"You got them?"

"I think so. Let me check the data integrity", an anonymous approximation of a face on the screen replied.

Ambassador Neil unplugged the cable that had just connected the chest piece of her all-purpose pressure suit to the console she sat in front of. While leaning back she took her hands up and naturally dug her fingers into the hair on the back of her head. There she played with the textured curly strands for a moment to relax.

"All good, I think. What are your instructions?"

"Get as many from the reserve, as you can put your hands on, onto the main team. I want everyone and their mother to analyze the shit out of the audio and every word it said."

"And the translator?"

Her eyes fell on the disc-shaped device that somewhat looked out of place with its smooth, nearly organic exterior that was a soft matte beige being surrounded by shiny metals and polished plastics every gradient between white and black. The communications room was filled with the finest tech, screens wherever she looked, computer racks to enhance the ships mainframe and several layers of redundant backups for any part of the comm system were squeezed in there. A narrow free path to the door and the floor-mounted swivel chair was actually all the space there was for a human.

"I've got it right here, but there is nothing I can tell you about it. No visible energy source, no measurable outgoing transmissions - damn, not even any indication of how it works. I have pushed it through the wave-box though, so get some eyes on that data."

"Ok then. How much time do we have?"

"Two hours max. I may lie down in the meantime, but I doubt I can relax. Don't feel like eating much either. Just do your thing and get back to me as quickly as you can, ok?"

"I suggest resting nonetheless. See you in a bit."

"Bye", she replied before ending the transmission by touching a certain area of the screen.

Neil had only one point of contact, but she saw in her mind's eye how behind them were hundreds that would soon work tirelessly on sifting through whatever data could be extracted from the recordings and scans she provided. Wasn't that act, the offloading of work and distribution of experience and knowledge, an actual part of the definition of a hive-mind? Shaking that thought she tried to mentally sort through the last hour.

That first meeting had ended with the alien requesting a break to rest. Her preparation came into play then, Neil was proud of that, because she had brought an actual mechanical clock with her and had fetched it from the ship to explain time. Imagine, explaining time; breaking down the rhythm of planetary movement, revolutions, rotation, day-night cycle. A concept that usually had to be taught to a small child and here an alien being with possibly immeasurable intelligence had needed it explained. And then it had dictated the break to be 147 minutes.

She got up to do more thinking, but that had to be accompanied by some good pacing and there wasn't enough space in the communications room. So she migrated to the former central common room and lounge area that was slightly less chock full of additional equipment. There was also a significantly higher probability of snack occurrence.

"Ambassador Neil, incoming transmission."

Quickly she went over to the large wall-mounted screen and tapped the glowing button on it. The two hours were nearly over and she had become restless.

"I'm listening."

It was of course her contact again: "Hello Ambassador Neil. I have a set of instructions to put together and utilize a device that will help you understand the output from the alien translator. Since there is not much time left, I suggest starting immediately."

"Suggestion accepted. Go ahead."

"Slot a blank multipurpose board into the printer and load up the plans I have transferred just now."

Following those directions, she went to the matter printer and took a small, densely populated circuit board. She carefully pushed it into a holding clip that doubled as a data transfer port. On a small screen besides the printer she then typed a sequence of buttons to load up and execute the blueprint she had gotten. Immediately the device went to work and began layering liquidized ceramics, polymers and whatever metallic components the blueprint demanded onto and around the board.

"So what is this thing I'm fabricating?", Neil asked without taking her eyes off it.

"We found the alien translator device to output speech in multiple layers simultaneously, with up to forty lines spoken at the same time."

"Wait, so I understood only a fraction of what it said? That's insane! It did not sound scrambled together though, I was able to clearly hear short phrases."

"The loudest layer is the only one clearly decipherable by human ears. It is a very basic synopsis of each message."

"What did it fully say then?"

"I suggest using the interpreter device going forward, but there is not enough time to go through the audio transcript. The difference in message length to the synopsis is significant in most cases."

