First Contact

I walked into the Flournoy-Croft Special Investigations Center with a particular and intense duality of emotions. My mind was a warzone where anxiety and excitement were currently stuck in a deadlock, with each side battling relentlessly for control. It was as if the opposing extremes were manifesting in my very gait; one leg felt leaden and weighted with an all-consuming dread while the other was light and skipping with glee. As I stepped on the elevator and pushed the 4 button to take me to the top floor, one half of my body was practically vibrating while the other was barely ambulating.

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I walked out of the elevator and into the long, featureless hallway that led to Director Janet Tines' office. Even from the elevator landing, I could see that her large mahogany door was closed. Drat; I'd hoped to catch a glimpse at what lay inside before having to engage. I took a carefully measured breath and proceeded forth, my mind racing tempestuously as I tried to quell the opposing forces warring inside me.

It wasn't that I was afraid of Director Tines. She was a good superior, and we saw eye to eye on most things. It was the special assignment I was being tasked with that had me so conflicted.

My day-to-day job at the FCSIC was...complicated. Both to do and to describe. It could be best summarized (and sanitized to the general populace) by saying I was a diplomat. However, the part that only my coworkers knew was that I wasn't an agent of local or international politics. Rather, the truth was that I was a conductor and manager of relations between humans and sentient extraterrestrial races that had either landed on Earth or contacted it. These were all things that my friends and family had no knowledge of. Things the general populace didn't know. To the public, aliens were the business of hillbillies with abduction stories and doomsday types who wore tinfoil hats. To me, they were my day-to-day, and they weren't weird.

So why was half of me so nervous?

The half of me that was excited was, at least, easy to explain. I was getting put on a special assignment. Everyone loves to be recognized for their hard work and entrusted with things. I didn't know the full details of my special assignment yet, but what I had been told was that a new race of extraterrestrial had made contact, and I would be charged with working with them. Despite what I may have given the impression of in my job description, this was a rare and exciting event. Typically, there were 6 main races of extraterrestrials that regularly interacted with humanity and Earth, and a dozen more that made very infrequent contact. To work with a newly discovered race altogether was practically a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Perhaps that was why I was so nervous? The unpredictability of it all?

As I stepped up to the Director's door, I heard her communicating with someone on the other side of it. A feminine voice was talking with her. I brushed my hair out of my face for a moment, drew a deep breath, and knocked.

"State your identification," came her confident and commanding voice.

"Velouria Givings," I responded, "ID#EF46P19."

"Come in." I opened the door and swiftly entered, as was protocol, hastily shutting the door behind me to conceal whatever was in here from prying eyes. Having shut and locked the door, I turned.

Director Tines was sitting at her desk, her graying hair pulled up in a stately ponytail. Standing in front of the desk, looking at me, was the subject. They had a very humanoid appearance, looking starkly like a beautiful woman. They had cyan colored skin, white and orange hair cut into a slanted lob, and a somewhat slight frame. Their ears were pointed and long, and they had two spots on their face, one on each side of their nose. They had the general body shape of a human woman with, confusingly, what appeared to be a pair of round, mammalian breasts underneath what appeared to be an outfit of plain street clothes from our visitation stock. A red t-shirt with blue jeans.

"Good morning, Agent Velouria. Thanks for coming in; this is P-Qorzrha."

"Earnest greetings," P-Qorzha said with a sweet, feminine voice. I was taken aback immediately. Since when could any extraterrestrial speak English upon their first contact? Typically, we used devices called ITCHes (Intelligent Technological Communication Headsets) to speak with extraterrestrials, which were headsets that read patterns in language to quickly learn the language of the race and instantly translate as we spoke through the ITCH in real time.

However, P-Qorzha wasn't wearing an ITCH. They just spoke.

"H-...how do you do, P-Qorzha?" I asked nervously, following my standard protocol and giving a polite curtsy.

"I'm...oh...quite befuddled, I think is the phrase," they replied, tentatively curtsying as well. It was a facsimile of a curtsy, really. It was clear they were mimicking me rather than performing a gesture on their own. They likely didn't know what a curtsy was for. That was fine; curtsying was protocol for introducing yourself to an extraterrestrial when you do not know their culture because bowing or reaching for handshakes might be seen as aggressive to some races, but curtsying was typically seen as, at worst, placid.

