With a sputter, the converted bus springs to life. Grinning, Kalie guides it to the glittering starway leading up along the horizon’s green twilight and into the thickening darkness above. She points it straight at the glowing, round moon still sitting low and red in the sky. Kalie can only see the outline of the road so far into the inky distance, but can trace its course to where it will reach the landing pad in Mare Vaporium. With a little help from the pictures in the flyers, she’s already imagining herself in the bright-colored mushroom forests, admiring the pretty pink and yellow frills, the tiny orange caps and white buttons dotting the landscape, and the giant pale stalks, while walking barefoot on the soft moss. Many people never make it off post-capital Earth, but she procures a vehicle capable of traveling the starways, a spot in the Lunar Colony, and a ticket to the solar system beyond if she goes.

“We’re really doing it, Koda!” she calls over her shoulder.

Koda has never been on a starway before, and doesn’t appreciate the incline. He is keeping an eye on his mom from his bed under the table, but as they begin the climb, the face she’s been checking in the rearview mirror disappears into the enclosure.

“It’s ok, Fluffy-boy. This should clear some things up.”

He has been watching her make these preparations for weeks without knowing what ultimate change this anxious activity brings and getting more nervous the whole time. Sleeping and cooking on board confuses him after the long-held pattern taught him Dave’s house is home. She tries to reassure him with snuggles, but it proves that only his tongue cav dry her tears. And that doggy hearts are too big for human goodbyes.

As the wings on the top of the bus pop out of their casing, it’s as if they’re sprouting from Kali’s shoulders. The whole universe is waiting out there in front of her windshield, wide open and full of wonderful possibilities. Arriving as she is during the apogee of Earth’s orbit means she’ll spend a few months at her next stop before the planet is far enough past the zenith to bring her into alignment with other parts of the solar system so she can start any subsequent legs of the journey. She wonders if any of those hours will be a waste. If restlessness is possible in such an amazing place. If the future trips she packs up for excite her as much, even the fluorescent forests of fungi she is about to call home might become mundane. 

And where shall she go next? The thought of hiking the Martian volcanoes appeals to the core of her nature, the part of her that appreciates a challenge. The sheer height of Olympus Mons, Ascraeus Mons, and the others invite her to consider the impossibility of piling that much rock on top of itself like a presumptuous sandcastle, the planet’s surface stretching as far as it can into the infinity of space, and the geological hell it endured getting there. Human- and canine- legs are no match for that. But how the stars must look from that vantage! Are there pebbles lying up there waiting for her to come along and meet them all the way to Deimos? Mars comes into alignment in four short months, if that’s what she decides.

“What do you think, buddy? Do you want to take a big hike after we’re done playing on the moon?”

Koda chews on his blue silicone bristle bone, which means he’s ready to manage his stress more proactively, and can also be interpreted as a sign of acquiescence. 

“Are you picturing a walk with a few more sticks to chase?”

At that, the dog groans and lays his head across the bone.

Kalie laughs. “If walks with no sticks don’t sound like fun, we could go to Titan and visit lakes where you can’t swim. It’ll be a while before we’re in alignment with Saturn’s orbit, but that will give us longer to play in the mushrooms.” She glances at the astronomical timetables. The date it lists for departure to Saturn is twenty months away!

All at once, she knows that’s too long to wait. Only yesterday, Karina’s question left her in teary-eyed wonderment amid rounds of hugs from her friends during last night’s drunken send-off: what is she going to do? Venture out to the rest of the solar system. Or will she settle down among the beautiful species of fungi she’d been studying? She went to college, got her degree in biology, took extra courses in exobotany, and chose her area of focus, all with an eye on the moon. And now that she is literally driving toward it, suddenly the lunar surface becomes a rocket propelling her to worlds beyond rather than the new home she spent her life preparing to burrow down into and get comfortable. 

“Chief Koda, I think you’re right. There’s gotta be something better out there.” A million stars twinkle in agreement.

Koda gives his happy bark, though whether he is encouraging her or the stars, Kalie can’t decide.

She checks the charts again. Jupiter lines up in eight months, which seems like a more reasonable amount of time to grow some space-legs. “What if mama has the adventure and you wait on the bus?” Within the year, maybe she’ll be gliding on the Jovian wind fast enough to feel it through the thickness of her space suit. She tries to imagine the bands of orange and red clouds swirling all around her with nothing solid she can hold or even see except the bar of the astroglider she’s strapped to. Back on Earth, she jumped from high altitudes. She knows what it is to fall through the clouds with a rocky surface rushing up to meet her. But flying through a gas planet with the atmosphere spinning Jupiter-fast must be the ultimate rush.

Kalie looks at Koda, and he gives her his best smile. When she turns, her destination rises in proportion to her progress up the starway, which seems solid when she’s on it. By the time the moon reaches its zenith, she will too, and they’ll be off on the next amazing chapter in their story.