The gathering and analysis of intelligence is too difficult and delicate a task to be left to mere humans. But humans are what we have, in the end. Well, humans and some AIs and a few genetically other species, here and there, but that's really muddying the issue since they all come ultimately from the same human blueprints. Let's just say it's a very messy job for which you're never entirely up to snuff.

But we do okay, all things consider. Best in the Orion Bridge, by most accounts. I do okay, too. One of the better cultural operators in the UEF, much as it pains my modesty to admit it.

First Contact was rough. Looking back, that seems so damn inevitable, enough to make you cry for the poor bastards that greeted it with shining hopeful eyes. Ultimately it was a good thing, don't get me wrong. Ended up better for our species than, say, some of my own Mayan ancestor's first and subsequent contact with Europeans. We've got a lot of really shitty precedents from our own past to tell us how lucky we were, even if it still cost a lot of lives and turmoil.

I was there, but only barely. Twelve years old when we caught that first stray signal out by TRAPPIST-1. I remember the fuss at the time, got caught up in it the way only a really passionate kid starting to push the boundaries between childhood and the vast lands beyond really can. Studied everything I could get my hands on, misunderstood a lot of it but that's okay, it taught me how to revise my understanding, taught me it's alright to be wrong so long as you're willing to put in the effort to be right, or at least get as close to the truth as you can. No more important lesson than that in my business, seen a lot of people killed because someone somewhere failed to learn it.

I didn't become any less obsessed when Mom was called back into service with the Corps. Damn well didn't make it matter less to me when she was killed in action. I was sixteen. Dad did his best to steer his grieving daughter through the next few years to full real adulthood, but it kind of broke him for a while. I wouldn't say I was on my own, or forced to grow up suddenly. He did his best. We still exchange as many messages as the Service will let me put through the interplanetary post. I love him, always will.

But still the whole thing changed something in me, or maybe just brought out an aspect that had already been there, ground it into sharp relief through the excruciating pain. When my friends were applying for college, or even service academies, I shook my head, and enlisted. I wanted to fight.

My entrance exams put an almost immediate end to my dreams of glorious, or at least grimly satisfying, infantry combat. Knowing what I know now, I suppose I should be grateful. Should be, but the truth is I'm not sure. These days, when I fuck up, that infantry soldier I wanted to be, that proud ground-and-deck pounder, she dies. Maybe I should have been her after all. I don't know. I try not to think about it too often and also to think about it enough, because maybe I owe it to them, because I have to stay sane because I'm no good to anyone if I burn out. And I've seen plenty of that, we all have.

Still though. I keep at it, because I'm good at it, because the fact that our species seems to be good at it is, in my opinion and plenty of others, the main thing keeping us afloat in this perplexing and often hostile corner of the Milky Way.

I keep at it, and I do believe in duty and cultivating my talents and a certain degree of self-sacrifice and all that noble maybe-part-nonsense maybe-often-not. But there are other reasons, too, not quite as noble but still lofty in their way. Like the view from where I stood in the Solar Embassy, looking out over an alien world, an alien city, something few humans ever got a chance to do or ever would until or unless the Orion Bridge became a much more cosmopolitan piece of the Perseus Arm.

It was glorious. Not because it was somehow better than what you could see on Earth, not outdoing our green-and-blue-and-every-shade-of-dirt-too little stoneball, I've seen some exceptional sights back home, our planet actually has a reputation for beauty among Orion Bridge connoisseurs. It's just so...different, and you don't really understand what that means until you see it for yourself, photos never do a thing proper justice and even full-presence recordings can't quite bridge that gap, because you can look around but there's this inherent sense that you're seeing, but you're not part of it and therefore not really there.

Twisting, soaring architecture, strangely-proportioned for whole different contingencies of biology and culture. I leaned forward, rested my hands and elbows and chin on the strange near-wood-analogue substance as I peered out. Everything in this place was made for people much taller than your average human, and I'm frankly much shorter than your average human.

"Attaché Tahuetencos."

I turned when I heard the synthesized voice. It was a pretty good approximation of a human speaking Global English in a close to "neutral" accent. It emanated from a medallion draped over one of the several knobs in its owner's long, flexible "neck." I put "neck" in quotes because the thing on the end of it could only be called a "head" under very particular definitions of the term. It had eyes and a nose, ear-openings, but no mouth. And no brain, because that was buried deep inside the vaguely globular torso, surrounded by a sort of pseudo-chitin.

Stolen novel; please report.

I let my entirely artificial left eye do a quick scan, and was informed through my primary I/O implant that this was ShAAAAnilHuh, and that he was male for this particular mating season.

"Ambassador Sh-AAAAA-nil-HUH," I replied. His "head" circled in a tight little way I knew meant amusement, but the friendly kind. Tiny relief for one of a thousand splinters of anxiety I'd have to deal with during this conversation. All part of the job. I must not have botched it too badly. Probably held the high piping 'AAA' a little too long, and left too much separation between the phonemes, and overdid the final breathy "Huh" sound.

