The door opens again, and a creature reminiscent of a giant lobster wanders in: it's about four feet tall and perhaps twelve long, with a bright sky-blue shell mottled with brown and rather more appendages than even a lobster usually has, both in terms of legs and in terms of eyestalks, feelers, bushy antennae, and other less identifiable protrusions - no claws, though, instead its forelimbs end in a complicated grasping arrangement. A smaller, lighter-colored version of the same sort of creature with stubbier sensory accessories peeks out of a niche on top of its carapace, and about half a dozen coppery snakelike creatures are draped across its various extensions.

It seems distracted at first, then startles and lets out a loud whistle: "Somebody get an elder, something really weird is going on!"

Oh! That's certainly a thing. It's kind of cool-looking- maybe that's an offensive way to think about a person's body, it's not like she's talking about a fashion choice. Now that she thinks of it, it's weird that all of the seating here is designed to accommodate a humanoid shape. Maybe there's a section of the restaurant that would work better?

"Um, hi! This is Milliways. It's a bar located at the end of all universes. Most universes? I don't know how it works, sorry."

"On it!" comes a whistled reply, before the door swings shut behind the creature.

"The what at the... what? How are you even speaking my home language?"

"What I know is that Milliways is weird about time, you can get rooms, there's an infirmary, there's rules against fighting, it translates everything we say automatically, it can serve any food or drink in the multiverse, and you can store things behind the bar if they're not dangerous. What, um, do you want to know more about?"

"Uh." That is too many things, put some back. The creature's feelers wave in mildly-agitated thought. "What do you mean it's weird about time."

"Okay so first things first- when the door is closed, time is usually paused in your universe. Time moves differently between different parts of the bar, and you can pay for your food after going home as long as you invest it right. I wouldn't think too hard about that, it always works out."

Her expression conveys that she is so curious about how it works out but has sadly resigned herself to never knowing.

"What language are you speaking? Mine is called-"

Kira pauses, and checks to make sure she hasn't slipped into Japanese again. Nope!

"-English."

Oh no, more things. At least there's a question to answer? Even if it's not going to be a very good answer. "It's just my home language, we don't do enough radio transmission to have named it I don't think. The elder will know when they get here - uh, do I just need to keep the door open while they're getting them, or-?"

"Yeah, that should work great! As long as the door is open, everything on the other side will work just how you're used to. Um, what do you mean when you say elder, is that like a leader, or one of your parents?"

The creature shifts to open the door with a pair of rearward limbs and prop it there. "A leader, yeah. I don't - know why you'd think that other thing would work at all."

"Well, they're not the same thing, obviously, but parents are usually good sources of advice? Sorry, maybe that's not true for...um. My species calls ourselves humans, what are you called?"

"Tagmata. That's sort of true, I guess? They can't help with things they never learned about, though, obviously."

"No, you're right. Parents can't help with everything. Most things, really, because they always think they know better. Um, do tagmata eat or drink? The bar serves food and beverages as long as you can pay in the future somehow- money or shifts as a nurse, janitor, or security."

"Your parents must work very differently than ours. And - that didn't translate well at all, but we do eat, and I'm a rancher? I'm, uh, spoken for, though."

"You, um, can't pick up part-time work? I guess maybe some other tagmata," oh no, she doesn't know the singular, "could pay for it? Um, the plural is humans and the singular is human, for us. What are they for tagmata?"

"Tagmata and tagma. It's best for us to specialize, it lets us do more complicated things together later - I would have expected it to work like that for any learning species, it's different for you?"

"Oh no, we do specialize, it's just- if you were in a bar where time was frozen, a lot of humans would do something else in the meantime if it meant paying for things. I would probably help with cleaning up, I'd be no good in the infirmary or as security. Um, what do you ranch, as a rancher? Humans have cows, mostly, I think."

"Klasata - these," it bobs an antler hosting one of the coppery snakes indicatively. "That's the female phase, I don't have a male with me."

"Oh, cool! What do you mean by phase? Does the species undergo metamorphosis?"

This gets a mildly startled gesture. "Yes; you don't?"

"No, we just grow up without any intermediary cocoon phase. Um, what kind of animals do you have on your planet? Do you have mammals? Warm-blooded animals that bear live young?"

"Tagmata fit that description. I don't know much about outside animals, but I think every species we know about has phases - the elder will know a little more if it's important for some reason."

"I guess not, I'm just curious. Um, so about eating- did you mean you won't need any food from the bar because you have klasata?"

"These are breeding stock, I shouldn't eat them; I think I just won't stay long enough to need to. Unless the elder tells me to, but I don't expect that - I suppose it's not impossible, my band has enough redundancy to lose me even if it's a little late for me to start re-training."

"Oh no! I'm sure you'll be fine, it's just that it's a useful place, Milliways. Not perfect, you can't really take too much home with you, but it's a good place to take a break if your universe needs one. Maybe we can just talk about work until the elder gets here. What were you doing carrying them around? Were you taking them somewhere?"

"Not in particular, it's mostly just a good habit to be in for when I get outside - the more parts of my job are habitual the better I'll be at it when the time comes. And it is convenient for work."

