The night market, two decks down

If you only do one thing aboard the Solivagant, go down to the night market. "Down" is doing a lot of work in that sentence — there isn't really a down, the world makes its own gravity and the market sits in the lower rings — but the lift understood me even though I didn't speak a word of it, which set the tone for the whole evening.

The food. The food. I have no idea what most of it was and I've decided that's fine. There's a stall run by a family (I think — nine billion of them and they all introduce you to their relatives) doing something with steam and a grain that pops, and I ate three portions and a fourth that they wouldn't let me pay for. Nobody let me pay for anything, actually. The whole civilisation runs on "you're a guest, sit down."

Here's the work bit, because I was technically on the clock: I finally got the world's layout standing in that market. The stalls aren't in rows, they're in rings, and the most important things are in the middle where everyone passes, and the further out you go the more specialised and tucked-away it gets — and that's the whole world, that's how a flat disc organises itself, that's their information architecture in one fragrant square. I sketched it on a napkin. The napkin is now the single best document I have about the client. Stayed too late. Walked back the long way on purpose. Ten out of ten, would get lost here again.