"Well, maybe my plan is to become a country's president and be so good at it that everyone else will want me, too!"

"If you're superhuman enough to get elected president of multiple countries, perhaps you deserve world domination. Though I do think it seems a bit unlikely."

Shrug. "Aim for the Moon, because even if you miss, you land in the middle of hard vacuum and are half-cooked-half-frozen... I forgot where I was going with this."

"Do you read sci-fi? I - well, I like sci-fi."

"That sounded a bit more complicated than just liking it."

"We as a species need to put humans on the Moon, and Mars, and in asteroid habitats, and on interstellar voyages, eventually."

"We definitely do, but given that most of our problems with using the space we do currently have on Earth are logistical in nature..."

"Malaria in something-istan is bad, sure, sure. I'm going to worry about nuclear war or gamma ray bursts or something anyway, though."

"Oh no I'm mostly talking about, like, the way we have more food than we need to eradicate hunger but we can't get it places effectively, or just in general how we're very bad at allocating resources sensibly, so trying to build a spacefaring civilization would probably fail terribly."

"The Moon would be as metaphorically far away as America was in the 18th century. So maybe we'd end up with a Lunar Independence War... I see the point, but I'm not actually sure this means we shouldn't colonize places."

"No I don't think we shouldn't I think we need to shape up so that we're not horribly bad at it."

"People are sometimes crazy. Governments often have bad incentives. And governments are big. You'll need a big lever."

"You have an idea of a lever to do it?"

"Not really. Money seems to do the trick, sorta."

"Only sorta, but if money was the only barrier I think this would be a solved problem."

"People being crazy and bad governments."

"And generally a lack of coordination and knowledge and the problem is genuinely difficult..."

"We're not even out of high school yet, anyway. Time to worry about learning stuff, not saving the world. I'll see you tomorrow. You're fun to talk to."

"Same to you. Seeya."

Cally goes to her next class, one of the many she doesn't share with Sadde. 

She's nowhere to be seen when school ends. Doesn't take the bus, apparently.

Nowhere to be seen as in not even among the students or leaving the building?

Well, there are multiple exits.

But only one people usually exit through after class, that being the front one.

No?

No.

Huh. Back home, then.

...and she's gonna go out for a late night walk.