Pocket field guide
Large, friendly letters. A battered black book for when the universe gets ideas.
Essentials
The most important advice in the universe is short enough to print on a cover, which is why almost nobody reads past it.
Warm, trustworthy, and the reason strangers assume you are competent.
A small yellow fish that sits in the ear and does your diplomacy for you.
Philosophy
Forty-two. The trouble has always been the question.
Worlds
A small blue world, lately revised from harmless to mostly harmless.
Species
The galaxy's most successful argument that poetry should require a permit.
Technology
A propulsion system that gets you there by way of everywhere else.
Drinks
The best drink in the galaxy, and a persuasive argument for stopping at second best.
Places
Dinner with a view of the last possible thing.
Small, white, and running a much larger experiment than they let on.
A reminder that every civilization has a gadget it thinks is the peak.
The craft of being elsewhere, practiced by people who packed light.
A road that is never planned through the planner's house.
A hot leaf infusion that has settled more crises than diplomacy.
Machines given real feelings, which they used, accurately, at work.