"It's okay, P-Qorzha," the Director said with a smile, "Agent Velouria is here to help with whatever you need. She will be your contact and your caretaker for the time being." The Director's words were delivered with a matter-of-fact confidence that would lead most to thinking what she said was totally normal and not at all unusual. And, to be fair, putting me as an alien's primary contact was normal. However, that other thing that she had said...wasn't.

"I'm sorry," I said, "'Caretaker?'" Director Tines nodded and smiled at me. It was a kind expression, but one that did not reach her eyes. Those conveyed an unwavering confidence.

"Correct, Velouria." I wasn't being offered a choice in the matter and it was clear she had no interest in negotiating one. "This is your special assignment. P-Qorzha has had an incident and needs help. She can fill you in on the details later, but for now, you are to arrange for her room, board, and food. Make sure she does not want for anything."

"Oh, you do not need to fret much over me," P-Qorzha interjected, "I do not need many things."

"Nonsense," Director Tines insisted, "Velouria is going to take extra good care of you. Right, Vell?" A long moment of clashing wants hung in the air as my eyes darted nervously back and forth between my boss staring daggers into me and the hopeful looking alien. I sighed heavily.

"That's right," I replied.

I spent the rest of that day with P-Qorzha, or Pico, as she asked me to call her, showing her around both FCSIC and New Ideal City. She was sweet and engaged; I had to admit that she was certainly the easiest extraterrestrial to get along with that I'd ever met. She was polite and earnest, as well as inquisitive. She seemed genuinely interested in learning about human society and customs, so she asked a great many questions about humanity and Earth. In turn, she was equally forthright in talking about herself and her own culture.

She was a member of an alien race called the Ashasa from the planet Ceruleos, which was very far away from this solar system in Star System 469-b. The Ashasa as she described them were fascinating and possessed a number of interesting abilities. For instance, the reason she spoke English was the Ashasa apparently had a degree of psionic ability which allowed her brain to link with another living being's brain and scan its data centers, allowing her to become fluent in their communication languages rather effortlessly. It was remarkably fascinating; my favorite part of my job was learning about the cultures and lives of extraterrestrials.

As we talked, I learned a little about her first contact and what brought her to our planet. She had more or less crash landed on Earth a few days ago as she made her way through the galaxy. Her spaceship was a small pod designed for only one person, and it would be difficult to fix, so in the interim, she needed a place to stay.

"Why were you so far from your homeworld?" I asked her as I pulled my car to a red light on the way to the hotel owned by the FCSIC, where I had arranged for a room for her.

"I was...searching," she replied simply without turning to look at me.

"Searching for what?" I glanced at her for a brief moment. She suddenly looked sad, or perhaps uncomfortable. At least, that was how her expression appeared to me, as a human. It took her a long moment to respond.

"I would rather not converse about that at this time," she replied. There was a definite sadness in her words. I nodded and turned back to the road.

"Say no more," I replied, pressing on the gas pedal as the light turned green.

As we got to the covert hotel and got Pico checked into her room, our conversation turned to lighter topics, such as the human phenomenon known as "music" and how alien, yet beautiful she found it. We discussed what human foods she enjoyed from the short list of things she had tried since crash landing on Earth. We spoke of the various kids' games they played on Ceruleos and how they differed from games on Earth (it seemed that many of the games the Ashasa played made use of their psionic capabilities, so she could not teach them to me). Again, her culture seemed so fascinating.

Once we were in her hotel toom, I sat the suitcase with various clothes she had been provided in the corner and handed her the keycard.

"You swipe this into the lock on the door to enter this room, should you leave," I explained.

"A key that is a rectangle?" She asked inquisitively, "How does that work?" I shrugged.

"Fuck if I know," I answered honestly. She laughed.

"So you fo not know how the things work. How curious it must be not to have psionic capabilities. It seems so...stifling. On Ceruleos, information is passed communally with little effort, so we all understand with a great deal of depth most things. Here, it seems that is not the case." I smiled, and sat in a chair. She sat on the bed gingerly.

