(Y7, March 17th)

Berkleyyan had just returned from his Recess when Kolalºvas showed up at the expedition’s home base in the Deva’s outpost.

“The Representative to Aliens has arrived… and one other.”

“At last.”

“I am also very surprised.”

“That he’s finally there?”

“No, by his companion… You’ll see.”

Quandocor frowned. There were two Gaters coming up just outside, a level 1100 and a level 500, but that was all his Skills gave him. Then they came in, following Kolalºvas, and Quandocor realized why the Deva authorities had designated a Representative to Aliens so fast.

One – the level 500 he’d felt – was a Deva, presumably the aforementioned representative. But his thousander companion was much smaller, barely four and a half feet tall.

The skin was leathery, the skull slightly elongated. The eyes were slightly offset, and a ridge of raised skin completed the general lizard-like impression. Everyone on the team was utterly flabbergasted, but Quandocor, of course, recognized instantly that shape.

“You’re a Lemuria. The reds.”

The Lemuria’s eyes twitched in surprise, and Quandocor realized that Panglossia had, indeed, jumped up, leaving only one slot.

“I am quite certain I’m not red,” the new alien said in perfect Common Tongue. Indeed, his skin was grayish, without the slightest hair.

“Figure of speech. The species on Northworld were color-coded on the map we found,” Quandocor apologized.

“Kolalºvas spoke of this ‘map’,” the Representative to Aliens. “So you already knew about Mi^ktu’turr’s people.”

The Deva paused.

“I apologize. I’m Gamantºhal. When not on Second Home, I also work for an inter-polity minister at home, so I got promoted to Representative to Aliens when it became known almost two months ago that there were, indeed, other aliens in this world. We’d been making progress, then Kolalºvas’s message came and… well, my task became much wider.”

“And I am Mi^ktu’turr Fourth, Fourth Gater of the people of the Nest.”

“Berkleyyan, First Officer among the Earthen Brethren, representative of the Guilds from Earth.”

The three ambassadors hesitated, and Berkleyyan looked at the table, which was Deva-sized and already slightly too tall. Gamantºhal had a Deva laugh.

“We’re used to that. You got a low-chair, Kolalºvas?”

“I can find one, yes.”

Low-chair had a connotation of decadent leisure rather than a kid’s chair, Panglossia informed Quandocor. He was pretty surprised that Kolalºvas had something like that, as the Deva had struck him as quite stand-offish. That was more of a thing he’d imagine from Zontºhar or his friends, notably Hikalºru.

Obviously, the local outpost leader had something since he came back within two minutes with something that he guessed was a type of footrest with raised sides. It was probably a tiny bit too small for an adult Lemuria, but far better than the existing chairs. Mi^ktu’turr seemed to be used to that type and wasted no time crossing his legs in a very human gesture. Gamantºhal took one of the chairs and Berkleyyan another.

The protocol order had been decided back during the conference at the Earthen Keep, and Berkleyyan, as both the highest level and founder of one of the foremost guilds, was the official ambassador. He wasted no time and started explaining how they’d come to seek the Deva.

“Six months ago, an expedition stumbled upon a pyramid-shaped structure that seems to have been emplaced as a monitoring station. It was in the wilds, away from any settlements and known territories, and the people who found it explored and found a complete map of the Northworld.”

“So you know the entire world?”

“There is only a single continent,” Quandocor specified, “and it covers slightly more than half of the surface of the planet.”

“We’ve known it was small despite its gravity,” Gamant°hal replied. “We have a large lake in the middle of our territory, and measuring the horizon effect is easy.”

“I was one of the original discoverers. There was a security system, and we got hunted down by some kind of very high-rank constructs, but we had time to look at it and note down details. You have two separate sectors identified on it,” Quandocor said.

“True.”

“The pyramid had a map of all the settlements. That’s why I said red for you, Mi^ktu’turr. You had a lot of small places colored in red, south of the two blue sectors of the Deva.”

“That is a fact. Many of my people have found themselves quite alone, with a few others found mostly by chance. We have not found a lot of Gates yet. Maybe a thousand in total.”

“I guessed that you’ve been there for only maybe three, four years, given that you said you are fourth Gater – which I assume means you we’re the fourth among your people to come here,” Berkleyyan noted.