Of course she glanced at the embedded clock on the printers display. She would only have three more minutes. At least the printer head was already doing its last few twitches, depositing a finishing layer onto the two cable-bound pieces of equipment. Seconds later it let off the audio signal for being done, so Neil grabbed what she recognized as an earpiece and a small flat rectangular thingamabob - both now shiny black after the brief hardening period.

"Mount the main unit to your suit in a place where it will best pick up the translator audio output. The earpiece was designed to fit your right ear. Be aware that there might be a noticeable time delay before you will hear the full message, depending on the information density. The interpreter was devised with the same no-emission standards as the rest of your equipment."

"Ok then. 'Till the next break."

"Goodbye and good luck."

A minute later Ambassador Neil arrived back in the meeting room, the translator in hand and the translator interpreter stuck to her chest plate. The flat wall on the far end was opaque as it had been when she had come in the first time. She noticed that the room had changed, the walls were narrower, the ceiling was lower - or rather, the floor higher - and the stool had been replaced with a proper chair that actually had a backrest. On it lay the clock she had originally put down onto the stool, but it still looked seemingly undisturbed. She left it in its place to remain standing as her anticipation ran high.

The moment of truth came little later when the barrier between the alien being and her turned translucent. At least she was mentally prepared for the reveal of the massive sapient creature that again had its intense large eyes on her. It was in the prone position and resting on its large pair of arms, which made it at least look somewhat relaxed. She did notice the alien translator device feeling subtly different in her hand now.

"Greetings. Again.", the unfittingly thin voice of the translator chirped. And Neil held her breath until she could hear the synthetic voice through the earpiece: "Welcome back, representative of humans. I am joyful to see your return and hope you have rested and recharged. I am sorry again about the need to instigate the break, but I am now ready to engage in more discourse."

She was unable to fully suppress her smile.

---

There was an inexplicably large amount of excitement swinging with the greeting of the human. There also was something new about them, Nyarn'Enth-Hep noticed. A dark object clung to their apparel, hanging on a thin wire that came from one of the audio sensory inlets on their head. Nyar looked closely, but could not distinguish its purpose. So she thought of appropriate questions: "I do not want to overstep any bounds again in my curiosity, but I did notice that you have brought a new object with you. It has a strange and disharmonic shape but it is very finely made and wonderful to view up close. Is this something you want to show me that is as interesting as the timekeeping machine? I still think that to be fascinating and would be happy to learn more about the machines human use."

After sending her thoughts to the translator, it took far longer than usual for the human to answer. They had waited unmoving for a long moment before replying. And there again was a strong sensation of excitement with a mix of jubilance. The human explained the machine, it was a device that complemented Nyars translator since it did not speak in a way a human could understand properly. They had built it during the rest period and now they were able to hear all of what she spoke.

How wonderful and also shameful. Nyars translator had obviously not been made correctly or maybe she had wrongly interpreted their audio communication abilities and now they have had to fix it. She had nearly messed up this first contact meeting with the humans. Reflexively Nyar clicked in frustration before tensing up. Clicking was impolite and decidedly undiplomatic, and she dearly hoped the human would be unable to sense it. Quickly she moved her thoughts to questions about the new machine to distract from her lapse.

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---

A sharp sub-bass snap that seemed to penetrate into her bones made Neil flinch in surprise. It had been barely audible and she could not tell where it came from. There was no reaction from the being and a moment later it felt like it could have been a hallucination altogether. Only after now straining her ears did she notice what was unconsciously bugging her since she had stepped onto this ship - there was absolutely no noise besides her own and when the translator did its thing.

And even though she thought about it at the very moment, it still made her flinch another time from breaking her out of her thoughts when it spoke: "How did you build it? So fast?"

"It is wonderful that you could make up for the inadequacy of my translator and that you are now able to better understand me. I am very interested in learning how you were able to swiftly design and build this machine in the short timespan I had suggested for the break."

Choosing to ignore that incident and thoughts from before, she began the explanation she had already mentally prepared: "In my ship I have a machine that is able to weave metals and plastics to create different building blocks that can be combined to form nearly any kind of small machine or device I may require for this meeting. I have sent the audio recording for analysis to my friends, like I said before, and they have designed this interpreter device so I would be able to understand you better. The machine then build it for me within two minutes. But I can see that you can build very fast as well, you have changed this room while I was gone."

