Free Mission: Tomorrow - eARC by Bryan Thomas Schmidt Page B

was a floating nimbus around his head; his skin was so white, it was almost translucent. Luminescent blue light pulsed hypnotically underneath his skin, radiating out from a crystalline snowflake positioned in the center of his chest, to course through what appeared to be his version of a circulatory system.
    To say he was beautiful was an understatement. He was breathtaking . . . and so very, incredibly alien. “Can you understand what I am saying?”
    “Yes,” he replied, simply, without preamble; his voice as silky as his hair.
    How? She opened her mouth to ask, but then closed it again. Where was a First Contact manual when you needed one? She was at a loss as to how to proceed.
    “Is my appearance displeasing to you?” he asked, eventually, his every intonation measured and devoid of any helpful emotional cues.
    “Of c-course not,” she stammered. Just too bloody distracting, she thought.
    I.R.I.S. turned to Tyrille. “The life-form is likely noticing from your contorted facial expressions that you appear to be in some distress, Tyrille.”
    She grimaced, adding yet another expression to the mix. “I understand, Iris. I will take it from here.”
    She scrambled to find the right words, as she watched the alien float there calmly, his tentacles undulating back and forth. She didn’t want to botch First Contact, but the impact he had on her was almost hypnotic. She had to struggle to form words into coherent sentences. “You look very . . .er, different from what I am used to, but also confusingly familiar,” she finally responded. “Your form is very similar in appearance to that of a fabled creature on our world.”
    As if in response, his form shifted perceptively, becoming a little more alien, and a little less merman. “I apologize. That was not my intention. This was just the most accurate extrapolation I could create,” he replied, as if that answered everything.
    I.R.I.S. turned back to the alien, studying his features. “Based on the mathematically symmetrical beauty of your form, I would presume that you are using an algorithm to compute a guise that would be most pleasing to the human eye, but yet still retain some qualities of your true form and racial identity to set yourself apart.” It turned to Tyrille. “He wants to appear humanoid to help alleviate the impact of First Contact.”
    Something flashed in the alien’s eyes, his gaze becoming more intent as transferred his attention to the robot. “Very perceptive,” he acknowledged. Then: “You, too, are beautiful in form.”
    Tyrille’s eyebrows rose. Well, that answered the question of whether he had been listening to everything we have been saying. She tried to remember what she had learnt in biology, all those years ago. “Can I presume that your race comes from a predominantly liquid or heavy gas planet of some kind? One where your sun’s rays don’t penetrate to the depths that your race commonly dwells? Your tail, coloring, and ability to luminesce seem to imply your race lives in a denser, darker environment than what humans are accustomed to.”
    The luminescent glow pulsing through his body dimmed for a second, as if he was trying to suppress his reaction. “Yes,” he said simply.
    Tyrille wasn’t sure how she knew, but she felt certain the tone in his voice just ended that current line of inquiry. For now.
    Suddenly it felt important for her to know why his race was wanting to make First Contact. “Why did you reach out to us?”
    He looked at her for a long moment, as if considering his reply. “You were the one to reach out. We discovered your invite and responded.”
    Ah. She nodded. “The Golden Record.”
    He took a long measured glance around the command capsule, his hair falling about his shoulders in a manner that would make a romance novel’s cover model jealous. “We had not been prepared for your race to develop the means to reach interstellar space for at least another of your human generations.”
    She