Our galaxy is an abundant place. Rich, really—at least for those of us in the business.

I'm not in the business, if semantics or criminal justice or tax collection are your game. To my peers, though, or the closest thing to peers that a bonafide patriarch can have without humbling himself straight out of power, I am the business.

That business is women. Females. Anything with a matching set of chromosomes. Some rich fuck has an itch for a pretty reptilian with long legs and a tail that curves clockwise? That's his business. And mine.

It ain't pretty—but then again, neither is poverty.

I don't expect your sympathy, and odds are I'd wipe my asses with it anyway. But I'm in a story telling mood, and every good story's gotta start someplace. For me and my species, we got ours on a tidally locked planet that cozied up way too close to a pissed off red dwarf. So far as I can tell, our star didn't much like being smack dab in the middle of the SuperNova Highway, and it seems to me that she was keen to take the brunt of her frustration out on our fledgling little biosphere.

Suffice it to say that it was the sort of place that only breeds two things. More often than not, that thing is extinction. Cradle to grave. Sorry, sayonara, you didn't make the cut. Let's call the odds... nine-hundred-ninety-nine times out of a thousand a given genus shits the bed before its collective head pops halfway out the proverbial egg. As for the handful that hung around—we were some tough sons-of-bitches.

For a while my ancestors were confined to the Horizon Zone, a planet-spanning line of sunset so narrow that, story goes, you'd have to put guard rails on either side of your bed. "Roll out the wrong way one morning, boom! You're baked. Roll the right way and, shit, odds are still decent you'll freeze on the way to breakfast."

A lot of folks died back in the day. It was just too easy to do. But the ones that didn't had a knack for knowing when to be in the right place at the right time, and when to avoid the shit place at the shit time. What it boils down to, I think, is that they were smart enough to measure what needed measuring.

Is that fuckin' star gurgling again? Better get your asses inside! Don't come crying to me when you fry like my great aunt whats-her-face.

Those ones, my ancestors—they got good at measuring, and got good at livin', and damn sure got good at reproducing. Those are the types of folks we come from. So it only makes sense that we're the types of folks who damn sure won't look a gift-horse in the mouth and strap a saddle onto the status quo.

Long story short, measuring became documenting, documenting became studying and hypothesizing and extrapolating, and in the end you've got a planet infested by hardy scientists with ambitions much grander than a tight belt around a shitty planet. It all started with mass migrations toward the day side after large scale manufacturing got cheap. From then on, artificial biomes with thermal shielding were popping up like warts on a planetary ass cheek. And once energy production ramped up—which was a hell of a racket in its day, let me tell you—populations began streaming over to the night side without bothering to grab a coat off the rack. Every condo had a fission furnace built right in. Living so close to that pissed off star of ours, you'd better be ready to handle big doses of radiation. If you're kid came out with an extra arm—fuck it, he'll probably be a hell of an athlete.

Once people got tired of sitting inside all day, some fella came up with a nifty little scheme to deploy a network of orbital shades and mirrors to blot or redirect starlight on demand. Our planet ain't all that big, and the atmosphere wasn't all that dense in those days—so getting off the ground wasn't so daunting a proposition. My father, the son-of-a-bitch, swore 'til his dying day that our family descends from a big-wig investor in that very program. The ledgers say the guy made his fortune in miniaturized fission reactors. Dad says he made it in girls. Small world.

All that said, I suppose it's due time we make our way back to the present. Here I am, interstellar criminal patriarch, a big shot among big shots. And we are all big shots in one way or another, as much as it pains me to say it. Our species spread out like a venereal disease at a hostel in a college town. The bureaucrats, though, those appeasers and piss-drinkers, said from the get-go that "we've got to be straight laced about our expansion—cohabitation before colonization, goodwill before everything." But I'm my own fella, and that ain't my game.

By the time we really got the interstellar engines firing, we'd had generations of observatories in orbit around every center of mass in our solar system. These things were big. I mean big. Some of them were so big that we put other observatories in orbit around them. Huge. And it made sense. To survive on this shit hole planet, you should remember because I just told you, you need to sleep with both eyes open, and three ears, and with a lookout on retainer.

So when the ships were done being loaded with ugly couples and their shitty children, and useless captains took their symbolic, auto-piloted helms, their destination wasn't some broad swath of space or promising galactic quadrant or vague exploratory imperative you couldn't thumb on a map.

Courtesy of the smaller observatories and some neat spectrometry tricks, they knew exactly where life was happening, and exactly where colonists could live comfortably. Courtesy of the behemoths—an array of stellar-orbiting telescopes repurposed from retired orbital mirrors—they also knew exactly where life had already gotten smart. These bastards had been watching civilization transpire in broad daylight, peeping through a billion interstellar windows for one more sweet glimpse of galactic puberty. They did it for generations, and they did it down to a resolution of two fucking feet. And now, lest they jeopardize the trust of the electorate by breaching that smuggest of mantras, "cohabitation before colonization, goodwill before everything", they knew exactly which planets to avoid.

