I brushed the smattering of crumbs off my shoulder with a single quick swipe of my fingers, wondering, perhaps a touch too late, what the Association Ambassador must think of the gesture. What did it say in her culture? Could it be interpreted as a brushing-off of her own august person, as was sometimes the case on Earth? Did it say something to her about our species, that we were messy and unrefined? Or was it just something to note, to be stored and researched later? Because surely every word and move of mine was under careful recorded scrutiny.

Like my elevated heart rate, maybe, the surging of nervous energy from the sheer gravity of the moment. How could it not? Surge, that is, here on an in-between alien world, not yet colonized by anyone, maybe to be colonized by us, our first Sanctioned World under the rules and bylaws of this greater society into which we'd emerged. Stumbled, really, but then what other way was there to make something as momentous as First Contact?

The answer: we didn't really know. This was the first delicate dance, the strange near-courtship of a freshly-discovered sentient species with a collective culture that had existed for some ancient unknown stretch of time. But no, that's not right, we weren't freshly-discovered, we were freshly-discovering, they'd known we were there for at least a couple centuries. They'd studied our three most-broadcast languages long enough to send out this...person, who spoke perfect English. And another for Mandarin, and another for Spanish.

Six ambassadors, three pairs, three humans and three something-else—all different, each sufficient in his/her/their right to set a xenbiologist's brain on fire for the rest of that organ's natural life.

The one assigned to me was a creature almost, but not quite, like a large wingless owl. She had grey feathers, anyway, and very large eyes which did not move or visibly blink, and her lower legs and forearms were scaly, tipped by very small talons, blunted either by evolution or some kind of nail-file. No beak, thin lips, plenty of teeth. Small bump of a nose, nostrils not visible but clearly in evidence by the way they disturbed the fine feathers covering them with every breath.

Her head followed the brief flight-and-fall of the shoulder crumbs from the fabric of my jacket to the smooth gemlike surface of the floor, resting above long ribboned reserves of captured blue light. And it was very birdlike, the way her gaze flicked down-back-up taking her entire face with it because her eyes had no independent motion of their own. The crumbs just sat there, light-brown and defiant, as she returned her attention to my face. What did it look like, to her? Simian like every other human, black-haired on the crown of the head, more hair down the cheeks and around the mouth, dark skin, prominent nose with downward nostrils.

Of course she'd probably had essentially her entire life to get used to what a human looked like. I had seen her species for the first time bare seconds before shaking her blunt-taloned hand, feeling the warm scaling against the pale thick skin of my fingers and palm. Some sort of functionary, same species, a bit taller, had introduced us before endeavoring to be somewhere else. This introduction was the only way I had any idea of my counterpart's gender; the phrase "her Excellency" had been used.

I set the small pastry back on the plate, took a sip of my tea, and smiled at her. She was eating something fleshy, maybe some kind of organ meat, though she'd been at pains to inform me it was lab-grown and not from any living animal.

"Apologies for my messiness in eating today," I said, giving her my most charmingly rueful smile and wondering if anything at all about it would translate. "I should have chosen a less crumbly kind of food."

She laughed. It was a staccato sound, made in time with the forward-bobbing of her head. Ba-ba-ba-ba. I knew it was a laugh because the little translation display by my plate told me so. She might be speaking perfect international English, but there was plenty to translate beyond just words.

"No need for apologies," she said. Her voice was a strange thing, melodious, with a huge range in pitches. She didn't seem to have any direct difficulties with pronunciation, though many of her consonants were softer than a human English speaker were make. Something with the way her tongue was shaped, or how far it could reach, I wasn't sure. "I am used to a wide variety of eating-customs. Yours are quite tame by most standards."

I inclined my head to acknowledge the gracious reply. "You're a remarkably tidy eater yourself, Madame Ambassador. Honestly, your whole collective culture is remarkably tidy by human standards. Not a single major war in hundreds of years? Universal standards of personal rights? Low apparent levels of inequality? I understand of course that there may still be issues beneath the surface and that first impressions tend to be carefully managed, but still, it's impressive."

She nodded. The gesture looked highly practiced, for which I couldn't blame her. Of course, she had me at a disadvantage, I had no idea what any of her standard gestures might be. Ah well. One did one's best with the situation at hand, as always. "We have not lied in any of the information we have given you, though you are right, some of the less rosy aspects of our various societies have been left out. You'll find those out yourselves soon enough, that sort of thing always comes out, does it not?"

"Yes, it does," I said, and allowed myself a small laugh. "Though since you've been listening to our media for longer than I've been alive, I'm sure you already have an excellent handle on our flaws and foibles."

She sighed. "Yes, about those," she said, and the feathers of her face ruffled themselves in what the translation display told me was her equivalent of a frown. "We are slightly concerned about possible ego issues. Please hear me out," she said mildly as I began to raise one finger in gentle objection. "Ego is an inextricable aspect of functional sentience. This is more a future concern than a present one. For the most part First Contact seems to have been a humbling process for your people."

