u/CicadaStew

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The Commander spent the rest of the shift planning with her top three; her Head Science Officer, Chief Medical Officer, and Communications Body sat on the floor of her personal quarters, LLIA tablets strewn about with utterly useless information displayed on their screens. The small bowls of various vegetation pats and sauces between the four of them remained untouched, with the exception of her ComsBody, who the Commander learned only in this sitting, was a nervous eater.

<Your notes said you assumed it could shift> ComsBody asked, shoving a fermented grass pat past her labrum, shreds of the fibres catching in her mouth. <That would be extremely unlikely>

The Commander passed her the image render of the creature’s head, <Look at it>

She saw ComsBody’s temperature change from warm interest to a disappointed neutral tone. <It looks like cillia>

Her upper appendages drooped a little. <And you're certain it can’t move them. Not even a little>

The Commander took the LLIA tablet back. <Nothing. It’s like its crinis is dead>

<That is…> Her words died mid-shift.

ChiMeO was lost in her reading, but her Head Science Officer leaned over to look at the image render. She too, coloured the same lukewarm disappointment, and shifted the single symbol of, <Unfortunate>

The Commander didn’t even know what to say. Hopeful and excited were not ideal words to describe those holding command.

Her ComsBody stopped scrolling through her personal tablet’s well of text.

<Well it’s fully mute and at least partially blind… but perhaps teaching it our written communication could be a fruitful avenue> her ComsBody coloured unsure, movement hesitant. <Even if it doesn’t have a written language itself, it seems to have some visual comprehension outside of thermal>

<And you think it has a language at all> The Commander shifted.

<That would be my hope, especially looking at the footage now. The way it moves seems like an attempt at communication> Her ComsBody tilted towards HeadSci. <Maybe you can weigh in, but I can’t imagine a species advanced enough to travel into the void proper could be without any form of language>

<Unlikely. The specificity needed for the technical language needs precise communication> Her HeadSci gingerly placed a LLIA tablet down on the floor. <Going off the assumption that this alien isn't a baser lifeform sent for exploration or proof of travel capabilities, of course. Coms>

shifted ComsBody, chewing. <Its desperation to be understood read as intelligent to me, at least. It’s cognizant of the situation it’s in>

The way its wild eyes tracked the crew. The frantic, practised movements of its odd physical display. It was impossible to concretely determine emotional states without a temperature-patterned crinis, but desperate was a fair assumption.

HeadSci began, <Its physical language is so foreign, but—>

<—I don’t think it’s a physical language> Her ComsBody cut in, out of turn and without being addressed. <It was too much exertion, I think that was a display of some sort. It recognized our cillia movement, even our upper shell appendages, and it tried to show us something similar. Or just get our attention back after losing it>

<ComsBody, compose yourself and do not interrupt HeadSci> The Commander bristled.

She curled in on herself a little, warming with shame. <My apologies>

HeadSci flashed a wordless acknowledgement.

<Assuming this creature is at least partially intelligent, then...> the Commander shifted, an open green of curiosity. <Foregoing physical communication, it could be… air-diffused pheromones… or less invasive mental communication>

<Or light displayed beyond our natural vision> Offered her HeadSci. <Or… touch-based communication similar to the silk. Or something else all together>

<It was moving its face> added ComsBody, <it could be an extremely localized symbolic language>

The most frustrating part was that it had cillia. So similar to theirs but utterly useless. It felt like a joke was being played on them.

Stars, she just wished they had more time.

<In terms of discovery limitations> the Commander continued, <it isn’t a legally recognized species, but will likely gain that status—even as a singular representative. Working off a first contact timeline, we need to release everything at the end of this shift>

<Not necessarily> shifted HeadSci, the temperature of a restrained pride. <The vessel it was travelling in was non-propelling, passively travelling. On a technicality, as a non-propelling vessel without a recognized species present, the vessel and its contents are considered void salvage>

Void salvage. Legally pilferable. And a completely different discovery timeline.

They would likely receive a small backlash from the other Ki research ships, but that could be turned against the lawcrafters for uncharacteristically poor wording and poorer foresight when making the agreement. More than worth a little trouble, especially if her research team could scoop any discoveries before informing the other labs.

<More than adequate. I‘ll take the backend responsibility, the three of you just focus on the research> The Commander tapped her crinis. <If we go by salvage laws, we have three rotations before we have to release all materials and send out invitations. So move your teams quickly>

It was a bold enough loophole that she might even get away with a proverbial rap on the shell and a promise not to do it again.