Courtesy of my man inside the Bureaucracy—a guy with a mouth bigger than his heart and a wallet too thin for his liking—my associates and I knew exactly which planets were worth a visit.

From the start, and for a long time, it was good. The demand for contraband was there on day one, and you can bet your asses that the supply wouldn't be lagging while I was alive. After fifty generations without a definition for the word scarcity, the interests of the wealthiest classes were, to put it lightly, piqued by the potential for a taste of something new. A lot of the time those interests were innocent enough, and procurement, for my part, was relatively mundane. Does your dear, sweet grandma dream of assembling the largest personal gallery of exo-art? I'll send a team out now. You've heard that planets orbiting different classes of stars breed unique and delectable sugars and starches? I have a few teams around a C-Class who would be more than happy to bring you back a parfait.

Like I said, it was good in those days. Real good. But I had no idea how good real good could get until I was approached by a mediator; a go-between, in business speak, regarding a peculiar client with a peculiar fetish. The fellow goes on to insinuate that it's a high risk job, but that there may just be a much bigger underlying market of "magnates and Magistrates" with similar... inclinations. All filthy rich, all corrupt, all waiting around for someone to prove they have the chops to pull it off.

They're ready to pay, should you be ready to provide. That's what the go-between tells me.

I've got a fetish too, I says to the guy, and if high risk means high reward, then I've got no doubt that it'll be a pleasure doing business with you.

High risk did mean high reward, and vice versa. It was as lucrative as lucrative gets. Wasn't long before I was as rich as the fat fucks wiring me my commissions. That said, you couldn't trace those transactions to their names with a quantum stencil. The risk was mine. All of it. Who's to say one of my teams trekking back from an exo-Civ doesn't get itself tangled up with a division of the Bureaucracy whose boss didn't like having his pockets greased? Well, orchestrating that sort of endeavor happens to qualify as one of the last crimes worthy of capital punishment. I don't know my mother's maiden name, but you can bet your asses I know the exact statutory verbiage—because I got it tattooed on one of mine.

Exo-Intelligence contact, extraction, and/or smuggling for purposes duly considered to be nefarious, malicious, and/or perverse in nature. Punishable by death, through means prescribed at and by the discretion of the presiding Magistrate.

Don't start crying yet, darlin', because if the Bureaucracy had charged me with that crime then there ain't a chance in space I'd have enough tongue to speak a word of this. I spent a career smuggling female specimens—the favored euphemism in my line of work—from exo-Civs, and it was a long and successful one that I can assure you didn't end in custody. But something did happen, something went sour. All at once I found out just how bad real good could get.

My last job started no different than the twenty-some-odd-thousand before it. Of course, I didn't expect to refer to it as my last job, at the time. That job and all the others started with a scrap of paper: simple, untraceable, complete with just four lines of information.

Line one: target's galactic coordinates.

Line two: time and coordinates for the delivery rendezvous.

Line three: species, number of specimens, and desired physical traits.

Line four: destroy after reading.

It was a new target solar system, apparently. That information was only relayed to me a few days before everything was set in motion. I never saw a scrap of paper or a coordinate myself—kept my hands clean and the rest of me as far away from criminal implication as possible. Matter of fact, I didn't know the job was going sour until the damned thing was 180 proof skunk liquor.

New systems are hard to come by, these days. Most of the galaxy worth looking at has been mapped from fifty angles and categorized by the spots on the asses of the bacteria in their pond water. But if you're still willing to entertain semantics, then I guess I should admit that this system wasn't technically new—it had just flown under our radar.

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The way our leads came in was straight forward enough. Intelligent civilizations, or intelligent enough, at least, to qualify as engaging conversation worth our clientele's hard earned money, are judged by the Bureaucracy according to their access to space. Once one of the high resolution telescopic arrays identifies an object with artificial origins on course to depart the home solar system of a formerly "Pre-intelligence" Civ, my man on the inside would make sure I was privy to that development. I, in turn, would make sure that our clients were aware that our inventory was about to expand.

This occasion was pretty standard business. A metallic object, barely eight-hundred-kilograms, traveling on a trajectory that basic geometry assured us wasn't natural. Fortunately for me, I already had a team en-route to a job in that sub-arm of ye olde Milky Way, and they were kind enough to quantize and redirect a few radio transmissions beamed from the newly-minted, evidently careless Intelligent Civ. Naturally, images of bipedal mammalian women sauntering about for the entertainment of their species kindled much intrigue among those patrons of mine with more... repugnant palates. It certainly kindled enough intrigue to make penciling another pitstop into my team's itinerary seem nothing if not perfectly economical.

