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Dr. Paul Rhodes got the news as he was finishing a routine psych evaluation. The mechanic he was evaluating was rambling on about an old breakup, his clothes more memorable than his words. The rust-covered blue uniform was the most striking thing in the room, which had been decorated in neutral tans and golds, and Dr. Rhodes was certain that there would be red dust to brush off of the chair when the man left.
Then the door flew open to admit a woman tracking mud on his floor. “Aliens!” the woman exclaimed, apologizing to the mechanic she had interrupted. “Sorry. Doc, we need you. It looks like there’s something here after all.”
“I’m sorry, something where?” the psychologist asked, setting his notepad down to regard the woman in damp clothes and muddy boots, with a biology-branch symbol on her shoulder and a wild expression.
“Something intelligent, on the other side of the mountains!” the biologist said with exaggerated waves of her arms. “We haven’t found them yet, but we did find a weapon and armor, and somebody made those!”
Dr. Rhodes suddenly understood what his patients meant when they described the feeling of the floor dropping out from beneath them. His stomach clenched and he found himself starting to sweat. “Are you telling me that I will be needed for a First Contact?” he asked, struggling to maintain his professional calm.
“Yes, and soon!” she said. “Come on — there’s a meeting in the big conference room!” She waved an arm for the titular diplomat to follow. It was clear that she had faith in his ability to mediate between species, which was something he’d been assured he’d never have to actually do.
Dr. Rhodes tried to collect his scattered thoughts. “I — yes, I will be right there. You can tell them I’m on my way.” He gave the woman a confident nod of dismissal, and was grateful to see her leave with the same speed she had arrived.
“Was she serious?” the mechanic wanted to know.
“It certainly appears that way,” the doctor said. He closed his notebook and stood to place it in his desk. “I’m sorry, but it looks like we’ll have to cut our session short. Would you like to reschedule?”
“No thanks, I don’t really have anything else to talk about.” The mechanic levered himself out of his chair and stepped around the muddy footprints. “See you next time. Good luck with the whole alien thing! Keep us posted, yeah?”
Dr. Rhodes nodded and said his goodbyes, mechanically writing end-of-meeting notes in his planner instead of his notebook. He barely heard the door close.
First Contact, he thought in shock. They told me it would never happen here, that the place was nothing but animals. “The title’s just a formality,” they said. “Something to make the legal types at home happy. And it will look good on your resume.” And I believed them. He shook his head, not managing to move toward the door just yet. Then something occurred to him. I hope the translator still works!
He tore open the nearest cabinet, trying desperately to remember where he had put it the last time he’d organized the office. He finally found it, in the second-to-last possible place it could have been: one of his lower desk drawers, way in the back. He had to blow dust off of the screen and search for the manual. But it worked, lighting up when he pressed the button. The list of possible languages scrolling down the viewscreen was just as long as he remembered, and the instructions seemed simple. He resolved to figure it out posthaste.
But for now, I’ll have to settle for looking like I know what I’m doing, he thought, shutting the machine off and hooking the strap over his shoulder. He glanced about the office out of habit, not even seeing it, then left with a slam of the door. He forgot about checking for rust. So help me, I really hope this is a false alarm.
––––––––
One meeting later, Dr. Rhodes the Official Diplomat found himself in an aircar speeding across the uncultured landscape. He had at least been given the chance to change into some less stainable clothes, but that didn’t do much to make him feel at ease.
I can’t let on that this is at all worrisome, he thought to himself, taking a deep breath and letting it out. I need to be the reliable authority figure here. He had been telling himself this ever since he’d heard about the discovery, but he still didn’t believe it.
It had been hard enough getting the older employees to treat him with authority when he was doing a job he had spent over a decade at. This diplomat business was something he had never done, and had barely trained for, and he was pretty sure they all knew it.
The problem was, no one here was really trained for it. The planet had been classified as uninhabited. There was no need to have an actual expert on staff. I’ll just have to fake it, he thought. Lord, I hate faking it.
He clutched the translator in his lap, hearing nothing over the roar of the aircar’s engines. He felt like the roaring would continue when the car set down.
To distract himself, he undid the neck strap of the translator and turned it over to read the instructions one more time. The thing was plain enough at a glance: just a flat touchscreen with a microphone and several other sensors on the back. He’d tested it in the hangar, but there had been only humans there.
He wondered if the aliens would be violent. He tried not to think about it.
“To operate,” he read. “Aim microphone toward subject. Select language or ‘unknown,’ then...” The instructions were enough to occupy himself for the rest of the ride. He switched the machine on to see what it would make of the engine sounds. He was impressed when it processed for a moment, then picked out the inaudible sound of two people talking at the front of the car.
As prepared as he could be, he shut it off and watched the mountains pass by. Sunlight reflecting off the flooded river hurt his eyes, and he turned away for a moment. When he looked back, the waterbound trees were getting bigger as the aircar descended. He tried to will the car back into the sky and toward the base. It didn’t listen. Soon it was landing on a rocky beach, and the engines were turning off.
He had been right; he did still hear a faint roaring in his ears. Maybe it was the river.
“Come on, everybody out!” someone said with an easy authority that he envied, and he hastened to undo his seat harness. The doors opened. The flooded river was quieter than he’d expected it to be. Dr. Rhodes clenched his jaw and stepped out onto the crunching gravel.
The speaker turned out to be Owen Cosgrove, head of the biology team. He seemed to have the situation well in hand. “All right,” Cosgrove was saying. “We found the spear and armor wedged in those rocks over there.” He pointed at a cluster of boulders at the far side of the river. “They appear to have been washed downstream, so logic dictates that the sentients who made them should be this way.” He pointed upriver. “Let’s give the area a thorough scanning, then move upstream. We can take the car when we run out of ground, though we won’t be as effective from high above.” His eyes darted to Dr. Rhodes. “Does that meet with your approval, sir?”
Dr. Rhodes blinked in surprise, then nodded and did his best to appear calm and unflappable. “Sounds good,” he said.
“Then let’s move out!” Cosgrove directed. “Find them, but don’t scare them!” The workers scattered in pairs with their hand-held scanners, which Dr. Rhodes hoped were more modern than his translator. They appeared to be models designed for finding people trapped under rubble.
Cosgrove made an “after you” gesture, then fell into step beside him as the two strolled toward where the trees began: sagging things that could almost pass for weeping willows with some sort of lichen infestation. Dr. Rhodes tried to think of something to say, but Cosgrove beat him to it.
“If there’s anything you need us to do, let me know,” he said. “Otherwise I’ll be happy to call the shots for my crew. I know how they work.”
Dr. Rhodes agreed readily. He would be the first person to speak with the aliens if Cosgrove would orchestrate the operation. Whoever had decided that putting the diplomat in charge of the whole search effort had been more than a little shortsighted. He didn’t know the first thing about this kind of field work.
A worker called them from the river’s edge. Cosgrove sprinted off. Dr. Rhodes followed with the translator bumping against his side, his heart in his mouth.