ComsBody shifted, popping another pat into her mouth. <If we think their biologies might better match this creature’s natural communication>

<Unnecessary, ComsBody> the Commander shifted. Stars and stars, she was so young. <You are more than capable to teach it>

A startled flash as she stopped eating. <Me>

<You are this vessel’s Communications Body, yes> The Commander tapped her shell in an affirmative.

<Commander… I… respectfully it’s my opinion that we should prioritize finding this creature’s kin> ComsBody hued a pale yellow. It made her look sickly. <If the creature has, say, pheromone communication, contacting the Seconds is the best course of action>

The fact that they’d have to share the discovery was left unsaid.

<The stars have faith in your knowledge and skill to teach it and gather that information yourself, Coms> the Commander shifted, a careful neutral tone. <If we can find the creature’s people prior to the next technology swap, we’ll arrange to introduce the new species as a whole. Simple>

Her people have never found a whole sentient species. The Ki were simply found one day by the Firsts, and, slowly but surely, were introduced to the rest. There was a certain respect that came with finding a new species.

That was a respect the Commander was keen on securing for her crew and the Ki’Lakael as a whole.

<I…> ComsBody was still that sickly yellow. <With my apologies, gratitude, and deepest respect to your rank, I do not consider myself to be the optimal choice. I run the communications department, not the teaching sector>

The Commander felt herself colour a mix of professionality and disgust, shifting,

Coms curled a little more tightly but shifted a slow and hesitant agreement.

<Besides> the Commander continued, <we still have to test whether it even matches any known communication>

The First Kind were hard-carapaced like her people, but communicated through vibrations in thin silken strands of webbing, so minuscule in their variation that even their finest technology could barely decipher the difference. The Second Discovery lived their lives immersed in water, tendrils extending soft and pliant, speaking in pheromones and excretions in a complex system of mixing and overlays. The Third Beings, stacked smaller even than the new alien’s skinny frame, only connected to those within their defined parasitic system and refused communication with anyone else. The Fourth Brutes, with their ugly stretched necks and empty eyes, generally avoided inter-species communication altogether nowadays. The Ki happily avoided them in turn—too many instances of mental links with them making an innocent researcher bleed out of her shell.

Sparse communication came with determining loose intergalactic law, mostly from Fourth representatives providing mental visuals. Simple rules. Don’t enter another vessel. Don’t harm another species member. Fringe research groups have tried to parse the other species' languages further, to little notable or published results. Mostly, they all kept to their own groups and traded their technology. None of the others could read the patterns of their cillia or form words of their own; let alone their lack of temperature capabilities. It was extremely difficult and isolating when one was the only capable species, and the only one actually willing to teach their language.

<Unless the deployed commanders have a differing opinion upon the material release, we’ll keep the creature and its vessel here> The Commander suggested. <ComsBody, draft a message to those with second-level clearance and inform your trainees. HeadSci, we need to invite another lab for collaboration in three rotations>

She bristled.

Her HeadSci acknowledged, crinis twisting.

The Commander almost broke into an entertained colour. Almost. Both labs were situated on a duoship well over 1400 units away, following a research path on the other end of the known universe. With a delay of three rotations on the materials, by the time they would retrieve the report and make their way here, any of the larger discoveries would already be made and attributed to Head’s own team. Deniable by the fact they already worked in transspecies communication, even if the result turned out to be an embarrassment. Technically the best group to work with, and undeniably the furthest away. Sly.

<Agreed, they are one of the fleet’s best. ComsBody, draft the official invite> The Commander acknowledged her HeadSci. <Hopefully this thing will live longer than a few shifts>

twisted HeadSci, a forced neutral with a coolness underneath. <While my team will look at the technology, I am also keenly aware that keeping an alien on board without understanding it or its species is inviting trouble to nest>

And now she was overstepping.

shifted the Commander. <But more should be known, I agree. ChiMeO, you and your team will be doing a more thorough examination of the alien>

Her Chief Medical Officer did not look up from her LLIA tablet, as she continued reading the layered rings of text, swirling on the screen. She had missed, evidently, the entire visual conversation.

The Commander flashed bright, to get ChiMeO's attention. She startled and turned her wide head up.

