Pan Caravel was located in the outermost corner of the Laniakea cluster, on an intergalactic backwater piece of rock. If a starjock happened to chance by the exact coordinates, she would simply see a bunch of rocks. But if you knew where to look, Pan Caravel was one of the most powerful places in the universe, smack in the middle of cosmic faultlines that could allegedly lead to an adjacent bubble universe.

For most people of Intergalactica, the asteroid city was a legend. And why wouldn’t it be? While phase jumping was pretty much everyday in Intergalactica, junctions – connections between bubble universes in the cosmic multiversal froth – were thought of as purely fictitious. Everybody phases back. All higher dimensions connected eventually back to the three macroscopic dimensions of the known universe.

Brenton landed the skeetship. He stayed behind while Sie got out to get the lay of the land. She’d sent the message to the people The Librarian had introduced to her to meet her. They’d just told her to find the local bar. Given how small the little habitat was, she suspected that wouldn’t be much of a problem. The whole thing could have only a handful of inhabitants, a few thousand at most.

Sie stopped a heavily augmented person to ask the way. He or she, as it was hard to tell which, raised their drawn bioluminsescent pink eyebrows and pointed the way. Sie nodded a curt thanks and followed the directions. She came by a dirty saloon not unlike those on the lower levels of the Souk she’d seen pirates and smugglers frequent when they were off duty. She’d been to the Souk only once, but somehow this place reminded her of it. It smelled the same.