One Magistrate, who I'll avoid naming, had more innocuous tastes. She'd made a hobby of collecting any spacecraft used in the Bureaucracy's reclassification of an exo-Civ into the galactic intelligentsia. As had become customary before our inaugural visits to reclassified systems, this Magistrate expressed an interest in having the object retrieved. We were all too happy to oblige her.

It was easy passage through lightyears of sheer vacancy after that. The jump went smooth, and there wasn't a Bureaucracy ship close enough to hold your breath over. That Civ, poor bastards, was about as far away from the action as you could get. Makes you wonder how long it would have taken them to bump into us, if we hadn't bumped into them first.

I learned early on that a little bit of micro-managing is good business. I make that clear from day one, and, so far as I know, my guys don't have any qualms about it. One way I keep tabs on operations is to have an audio-quanitzer running onboard my ships that doubles as a tracking mechanism. Even hire a mechanic for every crew to maintain the telemetry unit so I always get the feed, at home, in real time. The signal's encrypted via good old fashioned entanglement—ready to collapse at a moment's notice if it's intercepted. Some things never go out of style. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'd been keeping an eye on the telemeter for a few days, as was my tendency, and flipped on the audio stream when the crew was coming up on the location of the target spacecraft. I'd been in the game long enough not to expect anything exciting, of course. We didn't need thermal metrics to recognize that a species at their stage of development wouldn't be sending biologics along on a journey of that nature, but we checked the thermal metrics anyway. It was another probe, unmanned, and another job, unremarkable. We'd seen it all before.

First I heard the captain, an old buddy of mine—a real loyal kind of guy, a good guy—getting his boys in position. Press this button, man this machine, get this fucking thing out of that fucking way. Next came the sound of an airlock, like the sound an old fella with weak pelvic floor muscles makes an hour after a three-egg-breakfast, you know the sound, and then the clatter of machines doing what machines do. The probe was onboarded, and secured, and the crew chatted like normal and took gibes at one another and took gibes at the species who'd built it. Normal banter, for a normal crew, on a normal job. Business as usual.

Of some interest, but none of any concern to me or my bottom line, was the exterior of the probe. Smack-dab in the middle of all the primeval signaling apparatus and rudimentary sensors and, frankly, shit propulsion tech, was a circular, golden disk. If the crew was to be believed, it served no clear practical purpose. But the captain, my good and loyal friend, he'd been around longer than the rest of the guys. He'd seen everything. He knew better.

It's a file, he says, analog. Real crude stuff, but I've seen its like before. Like a message in a bottle, for our eyes only.

I'd known the captain long enough to be sure that he'd winked at his crew.

Shall we open 'er up, gentlemen?

A guy like me, a business man, a big shot among big shots—I tend to think in terms of timetables and bottom lines. I remember, clear as the day-side of my great-great-great-grandfather's bed, wanting to demand the crew cut the shit, get their asses to that planet, and finish the job I was paying them to do. But I'd learned some time before that morale matters too—if you want to have yourself a loyal crew, good morale is good business. So I let them have their fun. You could even say I contributed.

Hey fellas—I says through the telemeter—I had my guy do some pre-job digging on this Civ. The Bureaucracy database has been keeping records on their development for a while. I'll send you specs on the hardware you can use to transcribe the file, a 'phonograph', but then I need your asses back on the job. Are we in agreement?

We were.

My guy in the Bureaucracy answers when I call. He'd be crazy not to. I can't remember how long it took him to dig the phonograph specs up from the database, but it wasn't long enough to test my patience. I'd know, and he would too. I was still in good spirits when the captain's voice—my good, loyal friend's voice—crackled over the telemeter.

Alright boss, she's printed and ready to go. You gonna listen in with us? Oughta be a good laugh before it's back to business.

Just make it quick.

Say no more—he says—just gotta... unscrew this... file from the... probe and... there we go. Quick and painless! Okay boss, we're all linked up—boss?

What? I ask him.

A red light just started blinking at me. Right when we unscrewed the file. The database say anything about that?

The captain was a good friend of mine, a real good friend, loyal. But I've known smarter men, and if you're gonna staff your crew with stupid guys, you've gotta take it upon yourself to keep them in line. It's just good business.

You a pants-pisser now? Afraid a blinking light's gonna jump up and bite you in the asses?

The captain didn't have much to say to that. Nothing came of the blinking red light, just like I told him, and so he and the crew carried on with their fun, and I carried on listening. The functionally named record he'd plucked off the probe, covered with infantile scrawling of anatomy and the like as if that would impress a space-faring race, snapped into the freshly-printed phonograph and the device whirred to life. However primitive the messenger—and I hate to admit this—the prospect of receiving these messages piqued my interest enough to flip the switch on my Bureaucracy grade galactic translator.