The Commander repeated the order, crinis twisting with clarity in a professional shade of yellow. <When will you be able to do a more thorough examination of the alien>

Restrained panic. <Right now>

<Eat something and then do so> shifted the Commander, almost tinged with humour as ChiMeO popped a pat in her mouth, and promptly left without a single ruffle of her crinis.

The room was still. No one shifted. There was little movement, besides her ComBody eating.

Her HeadSci’s crinis moved subtly, like she was trying not to disturb the peace, <that I can talk science with it>

The Commander felt herself turned a shade of curiosity. <To confirm its intelligence>

<To have it explain its technology if my team is having issues> The HeadSci poked at a veggie pat. <Coms, my team would benefit greatly from it understanding more complicated technical terms, tell me how long that would take>

<I… I don’t know. I don’t know with certainty if it’s even possible. We’ll see what the Chief Medical Officer finds> Her ComsBody unfurled to her runtish height.

HeadSci flashed an annoyed negative. <No such models exist>

A beat. A moment of twisting thought. <A literal llia tablet>

<Nostalgic> ComsBody tapped her torso. <And as good a place as any to start>

***

The Chief Medical Officer circled the holding room for the third time. She had looped around the floor of the ship again, medical instruments and LLIA tablet held close. She did not enter on this walk-around either.

She was being ridiculous. The security personnel will be there. This alien was barely a third of her size, and she outweighed it tenfold.

Of course, there were various lifeforms on her planet, even smaller than this alien, that would gladly try to burrow under her carapace and suck her soft innards from her torso.

It’s okay. Everything will be okay.

One of the security officers standing outside of the door politely ignored her anxiety-ridden hue, and let her pass. Everything will be okay.

She scurried past the now-cooled freezing pod they removed the alien from. They had scanned it. It was safe. Everything will be okay.

The other officer opened the door to the holding room, so there was no barrier between the soft thing and ChiMeO. Everything will be okay.

She tried and failed to cool her crinis to something neutral. Long breaths. Calm hue.

The alien was curled up under a sheet of some sort of pliant metallic material. It looked to be keeping the creature's heat trapped underneath it. The alien stirred, twisting its body towards ChiMeO, and immediately stood up on its hind legs, stumbling a little and wavering as it planted its feet down.

It looked at her with its orangey eyes, the hue of heated machinery and nearly the exact shade of someone trying to signal that they were busy. But the temperature had no meaning, likely, not to this creature. Its unchanging heatmap reminded her of something inanimate.

It began gesturing to its face and mouth, then pointed at its torso. Its mouth was still snapping at her.

<Hello> ChiMeO signalled a friendly warmth, crinis languid. She knew it was useless, but it made her feel better.

It made a slow, scooping motion with its upper limbs, still gesturing around its mouth. It was swaying a little, and it leaned against one of the walls, before repeating the scooping gesture.

ChiMeO looked back, flashing to the single security personnel that was watching from beyond the barrier, <Security Officer>

She affirmed, <SecO is fine>

<SecO, tell me if it has done these gestures before>

Her hue was professional, <It greets us in that way, yes. Anytime we look at it>

She coloured herself to something thankful, and turned to look back at the alien. It was the Communication Body’s role to determine if the gesture was a greeting or something else entirely, ChiMeO was just here for the initial screening.

<Be still> She shifted as she laid out the medical instruments; scanners, samplers, sterilized equipment typically used to identify biomaterials not full, cognizant beings.

Long breaths. Cool the temperature of the crinis. Everything will be okay.

The alien backed up a little bit, its breathing rate seeming to increase the closer ChiMeO got.

She closed the space and very, very slowly, raised an upper appendage to the alien.

It didn't move.

She gently touched the long, crinis-like form that extruded from its head. The alien twitched at the contact, a thin flap of skin edged with small cillia immediately covering its eyes. But the cillia in her grip remained lifeless and unmoving. It was a thin, artificial feel in texture, similar to more resilient processed plant fibres. There was truly no movement or heat at all.

She felt herself colour a deeper disappointment. She could feel it in her torso. <You can truly not move this. Not even a little>

The creature's muscles and stance was stiff as it looked at her with widened eyes. It was looking from her, to her tools, to the room, and back to her again.

She pinched a section of fifty or so cillia. No reaction. She pulled gently, and the action guided the alien’s head in the same direction she pulled. Attached semi-firmly. The creature just kept looking at her, its chest rising and falling quickly.