"That makes sense. I'm still - learning. I don't know what I'll do if I get a regular job."

"Well, you can always wait and see what your community needs, that's what I did. Or - I suppose I don't know that it works that way for humans, actually, does it?"

"Oh, um. No, not really. Humans have, uh, big communities, and no one can afford to wait if they're done learning. How do you know what your community needs?"

"You just kind of wait and see? We're, uh - I'm kind of curious if humans work like this at all - we get assigned to bands pretty early, usually from the same batch of babies but sometimes someone will be bigger or smaller and the elders will swap them around, it's more important to transition at the same time as your band than to be the same age exactly, and the band will figure out together how they want to specialize - mine picked bookmaking, a couple of us are writers and you can't exactly do that outside but it's close - and then different members of the band will pick up the different parts of that, so like we have some who make paper and some who do leather for book covers and some who know how to make book presses and some who do carving for the letters for them and some who run the presses, like that. And every band needs ranchers and gatherers and things, so when I wasn't that interested in any of the other jobs I ended up with this one."

"Oh, wow. Humans don't raise kids communally like that- well, some cultures do, and even more did, in the past, but now you usually get raised by one or two parents, and maybe a grandparent. And everyone picks their own job that will be good for the life they want when they grow up, but sometimes you have to do something you're good at but don't like, or something that anyone could do- more general, I guess."

"I'm really not sure what you mean when you say your parents raise you. I guess if you don't metamorphose that could be pretty different?"

"We start out as babies- they look like us but smaller, with bigger heads? Our parents take care of us until we can stand and walk on our own and know how to speak and do all the other things we'll need to do. We still have to learn enough to do our jobs, even after that. I think humans have one of the longest childhoods of all mammals, besides maybe elephants. I can ask the bartender if they have a book about it back there, but he won't give it to me unless I'll leave it there later."

"You could say that about us, too, but I think the details must be different - our fathers and brothers take care of us by bringing us resources, our mothers provide food? When we're babies it's our siblings who look after us personally, though, that's why I've got Zvi." It gestures at the much smaller tagma on its back.

"Our mothers can feed us and our fathers can provide other resources...but things are different now that we, um, invented society? It used to be more communal like that, with siblings and aunts and uncles helping more, I think? Now most families won't live together like that- just one mother, one father, and however many kids they have. There are still some families where they have more people involved, but not as many as before. Do tagmata have houses?"

"...oh, if you don't metamorphose you must do something else for living space, that makes sense. We do build, but we live in our mothers until our adult transition, so we only have our siblings to work with."

"In your mothers?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, sorry, um, that's insensitive. I'm not judging- not that there's anything, not that it would matter, if- um. How does that- work? If that's okay to ask."

"-uh, they grow a lot when they metamorphose? And we're already pretty big by the end of the male phase. I'm not sure what other problems you expect us to have."

"What...happens to the mothers? How do they feel about it?"

"They aren't, uh, people, by that point, to have opinions about it? That happens with the transition to male phase."

"-sorry, could you go through the phases in order? We just have child and then adult- maybe teenager in between, but since we don't have metamorphosis, it's not obvious. Adults are parents to children."

"We start as babies, like Zvi, and spend a couple of years like that, and then when the second brain develops enough to let us move around well we transition to children, like me, and live about fifty years like this, and then when we outgrow our first brains we lose them and triple in size and transition to males, and we're not really sure how long males live since they usually wander off eventually but that's at least a couple hundred years, but when they get big enough they metamorphose into females and live a couple thousand years like that. Most species work that way, more or less. I mean, quicker, usually, Klasata only live about six years total, and plenty of species have mobile females or external children, but..." it gestures vaguely. "Oh, and except elders, elders don't transition past childhood and they live just about forever."

"Oh. Is it hard to keep track of males who wander off?"

"We don't really have a way to, yeah. I'm not sure it'd help anything even if we did, though."

"No? Why? Does it help with population growth, or gathering resources? Do you have- oh wow, I don't even know how this will translate if you don't! Um, do you have mass manufacturing of things?"

"Even if we knew where they were we'd have no way of getting them back. It's fine, though, other males wander in and they're almost as good, they still bring us things. I'm not sure quite what you mean by mass manufacturing but probably what we have counts? We have machines to make things, anyway."

"That sounds like it's on the right track, yeah. Humans make a lot of things using machines instead of by hand: clothes, toys, books, um...I guess I don't know how factories work with food, and I kind of don't want to know. It sounds like," oh gosh this is so weird to say, "males are really helpful for trading between different communities! How big is a- band, you said?"

"About twelve, twelve to eighteen. That other thing didn't translate - we don't do much between communities at all, it's not easy and it's not that safe to try, either."

"Why wouldn't it be safe? Is it dangerous to travel, if you're a child?"

What a sentence. Kira isn't sure- no, she's sure. They'll only do something horrible if she tells them about this place. They're always so suspicious of anything new- she still doesn't know if she'll see a cell phone again in the next decade.

"Yeah - I don't know a lot about it, I've never been out, that's elder work. -uh-" it turns around, extending an eyestalk beyond the doorframe. "One minute."

