Nora stepped off the helicopter onto the windswept research base along the remote coast. Amir had called yesterday evening, his voice tense.

"We need to talk in person," he urged. "I've made progress decoding the message but... it's complex. Meet me at the marine lab on the island."

Now Nora walked briskly past heavy steel doors into the facility. She found Amir in a small secured room, illuminated only by a lamp and the glow of a computer screen. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Nora said, only half-joking.

"Maybe I have," Amir muttered. He motioned to the screen. "See for yourself."

Nora scanned through Amir's translations, assembled from weeks of meticulous cryptographic work. Most was still vague, although terms like "observe" and "encode" recurred. One phrase stood out: "Your species shows promise but remains primitive. Further guidance will elevate your minds through the Great Filter."

Nora shivered. "The Great Filter? What does that mean?"

Amir shook his head. "I can only speculate - some evolutionary bottleneck constraining human cognition. But they seem to think they can 'uplift' our mental capacity."

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Nora gripped her chair tightly. "Are they saying humans are... somehow deficient without their tampering? And the experiments on whales were practice attempts?"

"That's myinterpretation, yes." Amir removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "If true, it means they've been nudging humanity's development for millennia without consent. Unethical is an understatement."

Nora's mind raced, struggling to grasp the implications of seemingly benevolent extraterrestrials judging humanity as intellectually stunted organisms in need of augmentation. Did no ethical rules govern such interventions?

She thought of Alicia's concerns about free will and self-determination. Perhaps these aliens acted from benevolence rather than malice, unaware of the violation. But revelation of this interference could still deeply damage human notions of identity and agency if handled poorly.

"We need to keep this under wraps for now," Nora told Amir. "Until we fully understand their motives. Some knowledge too disruptive could do more harm than good."

Amir nodded reluctantly. "You're probably right. But if word gets out eventually, people will feel betrayed we hid this. We're damned either way." He paused. "I wish only that they'd asked first."

Nora put a hand on his shoulder. They sat in contemplative silence as the screen's ethereal glow washed over their troubled faces. Consent mattered - even between species. First contact was a minefield, but the song had to be answered. They could not stumble blindly. More care was needed, more context. Only then might true communication begin.