“Correct. We’ve been on Spawn” – their word for Northworld, Quandocor noted – “for three years. Many of us are in smaller groups, and we’ve been trying to find where we landed. I was searching for a small band based on geography clues when I stumbled upon a pair of Deva explorers.”

The Lemuria made a huge smile, which doubled as a nod of confirmation for their species.

“And I am actually the highest level known since I’ve had my large share of adventures. Or maybe I was before since I’ve spent way too much talking and not enough wandering lately.”

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“As more people arrive, I think these various little areas will merge, paths will be found, roads drawn, and people gather.”

“That’s something I’ve discussed with Gamant°hal. One of the Guilds at Nest has started to make kits and instructions to try to get everyone to map where they are relative to each other. Making high-precision chronometers for longitude without electricity is hard. Nobody makes those anymore.”

The remark about electricity prompted Quandocor to focus on language. As he’d remarked to his friends, language taught you a lot about where the people you’ve met stood. The Lemuria’s language – which went by an obscure name that somehow translated into “Erudias,” proclaiming his qualities rather than geography or history – was full of small holes, he thought. The Lemuria’s vocabulary had computer, but nothing like satellite or smartphone. The grammar structure suggested a language more suited to word composition than the sharply delimitated Common Tongue of the Devas, but while transistors existed, rockets only evoked the sense of weapons rather than space rockets. And things like cold nuclear fusion was a single word… which did not tell him whether or not it was speculative or the Lemuria actually had it.

He refocused his attention on the discussion as it had switched over to Gamant°hal.

“No, I’m not a real professional diplomat. I’ve been a general helper for many meetings, so I just know a bit about how it’s done. Now, I am pretty sure at least Surwest has decided they were going to run a ranking diplomat through a Sphere because they now think this is too important to be left to Imperial Mara. But most of them are about protocol, not wild trips in places where nothing they’re used to works, and the fauna is aggressive against invaders from another world. You?”

“I was a failed physics major – a long study track – before I discovered this existed. It was a friend in South America who induced me into the world of Gaters.”

“You have a lot of people,” Gamant°hal noted.

“Representatives of the main Guilds. The Cartographers, the Cotton Road, the…” he hesitated, translating as best, “Spirit Seekers for Us, and support.”

“But you’re not official diplomats.”

“None of us are. Most people back home still think we will never find aliens because whoever set up this world is way too good to be caught, so that’s on us to prove them wrong.”

“It’s a bit less skeptical among us, but that is still a common opinion,” Gamant°hal said.

“And thus, you are the only real diplomat,” Mi^ktu’turr said.

“For degrees of real,” the Deva said, self-deprecatingly.

“Still, you came in force,” the Lemuria said, returning his attention to Berkleyyan.

“Mostly because the trip is dangerous.”

“If you came from the west, I assume so.”

“I remember an expedition. Four relatively high-leveled people who wanted to push west and find out how it went,” Kolalºvas injected. “They never came back.”

Berkleyyan turned toward Quandocor.

“I assume that’s the one whose remains we found,” he speculated.

“What happened to them?”

“They stumbled upon the major threat in the plains between this sector and one of ours. We call them Umbra Dominus. A quasi-immaterial entity that has a nasty attack. It takes control of a Gater and attacks with it.”

“That is… nasty.”

“They’re not very high ranked, but that attack alone is devastating since they either kill you, or you’d have to kill your friend… and then it would simply switch to another.”

“How did you survive such a thing?” Kolalºvas asked.

“There is an… elemental, as you categorize it? … spell called Immutable Mind. It completely protects and purges the effect. Its only drawback is that you can’t use it on yourself, so you need two people with it,” Berkleyyan replied, pointing at himself and Varmatan.

“We were lucky that my friends both had it,” Quandocor said. “Actually, both expeditions were lucky to get as far as they did without encountering one. There are lots of them. It’s like…” he hesitated. “A barrier. The ‘normal’ critters of Northworld would be easy to handle, but these…”

Both ambassadors looked at each other before focusing again on the humans.

“You think it is… designed that way?”

“We can’t know for sure. Thea?”

The Cartographer shrugged.

