First Contact

The sleek, silver vessel orbited the blue-green planet at a discreet distance, its occupants barely able to believe their success.  At last, after vainly searching the stars for many hundreds of years, they had found another intelligent species in the galaxy.  An advanced species, at that.  The space-farers had finally achieved what their ancestors had dreamed of, when they first attained the technology to cross the vast tract of the universe at the speed of light.  Their ancestors had put them in space, but they were the ones who would be making first contact with an alien race!
	Many of the travel-weary crew were eager to land immediately, but their leader was adamant.  There were protocols for this situation, meticulously calculated by the best minds of the generation that launched this mission, to make sure that first contact would be completely friendly.  As the first representatives of their race - possibly of any outside race - to meet these aliens, it was vital that they make a good impression.  The captain was determined to follow the ancestral protocols to the letter.

Mrs Eliza Winters open her front door and peered at the figures before her in kind of vague good humour.
	"Oh... hello.  I mean, hello!  How kind of you to stop by!  Do come in, I'll tell the maid to put the kettle on."
	She blinked dazedly a couple of times, then seemed to wake up and bustled off into the house.  On her doorstep, the trrellirri captain and first mate exchanged dubious infra red signals.  Neither of them felt very comfortable about entering the lair of an unknown alien.  Nonetheless, protocol told them to observe first-hand the friendship rituals of the aliens, and this one certainly seemed amiable enough.  With a heat signal closely equivalent to a resigned shrug, the captain stalked into the house, closely followed by his second in command.
	"Oh, please take a seat," exclaimed Mrs Winters, returning from the kitchen to the living room to find her guests standing in the middle of the carpet with a slightly bewildered demeanour.  She led the way by seating herself sedately in her favourite chair.  Both the trrellirri uttered a series of sonar clicks until they identified a likely shape, then perched themselves awkwardly on the sofa, uneasiness and their triple-jointed legs positioning them on the edges of their seats.
	"It's simply lovely to meet you," gushed their hostess, her smile and eyes somewhat glazed.  "I didn't know there was anyone new moving into the area, but it's always so nice to have new neighbours, don't you think?  I do love meeting people.  All my bridge friends agree, it's simply the nicest thing!  In fact, I've just had the most splendid idea - do you play bridge at all?  No?  Well, never mind, it's the easiest game to learn, I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time!  Why, I was only saying to my husband - that's George, there, in that photo - I was only saying to him the other day...
	"Oh, is that the kettle I hear?  Maisy, love, do bring the tea in!"
	The door to the kitchen hummed quietly open, and there was a soft clink of fine china as the Maidbot 2040 stepped into the room.  Maisy was essentially human in shape and size, her figure vaguely feminine and her chrome exterior polished to a dull shine.  She walked to the coffee table with an almost natural gait, set down the tray she was carrying and then stood silently by Mrs Winters' chair, awaiting orders.
	"Yes, thank you Maisy, now why don't you pour the tea for us?"  Mrs Winters smiled condescendingly at the robot.  "There's a good girl!  Now hand these nice people their tea, please."
	Maisy picked up two of the cups and saucers, turned towards the trrellirri, and stopped.  A few gears ground somewhere within her.  Deep in her electronic brain, the word 'people' was having great difficulty in corresponding to the input from her visual sensors.  For their part, the trrellirri flicked their giant ears and clicked uncertainly at the shape in front of them.
	Mrs Winters frowned slightly.  "Maisy?  Goodness, girl, whatever is the matter with you?"  When the robot remained motionless, she uttered an exasperated sigh and then smiled at her guests in great embarrassment.  "I'm terribly sorry, I think she's due for her service soon."
	Standing up, she leaned over the table and pulled the back of the Maisy's head open to stare bemusedly at the workings within.  "Oh dear.  I'm afraid this is George's area, not mine.  I'm simply hopeless with technology!"  Closing the hatchway again, she applied a light slap to the side of the robot's head and exclaimed, "Maisy, Give Them The Tea!"
	With a further grinding of gears, the maid came back to life as her mistress' new, less puzzling order overrode the previous one.  The trrellirri accepted the teacups as well as they could in their large and spiky claws, and Mrs Winters ordered Maisy back to the kitchen with barely-concealed relief.
	"Ah, biscuit, anyone?  Now, where was I..?"

The trrellirri left Mrs Winters' house later that afternoon.  Had their hostess' voice been a great deal higher pitched, their ears would have been ringing from her incessant chatter.  As it was, they had been unable to hear a word, and had found the whole experience fairly boring, besides being highly uncomfortable.  But they consoled themselves with the knowledge that they were following protocol, ensuring the success of their mission.
	Upon returning home that evening, George Winters found his wife sitting in her favourite chair in the living room, staring absently into space, with tea set out for three on the coffee table in front of her.  She was never able to explain to him, or even to herself, what had happened that afternoon, whom she had had over for tea, or how two of the cups and saucers in their best china tea set had come to have huge scratches all over them.

Three days later, after the completion of further reconnaissance expeditions and the rather rushed correlation of their data on the aliens, the trrellirri landed their vessel in a conveniently empty paddock somewhere on the outskirts of London and waited.  The effect on the little planet of Earth was understandably electrifying.  Within twenty-four hours, the humble landing site was being attended by representatives of the UN and delegations from two dozen major countries, as well as several minor ones that refused to miss out on all the fun.
	When they judged that the crowd outside was as large and official as their protocols recommended it to be, the trrellirri captain opened the entrance hatch and led his crew out onto the grass in the most friendly and non-hostile manner possible.  They stood before the assembled aliens, the sunlight glinting off their opalescent shells.  After a pause, in which no one on either side seemed inclined to act first, the captain took two steps forward, bowed his head and spread his arms and mandibles wide in the gesture suggested by their data as being the least threatening.
	Howard Hoffmann, the president of the United States of America, had achieved his position through charisma and a very good supporting party, and thus had never found much need for intelligence or a sense of self-preservation.  Seeing his chance to make a good impression on the aliens - and, more importantly, on his voting public - he walked towards the trrellirri captain with a big smile plastered on his face.  He stopped a few metres away, cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and completely failed to find anything appropriate to say.  This was one contingency that his team of expert speechwriters had somehow never planned for, an oversight which, he mentally vowed as he felt his face going red, had just cost the lot of them their jobs.
	The captain's sonar told him that the shape in front of him had stopped moving, and did not appear inclined to start again.  With a flush of triumph, he realised that all their painstaking research had paid off - he knew exactly what to do in this situation.  His ancestors would be proud of his handling of this potentially fragile situation, he reflected complacently as he stalked forward and reached for the back of the president's head.

(c) Copyright Hespa.
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