Learning The World : Orbit : 9781841493442 : 1841493449 : 04 May 2006 : 'Thought-provoking and entertaining, this highly original first-contact story should please any science fiction reader.' - School Library Journal 'Mind-expanding science fiction at its best; it is no surprise that it has been shortlisted for all the main science fiction awards.' - THE TIMES The great sunliner 'But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!' is nearing the end of a four-hundred-year journey. A ship-born generation is tense with expectation for the new system that is to be their home. Expecting to find nothing more complex than bacteria and algae, the detection of electronic signals from one of the planets comes as a shock. In millennia of slow expansion, humanity has never encountered aliens, and yet these new signals cannot be ignored. They suspect a fast robot probe has overtaken them, and send probes of their own to investigate. On a world called Ground, whose inhabitants are struggling into the age of radio,