"It is perplexing to me, though not in any deprecating fashion, that you insist on attempting to voice our language yourself, with such different vocal apparatus not to mention entirely different linguistic pathways in your central nervous system." I had to wait patiently for this Global English translation to come through his translation device after he'd finished saying it in his own language. Had to keep up the pretense, couldn't show that I'd understood right away. He'd bought my little halfway-fumble of his name, after all. So far, so good.

"It's true that my linguistic pathways are very different from those of your own august species," I said, and waited patiently for the translation to come through whatever implant he had jammed deep into that ball-of-brain at his center. The AAAohhAAA didn't use brain-machine interfaces quite so extensively as other species due to their anatomy, but in the case of a diplomat it was a necessity.

He danced the little dance-of-agreement on his four long spindly legs, and crossed his two long and two short arms over each other in a serene pose. "This is true, alas, the gulf between species is forever a wide one. We evolve in isolation and must make great efforts to bridge the gap."

A popular little maxim, that, and as ever it made me want to roll my eyes so hard I'd be able to see my own neural pathways. Popular among xenos diplomatic corps, anyway. Not among humans ones, not me and my colleagues. We had too much practice to talk like that. Thousands and thousands of years. As he was about to learn the hard way.

"Speaking of gaps," I said, "it seems you have one of your own, in this very building. Between the Steadfast and the Smiling Wall. I am disheartened to let you know that we are prepared to respond to either of their plans to fuck us over." I smiled at his obvious discomfort when that last clause hit translation, watching him bounce lightly up and down on those spindly legs in the three-quarters-Earth gravity of this beautiful world.

"Madame Attaché," he said, after a long, long pause, "I am not sure you should give credence to these rumors, perhaps this is a matter best handled by—"

"They're not rumors," I said sharply, and this time, I did it in his own native language. I knew my pronunciation was as near perfect as human anatomy could get it. "I've heard them myself. Walking these halls, all dreamy and lost, I've heard plenty. And of course we have other sources, as do you, that's always understood within our profession, isn't it? So understand this as well: there will be grave consequences if the Steadfast attempt to cut off trade to the colony world of New Rising. You'll be hearing from at least three other species within one thirty-second of your standard day, just mentioning their own trade arrangements with you, and how they are not necessarily permanent."

He reared back, looking right, looking left, seeking escape, but of course there wasn't any. He wasn't in the kind of danger one could flee from.

"As for the Smiling Wall," I said, "understand simply that their 'wall' is not at all opaque, and we'll leave it at that, yes? So we don't have call on every ally we have in that particular sector, before they attempt that little 'sneak attack?'"

"I...I...don't know what you're talking about, or what sector you're referring to," he said. He'd gotten his composure back. Mostly. It didn't matter at this point.

"You do," I said cheerfully, enjoying the high sung piping noise of the conjugated verb as it passed through my throat. Really a very pretty language in its own way. "Now listen carefully, so we don't have any 'misunderstandings' like this in the future. We humans did not evolve in one place at one time and then spread out slowly from there. We have no monoculture, and in our past that was even more true. We had to learn to understand each other, before we could reach the stars. Language, culture, all of it. We hear more than you think. We see more than you think. We understand more than you think, even when it's thought very differently from any way we're used to. Because we have practice."

He just stared at me, so I went on.

"Those gaps you mentioned, we've built a thousand sturdy bridges among ourselves. Not perfect, but enough for people and words and ideas to flow across them in vast waves. We've built them here, too, among your people, and on a dozen other worlds. It didn't take us long." I thought back to my own ancestors, and allowed myself a grim smile. "Because First Contact? For us, it wasn't really. We've been practicing, Ambassador ShAAAAnilHuh. For thousands of years before we ever met you or any other offworld species."

I lapsed into silence a moment to let that sink in. He turned his head, as though listening to something I could not hear. Ah, good. Right on schedule.

"I know who's calling you," I said mildly. "Confirming my little mention of the possible impermanence of trade, yes? Good. Please do pass the word on, Ambassador."

He leaned forward. "You," he said in a low voice. I noticed with a small internal smile that he didn't bother with the translator this time. "Give me one good reason we shouldn't just have you ejected from the embassy here?"

I did a pretty good impression of an AAAohhAAA laugh. "I can give you twenty. Honestly, Ambassador, it pains me to see you embarrass yourself with such a question. Now, I'm afraid I have to report to my superiors. I'm guessing you do as well. Please pass along my regards."

He whirled, and stalked off down the corridor. Not so much as a farewell. Excellent. The bluff had worked. We did know what the Steadfast wanted, that was easy, but the Smiling Wall? Still being investigated. But I'd puzzled out the cultural implications behind some of what they said in passing, we knew the faction was hiding some kind of threat. And since we weren't supposed to know about its existence at all, that was enough.

Go back to your masters, Ambassador, I thought, and tell them to beware the people of diverse ways.