Strange Horizons
I found my reaction to her unsettling. I've worked hard at eliminating reactions to women. Too much potential trouble. Too much potential scandal. Here in Thailand it wouldn't matter, perhaps. Back home it would.
However, if a civilization were to convert all of the material in the system to the job of supporting life, by creating the vast habitable surface area of, say, a ringworld or Dyson sphere, the problem could be circumvented.
The densest parts of the interstellar medium remain far emptier than the best vacuums yet created in Earthly laboratories, and the gigantic scales over which the interstellar medium extends boggle the mind.
Stranded from the outer galaxy, / she signs over her last ranch credits ...