"We humans don't possess any psionic capabilities, no," I replied, "We have to share information through speech and tutelage, which are both inherently flawed and fallible concepts. It must be so freeing to be able to instantaneously convey anything or everything to those around you. I envy you." She nodded thoughtfully.

"Psionic communication is truly so fundamental to the Ashasan way of life, I struggle to imagine what it must be like to not experience it," she said, "In a way, it makes my communications with you humans feel unfair. While we are in close proximity, I can hear most of your thoughts, but I can not in turn share mine with you. It is...a frustration."

"If you could, I'd have learned about that secret of yours," I mused.

"My secret?" She asked. Her pupils dilated for a moment, and I understood she was probing my thoughts. After a moment, she nodded in understanding. "Ah yes, the thing I was searching for. Right." I nodded.

"Yes, that. You are only able to keep that secret from me because I can't read your thoughts, correct?" I asked. She nodded again. "So that's its own struggle. Keeping secrets is a very common thing to humans. I think most of us would mentally break if we ŵere compelled to share them with anyone who wanted to know."

Pico looked down, a listless expression flashing across her face. I felt a pang of worry and regret; perhaps I shouldn't have brought something back up that clearly bothered her.

"You are right," she said sadly, "Perhaps I should explain that, then." I smiled, internally satisfied with myself that I found a way to get her to open up about it.

"If you would like," I said. She frowned. She was silent for a long moment, drew a breath, and responded.

"The truth is," she began slowly, "There is another psionic ability my people possess. One that I...can not quite get right. I never have been able to, and it...makes things difficult."

"Oh?"

"Yes. We can...morph. At least somewhat. Somewhat like...your chameleon animals here on Earth. Only, we do it to blend in with other sentient races. We do things like grow limbs or-" she gestured to her own voluptuous chest, "Or external sex characteristics. To match those typical on whatever planet we are on."

"So you don't typically have breasts?" She nodded slowly.

"That is a true fact," she replied.

"So your morphing power does work then, does it not?" I asked. She frowned.

"Well, I can morph my shape, mostly. I still can not get smaller features quite right." She gestured to her elven ears and the dots on her face as she spoke. "I also have...never been able to alter my skin pigment, which is perhaps the most necessary aspect that I can not do. There are no blue humans; I will never be able to blend in here."

"Why do you need to blend in exactly?" I asked. Her eyes were unfocusing as she gave a solemn frown.

"My biology depends on it," she said gravely, "And I am running out of time." I frowned and walked over and sat on the bed next to her, my proving curiosity suddenly replaced with my sense of urgency. Aliens had needs that are not always shared with humans, and hearing her say this, I understood that this was something I could not longer treat with my marveling curiosity."

"What do you mean?" I asked, taking her hand, "If you need something, please share it. It's my job to support you however you need." It took a long time for her to respond.

"When female Ashasa reach...maturity...our bodies begin producing our eggs every month. We must lay eggs every so often from that point on, or eventually we will produce so many eggs that our organs will rupture, killing us. And I...have gone years without laying eggs now. My body is...full to bursting. I am in extraordinary pain, and I know the absolute limit is approaching."

"Oh, okay. You need help laying eggs?" She nodded solemnly, a burning tear gliding down her cheek. "Um, well, what can we do? How can I help?" I swallowed pensively. I had never dealt with an alien who had such...intimate needs, nor had I ever needed to volunteer to help anyone on a personal level like this. I was a relations diplomat - a political agent. Not a personal attendant or aide.

Pico shook her head. "You should not," she said.

"Hey, come on," I said gently, squeezing her soft, cool fingers, "If there is something I can do, I want to do it." She wiped the tear from her eyes and looked at me sadly.

"In order for me to lay my eggs, I must be...uh...sexually stimulated by a partner. This is why we possess the power to morph and blend in, and also why it is such a problem that my ability to do so is...not properly developed." Pico's eyes drifted despondently to the carpeted floor. "You see, we Ashasa lack the ability to reproduce with each other. We are meant to find...mates...of other races. So...what I was searching for was an alien race that-"

"That has blue skin and pointy ears," I said, understanding. She nodded.

