So we humans were spreading through the stars. Faster-than-light engines were actually not that big of a deal. Well - the first time crossing that barrier was spectacularly hard, but now we knew how to do it. There were many, many stars that we visited. Turns out, habitable planets and even planets with an ecosystem of life are not really rare. We found a lot of them just in our little side-arm of the galaxy. And our exploration ships are still out and about. There was quite the backlog for the scientists that follow in their wake and an even longer one for the shipyards that just could not churn out colony ships fast enough. It was a remarkable period of history happening for that generation of humans.

Pushing into outer space the most eager always were the tiny and fast ships of the SETI program. For all of those incredible forms of animal life we had encountered so far, the species we had found living on those life-rich worlds were unimaginably stupid. Nearly classified as plants kind of stupid. A housefly would flatten the most complex of them in a game of chess kind of stupid. There was nothing that could communicate, or even form the inkling of a communicable thought. Not even some simple comprehensible intelligence that could at least react to us in some meaningful way.

Two days ago (Earth days of course - always Earth days) that changed. Big time. We received electromagnetic signals travelling the void between some two systems. We found their source and sent every kind of greeting we could think of on the way there. And we not only received an answer, but began communicating. Simple beeps and boops of course, at first. The smartest humans were pining over those signals and messages, trying to translate and interpret them, and simultaneously figure out a way to make our noises understandable. They failed. Though there is always another party in a conversation and luckily for us, they did not fail. So the humans got an invitation.

One human, a non-aggressive ship. And a specific location outside our known space where they would await us.

Since it sounded extremely risky and very much like a trap, it actually took a couple of seconds before the SETI program was utterly overwhelmed with applications by volunteers. One human was pronounced ambassador as quickly as possible to stem the madness, thrown into an exploration ship that was mostly automated and then slung into the general direction of our hopefully soon-to-be-friends.

Following these directives brought the exploration ship to an empty part of space - the nearest star lightyears away. At first, nothing else seemed to be there and only after the ambassador re-ran the sensor sweep, another ship was picked up. It's signature was tiny, making it nearly invisible. She sent the prepared greeting and promptly received back an answer - an approach vector and an invitation to come aboard.

---

The ambassador sat on what could pass as a stool before a window that parted the room. On the other side that had a much deeper floor stood a member of the sapient alien species. It was at least six times her height and towered over her. As far as she could discern, it sat on a single appendage not unlike a snakes tail but stubby and thick as a tree trunk. The upper body slimmed slightly to what probably was the torso and then steeply curved into broad shoulders where it had two arms that could probably reach the floor if they weren't in a mantis pose. There were another two pairs of shorter and thinner appendages hanging from the torso below the shoulders that had very fine three-digit manipulators on their ends - that was relatively speaking, these hands would've easily be big enough to pick up a human. At the very top was the head hanging on a bent neck, which could've been called snake-like as well, though it was all wrong. Too broad and flat, no visible mouth and two pairs of fully black eyes on the sides. There was no way to tell if it was wearing clothes, the flat grey colour entirely featureless. Practically the same as the walls around her.

Taking in these details, she had already forgotten about the device she had picked up from the chair and curiously inspected before the wall had suddenly become transparent. It was a palm-sized disc with an entirely smooth and unbroken beige surface. The material felt warm to the touch, though the significant weight made her believe it was made from metal.

"Greetings", an emotionless voice chirped from the unknown device that turned out to be obviously be a translator. The voice did not fit the massive size of those aliens, it sounded more like a badly recorded child speaking with distorted blabber running in the background. At the same time the alien behind the glass slowly turned its head to point its eyes at her in a gaze that felt like a stadium spotlight.

She immediately forgot the standard welcome message she was supposed to deliver and replied while seemingly shrinking: "Hello?"

"Your ship. Is mathematically incorrect", the device chirped.

"My - what?"

"Your ship. Is mathematically incorrect."

This was a strange start of relations, and that translator device might be useless altogether. But at least she managed to compose herself to begin anew and by protocol.

"I am ambassador Neil and I am being sent to represent all humankind. I come with a message of peace and the will to establish a bond of friendship between our species and our worlds so that we may learn from each other and grow together in sharing our knowledge. In the-"

"Why is it incorrect? Your ship?"

She eyed the translator. After a brief moment she spoke: "I do not understand your question about my ship."

"Why did you build it? Like this design? Your ship?", no movement from the alien being. Even if she could read its body language, there was no way to tell if it was curious, annoyed or critical. The emotionless artificial voice did not help either and was harder to understand through more of that background noise.