A much smaller tagma clicks its way into view; this one is darker, with more of the brown mottling, and about the size of a large dog.

"Elder Ty - I didn't do anything, I promise - I just opened the door and this was here - there's a weird time thing if it closes again, they said, I didn't catch the details - this is called a human, they're a person, they don't metamorphose, I'm not even sure they transition at all, they're pretty weird? They were trying to poach me a few minutes ago but I think they changed their mind."

    "Huh." The smaller tagma gestures with a feeler and the larger one crouches to let it climb onto its back for a better view of the alien. "What's your story?"

Okay wow that didn't help, since she was nervous already. Hopefully everything will be fine. Milliways is relatively safe.

"Um, I was training with some- people, humans at home, to gain more control of my magical powers. They're not my parents, or elders, because humans don't metamorphose. Our parents- mothers and fathers- are just people, same as us. We do start off as children and then we grow up but mostly that means we start, um, getting taller and bigger and women have breasts and everyone has," blush, "um, reproductive organs? Anyway, I'm still growing up- we consider there to be stages but since it's not metamorphosis they're not as clear cut. We go through a process called puberty where children turn into a adults, but people still in puberty are considered a third stage, teenagers."

"All right. And why did you put your... place... in our community?"

"Oh, Milliways? It's not my place. It just shows up wherever it wants to go, including different universes. I can't control it, and it's not mine."

"Ah, apologies. Can you tell me more about the door situation?"

"Sure. So when Milliways replaces a local door with its own, it leads into this place- the bar,"

"-where you can meet all kinds of aliens and order drinks from all over the multiverse. You can get some food, but if you want the really good stuff you want the restaurant-"

"-and of course there are rooms upstairs for rent if you need those. Um, as for how the door works- when it's closed, no time will pass in your universe. People usually can't get into Milliways from different parts of the same universe at once."

It waves a feeler acknowledgingly. "Are there any dangers we should be aware of?"

"Milliways is usually safe to most kinds of people, but um, it probably has to compromise sometimes. What are the dangers you would worry about if you went to any new place?"

"Being able to get back, most obviously," it replies immediately. "Or being attacked, or leading dangerous creatures back. Here I'd worry about the food being safe but it may be interesting to visit even if it's not, I've eaten recently enough."

"Getting back is easy. Just open your door, and you're home. There's no violence allowed in the bar or restaurant- if anyone tries, they get put in the cell by security until they agree not to try again, or decide to leave Milliways. The food is safe as long as you order it- you shouldn't anything just sitting out is okay, but if you order it, it should be fine. What kind of food do tagmata eat?"

"Home food, mostly - fruit and fish that our mothers produce for us - and klasata and klenta and a few other species of animal that we raise. Home food is usually poisonous to tagmata from other communities, is why that's a concern."

"-oh, huh. We can talk to the bartender, he usually knows these things. Um, it's hard to get very good answers out of him though."

Kira knocks on the bar. After nothing happens for a minute, she sighs. Figures.

"I guess he's busy, or in a mood, or confused about time?  Um, you can try to request home food, if you want? Just put your hand on the bar and ask for the food. Can you tell by smell, or would you have to taste it?"

"I'd have to try it and I'm not sure I could tell even by taste, it's not something I have personal experience with. I don't need to eat soon, in any case."

"It's not a big deal. You should be able to get back home and eat anyway. As long as one of you is holding the door open, time will pass in your world.

So you're one of the elders?"

"I am - not from the original band but still three times as old as any of the non-elders. -speaking of which-" it taps its feeler on the larger tagma's to get its attention: "Go tell elder Tikta where I am, they should be by the ponds, and ask if they think it's worth the risk to invite elder Kal in. Kal is our best for outside work," it explains to the human as it dismounts to allow these instructions to be followed, "and we'll be in some trouble if anything happens to them, but they're the obvious next one to send."

Nod.

"You're feeling fine so far, right? All of your basic needs are being met by this place? It's supposed to be good for everyone, even when that doesn't make- physical sense."

"Yes, I'm fine." It lets the door swing closed once the other tagma is clear of it. "So what are aliens like, or are they too varied to really say?"

"Too varied to say, in Milliways. A bunch of them have the same basic body plan as humans- bipedal, two arms, two legs, a head," she says, pointing at the relevant body parts. "There are also others, though. I've also run into symbiotic..brain-shaped slugs, centaurs, um, there was this one big crab thing...does any of that translate?"

"We have slugs and crabs, and symbiotes. I'm not sure what you mean by brain-shaped, ours aren't the same shape as each other, but it doesn't matter much. I have no idea what a sen-too-or is."

"Oh, um, centaurs are mythical creatures in my world, who supposedly look like human torsos on horse bodies? The one I met wasn't as silly as that image makes it sound, though. She had kind of blueish-purple fur, and these...eye-antennae? It's not important, just an example. The symbiotes weren't called anything, but the humans on the planet who bonded with them called themselves Trill."

"We don't have horses, either." It peers around her with a pair of eyestalks, checking out the rest of the room, though it keeps another pair on her.

Around the room, it can see other aliens! There a variety of species drinking and eating and talking around the bar and restaurant area.

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.