There is a staircase, apparently leading downward.

"Oh, um, horses! They're sort of- oh wow. They have four legs, hooves, they have...hair...their faces are kind of prolonged- centaurs wouldn't have that part, though, they just have the bodies. Do you have- cows, deer...elephants?"

"No, none of those."

"Oh, that's so interesting! Our ecosystems must be completely different! You look kind of like lobsters, except for- well, everything. Do you have any mammals that look like humans?"

"We don't have - mammals, goodness that's hard to pronounce - apparently."

"Huh! What kind of animals do you have? How do you categorize them scientifically? Sorry, it's fine if you don't know- I don't know a lot about biology myself. It's just hard not to ask questions."

"I'd need a reference book to make sure I wasn't forgetting any of the less common groups - there are crabs, hard-bodied creatures that only metamorphose once and are usually the most physically complex - tagmata are in this group; insects, hard-bodied creatures that metamorphose at the child and female stages and have very short adult phases; mollusks, soft-bodied sometimes-shelled creatures that go through several adult stages with very dramatic metamorphoses; and fish and amphibians, sometimes classed as one group and sometimes classed as two, which are soft-bodied creatures with bones that have a slow metamorphosis throughout the child stage and a normal one at the female stage - fish are strictly aquatic and amphibians spend at least one phase on land."

"Huh. We have things with similar names, but I'm not sure if they're exactly the same. I know some insects and amphibians metamorphose, but I don't know about fish. Um, and I don't really know anything about mollusks, but we do have them. You don't have any birds, either?"

"We don't, no."

"...I don't think crabs in our world metamorphose at all, but I'm really not a biologist. Do you outgrow your shells? ...Is that a rude question?"

"It's an exoskeleton, if you want to be technical, but we do molt, yes; it's not rude to ask about."

"Cool. With humans, we mostly don't shed anything. During puberty, the closest thing we have to metamorphosis, men usually grow hair on their face, here," she gestures, "and they start getting bigger appetites, getting taller, things like that. Women...do the same thing, but less, and we also, um, grow these?"

Kira very broadly gestures to identify her breasts. She's blushing, which is especially embarrassing since she's talking to an alien.

"Anyway. Is there anything you can think of that would help back home if time was paused? Milliways can be really helpful for solving tricky problems."

"You don't need to tell me things you're sensitive about, dear. Anyway, the obvious thing we'd want help with is communicating and working together between communities - ours isn't involved, but a few of our neighbors are trying to work out how to make combined bands that work together and listen to both communities' elders, it'd improve the males' redundancy and both communities' chances of being able to get a male they can communicate with when they need one."

"That sounds really useful. Radio might be a good idea- the Internet would be cool, but I think it'll be harder to setup, and maybe you can get there eventually...hold on just a second."

She fishes in her pocket for the key, and lets herself behind the bar. There's nothing back here except...there it is. She pulls out a radio, placing it on the counter.

"Okay. Um, so this is a radio. It can broadcast- um, it communicates a message sent from one central location to a lot of locations as long as they have this. They use a special kind of machine to send out the signals through the air- radio waves, they're a kind of- light that carries the sound. This needs electricity to power it- do you guys have electricity yet? That's um, contained lightning that we use to power machines."

"We have radios - not that small, that I know of, though, especially that can broadcast. And electricity is hard to come by in most communities, so we can't use them as much as we'd like."

"Oh, okay. So the central broadcasting tower is usually pretty tall, but this isn't the only kind of radio. Let's see...I don't think I'd be able to get hold of anything more convenient than this just to show you, only if you want to take them home. If you already have electricity, we could just work on making it more common- phones should help a lot but you need the lines, right...oh, I wish I had someone back home I could call for this, I know people who could help. How would you work on a big infrastructure project like building- underground...lines...to send voice messages to each other over long distances?"

"We'd have to train a band for it. Or several, if it's enough work."

"Okay. Um, I really don't know a lot about how phone lines work, but I think I should try to figure that out...what else? Are there any things about life that makes it hard?"

"It's generally all right for us; the males have the hardest time." It waves its antennae thoughtfully. "With a radio broadcaster that small, maybe we could listen in on them; right now we can only guess what tends to kill them, so we can't teach the children to protect themselves very well."

"Okay. So phones, microphones...I don't know if the Internet would be easier than setting up phones...this is hard. Um. Do you have anyone who's specialized in electricity? It's probably a good idea for me to work with them so that we can get you guys what you need."

"We could send one of the bands who handle it in - what do you have in mind, specifically?"

"It could take a lot of setup to make sure everyone can use radios, phones, and things like that. I think I should get someone from your world who already has the right knowledge to understand what little I know and turn it into something you can use. That means- anyone who knows about electricity, anyone good at big infrastructure projects, anyone who knows what kind things you'll need to communicate between bands..."

What she wouldn't give to have Lydia here.