She picked ten cillia from the grouping and pulled roughly, successfully detaching them from the creature’s crinis. The alien reacted immediately, with a pinched face and tightened eyes, and a limb that struck out to hit one of her appendages with a hatchling-like force. It glared at her, backed away, baring its teeth in multiple different mouth positions and keeping its limbs out in front of it.

Feels pain.

Long breathes. Cool crinis. Everything was going to be okay.

ChiMeO placed cillia sample away, and took out an emitter device, keeping her distance. She set it to a thermal flashing. The creature looked at the device, but didn’t respond to the strobe-like emission. She repeated it with infrared and ultraviolet wave lengths. The creature just stared at her, giving no response.

She put the emitter away, and brought out a pheromone cube. She set it to a pulsing, with different levels of intensity in Ki fear pheromones. The creature’s eyes crinkled, then it gestured to its face. Something to follow up on. Secretly she was hoping it wasn’t the basis of their language. Any material published on communications with the Seconds were less than promising.

She quadruple checked the creature’s radiation levels and air pressure disturbances, more for her own comfort than anything else. Both were under the safe and expected levels. The alien looked at the recording devices, but didn’t act any differently.

Finally, she presented the creature with a strand of First silk. She held it taut between her upper appendages, and presented it to the alien.

It looked closer at it, and touched it with its protrusions. It plucked the silk. But it rotated its head from side to side, and raised its shoulders.

<Okay, okay> ChiMeO shifted, and made a few notes on her LLIA tablet. <Okay. It’s a start>

The alien reached out its odd and branching limb, its protrusions grasping like the Second Discovery’s tentacles.

It grabbed her LLIA.

<Careful> ChiMeO bristled, <What are you…>

Its face was pinched as it looked between the tablet and her. She watched it trace the edges of the LLIA, then spread its protrusions flat against the screen. ChiMeO can clearly see the swirling text, written in reds and greens and yellows. The alien held its protrusions to the text screen, then slowly tilted its head up.

The Commander was right. There was something predatory about its pinpointed eyes, with how it held your gaze as it bared its teeth.

The alien put the LLIA tablet down, and brought its limbs to its face, where its mouth was stretched and curled.

It breathed slowly and hotly against the skin of its protrusions, breath heating the surface to a warmer colour. It rubbed them together, creating fast friction as the skin heated.

It presented its protrusions, spread out in front of its face. Warmer than they were before.

ChiMeO felt her body freeze. She had spent all of Shift 6 ignoring the food in front of her, and reading, reading, reading about first contact. The limitations of language and the failures Ki researchers have had with the others.

<Yes!> Her cillia affirmed, hot with excitement, <It’s the temperature! It tells us the intended tone, and the involuntary emotions>

The alien touched the screen again, tracing the temperature marks with the end of its strange protrusions. It leaned in close to ChiMeO’s body.

It was looking at the shapes her crinis made! ChiMed, excitedly, immediately started talking, so they formed words—

<Yes!> Her crinis shifted. <Yes, you see now, the crinis is the whole, you see how the cillia moves to shift and form words. Yes. No. Medicine. Vessel. Vegetation>

The alien’s protrusions made circular motions, crudely mirroring the language of how cillia move.

<You see it!> ChiMeO was warm. <You see it>

It gestured in a small waving motion. When she didn’t move, it came a little closer and put its mouth close to her crinis. A little blocked by the angle, she could see it unhinge its jaw, and she immediately stepped away.

It looked up at her with its warm eyes, face pinching. It gestured in that waving motion again.

<Just don’t…> She coloured herself to a command hue worthy of her title. <You will not bite me>

The alien closed the distance again, but not so close that she could sense its warmth. It unhinged its jaw and she saw it give a long exhale, before looking up at her, expectantly.

<You are breathing on me> ChiMeO shifted. <Okay>

Okay. Okay. She made another note on her LLIA.

She looked back up at the thing, to see its upper limbs crooked and resting on its torso. The alien’s face was pinched and its mouth was continuously moving again, snapping like it’s eating. Or… more purposeful than eating. The soft skin around its maw stretched over its teeth, closing and opening in different but distinct patterns. It was a visual language, it was just subtle, the Communications Body was absolutely right—

ChiMeO slowly reached out with one of her upper appendages, and gently touched the creature’s maw. It flinched, but barely. Its heated skin was so interesting, she could depress it with the slightest amount of pressure.

