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CHAPTER ONE

I hope that you will forgive me for saying so," the minarch says, "but this is all a bit... underwhelming."

Dalton blinks once, then shakes his head and says,"I'm sorry. Did you say underwhelming?" The tiny speaker that hangs from a thin gold chain around his neck doesn't wait for him to finish before repeating his words in the high-pitched clicks and whistles of the minarchs' language.

The minarch raises her two front-most legs and waves the delicate-looking tentacles at their tips in a gesture that Dalton's translation A.I. whispers to him is akin to a human's eye roll. "Perhaps that was badly phrased," she says. "Perhaps disappointing would be a better word?"

For the first time in a long while, Dalton finds himself at a loss for words. This is the second time in the past three years that he's been tasked with making first contact on behalf of Unity with a planet-bound sentient species. His primary difficulty the first time was in convincing the locals that he wasn't some sort of deity.

It doesn't seem that will be a problem with the minarchs.

Dalton's counterpart, who has asked to be called Assessor, raises her head and thorax up from the beaten-down grass of the hilltop and spreads her forelimbs. Dalton has to restrain himself from taking a nervous half step back. The minarch is considerably bigger than a human, and seems to Dalton to be purpose-built to tap into every primeval fear his primate ancestors have bequeathed him.

She's jet-black, with a half-dozen armored legs, a segmented, taper- ing body that ends in a wickedly barbed tail, and an insectile head topped by a predator's forward-facing eyes. Dalton is wearing a skin suit under his clothes that would stop a ten-gram slug, but his face is exposed, and Assessor's mandibles look like they'd cut through plate armor. This is not an overt threat posture, his translator whispers. It may be analogous to a tight-lipped smile?

"I suppose this is not entirely your fault," Assessor says."If the others had not arrived before you, I'm sure we would have been more taken with your display. You must admit that you suffer by comparison."

"Others?"

"Yes," the minarch says."Tall fellows, with long, stylish mandibles and the decency to keep their bones on the outside of their bodies, where they belong."

"I see," Dalton says. "How long ago did these others visit your world?"

Assessor drops back onto her forelegs. "Oh, not long ago. Less than a cycle. They departed in some haste shortly after we first noted the appearance of your star in our sky."

Yeah, Dalton thinks. I'll bet they did.

"Fear not, though," Assessor says."They promised to return anon." 

A stiff, cool breeze pushes Dalton's lank brown hair across his face and into his eyes. The sky above is still a clear light blue, but dark clouds are gathering on the slightly-too-distant horizon. Dalton pushes his hair back with one hand and makes a mental note to have a word with the translation A.I. when he gets back to his lander. The supercilious tone it's dropping into the minarch's speech can't possibly be accurate. "I'm glad to hear that," he says, and hopes that the A.I. has developed a sufficient understanding of the nuances of the minarchs' language to project false sincerity. "Did they give you any impression of when we should expect their return?"

The minarch raises her head and spreads her mandibles in a gesture the translator renders as apology (sarcastic?).

"Sadly, they did not. They did say, however, that they would return as soon as they could prepare an adequate greeting for you. I'm sure you would understand the meaning of this better than I. Perhaps they've gone to fetch you a gift?"

"Yes," Dalton says, and fails to suppress a sigh."I'm sure that must be it."

Fear not, the translator whispers in his ear. I did not render the emotional valence of that exchange.

"Well," Assessor says. "I suppose you should be going now. I'm sure you will want to prepare something for them as well, no? After all, one hates to be caught by a gift unawares."