"Campbell Mark Swan."

"If you're from a parallel world with no previous contact with this one, how come you have an Anglo-sounding name?"

"That's what's tripping you up, not the fact that I look like a human with some aftermarket modifications and not like a bug alien or something? My world's got English. I'm from its United States."

"So it's an infinite void that has parallel versions of specific Earth countries?"

"No, it's more complicated than that, do you actually want me to improvise the 101 lecture on the spot?"

"At this point I'm mostly just killing time until Records get back to me about the security footage or Phil comes back with the glass ornament. I don't currently see the need to demand a 101 lecture on Hell as part of investigating your alteration with Lewis, but I don't have anything better to do with my time while I wait than learning about it."

"So you've got the parallel Earth, with at least some parallelism of countries and languages though I haven't been here long enough to say how deep it goes. People from that parallel Earth, when they die, go to one of four afterlives - the boring default one and three where they turn into more interesting magical beings in the process. There are also native magical beings who didn't use to be humans. I am from one of the afterlives for a value of 'from' where I'm dead and used to be from the United States; us magical beings can be summoned."

There is a ding from the computer and the sheriff starts to look at its screen and do something with its controls.

"Records have confirmed that there are no records of you on the station prior to your suddenly appearing on the mosaic"

"Yep, that would be because of the summoning. Further demos? Questions? Am I compliant with the dress code? Can I get anybody a beverage?"

Eventually, Phil will come in with a fancy glass ornament containing a hollow, transparent part.

"Everybody ready? Five four three two one poof." Now there is a teensy eighteenth century sailing ship in there.

The sheriff inspects the ornament.

"This does look like you can either create or teleport matter, and unless Lewis can come up with an alternative explanation I'm inclined to provisionally proceed on that assumption. If you want a more official recognition of that than just a local sheriff most people will probably think is crazy, I recommend going to a university for it. Santoro Station has a partnership with Pierce University, we should be able to get them to run tests on you. Without that, I can get you an audience with the Infrastructure committee about modifying the specific mosaic in the square, but can't do anything about the possibility of someone else in another station stumbling on another mosaic design with the same problem.

Also, are you sure you want to do this via the Infrastructure Committee rather than the Station Assembly? I would expect the Station Assembly to prefer that it be brought to them."

"...I... guess I can go to the university. I have no strong preference between committees and will go with your recommendation on that."

"It came up earlier that the Infrastructure Committee might be better in that it would give us better control of how the information about demon summoning comes out." the woman who originally arrested him mentions.

"I don't want to cover this up. We serve the Station Assembly, and I think they deserve to know about it. If he insists on keeping it under wraps I can refer him to the Infrastructure Committee but in so far as it's up to me my recommendation is definitely the Assembly." the sheriff replies.

"I'm in favor of people knowing how to summon extradimensional magical beings provided they do it safely. And I happen to be qualified to teach a university course on exactly that."

"You wouldn't necessarily need to tell the Station Assembly how to summon demons, just that it's possible to do via a mosaic design and that you want them to require the mosaic design be changed to one that doesn't summon demons. The details could then be worked out with the Infrastructure Committee or Lewis."

"Sure, that all sounds fine to me."

"Good. Mr. Lewis, are you willing to suspend work on the mosaic until the Assembly next meets?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then it sounds as though this can be brought to the regular Assembly meeting. Mr. Swan, meet me here at a quarter past four in three days time and I will take you to the Assembly Hall."

"What should I know about how I'm expected to conduct myself in the intervening three days and what time and date is it now?"

The sheriff can give him a document listing the station ordinances, which covers everything from local by-laws to assault and manslaughter, and a map of the public areas of the station to make up for their lack of consistent signage to distinguish these from private areas.

And the date and time? He'd like to program the time zone into his computer.

3:48 PM, 17/08/2425

Huh, technically the future. Okay.

He will go for a stroll through some public areas and see what there is to see.