Its protrusions gripped around her, soft but strong. It gently removed her upper limb, and instead, brought her touch to its neck. Under its skin, ChiMeO could feel its blood pumping fast and… small vibrations when the alien opened its mouth.

Vibrations.

<Are you like the First Kind> She tightened her grip to feel it better. <Like the vibrations of the strings>

The alien started squirming under her grip. Its legs kicked beneath, similar to the performance it had put on earlier; maybe the frantic movement of the body was a language after all. Its heatmap began to get warmer around its face, hueing to a bizarre celebration-like colour. It started hitting her appendages, one limb striking it softly and one making little tap motions.

Odd.

She let go, and the alien fell back. It moved, putting space between the two of them, as it rubbed its neck and held out another limb.

<Do you not need to be close> She questioned, moving forward.

It scrambled back from her, to the very edge wall. Like how a baser insect flees from fire.

<Did I> ChiMeO bristled, <Stars, I hurt you>

How fragile were these beings… there was give to its body, but a firm strength underneath.

It continued rubbing its neck. It was glaring at her, unblinking as it held up one of its lesser protrusions.

ChiMeO reached into the pack she had brought with her—it was full of medical equipment, but it also had some of the presumed rations they found inside the creature’s travelling craft. She gingerly slid over one of the opened packs.

The alien’s eyes darted from her to the pack between them. She stepped a little closer, and pushed the pack so it was right in front of the creature, then backed away.

The alien glanced at her once more before descending on its pack, quickly bringing out a neutral-toned pouch. It broke the seal, immediately putting its mouth to it, skin stretching over the top of the container like a synthetic elastic. Its throat moved as it drank the contents of it with a speed ChiMeO has only seen in a deprived animal.

How… How often did the alien need water…

ChiMeO immediately emptied the rest of the rations. They had more back at the labs—one of HeadSci’s trainees already called discovery rights on analyzing the contents more fully, so she could replicate its nutritional contents and material makeup. They didn’t want to poison the thing.

It gestured to the pouch, and flipped it around to demonstrate that it was empty.

<Okay, okay, okay> ChiMeO shifted.

Its mouth snapped at her as it shook the pouch more aggressively.

She flashed bright, gesturing wide with her upper appendages. <We will get you more water, calm down>

ChiMeO took note of the state of the containment room. The alien had built a bare nest out of the same sort of material that covered its bare skin, laying it on the flooring. The waste container seemed to be used, so it definitely did need to eat—whether it had an alimentary canal or a gastrovascular cavity was still unclear. She made a note to give it more nesting material and ordered waste testing.

It was still eating when she got back from her loop around the room. She offered limbfuls of the ration packs and dumped it all at the alien’s feet. She hoped it took the gesture as an apology.

Stars, she hoped its species had the concept of an apology.

The alien backed away from her, taking a few packs with it. She held out an upper appendage, extending towards the creature.

Its eyes darted around, looking around the room and down at her appendage. It slowly shuffled closer to her.

She very, very gently, very gingerly, very slowly, took the alien’s upper limb, and brought it to her carapace. Its protrusions hovered just above the shifting cillia that carpeted her exoskeleton, fliching back as her cillia moved.

ChiMeO hued them to an apologetic warmth, hoping the alien could sense the temperature change.

It pressed its limb fully against her.

Its ugly protrusions spread gently over her crinis. It looked up at her with its small, piercing eyes.

She turned to get her tools and it stumbled back, putting space between them, eyes darting around.

It moved like it was scared of her.

She was thankful the creature couldn’t see the full temperature spectrum. It was impossible to lie when you were hueing to the colour of dishonesty.

<Everything will be okay> she told it.

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Author's note: Thank you for all your kind comments! It pushed me to edit more and get a longer chapter out before I started a busy work week. I'll try to post something once every two weeks or so, maybe more if life isn't being extraordinarily busy. And now that the initial setup is out of the way, we can focus on our human!

Whole story will likely be around twenty chapters.

I'd love to hear any speculations about the story in the comments—it also helps me identify if I need to clarify anything. This is an editing exercise for me.

The Commander watched the skinny creature dash around in circles, its form slowly shifting from a riverstone cool to a lukewarm hue. It was breathing into the ends of its strange upper limbs, each exhalation bringing brightness to its soft skin.

The creature kept getting warmer.

<Give your estimation of how hot it can get> The Commander addressed her Chief Medical Officer, cillia shifting to form the near-heatless pattern of a professionally curious order.