“Although this guy has Associative Memory, which helps remember details from the map, it’s only a rough guess. But for instance, the southernmost red-tagged locations of Mi^ktu’turr’s people are slightly closer to the northwest explored location of our oldest sector, Alpha. But that area is known as the Shadow Mountains, and it starts at rank 70 and is lousy with rank 120-150 elites and greater elites.”

Both Devas and the Lemuria shuddered.

“Yes. You need a large expedition chockfull of mid-thousanders or a team of two-thousanders. It is way easier to swing around.”

The two ambassadors looked at each other.

“The area you found us was high-ranked, but not that high,” Gamant°hal said.

“I was solo, and while I found one high-rank enemy that roamed, there was nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Curious,” Berkleyyan noted.

“That said, the Deva and Lemuria areas are much closer to each other than we are to either,” Theavilast noted.

“And you said there are two more species?”

“The green-tagged one is to the south-southwest from our last sector,” Berkleyyan said.

“A bit further than the separation we have,” Theavilast confirmed. “It’s also way larger, and completely continuous, and the only area that appears to have access to the coastline of Nortworld’s continent. The white-tagged one is south, and there seem to be two individual blobs in the polar region, although the separation between the two is very small.”

Quandocor remembered relatively well the map, even without an actual copy to twig Associative Memory. He wondered about the green Fursona. If the extent of the areas was linked to the number of Gaters because whatever mechanic Northworld used was spreading them around, like when the three of them had started spawning near Fanduk, then the Fursona might have a lot more Gaters running around, and probably been on Northworld for longer. The white Geigene were more like the humans, albeit more compactly grouped – like the Deva.

“What do they look like?”

“Humanoids, roughly similar to all of us. Well, very roughly. The green species is more elongated than the Deva and almost completely covered in fur. They look like an upright hybrid of our felines and canines… although that doesn’t quite translate, I think.”

“Predator species,” Gamant°hal noted. “We have many types of this fur-covered kind.”

“And the white Geigene are wider, but they also seem to have six limbs. Two legs, four arms.”

“Now that is more exotic. More like we’d think aliens should be,” Mi^ktu’turr said.

“You imagined many of those?” Berkleyyan asked.

“We had a phase when our entertainment was full of tales of aliens coming from afar. Some made me laugh, like the one where they come to steal our water,” the Lemuria said, his mouth hanging down in his equivalent of a smile-slash-laugh.

“You can get plenty of water in space,” Gamant°hal noted. “More than on any world.”

“You have less water around than we do,” Mi^ktu’turr countered.

“True. About 60% of our world is ocean. You?” he asked Berkleyyan.

“A little more. Two-thirds of Earth is covered in water. You have that much more?”

“Less than 20% of our world is above sea levels,” the Lemuria explained.

“And if you want to work in space, that’s not where you’ll get your water. You said half of your halo ring is water ice,” the Deva noted.

“Halo ring?” Berkleyyan asked.

“Ah. That was one of the things that surprised us when we arrived on Spawn. It had a moon. Our world doesn’t, although astronomy has taught us that it’s not that exceptional to have one. Most of our planets do, sometimes multiples. Instead, we have a halo of small bodies making a ring around our world.”

All of the humans goggled at that.

“And I suspect that’s why you never tried to go to space,” Gamant°hal said. “Even putting something in orbit would be hellish since most of your world’s orbitals are blocked by that ring.”

“Bah. We still have things to teach you,” the Lemuria countered.

Berkleyyan shook his head.

“That’s not quite what I imagined to spend first contact,” he admitted. “Trading stories about our world.”

“That’s how we get to know each other. As Mi^ktu’turr said, fictional aliens were always frightening. Probably more in his people’s fiction than ours. The real diplomacy will come later. You know, in many ways, this setup is the perfect way to make first contact.”

“Really?”

“It’s a perfect neutral ground. You meet here without much in the way of technology…”

“Can’t show you what a fusion-powered laser does,” Mi^ktu’turr injected.

“And exchange tales. Then, maybe later, technology, literature, arts. That’s what makes this First Contact so easy compared to Home diplomacy. You know it’s all about ideas and light trade, as Second Home is the only place we can interact.”

Berkleyyan and Quandocor exchanged glances.

“About that…”