The gallery was a theater-like room, with comfortable chairs facing towards the glass opening. The windows were tinted black so we could not see anything outside. 

Kevin wandered near the chairs, "Are we supposed to sit or..." 

Before anyone could answer, Stephen plopped down on one of the chairs. We all followed, taking a seat too. 

After a few minutes, the black tinted windows disappeared. (As I later found out, they didn't actually open but just lost the colour. But they were so transparent that I thought they disappeared.)

At that moment, however, I was too busy staring at the scene outside. 

The shapeship was stilled above what could only be called the largest outdoor lab ever.

Several buildings were mushed together, protruding above, behind and below each other. And there were so many types of buildings as far as the eyes could see.

There were domes, pyramids, moving buildings that didn't have a shape, regular human buildings, and holes in the ground that led to underground buildings. 

And colours. There were so many colours. Colours of all sorts dotted the buildings. Some buildings were entirely made of a single colour, some had beautifully arranged shapes of different colours and some had weirdly and uglily contrasting ones. Some building were completely transparent, making it look like little alien creatures were walking on air.

There were even a few trees here and there. It was as if someone had taken everything there was in the universe and lumped it all together in one beautiful mash.

Holes, doors, windows, things like that opened periodically and spaceships of varying shapes and sizes zoomed past them. They were as varied as the buildings. 

Some were as large as an entire human house and some were large enough just to fit one person. 

One large disc shaped spaceship came zooming from one of the buildings, flying right towards us. It was so large that it would have flicked our spaceship right out of the sky, but it zoomed smoothly from below us.

There were so many spaceships, the only thing I could compare it to was a flock of pegions suddenly taking off in the air, cramming every part of the the space but not colliding once.

I'm not sure how long I looked. I could have stood there for an eternity and just stared. The more I looked,  the more little details I noticed.

At some point, I must have stood up and went closer to the window, because when I broke out of my stupor, I was standing next to the window.

The rest were right next to me, looking dazed.

"You know," Steve said, breaking our daze in a shot, "I have come here hundreds of time. This scene never gets old."

I must have nodded, or even given a reply. But I don't remember. I was only half listening to what Steve was saying.

"All the civilisations that we know of - a part of them is here. Humans, Xandarians, Keerans, Jouines, you name it, it's here. It's the largest collection of cultural fusion in the universe that we know of. It's the grandest scene in the space, in my opinion."

"Do people live here?" Kevin asked.

"Some do. Some come here to work and then go home. Some, like me, come here occasionally for work related causes."

"Wait, people work here?" I asked. I realised it was a dumb question after I asked. But I could not comprehend the idea of coming to a place like this everyday to work.

Steve nodded seriously and said, "It's the centre of all alien technology. A lot of databases, codes, programs, research centres are here."

"So if someone were to attack it..." Ethan asked, trailing off after he realised how that sounded.

Steve laughed and replied, "Then that someone would be a gigantic idiot. It's the most secure place in the known universe."

I refused to believe someplace this huge could be so well secured. It was so large and some many ships were continually moving in and out. No one would realise if someone snuck in.

"How? Some stranger could easily enter." I realised after I spoke that perhaps my tone came out challenging.

"Well, if some stranger had to enter, they would need pre appointments and registration and clearance and whatnot. Even then they would be able to enter only designated areas. The sensitive regions are closed off for everyone, even regular workers, save a select few. Rest assured it's well secured."

"What if it is an inside job." I pressed.

"Miss Maya," Steve said, amusement dancing in his eyes, "unless you are planning world domination, you needn't worry about the security."

I decided it was time I shut up.

They stood in silence for a while, staring outside. 

"What's your job?" Kevin asked. I was thankful to him for breaking the anxious silence, "You said you came here a lot."

"I work as a diplomat for humans, but that's not why I come here. I come here whenever I get time; to explore."

"Can someone do that?" Stephen asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Steve said, "Some places are open to anyone who wants to explore. And you can always just look from outside." 

After a moment of silence, Steve sighed. "As much as I hate to do this, we need to move. Work to do, places to be..." He sounded like he was forcing himself to move, not us. 

Steve started walking out. We all followed.

"What work do you have?"

"That's classified." Steve said shortly and then expanded, "It's not very important, really. But the aliens are ridiculous when it comes to stuff like this," He waved us back in towards the gallery, "and why are you all following me? Go back to the gallery. Sightseeing is not over yet." 

I didn't need telling twice. I rushed into the gallery, closely followed by the others.

We stood close to the window this time, none of us bothering to take a seat. The sight was magnificent as before. But now the buildings were slowly coming closer. 

Soon enough, our ship picked up speed.

It only took a minute at most. 

We were moving close to a pyramid shaped building with a long pole on the top. The entire building was lined with dots of different sizes and colours. The dots were not random. They were placed in a certain pattern, certain scheme, like they meant something. 

At a point on the wall, the dots started reconfiguring themselves forming a ring on the walls. We were moving at full speed towards the ring. The wall was still there inside the ring but our ship went right through it as if it was a portal. 

The inside of the building had a complete change in atmosphere from outside. 

Outside, it was chaotic, messy, random and something was always moving. 

The inside was calm, unmoving, peaceful and organized. 

The walls were black. Lines of dots of the different colours and sized were there on the wall. The dots were not uniform. Some places, they were crowded with no pattern, some places were blank walls with no dots.

The shapeship came to a halt on the floor. Steve came into the gallery and said, "It will take me only ten minutes, you all can come out and explore if you want."

The door of the spaceship opened and we were met with a gust of cool wind. Steve climbed down the stairs onto the floor. We all followed. 

The place where I put my feet on the floor, the dots moved away from my feet. I experimentally took one of my legs up and the dots came rushing back under. It was like foot was a reverse magnet. Instead of attracting the dots, it pushed the dots away.

I noticed it was happening to others too. Steve walked across the room, leaving a trail of wiggling dots behind him. "I'm going in the other room. You guys stay here." Steve said before scanning his band on a scanner and moving away.

Kevin cautiously walked across the room and then ran around, sliding his feet like an ice skater. Ethan and Stephen quickly joined him. 

I spared one moment to think how ridiculous this was before running after them.

Tanya watched from the side before Kevin pulled him in forcefully. They looked like a pair of (very clumsy) ice dancers, with Kevin pulling him around the room by the wrist while Tanya dragged behind. 

Soon the entire floor was filled with moving dots as five humans ran rampant in it. We all played a game of running around the room, just messing with the dots and making them move.

I guess we did look a bit childish, but it was fun.

Tanya's deliberate cough made me look up. Steve was at the door, looking at us with one raised eyebrow.

We all stopped moving and the dots of the floor slowly came to a halt. The slowly moving dots on the black floor was a mesmerising and slightly dizzying scene. 

Steve decided to, thankfully, ignore our red faces and said conversationlly, "Did you know these dots are the alphabets of Ankuk language?" He waved in the general direction of the room.

"Really?" I asked moving closer to one of the concentration on dots on the wall with interest. I wondered what did it say. 

"Yep." Steve said, coming closer. "These," he pointed to the cluster I was looking at, "are motivational posters."

 Wow! Alice put motivational posters on their walls too?  

Steve flicked his wrist and a floating text in English appeared in front of the dots. 

Washroom 

That way ➡️

"Very motivational." I muttered sarcastically. 

"I will have you know excretion is very motivating." Steve said defensively, "Come on now, we need to get going." 

We all boarded the ship and once again, we were off into the space.