"Yes, I suppose it has," I said. No point downplaying it, we weren't exactly censoring the Internet, though there had been rumblings here and there that we should do just that, find some way to keep all the xenos out of our communications. Utter bullshit, of course, we didn't even have enough grasp on their technological capabilities to know where to start with that. "We are a very, very long way behind you in most measurable aspects. There's just no denying that for any rational observer. Plenty of irrational observers in our societies, of course, but they're always going to be in denial about something or other. The chauvinists were chauvinists already before, ethnic or cultural or religious or what have you, and will of course continue to be chauvinists after."

"Very understandable. Though I fear they may have more ammunition for their beliefs shortly. You see, Earth is about to have a fairly large influx of tourists." She laughed again seeing my impression. "Oh, I understand that it is your planet and your decision to decide how many visitors you will allow. But you will allow them, not because we have any intention not to honor your planet's right to self-determination, but because the economics demand it. And because you are a very curious species, even by sentient standards. Your people will want the same right, to visit other worlds."

I nodded slowly. "You are most likely correct, though of course that will be up to the governments of Earth to decide. Though I assume this happens anytime a new species is discovered? The desire to have a close-up look at a new world?"

"Yes. But not quite to this extent. Not even close to this extent, actually. Hmmm. I should just come out and say it. You are the only known sentient species whose homeworld is still partially intact."

I felt my brow furrow despite myself. "Pardon, Madame Ambassador, but what exactly do you mean by partially intact."

She spread her hands in a placating gesture, again looking carefully practiced. "You must admit you've done some fairly catastrophic damage to your own biosphere. Many species have been lost which cannot be recovered. You have gotten your climate problems mainly under control and managed to bring back some of the biodiversity via genetic manipulation and your species rebirth programs, but you cannot call Earth 'fully intact.' "

I sighed. "And we are the only species which has done this much damage to its homeworld? The tourists want to see our world as, what, some sort of warning?"

She laughed, long and loud this time. I found I quite liked the sound, might have caught its meaning even without the translation display. "Ah, First Contact really has humbled you if you take that as my meaning. The tourists will not come to gawk at your disaster. They will come as something like pilgrims, to marvel at your self-restraint."

I thought my eyebrows might actually reach my hairline. "I'm sorry? You just gave me a litany of the ways we've managed to harm our own biosphere through a distinct lack of that."

"Relativity, Mr. Ambassador," she said. "It's all relative, and all about relativity." The translation display told me that the lifting of feathers in an arc above her eyes was her equivalent of a somewhat impish smile.

I settled back in my chair. Alright, I supposed, let's hear out her game. "Please explain, Madame Ambassador."

"Your species discovered the principles of physical relativity many, many years ago. You came to understand the possible violent applications of these principles shortly after. And since that time, you have made use of those applications exactly twice, and never again. That makes you unique among species in this segment of what you call the Orion Arm of our galaxy."

I fought to keep the surprise from utterly covering my face. "Every other species has had...what, some sort of all-out nuclear war?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. To us, 'homeworld' is essentially a synonym for 'bombed-out, radioactive wreck.' We considered it a terrible but essentially unavoidable stage in a sentient species' progress. We were, to be honest, waiting for it to happen to you. Then we would arrive and help. Find you a new world to settle on. You have to understand, this is...was...considered an absolutely essential lesson for a rising species to learn. Learn for themselves."

"God," I said, and considered my half-eaten pastry. "I don't know that we're all that impressive," I continued after a long moment's reflection. "We came very close to it, you know? Several times. Once, it was the decision of a single man which forestalled disaster. If he had just gone the other way..."

"Yes," she said. "Stanislav Petrov. A military officer of the old Soviet Union. Went against orders and refused to set off the end of the world. You must understand, in this same situation on every other world, his counterparts pushed the button. And make no mistake, Petrov suffered for his decision. He was not made a hero by his government, he was reprimanded and had a mental breakdown. But still, he did what he did. And your history is full of people like this. The whole thing is very complicated, we do understand that. Still, though. You never did it. For all the other terrible things your species may have done, you stayed your hands when it came to this kind of utter destruction. It never happened on your world."

I took in a deep breath, and let it out very slow. "Your pardon, Madame Ambassador. This is a lot to take in."

"Understandable. I will give you a few minutes to think on it, and then we should begin the rest of our discussions. We have great hopes for your species. Remember, you may feel far behind our own progress, but you are a young people, and everything is relative, Mr. Ambassador. Everything is relative. Whatever horrors lie in your past, whatever problems face you now, always remember: it could have been so much worse. There is wisdom in gratitude for might have been, but never was."

I stared out at the gorgeous gardens of the embassy, and glanced aside as the translation display changed. A landscape. Another. Another. Another. All desolate, grey and near-lifeless. Statistics at the bottom. Radiation levels. Death tolls. Survivor counts. God.

"I think I'll go home after this and hug my daughter a long, long time," I said softly.

"Good," the Ambassador said. "That sounds like an excellent start. Now. About our proposal for annual tourist counts..."