”“I bought Ransom when I was in the CBD a week or ten days ago.”“Just frittering away our resources!”“Absolutely! Think of what my paperba...ks run compared to your art books!” He reached over and tickled her. “But I’ll take out the difference in trade!”“No. No! Not now. And don’t tickle me!”When they had dressed again, Rachel began dinner preparations. Patrick phoned his father.“Hey! I’ve sent in a report on Menindee, but don’t expect any kind of response before Monday ... Have you heard from. She certainly didn’t deserve to have any friends, but she looked like a sad child sitting there hunched over the table.“That’s not what friendship means.” I chided. She glanced at me, juice dripping from her chin.“Why’s that?”“Friendship isn’t when people are afraid of you, when they stop being afraid of you they stop being your friends, right?”She didn’t respond, and continued to chew her steak, or whatever it was.“Well, a friend is somebody who likes you for who you are, remember when the. Technology fifteen hundred years ago wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today." You don't think they were intercepted by aliens?" If that's the case, then why haven't our probes ever found any sign of little green men? There's never been such a concerted effort to establish colonies in other star systems since those optimistic days and that's mostly for practical and economic reasons. Even the fastest space ship takes hundreds of years to get to the nearest star. A robotic probe can travel. I asked, "Are you going to finish Eagle sometime Christian?" Oh yes. I finished my project last month," Christian explained. "I'm going to finish the write up next weekend. I plan to get my Eagle rank before summer."Trent, Christian and I talked football for a few minutes. Christian asked how my knee was doing. He had noticed that I was limping. I explained about overdoing it the previous evening bowling with my friends. Trent, Penny and I talked about getting together for another double date..