Alone in Summer Science Academy. The profanity of foreigners among the gods. Zoltan builds a submarine. There are trilobite eyes. And lo! Amanda among the maidens.

Doug meets the Man-child, the Gamer, the Actual Scientist, and the Woman.

Men's war. Which is to say, junior high. War without clear lines. Leaderless. And fought for no objectives. But also sanctuary. Science movies, cloud chambers, boxes of minerals. And more tribes, where Star Trek bifurcates into engineers or gamers. And above all, The Nutcracker, where noblewomen market their daughters to Dougs.

Maybe there are traces of ADHD, from before the time of doctors who called it that.

Life on Planet Grade School has died. Lonely departures. Rocket Summer. The horrors of Bryson Junior High ahead. How will Civilization save Doug Foster?

When does cultural memory of a war finally end?

Doug finds artifacts, Civilization in highball glasses and garlanded girls who sing in Greek.

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.