There is a Harbour between worlds.
It belongs to no kingdom, no empire, no species, not even one reality.
It sits where routes that should never meet somehow do.
Ships come to it from worlds of sail and steam, of engines and spellcraft, from places where distance is folded, cut through, bargained with or ignored entirely.
Some ships are made of timber.
Some are grown.
Some think.
Some insist they are not ships at all.
The Harbour has learned not to argue with them until after docking.
Once, twelve worlds found this place and decided that whoever controlled it would control everything that passed through.
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They fought for the crossings, the berths and the routes beyond.
They fought over who could enter, who could trade, and who had the right to tell anyone else no.
Then the cost became greater than the prize.
Routes collapsed. Ships vanished.
People who had never cared who owned the Harbour began starving because somebody else did.
So the twelve worlds did something considerably more difficult than winning.
They agreed to stop.
No world would own the Harbour. No world would command it.
Those who used it would accept its jurisdiction.
And everyone would abide by the Rules.
That was a long time ago. Now more than a thousand worlds use the Harbour.
Merchant vessels dock beside warships under seal, refugee craft beside pleasure yachts, pilgrim ships beside creatures large enough to be legally classified as vessels themselves.
Cargo arrives in crates, cages, vaults, pockets of slowed time and, occasionally, under its own power.
Customs deals with goods legal in one world and forbidden in the next.
Quarantine deals with organisms harmless at home and catastrophic everywhere else.
Pilots guide ships through approaches that do not always agree on which direction they are travelling.
Merchants argue over ownership.
Diplomats argue over jurisdiction.
Captains argue because captains always argue.
And when all of that goes wrong, the Harbour Master has the Rule Book.
This morning, something had gone wrong.