knowledge was, in a way, impressive.

But mostly he was boring. Alexiea didn't care about the stars, or constellations, or the names of distant asteroids. She cared about the people who named them. The people who discovered them. The people who had worked for generations to get to touch them. So far we have put men on the moon, and we have a living breathing functioning ecosystem alive on the moon. The minds behind that were far more impressive to her than ones who could memorize a basic map of the system.

And she wanted to be next. She wanted to be the mind behind man's next great leap into the cosmos. But she was smart, she knew that before they could start looking at terraforming Mars or exploring the outer planets they had to live long enough to do it. So she'd started at home, making her dissertation about creating a total overhaul of the station's emergency systems protocol. It's been grueling years of countless hours of research, research that she really should be working on now.

"It's beautiful though right?" The man said, pulling her attention back to the screen where they were now soaring past the Omega nebula, she opened her mouth to excuse herself when suddenly there was an arm around her shoulders accompanied by a strong mix of expensive aftershave and liquor.

"Isn't she though?" said the voice attached to the arm which was squeezing her shoulders tightly. "Our own little Lexi, all grown up."

The man who was holding her was tall, by Luna's standards, and obviously wealthy. His height as well as his muscle definition were clear signs of someone who grew up with the money for expensive growth treatments, something the man in front of her clearly lacked.