What kind of question was that? Ambassador Neil did not build the ship and she knew next to nothing about spaceship engineering. Though that alien vessel was very exotic in design from what she had seen on her approach. Curves and fluid, round shapes dominated its form that had the silhouette of an elongated disc with bulbous extrusions on the flat areas. There was no way of telling which was front or back, no breaks in the surface for engine outlets, windows, lights or sensors. It looked more like an art piece than a spaceship and the insides had not been any different. The corridor that had led her from the docking area to this room was unbroken as well. Walking through it she had taken in the soft off-white colour of the floor that transitioned fluently up the curved walls into a dark grey on the ceiling that had a soft wavy structure. Though it was pleasantly bright, there was no visible lighting source. Or anything else besides the bare surfaces.

The smaller human exploration vessel looked embarrassingly clunky in comparison. Was that what did the alien being want to express?

"The ship was built along well established design principles. It is a functional vessel made for long distance exploration. May I ask a name with which I can address you?"

It lifted one of its four smaller arms to point at her, again in a very slow motion. The translator sprung into action after it was finished: "This object. Two objects. They are. Exactly the same."

It took her a moment to gather what it was probably talking about. On her white all-purpose pressure suit were shoulder ribbons, old style ones made from a textile weave, adorned with brightly dyed yarn to form several differently coloured stripes. And they were symmetrical. Maybe this was something light to talk about, so she took them off and laid them onto her forearm side by side.

"These are insignias that indicate my function as an ambassador. All humans in official functions carry clear identifying markers with them, though these are also ceremonial and their design dates back far into our history."

It still was pointing, and the strong gaze was unbroken. "How did you build it? The insignias? Exactly the same?"

It took her a moment to form a reply: "I don't know how they are made. I think there is-"

"How? Do you? Not know?", the translator spoke louder than before. Maybe it only seemed louder because the being had leaned markedly closer to the glass.

Ambassador Neil shifted on the stool. This was not at all how it was supposed to go. She had no idea what the alien was going on about. Maybe it was not a representative of their species? Maybe this was an interrogation? Or maybe they just made a big mistake trying to do a face-to-face meeting this early after the first communications.

---

This meeting was going badly and she was flustered, which she was luckily able to hide. At least Nyarn'Enth-Hep hoped that she was. First that human had been even smaller than she had planned for, the little thing now awkwardly sitting on the pedestal for the translator. And then Nyars light-hearted curious questions seemed to completely fail to break the ice. But it truly was strange - the human was strikingly beautiful and their ship was decidedly not. It was a pointy wedge that aggressively rejected the flow of space and the physical forces therein.

Of course the last thing had shocked her the most, the human apparently did not know how these adornments they were wearing themselves were made. Still, Nyar had to admit they were magnificently built - exactly the same down to every measurement she could discern. Maybe it was different for hive-minds with that piece of shared knowledge at the moment unavailable to this human?

Nyar thought up some pleasant diplomatic words of the human language and formed the thought at the translator: "I just want to re-state that the insignias are beautiful and well made. Please excuse my curiosity on their construction, I did not want to overstep. Perhaps you can help me understand your fascinating biology more instead. I would like to know about your means of communication through a shared consciousness. How are you able to connect to each other over stellar distances?"

Then she waited for the translator to create those air vibrations that were the humans way of exchanging information over small distances, quite efficient too as it needed next to no energy and simultaneously worked between great numbers of individuals. Though it was a bit simpler than just transmitting thoughts and so likely offered less bandwidth for substance.

The translated reply was overlaid with slight confusion - seemingly the normal state of that human - and a short explanation of quantum entanglement ship-to-ship communication. But that was not what Nyar wanted to know. She suspected the translator to be not accurate, even though she had been very proud of how she had made it, at least in the beginning. "Thank you very much for the explanation on your ship-to-ship communication technology. I am afraid I have not understood how it ties into your inter-human communication. Could you please elaborate on how you communicate between humans outside the range of your voices?"

This time the overlay of confusion was so strong that it was everything that came back.

"I am sorry for having been too vague and I will try to explain it from my point of view. Since your arrival and at this moment I cannot measure signals of any kind coming from you or being transmitted to you. Judging from your position of representing all humans and your current awareness you are obviously still tied into the shared consciousness. This information I only want to know so I can ensure my earlier promise of no harm coming to you in my presence. My least desire is cutting you off from your collective because of my ignorance."

More confusion and the polite inquiry to elaborate. Using this indirect way of exchanging information was very tiring on her mind and this meeting was on a good pace to outlast Nyars previously longest. Carefully she put together more phrases, but her curiosity and slight frustration got the better of her for a split second.

