Before the ship left the System, they also requested general information. Both ships interested in the contract work were happy to send along what they had. Neither ship had specialists in teaching advanced technology and science to primitive civilizations, naturally, but they happened to have a few files that were helpful.

Nick made sure that he had it all copied in a human-tech-readable format. "Petra, I tell you three times."

"Boss, I hear you three times," Petra said obediently, making three "hard" copies of the information.

Gotta love the classics.

On the way back, Nick requested that they make at least a short stop at the system with the civilization that was spacefaring but not starfaring. Captain Geh!aoa agreed. After all, she was the equivalent of a college student on Ooafa, and while recent events had hardened her, she still had a core of hopeful optimism and curiosity about the greater universe.

The system had seven planets: four smaller rocky worlds, then three gas giants farther out from the yellow star. Looks a lot like home, Nick thought, feeling nostalgic for a moment. The fourth world was in the Goldilocks zone, not too hot, not too cold, and it seemed to be the origin of the species in the system. The natives had spread their presence to every planet or moon with a solid surface, and there was quite a lot of traffic back and forth, even more than in the Arrurran system.

This time, on the advice of the Arrurrans, they moved in-system, but kept away from all the planets, listening to many local communications. They began transmitting sequences of prime numbers (Nick's suggestion) on a wide range of frequencies to get their attention, and more to the point to show that they were not hiding. Petra's new language processor proved its worth with the rapid progress made in deciphering and translating.

In a couple of hours, the natives started noticing as the radio and other signals reached them. They found this out a couple of hours after that when the first deliberate responses came in. By this point, they had picked up enough of the language that Captain Geh!aoa could make an announcement in their own language and transmission format.

"Hello to the Yssnila people of the Ganassho System. I am Captain Geh!aoa of the starship New Hope. I am a fuak!a, from the Ooafan System, 827 light-years from here. Aboard our ship, we have members of three other races."

One by one, she introduced Grrmyip, Nick, and a Goldaskian named Zez Versha who was serving as a First Contact diplomat. They sent a diagram of the galaxy with all their homeworlds and Golgazor indicated. She described the basics of their mission, and told them that the ship was only staying in the system for a short time, to say hello. She also revealed the rough technological level of each of the races.

"You appear to be slightly ahead of the Arrurrans in technology. Normally, other races do not contact you until you have faster-than-light travel. But three of our races are not that advanced either, and we want to say hello, and we think that you probably want to say hello."

"We do not know when we will have the time to return for another visit. It may be years. This is a peaceful hello to begin friendship. We have studied your language after we arrive here. We will stay for six more hours, to allow time to communicate, and then we will leave. We must continue the work to save my people. I want that we become friends. Thank you."

After a reasonable time lag, they received an official response. The incoming video showed five lizard-people—that's how Nick mentally labeled them, at any rate. He couldn't get any impression of gender from the individuals; they all had the same gray-yellow scales and similar proportions. The person in the middle of the image spoke first.

"Greetings to our visitors. I am Hinthinis, Leader of the People. With me are Zorshel, Leader of the Ships; Nanziloo, Leader of the Coin; Ssessiki, Leader of the Soul; and Hesshil, Leader of the Knowledge.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"We thank you for your peaceful visit. We want fortunate relationships with your people. You are really the fourth contact we have made with aliens, not the first." Hinthinis gestured to Hesshil, who nodded.

"Thank you, Leader. In ancient times, a trading ship arrived on our world, taking artwork and spices from us in exchange for books, knowledge of science, and mathematics.

"Eighty years ago, The Collective visited us and removed our most powerful computer, killing over one hundred people. They warned us not to build more like it, and left.

"Forty-three years ago, we began to receive radio signals from the third world orbiting a star fifty-three light-years away. We have studied their transmissions ever since. We suspect that they do not know that we are here.

"And now, you have come to visit us. I hope we may exchange mathematics and other knowledge before you must leave." The Leader of the Knowledge turned and nodded to the Leader of the Ships.

Zorshel seemed to be larger and have a more aggressive posture than the others. I guess some things are pretty universal, Nick observed. The alien began speaking. "Thank you, visitors, for not approaching our planets. Slow communication is much better than fast weapons. Please continue to do the same in future visits.

"We would value any warnings you can give on dangers to our people, and how to prepare to face or evade them. Also, we want an agreement of no violence."

"Non-aggression pact," Nick murmured to Petra.

"If you are willing to share technology of ships and defenses, we would be grateful to learn," Zorshel concluded, then turned to look at another of the Leaders.

"Hello, I am Nanziloo, Leader of the Coin. If you have materials you want, we want to trade. Information, entertainment, things only our world has, in exchange for knowledge and new materials we do not possess."

"I am Ssessiki, Leader of the Soul. We want to know..."

What followed did not translate at all. Nick traded glances with the others. Yeah, if we're going to step in it anywhere, religion would be the place. That might be dangerous ground. Besides, we might not even have words for things that they believe in and think are really, really important. We're probably lucky Petra managed to guess at "soul" so that we at least know the topic we're confused about.

Hinthinis took over as Ssessiki finished whatever she was talking about. "Finally, I would like to learn of your rules for speaking and listening, diplomacy, and..." the last thing didn't translate. Crap. Could be important.

"Um...manners...or etiquette," Nick murmured.

They had a short discussion about it. A physical rendezvous to exchange materials for trade would take too much time and bear too much risk, both for illness and treachery. They also were leery of giving offense to the religious leader, and a quicker exit was suggested.

For Hesshil, the Arrurrans volunteered to send the totality of their knowledge of mathematics, in hopes of receiving the same in return. It seemed likely that the Arrurrans knew at least some mathematics that the Yssnila did not, and more than likely the reverse was true as well. It was the quickest, safest way to make a trade that harmed no one and hopefully benefited both. They also included the life-support requirements of each of the races aboard, and some basics of their shared biology.

For Hinthinis, they sent several history books, both in the original language and with the best translation Petra could generate. Pilot Yulliksu suggested Tales of First Contact, and that was added to the list.

For Zorshel, they gave a list of warnings like the one Nick had been compiling with Sana's help, and a design for a system for detecting incoming relativistic rocks, just in case. They explained that the use of such in warfare was against all galactic law, and that it was hopefully obsolete, but at least it was a bolster to the Yssnila's defenses that didn't hurt anyone.

For Nanziloo, they sent the recipes for a few construction materials they might not have already, and some fiction by Arrurran and Goldaskian authors. Nick wished he could include something from Earth, but he knew he couldn't do any of it justice.

For Ssessiki, they sent an apology, emphasizing the lack of translations. Geh!kin put together a summary of Ooafan religion, and Nick threw together a half-assed one for Earth's religions, stressing that humans had a wide variety of beliefs. Since they were both from less technologically advanced planets, hopefully the Leader of the Soul would not take offense at their "primitive" ideas.

They hung around long enough for another reply to come in from the council, which included comparable amounts of material, then they sent a farewell and left the System.

Alien of the Week, Nick thought. That could have gone a lot worse.

Man, I've got a lot of stuff to tell Earth when I get home, and more every day, seems like. There's so much out here to explore. I have got to bring my own starship with me when I go home. Not for the first time, Nick considered only staying on Earth for a short time after his return.

I miss home, but...I want to see what else is out here.

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