You’d be forgiven to mistake the Metal Heap for anything other than what its name does not hide: a coagulation of shining tin of both the semi and precious kind. Elements most disregarded and disused are its main composition, such as Iridium, Copernicium, Seaborgium, and the most useless of the lot, Dunbium. And near its core, where pressures build, you could sieve through this with an atomic speculator and pick atom from atom. Should you be a atomilector, that is, a collector of the subatomics of the universe, than it is quite exciting to find yourself down there. But on the outer surface of the heap the things there are so freshly discarded that they are exactly discernible for what they are.

Take this moon, pockmarked with age, which arrived yesterday and found a good spot right between a small white dwarf and an enduring pile of uranium engines. Look upon, smell upon it, its all moon and no less. But the dumping of moons is universally forbidden, if it weren’t, just imagine the chaos! Any civilization that they reached any reasonable stage of development would fling their moons right out of orbit, the scenes of space ruined by lunar litter. Spacefarers would have to recon with galactic hailstorms of celestial secondaries for just a coffee and cake stop at her favorite planet. No, this would not do. Like birthmarks, the moons you wake up with are the moons you get.

This moon addition to the Metal Heap was completely illegal, but in these parts where the spiral arms of the galaxy are more jagged than smooth, you cannot expect the law to be enforced. Not because of a lack of any law enforcement. In these unsmooth regions, light moves much slower. Any officer that starts to write a parking violation will end it, only to find they’re a-thousand years too late – the interloper in bed at a hotel orbiting a distant start.

About sixty percent of the Metal Heap consists of moons. This gives it the appearance of a swollen cumulus cloud. That’s not to say this isn’t a worthy heap to visit if you happen to be leaving the galaxy the wrong way. The crown of this heap isn’t its solace for the moon mangler nor the atom collector, there are far better places for work like that: the Ordane Nebula of Three, or, more famously, Mik’s Cream Clusters, which has enough warm atoms that each visitor could take two and it would still spin. No, those who come to the Metal Heap, whether they travel cross-galaxy or find the ends of space and wrap right around, their purpose is one: to introduce their digestive system to the Yutick Yum Cafe.

The walls of Yutick’s you would be forgiven for mistaking as a continuation of the heap itself. They are wallpapered. A finger run along the surface would meet moons and atoms, or appear to at least. There are no windows, and not for no want of them, but silicon, you must understand, is in short supply on the Metal Heap. A neighboring planet took it upon itself to gather all the silicon contents it could reach its arms to and since no one expected its abundance to be throttled so instantly, suddenly there was not a silicon around for the occupants of the Metal Heap. Instead of windows, mirrors are hung, ones with filters that only reflect the colors black and white. None look at them too closely because they are kept busy by food and table guests, and so at a glance the mirrors resemble the great intergalactic void like it was painted in watercolor. Far preferable to no void at all.

The rest of Yutick’s holds itself true to the average infrastructure. Every table and chair, and pillow on a chair, is as unique as the individuals of a civilization that still believe in freewill. The tables have a good layer of stick to them such that any articles put down will be torn in two when recovered. What might strike a new visitor is that Yutick’s is always empty, any time, even on good galaxy rotations. The place is packed from foot to nook, but Yutick would prefer you do not feel overcrowded and has kindly employed a swarm of virtual screens to gather around your optical sensors when you enter. They keep away all representations of other customers, the photons thrown right out before they get to you, or, more likely, you get to them. Pick a chair – any chair is yours! It’s not uncommon for a customer to sit upon customer to sit upon customer – and it is considered an honor to be a member of a customary sandwich. The Potpots species have a loud vocal system and so their conversations can intrusive, but they make up for this by being frighteningly polite. They travel in large parties that range anywhere from twenty to one-hundred-and-twenty, and when they come to Yuticks during their lunch hour, they make a point to all share one chair so as not disturb other diners. This keeps their chatter completely vertical – they are the politest species this side of the stars, after all.

Tea, coffee, goojee juice, or spluck can all be served in any receptacle of your choosing. Once a traveler came in with a cup that was made of tea held in liquid suspension and asked for a coffee. Everyone was delighted when they found out about it afterwards! If you dropped your cup out the window on the way to landing – not to worry. Yutick’s offers the option to serve you their liquid delights on a string, every droplet from a pipette and held only by fluid tension. Yutick themselves makes a point by serving every drink to every customer, otherwise the famous slogan, “It ain’t yours if it ain’t from Yutick’s mouth!” would have less body than an amoeba. Being of Jarckle origin, Yutick owns an assemblage of pipes and tubules that spit and suck and shoot all the things in and out of the body that are, and are not, needed at the various points of digestion. Because the Jarckle diet consists entirely of coffee, beans, vanilla root, a frenzy of spices, and dried leaves, it is possible through meditation for a Jarckle to control the outflow of its output. Yutick studied for twenty Heap-years among the monks of Markle, who showed him how to produce liquid wonders that can only be found on vegetative planets. And so, Yutick’s is the only place within a fourteen-hundred light year radius where you can get a hot brew and a jelly cube to boot.

The end.