"Yes, more or less. Or find an individual somewhere who doesn't mind a blue girl, but...I have been unsuccessful. And now my ship is damaged and I am out of time, anyway." I thought for a long moment, my eyes listlessly panning around, yet seeing nothing. She truly was in a predicament. She was like a ferret in a way: if the biological need to reproduce is not met, it results in death. But she was right that there weren't exactly a ton of humans rushing to fuck a blue alien. Surely, there were some, but finding them in time might be difficult. Once, my currently red hair had been blue and that alone had caused certain types of people to reject me for various opportunities. To make matters worse, as the first Ashasa individual to make contact, the doctors at FCSIC would be fully unequipped to provide a physical, much less tell her exactly how long she had. The clock was ticking. Our options were few.

I thought back to that morning, and the way Director Tines had been staring so intensely at me. She had known. She had totally known this was where things would lead. After my last girlfriend and I had broken up late last year, Director Tines had been urging me to date again. She had said I was wasting my twenties on work when I should be spending time focusing on my social life and chasing young love. She probably relished at the opportunity of pairing me off with Pico.

I sucked a sharp breath through teeth clenched by raw anxiety as I forced myself to say words I couldn't believe I was going to say, but knew needed to be said. "I'll do it." Pico looked up at me, wide eyed.

"You what??" She exclaimed. I swallowed and said a bit more resolutely.

"I'll help you lay your eggs." I squeezed Pico's hand gently. "I'll...do that thing you need to make that happen." Her eyes darted back and forth furtively.

"Are-...are you sure?" She asked again, "I'm not sure you understand-"

"I'm sure," I responded, even more confidently, "But I...uh...I haven't been with an Ashasa before. You'll have to tell me what you...um...like." Her eyes searched mine, as if trying to find the deception that lie in wait to antagonize her.

"Velouria," she said quietly after a long, heavy silence, "You're very pretty and I'd love that, but-...I just need you to be sure." I gazed back into her eyes.

"Yes," I whispered in kind, "I'm sure. You're gorgeous yourself and...I'm certainly nervous, but...I can't exactly let you die. So please, let me help." Her eyes continued to search mine as they dilated again. I knew she was searching my thoughts. I didn't know how to engage in psionic communication, but I did my best to clear my anxiety so she would be able to read my thoughts that did show how serious and confident I was. After what felt like forever, she smiled.

"All right," she said, as she leaned forward, placing her lips just millimeters from mine. "I believe it is common for human sexual encounters to begin with what you call a 'kiss' is it not?"

My stomach was a ball of thick, anxious ice as her soft, full lips pressed against my own. Her eyes dilated again as we kissed, which was...weird...but I somehow understood that she was reading my mental feedback in real time to understand what was working and what wasn't. I just let my eyes flutter closed as the kiss turned gradually from gentle to intimate. She was a remarkably light touch, probably from reading my thoughts to determine that I liked that. My hands ran up her sides. Her skin was so soft. Impossibly so - much more pleasant and pliant than the skin of any human I had ever touched. My hands ran up her sides gently and back down; her hands gently ran through my hair.

Her lips parted, and her tongue pushed delicately forth to intermingle with my own. Unlike her body, her tongue felt distinctly alien. It was long and thin, with little round notches throughout. I was taken aback for a moment, but it wasn't so alien that it took me out of the experience. Perhaps it might have, if I hadn't had a specific job to do. I was, after all, on a mission to save this woman's life.

Before long, I felt her fingertips pulling at the base of my dress in a tentative, questioning manner. In turn, I raised my arms over my head in an expression of enthusiastic consent, and she broke our kiss for a moment to deftly lift my dress up and off of me in a feat of superhuman dexterity. I smiled and reciprocated, pulling her shirt off. I was not quite as smooth as she, but it did not seem to bother her.

I was wearing a bra and she wasn't, but the disparity didn't last long. Again, her impossibly skilled fingers got my bra unclasped and off in a movement I didn't even notice as her soft, gentle fingers were running up and down my back.