<Unknown, Commander> Her crinis colouring was the tone of certainty but the pattern of twisting cillia had the anxious look of tall grass in a windy field.

The Commander looked back to the handful of crew—mainly security detail and research personnel—crowded in the cramped tunnel, trying to get a glimpse of the holding cell. It was a sea of the same shifting anxiety.

<And your estimation of the risks of it growing to its hottest temperature> Concerned curiosity.

<Unknown, Commander> Her Chief Medical Officer swiped through her tablet. <The compartment can handle 5000 scales if the additional safety barrier is closed>

The creature’s heatmap was getting brighter, an interior glow weakened by the coolness of an outer layer of what looked to be fat and muscle and skin. It reminded the Commander of machinery heating up.

<Pathogens detected> Hesitant curiosity.

<Negative, Commander. It appears to be in perfect health. Oxygen-breathing lifeform, binocular forward-facing non-compound eyes, endoskeletal frame—>

<—It looks soft, ChiMeO> Her hue was humourless. The ugly creature looked exposed in the way a shelled corpse is soft. Her next ask she presumed to be a given. <Prey animal>

ChiMeO’s crinis heated at the ends, her cillia shifting uncomfortably. <Unlikely>

<Endoskeletal and predatory> Coloured with surprise and intended confirmation. It looked so small and defenceless.

ChiMeO tapped an appendage to her torso. <Affirmative. Likely given the sharper teeth. Potentially the eye positioning. And we found meat protein in the rations of the pod>

A meat-eater then. There was an uncomfortable shift among her crew behind them. Out of the corner of her eyes, the Commander saw the group communicating their worries and theories, cillia quick and shifting. Two of them were taking bets on whether the thing was sentient, or just a lower animal sent out as a proof of test travel by a higher species.

The Commander nodded to the confiscated pod, the smooth metal container sitting cold in the tunnelled hall. It had abnormally sharp angles. <The technology looks similar to what we’ve seen of the Thirds>

<HeadSci is looking at the ship currently, I’ll ensure the pod is brought to the team. The ship itself is non-warp; solar sail> She checked her notes. <Head says to expect a report by shift’s end, with the evaluation of the rebuild difficulty estimation>

And that was the question, the Commander knew. An intelligent and willing creature would save her research team so much time.

The creature had started walking around the enclosure, upright and at its full height, eyes sharp and searching. It hasn’t communicated anything since their ship slowed and picked the wayward vessel out from the void proper. As its body warmed to a tone almost too bright to look at, the cillia of its crinis remained a cooler tone.

But it had cillia. It laid abnormally long and dead on the top of its head, but it was there. If the creature was anatomically similar enough, communication could potentially be possible this time around. The Commander was not yet delusional enough to hope, but the possibility was indeed there and present in her mind.

The Commander stepped forward, appendages open and crinis warmed to the colour of a welcome. She shifted her cillia to speak clearly, as one would talk to a child.

The creature’s eyes were clearly trained on the Commander. She could see it tracking her every movement in a focused gaze. The Commander fought the urge to scuttle back in retreat as the creature bared its teeth, opening and closing its mouth. Opening and closing its mouth. Folding and licking its lips, and opening and closing its mouth. The same movement of a baser animal eating. Its heatmap stayed consistent, with no change in temperature. No language or emotion.

<Ideally, it was injured on the journey and needs time to gather its bearings> The Commander settled back beside her Chief Medical Officer. <Non-ideally, it’s a simple baser animal or it’s like the others>

<With your order, I will acquire tissue samples and contact you if we find anything> ChiMeO shifted, following her as she turned to leave.

<Approved. Assign two Security Officers to keep watch, with the order of providing updates every quarter shift> The crowd parted as the Commander began to scuttle through. One of her lower security stopped her, however, hued bright with embarrassment and the apologetic intent to correct. The Commander’s cillia snapped hot. <What>

The Security Officer wordlessly upturned her head, gesturing back to the holding cell. The Commander turned, to see the creature, now significantly more aggressive in its behaviour. It looked to be hitting the bars, inches thick and impossible to break through. The Commander scurried across the floor to stand in front of the small, skinny thing.

Its body was so brightly warm; if it were one of her kin, the Commander would think it to be a purposeful display of strength and anger. Its colour was the hot tone of offence and force. But it wasn’t shifting. Its abnormal dead cillia communicated no words. It just opened and closed its jaw, snapping at her.

