The Harbour Master's Rule Book

Rule 768 governs the office kettle. Rule 1 governs the fate of a thousand worlds. Both are enforced with exactly the same seriousness, which is either the funniest thing about the Harbour or the most alarming, depending on the week. A port on no map, because it is on no world. Ordinary ships dock here, and impossible ones, and some that have legs. They come to trade, to shelter, to argue, and now and then to be told very politely that they are not welcome back. The Harbour answers to nobody. It answers to the Rule Book: numbered past twenty thousand, in an order no sane person would have chosen. Every episode runs the same way and ends somewhere nobody planned. Something docks. A Rule applies. The Rule was not written for this. The Harbour Master has run out of patience for other people's opinions of his job. His apprentice never applied for his; he just failed to say no. One complete episode a week. Start anywhere. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Three authors, a week each.