"Shape is easy. Tell more. Of weaving machine."

In her ear the interpreter expanded: "This room is merely a surface I have made to encapsulate the specialized environment necessary for your well-being. Changing the internal size or general and detailed shape is an effort not worth mentioning. I am fascinated by the matter weaving machine you have spoken of that is able to build this interpreter machine so fast, and may create other machines as well. How did you build it so it can contain the intellectual ability necessary to understand what it is building, and how do you teach it new things?"

Neil exhaled through pressed lips. These were complex questions and it didn't even tell her how it could re-shape a room possibly without the technological benefit of any machines - apparently even effortlessly. That was decidedly more interesting and she had to stop herself from bombarding the alien with questions. Though she definitely was at least communicating properly now and pulling this diplomacy thing hard. The urge to move pressured her to fidget with her hands, but at least she was not walking side to side again.

She had to keep this simple now. That would not be too difficult, as she did not know the technical specifics about how the matter printer worked anyway.

---

What was this human talking about? Using so many of those words where Nyar hat not found any sense, and mixing them with each other into one long mess. Processor, motor-driven, computer designed blueprint, data storage, touchscreen, molecular fusing, standardized circuit board, polymers, ceramics, and they still went on and on. She had to stop them.

"I am truly sorry, but there are too many words I am unable to comprehend. We may re-visit this topic later on and for now I would just like to know how humans have built the weaving machine."

Embarassement? Did she feel her own or was that coming with the human's reply? They gave a simple, but still incomprehensible answer - the weaving machine was build by other machines. So behind the interpreter machine was a more complex and intelligent weaving machine, and behind that was an even more complex and intelligent building machine. She could not even imagine how the human had made the first machine and now she learned of that. It was hard to hold herself back, so she formulated a very short question to not let anything else slip out.

"How did you build that?"

There was no emotion she could interpret over her own overbearing confusion - these building machines were made by even more machines. How? Was this an unending chain? What level of complexity could these machines reach? Nyars body ran hot just trying to wrap her mind around this insanity.

"Did you build anything?", to clarify, she quickly added the words the human had used, "With your own hands."

---

The alien shifted and twitched almost more than Neil at the moment. The movement of the massive being that was only in eye-height because the floor behind the transparent wall was at least ten meters lower, made her exceedingly uneasy on top of everything else.

"Well - no, I did not-"

"Interpreter? Apparel? Weaving machine? Ship? Built nothing?"

There was no need to wait for the interpreter to engage, she quickly explained: "All of these things are build by machines. They are much more precise and much better at making things than we are with our own hands and tools. But they are all based on our designs and ideas. And way back in the past, we did build the first machines ourselves."

A long silence followed where the being lifted its gaze to seemingly stare down the corridor that ended in the docking tunnel behind which was her spaceship. Only after a few breathless seconds, it turned back to her.

"Impossible", the translator chirped with a good amount of background noise. So she waited for the delay to pass to hear the full message: "You state that you are unable to build the interpreter machine, or the weaving machine, or the builder machine. But complexity can only come from more complexity the same way an intelligence cannot create a greater intelligence. You claim to have built impossibly complex machines with your hands that then built the machines you claim to be unable to build due to their complexity. This is a sequence that cannot be. Truly, I am impressed and fascinated by the machines and objects you have displayed and could not re-create them if I tried the hardest. I can only deduct that humans must have come later than the machines then, and you must originate from machines like every other object you have displayed."

Neils mind was tumbling through these words and she could not find a calm spot in the whirlwind of thoughts that was going on in her mind right now. Did she not stand in a spaceship capable of interstellar travel holding a device that translated whatever inaudible way of alien communication into her language? Were these not machines? Very complex ones even?

"Ok, firstly - we humans definitely don't come from machines. Secondly - you have made this", she held up and shook the translator, ignoring that the act might impact its ability to make her understandable, "And this is a mightily complex machine. It's a device that changes my language into yours and yours into mine. How did you make this with your less complex hands?"

