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straight on to 39 Laetitia.” He revealed his Plan B unwillingly. “They’ve got a big colony, a physical precious metals market, branch offices of UNSA and UNESCO, a couple of really good Chinese restaurants …”
    Haddock tugged his goatee. “I wouldn’t mind visiting 39 Laetitia,” he allowed. “Where there’s a UNESCO office, there’s money to be made. But Michael, ye’re forgetting something.”
    “What?”
    “The war.”
    Michael shrugged violently. “Who cares about the stupid war?”
    “Aye, ye’re a true son of the Belt,” Haddock said. “We’re from Earth, so perhaps ye’ll allow that we have a better understanding of the stakes and the likely outcome.”
    “OK, great futurologist, share your predictions.”
    Kelp giggled at this.
    Captain Haddock didn’t even smile. “Star Force is buggered,” he said curtly. “Humanity is probably buggered. War? It’s going to be a wipeout.”
    Michael sagged. “That’s why my father wanted to send me to Earth. He didn’t say so. But I know what he was thinking.”
    “Aye. And that’s why we’re going to Titan.”
    “Titan?”
    “Titan,” confirmed Codfish. “Where it rains hydrocarbons, and you can fly by flapping your arms—”
    “And,” Haddock finished, “tourism is exploding.”
    Michael said, “Titan is three point two billion kilometers from Earth.”
    “Sure that’s the point,” Haddock said. “Your daddy has one view on the matter. I respect that. But we have another. And we’re not alone.”
    “I said billion, not million.”
    “The further the better, for a certain type of person. The rich type.” Haddock rubbed his hands.
    “Nuh uh,” Michael said. “You don’t understand. This ship’s not going a billion kilometers anywhere. We only get milligee acceleration. Plus, there’s fuel to think about.”
    “We might have to stop off at one of the Jovian moons to fill up the tanks,” Haddock conceded.
    Galvanized, Michael swung back to the 3D starmap. “Well, look at where Jupiter is right now. It’s on the same side of the sun as 99984 Ravilious. So we can swing by, and then if it doesn’t work out, we can divert to Ganymede or Callisto instead of 39 Laetitia. I don’t mind,” he added generously.
    Haddock pulled on his goatee. “We’d be headed in the wrong direction.”
    “Not really. Look at this. Considering the distances involved, a few newtons of off-axis thrust could alter our trajectory into this one …” Craning up at the starmap, he snapped his fingers to run a pork chop algorithm. “Or this one, or this one …” Red lines multiplied, arcing out from Ceres to every major asteroid this side of the sun, until it looked like Ceres was exploding in a fountain of blood. “We could go anywhere!”
    He mentally crossed his fingers, praying.
    “I have a question,” Coral said. “Why are you so small?”
    “Huh?”
    “You’re spaceborn, right? But you’re much smaller than Kelp. You look Earthborn.”
    Michael sighed. Impatiently, he sorted through the photo albums he kept on his contacts and threw a picture of Ceres, with all its orbitals, up on the bridge’s big screen. “See that O’Neill? No, the little one in a low polar orbit. That’s our other house.”
    Kelp looked up. “Spin gravity?”
    “Yeah. I was born in one full gee. I’ve pretty much always lived in gravity. That’s my school over there.” He pointed to another of the habitats orbiting Ceres like a cloud of metal flies. “I mean, my last school. They kicked me out in second grade.”
    “Why’d you get kicked out?”
    The truth was that Michael had refused to go back unless he could take his mecha with him. The school refused to let him have it. “For being an obnoxious little genius,” he said, stealing the phrase Petruzzelli had often used—in loving tones—to describe him. Why had she left him behind?
    “The gravity in here hurts my bones,” Kelp said. The rotation of the command module around the spine of the