Entry 2

Two centuries ago as the applications of imaginary physics began to roll out, they called it "the imaginary revolution." From magic boxes that turned a small cube of protein into a complete, fully cooked meal to the "rocket" ships that carried people to the moon in 12 seconds, this was the stuff not just of science fiction but of dreams.

On Sirius 4, of course, we learned another sense of the term. My friend Badiah Sinclair, the reluctant leader of what has come to be known as the Imaginary Revolution, was and is a good man who believed in independence for our world. I don't believe most of the bureaucrats who attempted to control us from Earth were really tyrants; I think they simply tried to run things the way things had always been run.

But we Sirians had a different view – I almost said a "new" view, but that's not quite accurate. From the day the human species was born, and from the day each and every one of us was born, our instinct is for freedom and the desire to follow our dreams. In that way Sirians are not different at all, but coming from pioneer stock we were more insistent about following our instinct.

Badiah was right to lead us to throw off our shackles, but he made the same mistake so many revolutionaries have made through the centuries. Faced with an often-violent tyranny, he chose to meet force with force, to reward theft and blood with theft and blood.

I tried to convince him that violence only begets violence, and that using the means of our adversaries to accomplish our objectives would only infect his thinking. How many nights have I had trouble sleeping, wishing I had been more persuasive. I could have spared my childhood friend the pain of being as reviled as the Earth tyrants, more so because he was one of us.

It took barely a year after Sirius 4 secured our independence from Earth that the words of a very old song about revolution began to whisper in my subconsciousness. The song rings of a new constitution and a return to halcyon times "just like yesterday," but it concludes, "Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss."

I am getting ahead of myself, I suppose. This is certainly not beginning at the beginning. There are rules about storytelling and memoirs. On the other hand, a classic work of 20th-century Earth literature begins with a quote from a man named Juan Ramón Jiménez: "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way."

Still, there is one incident I should mention, which occurred when Badiah and I were 12 years old, that I should mention at the beginning. So much of what I believe goes back to what I learned the day I beat the stuffing out of my best friend.

Entry 3. The cookie fight