The Commander took a deep breath and turned away. Addressed the room with yet another verdant shade of genuine curiosity. <Speak freely. Is this thing simple or incapable>

<Both> Some research trainee supplied, coloured with genuine intent to help, not humour. Everyone else was silent, cillia stilled and waiting for her next order.

She turned back to the creature. It was still well under her gaze, even when standing at its full height. Small. Husked.

She gestured her upper appendages wide, her cillia shifting clear and warm. Ripples in a hot spring’s surface water, like wavelets of sand in the wind, trying, trying, to communicate with the thing. Her crinis was the colour of a plea.

<Please. Move your cillia. Talk to us> Pleading. Embarrassment. Genuine curiosity. Professionality. Frustration. <If you talk to us we can try to return you to your people>

It rotated its head horizontally, the awful musculature and hard bones on subtle display as its skin pulled tight over its unseen anatomy underneath. Bright streaks began to run from its eyes as it watched the Commander’s words, eyes focused on the movement of her crinis. Its shoulders started to shake, head tilted up and hinged jaw open with its teeth bared. Its eyes rolled back to her, smooth within the sunken sockets, and there was something so exacting in its gaze.

And then it began to wiggle the branch-like split ends of its upper limbs.

The ten smaller protrusions moved independently from each other, like huge, awkward cillia, thousands of times bigger than that which blankets her people’s crines. It held its limbs up so she could see them. Its whole body was shaking.

The creature was so small.

She didn’t care that her crew was seeing her in unprofessional reds of frustration, <you’re not saying anything, little one>

Her Chief Medical Officer scrambled to her side. <Commander>

said ChiMeO, <and it’s failing to give any indication of temperature recognition>

The Commander placed an appendage on ChiMeO’s shell, and sucked a deep breath in. She looked back to her crew. The news rippled through the crowd, the weight of it causing a few to buckle to the ground. Her crew deflated.

<Commander, if you would like me to inform the research team that we can’t talk to it, I can do so promptly>

She looked back at the aberrant thing they now had to deal with. Another species to add to the list of silent allies and nothing more.

Liquid was still pouring hot from its eyes, but… it was now on the tips of its lower limbs, stretching out to take up space. Its upper limbs twisted and turned and it… the Commander wasn’t sure what it was doing but its behaviour and movements were changing.

It was spinning and twisting its whole body.

Revolving on one limb, before stepping wide with the other, balancing the whole of its meagre weight expertly.

It moved with grace and great practice, similar to the flows of a practised fight. Its limbs extended out and bent like thin trees in the wind. In every spin, its head was trained on the Commander, keeping its eyes on her until the spin forced its head to twist around again to meet her.

The crew crowded the holding cell to watch, growing cool with shocked interest.

The creature kept spinning, each step carefully placed and each movement seemingly pre-mapped. Was it a show of strength… a display of language, perhaps.

Its straight back curved as it leaned forward, collapsing its body into itself. It was uncanny. The Commander couldn’t look away as its muscles tensed in flexion and extension, its movements both wildly wide and firmly controlled.

The creature’s body warmth grew with the exertion. It spun too violently, and tripped over itself, planting into the floor in front of the crowd. Separated by the barrier.

The Commander placed her appendages on the bars and watched the creature heaving for air, water pooling from its eyes and from its skin. It looked up at her, lips peeled back to reveal its pale teeth, and its odd lesser limbs waved like frond leaves in the wind.

<It leaks water> Someone beside her shifted.

The creature was looking at the Commander with its unnaturally pinpointed eyes, the centre of which betrayed exactly where it looked. It placed the end of its upper limb on the bars, right in front of her—too close to her. It was still baring its small, sharp teeth.

<We’re going to figure this out> the Commander told it, shades of promise and intent and, likely, discomfort. <This whole situation will be resolved>

The Commander watched as its sharp eyes trained onto her crinis. Its strange face, trying to make out the subtle patterns.

It snapped its jaw at her.

The Commander shifted, cold, <You better be useful. You better be worth it>

It was baring its teeth again, raising its shoulders and rotating its head back and forth. It sank down to the floor, and raised the awkwardly branching protrusions at the end of its limbs. It wiggled them meaninglessly.

No words can be made with a mere ten cillia. But the Commander saw it for what it was. It wasn’t an attempt at words but an attempt at communication.

A plea to be understood.

[The First Fifth] Chapter 2: The Initial Examination

The First Fifth