"I will try very hard. I am very smart," says Mehitabel.

"Yes you are," says Aelise.

"Where's your aunt?" Mehitabel asks.

"Somewhere in the orbital rings. She knows we're here; she'll be along."

"Okay. What do I call her?"

"You call her Kers."

"There's some. I don't know what qualifies as 'a lot'."

"I want to learn it. It seems like it will help, I think."

"You can learn whatever you want."

"Yes," agrees Mehitabel. "Teachers and stuff are useful for finding the best things to read to learn whatever, though. Is Kers good at that?"

"She's pretty good at it, yeah."

"That is good and important if I am going to fix the world any time soon," Mehitabel nods.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up about doing it in the next decade," says Aelise. "All things considered."

"Well," says Mehitabel, "maybe not, but it would be good if I did, so I shouldn't waste any time just because maybe not."

"True. But on the other hand, it's not nice to be disappointed because you didn't solve a complicated problem unreasonably fast."

"Being disappointed would waste time," Mehitabel says after a moment's thought. "So I won't do it, at least not very much."

"That's good."

Kers shows up just before the end of the book.

"Hello," says Mehitabel politely. "I'm a secret. Are you Kers?"

"I am Kers," she says. "And you're Mehitabel."

"Yes. I'm not a secret from you," says Mehitabel.

"Correct."

"I am supposed to live secretly up here and figure out how to fix the world," Mehitabel says.