"I'm leaning Space Empress myself," Bella agrees. "Although Big Sistering deserves a little more thought. I don't have a great sense of what stars can do, yet. If I can make them make really sophisticated judgment calls according to really complicated algorithms..." She makes a face. "But then a lot of the system is awfully nontransparent."

"Space Empress is cooler," says Alice.

"And I'm not sure you could really test the limits of a star's ability to do that kind of thing without just trying it, which I bet you don't want to do."

"Yeah." Bella chews her lip. "I don't think there's a downside to Space Empressing. It's compatible with doing anything else on the list later. Could even give me the authority boost to declare an election, but you're probably right about that not being a good plan."

"Go for the Space Empress!" encourages Libby.

"I like the way you operate."

"I wonder how long it will take everyone to notice," Bella muses. "I should also decide if I'm going to continue to attend school."

"Is there anything you're getting from school that you can't get with magic or by becoming space empress?"

"Potentially, some form of networking that will be useful later when I do Planetary Union or whatever I call it. If being friends with you strictly dominates attending Stanford for that purpose, do tell."

"You will meet different people through me than you will meet at Stanford," she says, "but I am a much better filter for usefulness."

"I suppose it's also possible I'll have better credibility as Space Empress if I have some manner of formal credential," muses Bella. "Are you professory enough to award me any form of degree if I write you a dissertation in the next hour with pentagons and super-speed?"

"If you want a degree, I can get you a degree," says Libby. "If you want a legitimate degree, I can get you one of those too, but only in math."

"I was thinking math, yeah, I don't think I can please most of the people who'd care what kind I have, because if I accumulate enough credentials to do that it's going to be obvious I 'cheated' and many of them would probably care, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to placate the ones who just want a degree, any degree."

"Do some math, then," she says. "I'll handle the rest."

"Try it," says Alice.

Libby shrugs.

Bella plays with coins for a few seconds. At length she reports, "A coin can limit another of the same size, and up to ten of the next size down. And a hundred of two sizes down, so now I have a whole lot of pentagons that are only good for languages."

"...I find it disconcerting how casually you throw around stars," says Libby.

Alice beams.

Bella pats him on the head. "I'm sure he would be happy to show you how he throws around star-making," she says. "But you might or might not want to see."

"I'll pass, thanks."

"Your loss."

Bella stretches her arms above her head. "I'm considering theme continents on Mars. Like Disneyland but writ large and residential. Like, the first bit will just be a city-with-parks. Apartment buildings and schools and rowhouses and various features of economics and flora and a manageable number of magic sanitary pigeons to make it feel homey. And it can sprawl into a suburb. But I bet some people would be happiest living in a faux medieval fantasy where if I show up in person I do it in a ridiculous dress Alice makes me, and a crown, and also there are dragons and unicorns running around. So they could have a little island. And somebody might want their magical utopia to be more science-fiction-themed, and somebody might want to live under the ocean, and now that I've thought of it I kind of want one of my several palaces to sit on a cloud. But I don't have any inhabitants at all yet and should probably poll them about theme continents before I get too excited designing anything other than the original city."