It began talking while she was still waving it: "The translator. Is simple."

"I have shaped and built the translator to internally vibrate from my thoughts and transform these vibrations through the connected material into movement of the outer skin which creates the type of atmospheric pressure waves that humans are able to distinguish with their audio sensory organs. It is an unmoving, simple, non-intelligent object."

"What? This is crazy! What about your ship then?"

"The ship. Is simple", was the same nonsensical reply. It was shortly followed by the expanded version from the interpreter: "My ship encapsulates an atmosphere and kinetic environment suitable for my well-being. I have shaped and built it to have many different translators to transform my thoughts into other forms of energy and movement. It is as well unmoving, simple and non-intelligent."

Neils eyes bulged from that reveal. She managed to supress any further undiplomatic gestures of surprise and disbelief, while still basically vibrating internally. Watching her language she asked with only a slight tint of exasperation: "Your technology is based on forms and shapes? If I dented the translator, will it then stop working or what?"

"Yes", the translator chirped.

"And the same goes for your ship?"

"Yes."

Neil gestured wildly around herself, the momentary levels of disbelief would probably suffice on their own to make a considerable change in shape to this spaceship by going through the roof. "But how is your ship powered? How does it move through space without engines? How do you make all this work?"

The silence that followed made her think she had overdone it. The large creature just stared unmoving and there was no way to tell if it was in the process of saying something or refusing to talk. At least until she heard the translator speak the least intelligible words yet in a cascade of babble and distortion through which she could only guess to have understood: "Shape."

After that she waited for the interpreter to jump in and tell her what in the nine circles of hell that was supposed to explain. But nothing came. From the frustration she had automatically begun pacing, but she forced herself to stop. Still, she dug her fingers into her hair and softly clawed her scalp. Maybe this was not a good topic, maybe that would be something for the engineers to pine over instead of her. She was here to establish relations, to exchange basic information wrapped in pleasantries and lay the groundwork for future cooperation.

---

They had at least something in common as Nyar felt the barely contained frustration in the reply from the human that very much mirrored her own. They said their interpreter machine had been unable to understand what Nyar had just explained about the mathematical principles that dictated the form of her ship and with that allowed her to travel through space. But they emphasized that her spaceship was indeed very complex and that humans would be unable to re-create it. They apologized for their language - for some reason - and stated the desire to rather talk about simpler things. So they asked what materials she used to build her ship.

That truly would be something simpler to talk about, so Nyar obliged. It also helped to remove herself from thinking more about the circle of impossibility that were human machines. She put together the human words to explain, but quickly noticed that they were missing a lot of words to properly describe the knitting process and the building blocks. Maybe showing it to explain the process, like they had shown her the timekeeping machine, was the right way to go.

Nyar thought of a shape that would be appealing to humans. But all she had seen so far were mixtures of blocky and round, and nothing distinctly stood out. She decided on a simple cube with the same volume of the human and the same bright white colour of their coverings.

She moved the sufficient amount of building blocks along her four arms and then began fusing them together piece by piece with her fingers, moving them rapidly so the point of contact would not harden prematurely. It did not take her long to finish the cube and its precision was to her satisfaction.

A wave of wonderment and surprise hit her a good moment before the human had expressed a single word. They seemed to be an inexplicable level of impressed by the cube she just had created.

"This is a mere shell, a hollow shape without any purpose and I have only built it to demonstrate the building process as I am unable to properly express it in your language."

The emotions did not cease in the slightest. The human said to be amazed nonetheless and could now imagine how her ship had been built. They also stated again how humans were unable to do such a feat, even going further with explaining that if they would raise ten-thousands of them and had the knowledge of how it worked, they would still be unable to build a spaceship by hand.

Ten-thousands. Multiples of ten-thousand. She knew that there were many humans, but they could not be that many. This new piece of information ripped her away from the talk about the building process. The humans had not been considered a threat, because they were loudly screeching around space two sectors over with only - what Nyar had previously assumed - a few hundred ships. Could there be so many more of them than of her species?

Her thoughts slipped: "How many are you?"

The human answered instantly: "Around twenty-two point five billion. Why?"

Click.