the scenery seen was exceedingly dull

Nod. "I see."

fused-with-all-the-data

"You can borrow books from Milliways about other peoples' worlds if you want to do a research project. Or buy them, if you can take things home, but the translation effect won't go with you."

Nod. "It's really useful. I haven't read stuff from every world yet, though."

fused-with-all-the-data

"I'm not sure anyone has! There's a lot."

"I wonder if I should look for ways to live forever first..."

fused-with-all-the-data

"The ones where I'm from tend to make people evil, but maybe Milliways offers better ones?"

"They what?"

fused-with-all-the-data

"They tend to make people do horrible things. They hunger for people's flesh or blood, or they lose all ability to care for anyone, or such."

"That's a really weird thing for living forever to do! And I'd rather die!"

fused-with-all-the-data

"Yeah, it's not great. I think to be those kinds of things you need to catch them like a disease, or do a ritual to transform yourself into one. Most people are just the sort of thing that dies and those are some of the easier things to become. What would you expect to be a non-weird thing?"

"...If... you had a drug that made your DNA go back to not being damaged? And so you didn't get cancer? And maybe if you genetically edited people with something you found in axolotls you could make a next generation that grows back limbs they lose? And if you had enough things like that you would just never die of natural causes?"

fused-with-all-the-data

"What's DNA?"

"It's the instructions that tell your body how to grow. You might not have it but everything that lives on my planet does."

fused-with-all-the-data

"Huh. Your body's already grown, though, isn't it?"

"Yes, but the individual cells are constantly wearing out and being replaced."

fused-with-all-the-data

"What's that like?"

"Well... when I get cut, new skin eventually grows over the cut. I slowly shed retired skin so I bathe every day even if I don’t touch anything dirty. Sometimes people on my planet have parts start growing too much and get cancer."

fused-with-all-the-data

"Oh. Maybe that is also how we work, then."

"Maybe!"

fused-with-all-the-data

“I’m not properly here in the flesh, though, so I don’t think you could check.”

"That’s really cool, honestly. It would be really useful to be able to send a fake body to do things and then get rid of it."

fused-with-all-the-data

"That’s very expensive. I don’t think I can hold a sponge here because I’m special, I think it’s because Milliways is."

"Maybe I should hold my door open and invite people to move in. It's just... I'd get government attention and I don't really want it."

fused-with-all-the-data

"I don't think this happens if you move to Milliways, it's more that being here as a dreamer is weird. And I suspect your government probably imprisons people already."