And now back to the present.

It was the next day. It had to be.

Every evening at the end of the work day, the systems administrator collected all the data typed into or collected by the embassy's computers, encrypted it, and wrote it to a terabyte hard drive. More accurately, what the systems administrator did was drink a hot chocolate laced with chili pepper and schnapps, leaving the actual data collection to a script she'd written on her first day.

This communication hard drive was packed up and sent, along with everything else the Embassy produced (mostly garbage), to the Quotidians' equivalent of the Tienshan Mountains. There, it was placed inside their transport accelerator and flipped across the veil of probability to the Earth of the United Nations. From that Earth came rather more material: instruction-laden hard drives delivered from governments around the human world, fresh supplies of clothing, office equipment, and food. The sysadmin always made sure there was enough chocolate and vodka.

Thus it was that the bivouac of human culture in the most technologically advanced city in the known multiverse had to wait a day between sending out a message and receiving a response. This annoyed the staff there until they got used to it.

"So," said Mark, "what the hell does he think happened?"

Mark was sitting around the corner from Laura at the table in the conference room they had intended to use for the meeting with the Monumental. Thank fuck we didn't, Mark thought, and pinched his nose between his fingers. They still smelled like pudding and fish.

Laura squinted at her laptop's screen. Once, her species had used scrolls of pressed wood pulp and carbon ink to encode messages. Now, they achieved the same effect with a mosaic of micrometer-scale tiles, each tile a sandwich of electron-absorber, organic semiconductor, and electron-emitter. A Quotidian would not be impressed, but neither were any of the humans in the room. Laura, Mark, and Ambassador Li simply expected their laptop screens to work when they were activated.

"Koen thinks," she said, "that our guest was probably a 'whippomorph.'"

"Hmm!" That came from Ambassador Li.

He sat at the head of the table, hands folded in a way that indicated deep thought and also hid most of his bandaged waffle-iron burns.

A whippomorph, tropical fish, or other nonhuman observer would see little difference between Ambassador Li and Laura aside from age and (with a little training) sex.

To a human such as Mark, however, the difference was glaring: Ambassador Li's high status. This was clear from his upright but relaxed posture, the long pauses in his speech, and his wide, abrupt gestures. The UN Ambassador to the Convention of Sophonts moved in the confidence that other people would get out of his way. He spoke like a man who was sure he would never be interrupted.

To a human such as Laura, who had worked for Li for a decade, that hum was code for 'I wish to appear as if I understood that, but please explain it.'

She complied. "Apparently, a 'whippomorph' is a part of the group of related creatures – a 'clade' – that includes the most recent common ancestor of whales and hippos."

None of the people in the room knew or cared what that meant. Ambassador Li was trying to ignore the itching in his burnt hands and examining his plan to install his personal chef in the embassy. Laura was already scanning the next several sentences of Koen's message, editing out his biological speculations. Mark was just relieved that there wasn't a Wikipedia page for his guest's species. If there had been, he would have looked like an idiot for not checking it. Looking like an idiot scared Mark more than anything else.

"'From your description, his species sounds polyandrus and matriarchal,'" Laura read off the screen.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Mark hung a different meaning off those words than Koen the scientist. "Digeridoo wasn't! The sexist pig never mentioned any other relationship partners, and he wouldn't even talk to you, Laura."

Ambassador Li had attended seminars on dealing with Americans. He fixed Mark with his eyes and gave him a firm nod. Satisfied that his morality had been respected, Mark settled back into his chair and let Laura get on with the meeting.

She continued. "'That would mean that high-ranking females (what the translators called "queens") have a harem of "husbands" (probably brothers or first cousins with each other, unless there's something going on with the genes that I don't know about), who they send out to do work for them.'"

"So the Monumentals are so feminist that they're sexist?" said Mark. "I don't get it."

"Maybe they're like ants," said Ambassador Li. "With a queen." He raised a finger to the emerald device perching on his collar. "Translator, flag word 'husband' in the Monumental language and reassign translation to 'underling.'" He thought of his wife, parked safely in Guandong, and chuckled.

"Yes sir," said Laura, to move the conversation along. "Koen continues. He says that a husband would be expected to form a non-sexual partnership with the husband of a foreign queen."

"Sexual?" said Ambassador Li.

"Koen says 'non-sexual', sir." Laura looked inside herself, wary of signs of emotion. None that she good detect.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and read on. "He says, 'I theorize that your guest thought Laura was the queen of the embassy, and by talking to him, she was trying to seduce him away from his wife. Especially if she appeared to be giving orders.'"

Laura paused, knowing that Ambassador Li would want a chance to be seen to react. Sure enough, when she looked up from her laptop, he was leaned back in his chair, hands folded, looking off into the distance with lower eyelids raised.

This expression is called "a squinch," and in humans, it signifies attractive confidence.

"I knew that this issue would ultimately come down to culture," squinched the Ambassador. "They always do."

"Yes, sir," said Laura. "Koen gives a suggestion: the next time we meet with a representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce, we should make sure that no woman is physically present, but that her presence is felt. We can hang a large portrait of Consul Ahmed in the room, and have her, Ms. Steiner, Ms. Severo, or myself appear via computer screen to issue orders to our male representative."

Mark tsked. "I don't think I'm super comfortable with the sexism inherent in this whole conversation."

Laura's mouth closed over the next sentence in Koen's email, which was, "Also you should research your guest's biology more carefully next time." Instead she addressed Li. "We can try it next time, sir."

"At least there'll be a next time," said Mark. "Thanks a lot to you, Laura. We thought quick on our feet, didn't we?"

"Flexibility," said Ambassador Li. "Thinking outside the box. Those are exactly the qualities this embassy needs. I am satisfied, all in all."

He had to say that, or otherwise take the blame for burning his hand on a waffle iron and missing the entire meeting.

"However," he continued, nodding toward the attractive horizon, "it is quite clear that we have an unmet need for a specialist in biology, not to mention cooking for nonhumans. Mr. Ruis has no diplomatic background, but individuals matter more than qualifications. He's an EU citizen, despite his personal connection to me. There's no political activity in his online history. And Consul Ahmed is quite eager to eat his lasagna again."

Mark nodded all throughout these justifications. Before, he had joined the embassy's Deputy Chief and Defense Attaché in resisting the Ambassador's attempts to bring through his personal chef. Now, though, he was willing to fold. Mark never wanted to repeat yesterday's debacle. At least next time, somebody else would be there to take the blame. "I'll put in my recommendation with Mr. Wilson and Ms. Severo, Mr. Ambassador."

Ambassador Li gave the American a nod. To Laura he said, "Archive and flag these meeting minutes, as well as the email exchange we've had with Mr. Ruis and the footage from the meeting with Mr., uh, Didgeridoo."

"I've already done so, sir."

Li made as if to clap his bandaged hands, then thought better of it and simply said, "Excellent."

He stood.

"Then we'll hire Koen. Let's bring some hygge to this mission!"