Human English, says the translator before getting on with it. Beginning Translation.

I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.

Next there were more greetings, and terrible music, and endless, pointless sounds. Footsteps, as though footsteps are different from one place to another. An hour, it took. An hour could test my patience. The crew was having a good time, sure, watching the encoded images stream across their terminal and trading more and more creative gibes about the more and more pathetic race. I, more than ever, was prepared to intervene. Morale was good business, but time is everything. That was my thinking before silence came in relief, an apparent end to an apparently endless self-appreciating record from a toddler civilization.

I wouldn't need to say a thing. The fun was over. The message had ended. Back to business. On to Earth.

Human English, says the translator.

Hello again. My name is Kurt Von Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations. You may recall my voice from the greeting delivered to you at the beginning of this message. Myself, and my compatriots far and wide, are eager and committed to extend to you an offer of lasting peace and cooperation, first, foremost, and above all else. It was only after some discussion, however, that it was deemed essential to inculcate some measure of pragmatism into this, our first and sincerest correspondence. Together, in good faith and with clear wills, we agreed upon the following prerequisite to any and all future contact.

If you come, it shall be in peace. Peace, here, refers to an abstinence from hostility, be it physical, psychological, or otherwise, toward or against any sovereign person or persons, on Earth or elsewhere, now and for all times forthcoming.

If and only if you have found these terms to be agreeable, then we are pleased and humbled to welcome you, and we do so with every intention of fraternity on the part of our species. The location of our planet has been plainly denoted among the contents of the record. We only ask, and do so with absolute emphasis, that if and when you do come peaceably, you re-attach this record, precisely as you discovered it, to the preordained section of the hull of the spacecraft.

Should you resolve to pay us visit, but do so with intentions inconsistent whatsoever with those I have described to you in these plain and incontrovertible terms, prepare to face the consequences.

In any case, please treat Voyager II with care, she will always hold a special place in our hearts. We hope to see you soon, and wish you the very best on your journey. Farewell to you, who and wherever you are.

From Earth with Love in Every Language

End Translation.

The crew had their laughs, and I had mine. Already on the outskirts of the system, I reminded my boys that a jump to the Civ's home planet would be uneconomical. Make the trip at relativistic speeds, I told the captain, my dear friend, and enjoy the view while you can. So off they went in the direction of Earth, opposite the trajectory of the probe they'd intercepted and the message they'd derided, merriment on their faces, a payday on their minds, the golden record in the garbage, the red light blinking ever faster.

It was by their conversation that I knew that the nearer they drew to the Earth, the faster the blinking. Soon enough I had evidence for myself. Beeping. Slow and steady to start, faster the closer they came. The captain was loyal enough to act in accordance with my earlier orders. Don't worry about the light. If a light won't bite you in the ass, a beep won't neither.

That was the prevailing feeling onboard, and in my case, at home. And then I got to looking at my telemeter. More sophisticated than any human device by countless generations, no doubt about that. But the underlying principle, in an unsettling way, was familiar. My telemeter sent and received messages. Their probe, with its beacons and cones, was no different, in practical terms. My telemeter, as you know, was doubly outfitted as a tracking mechanism. I knew where my crew was because my telemeter pinged them, in its way, and kept me informed. Surely the humans, the newest Intelligent Civ to grace the Milky Way with whiffs of their presence, were keen enough to see the value in tracking their probe in advance of having sent it.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Captain!—I shouted, enlightened, ashamed—Reverse course and screw that damned record back into —

And then the ship was gone, the crew with it. A dear friend of mine, a loyal friend, a good man and a proven asset, killed on the job in a flash and a whimper, swallowed and silenced by the vacuum of space. Ten plus clients disappointed, disinterested in an explanation, and happy to take their patronage elsewhere.

I considered sending another team down to investigate. The more considering I did, the less economical the prospect. No need to investigate. No need to risk another incident. Black market insurance is costly enough as it is. Besides, I already know what happened. It's just a matter of accepting it.

Outsmarted by a species moments into their reclassification. Any possible planetary defense effort that could have been encountered, theoretically, was built into my business model from the start. I have no doubt that any conventional weapons they might have deployed would have glanced off the hull in the unlikely event that my crew had even been noticed.

But that wasn't necessary. This was a species with some savvy, and that means something coming from a former big shot. They sent their message out in good faith, sure, but not with blind trust. Their probe was an instrument of science, and a weapon of war. A spacecraft, a camera, a receiver, a transmitter, a bomb. A handshake and a trigger.

I can't blame the humans for what happened. How could I?

That's just good business.