"How does your hive-mind work?", she then inquisited bluntly and too fast to stop herself.

The human luckily did not appear to be disgusted from her directness and even seemed to understand this question better. There was no confusion attached to the reply and they flatly stated that humans were no hive-mind and this one was an independent individual.

But that could not be. How could a being that tiny possess a nervous system complex enough to communicate intelligently, let alone create technology to traverse space? What then, was the benefit of them being so many? With a thought she locked down the meeting room with a full spectrum communication blockage field - a safety measure she had implemented for emergencies and not planned to actually use. Incredibly, she noted no change in the human. So it truly was a contained unit, independent from a shared consciousness. Nyar was perplexed and again let slip a thought.

---

The disc in her hands chirped: "Impossible. You are. Too small." This time she thought to hear some emotion from it - baffled incredulity.

Ambassador Neil stood up instinctively, drawing herself to her full height - she was at least two hand widths above average height. Adding her oftentimes unruly curly hair that might've even been three. With difficulty she got back into a diplomatic mindset and asked: "There may be some misconceptions on both of our sides. Please help me understand the relationship between size and intelligence and how it regards to your perception of human biology."

A full minute went by, where the big solid black eyes just stared. Then the translator sprung into action to say, nearly intelligible through even more distorted and louder noise: "Brain big. Intelligence high."

This was an exercise in frustration with these short and nearly pointless answers and questions. To top it off, the translator device seemed to be on a process of breaking down, if speech clarity was any indication.

Neil pushed back the urge to begin pacing up and down the room to help her think better and gave herself a couple breaths before saying: "I am sorry, but I do not understand your motivation in this current exchange and I would suggest, to ensure future relations, that I return to my ship momentarily and-"

"How did you build? Your ship?", the voice was clearer again, the distortion having returned to a minimum.

"I did not build it."

"Did you build? Your coverings?"

For a moment she looked down at the hard exterior of the suits chest-plate that housed the collapsible helmet and an ample source of air and power. Her whole body was covered in the segmented semi-flexible suit as that was made to fit her exactly. It definitely was her suit, but she did not make it. The same could be said of the ship she had come in - it had been modified to transport only her. She had the hazy beginning of a conclusion.

"I did not build any of the equipment I have with me", she paused to take a breath, "Did you build your ship yourself?"

---

What kind of question was that? How else was Nyar supposed to travel through space? Her frustration already ran high because of the misunderstandings before. This was so very confusing with the human clearly wearing protective apparel that fit their body and movements to seemingly optimal precision and them claiming to not having build it. It obviously did not grow on a tree. Nyar was completely at a loss and she could not wrap her mind around how anything worked with those humans. Coupled with that was her whole body beginning to ache because she was standing polite for so long.

"Yes, I am the maker of my ship", she thought as a short answer. It even sounded wrong. Who else would make her ship?

The prompt reply came overlaid with excitement, which she couldn't make sense of. The human now wanted to know if she had used her hands to make it? Nyar nearly twitched. She did not think the inquiry from before could be outdone, and now came this. What an utterly nonsensical question.

---

"Yes", came in the clearest tone yet.

Just so she could be absolutely sure, she added: "Do you have machines that build ships?"

She saw more movement from it this time. It shifted and then turned its head to look at her with the other pair of eyes, though it was the same scrutinizing glare.

"A machine. Cannot build."

Now Neil could not stop herself from pacing any more. The alien being was huge and more massive than any land creature on Earth. If size truly equated intelligence and it was not only sapient, but able to build a spaceship and a fully functioning - albeit seemingly limited - interspecies translator by hand, the latter one a mere two days within first hearing of humans, it must be exceptionally intelligent and skilled in all types of crafts. Neil did not know how the ship worked she was using, someone else did. Well, there probably was no single person in the world that knew how all of its individual components operated in detail. So the humans actually were some type of hive-mind in comparison.

If this alien species had no complex machines, they had no computers. The implication was mind-boggling. She had millions of questions that went far beyond diplomatic purpose. Maybe the first step was to create some more understanding. The ambassador opened her hand that had unconsciously closed tight around the insignias she had taken off earlier. Carefully she straightened them and laid them out on her forearm again.

"These insignias were designed by several humans together. And they are exactly the same, because they were built by a machine."

The alien first shifted backwards, and then slumped down to support its upper body onto the larger arms. It moved its head down onto her eye-level and as close to the transparent wall as possible.

"Tell me. More."