Within half an hour, they were getting bombarded with messages. It seemed as if nearly every transmitter on that moon was sending a different signal. Nick didn't know which messages were most important, and neither did Geh!aoa, apparently.

"Here. I will help," Sana declared, taking one of the bridge stations for herself. Within moments, she had half a dozen images displayed in front of her, and she rapidly started sorting, replacing images. She looks like she's trying to find a date in a hurry, Nick thought with some amusement as Sana swiped images right and left, among other gestures. He had Petra grab copies of the videos Sana seemed to think interesting and played them one by one. He noticed Geh!aoa doing the same.

"Hello ship. I am—" Nick guessed that the barks and yips that followed was a name. "I look at stars. Where are you from? Where is Ooaffar? How your ship move? How fast you go? Are you all from Ooaffar? I want to learn, please. Please give message back."

"Hello, ship. This is—" (barking), "from," (more barking), "What food can you eat? What food do you want? How many do you want? We want to know how you make things. We want to know things you know. We want to know, more than we want (something) or (something)."

"Ship, this is (barking name). I have ship with food. My ship go to (name)." Petra translated that last as "outer moon of Planet Five." I think we have a winner, Nick decided, making sure that Geh!aoa saw the message as well. "I want (something.) I want a small ship you have." Or maybe not, that's a steep price, but hopefully it's just the opening bid. Sounds like a businessman. Okay, he sounds like a kennel actually, but his translated words sound like a he's a businessman.

Another message didn't bother with words. Instead, it showed a sequence of pictures. Someone had rapidly sketched what looked like a bunch of chemical formulas. Nick would never have recognized them as such if Petra hadn't been quizzing him on food chemistry for the past year. That's DNA, that's sugar...I think. That's...I don't know what that is. Or that. A pointer appeared, teaching the native words for the chemicals.

"Captain?" Sana called.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Many messages say come to moon. Many messages say leave. Most messages want us to say more."

Over the next hour or so, lots of transmissions came in that were deliberately teaching them more words. Apparently, the planet was called Arrurra (approximately) and the intelligent species were called Yirahyah. They divided up the work and dozens of people on the ship started conversations where they taught the Yirahyans some math, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and galactic politics. They deliberately did not explain how the ship's technology worked nor what weapons they had.

They demonstrated on video that humans, Goldaskians and fuakalas could all eat potato chips. Nick and Sana shared a snack bar and Geh!aoa declined for the audience's benefit. Petra translated the system of units without difficulty, and they explained that they wanted as many tons of food as possible as soon as possible.

Petra had gained enough of the Niranar language—it seemed to be the only one in common use—that Geh!aoa had a much easier time with her next general address.

"Hello to the people of Arrurra.

"Thank you for your help learn to speak Niranar. Talk is better than fight. Your people send missiles. We understand. We will not attack unless you harm us. We do not want to go near your colony. We want to meet another ship in space to give us food. We do not want to get sick. We do not want to get you sick.

"I want us to be friends. I want to talk with you a lot. I want us to learn of each other. But first, we need food.

"My people come from Ooafa, the third world from the star you call Iyi. Three years, Iyi begin to get more bright. The light of Iyi begin to hurt us, hurt our food. Many die. Most die.

Geh!aoa paused, and clicked once, then took a deep breath and continued. "We have almost one billion people. Now, we have thousands. Our people are dying. Our people are starving. We need help.

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"You ask why we do not come...yesterday yesterday," Geh!aoa managed, apparently failing to find the words for 'earlier' or 'before'. "We do not have space ships. Then this ship come to Ooafa, twenty-seven yesterday."

Sana gestured, and Geh!aoa nodded for her to speak. The red-skinned alien stepped forward.

"My name is Sana Vickall. I am a doctor. I am Goldaskian. This was a Goldaskian ship. My people are..." She paused a moment. "My people fight. My people like war. My people attack Ooafa. We kill some fuak!a. The fuak!a, and Nick of Earth, fight, and they take our ship." She turned and looked at both Geh!aoa and Nick, and bared her teeth in a grin. "They do not want to fight, but they fight good. They do not kill us all. Some Goldaskians work for them now. They are good people. I like them."

If Geh!aoa's ear motions were any indicator, she was not very happy with Sana's input. Nick could understand that. Yeah, we probably shouldn't have told them we had to kill each other. It will make them nervous. Now they'll be scared of us, of Goldaskian warships, and so on.

Then again, they were going to be really suspicious anyway if we didn't explain. We were leaving too much out, too many questions. We're still leaving big questions, like why the Goldaskians went to Ooafa in the first place. I'd really rather not tell them about Petra.

Geh!aoa sighed and resumed speaking. "We fight if someone fight us. We are friends if someone is friends to us." A moment later she caught herself, and waved her hands. "Ah. Your missiles are not...big. We are not angry. We are not hurt. We understand. We say hello bad. We try again."

"We look for fuak!a who live, first. Then, we go to twenty-four stars near Iyi. Only your star has people. Many more have people in galaxy, but we do not know what stars near have people. We will go and look. But first, we need food, please.

"And..." Geh!aoa paused. "If we are friends, if we are good friends, then some of my people want to stay here, with you, and live with you. We have to learn big first. We need you not sick, we need us not sick, we need a home.

"We will go to other worlds. We will find more people. We will ask them give food, and ask them some of us stay. Arrurra is first world we find with people. We will find more.

"If you do not like us, if you do not want us here, we will leave. But we go fast. My people die. My people need food. If you do not give us food, we need go find food now.

"We want to be friends. I am sorry we go fast. I want to think more before we come, before we speak, but time is small. Thank you."

Sana made a noise for attention, and Geh!aoa turned to look at her. The doctor said a word quietly that didn't translate, and she touched one of her horns a moment in frustration. She tried again. "One person stay, talk for Ooafa. They are good to person, they not hurt person. They send one person with us, same."

"An ambassador," Nick said. Geh!aoa announced the Kthufu equivalent. She nodded, and faced forward again.

"We can have one person stay, ambassador, if you give clean air, water, food, no sick. Ah..." she paused. "I do not know if we can give clean air, water, food and no sick for one of your people, yet. We need time. This is very new.

"We will talk more soon. Thank you." Geh!aoa signaled for Petra to stop transmitting. Once Petra acknowledged, the fuakala slumped in the captain's chair and gave a little trill that Nick thought was equivalent to a human groan.

"Sana, I very want you did not say we fight."

The doctor gave a Goldaskian half-shrug. "In galaxy, most say, when you meet, say a lot. Do not say wrong things. Many times, people in galaxy meet first time. War comes when you do not talk a lot, and you say wrong things. This is what people do."

"We also do not have a lot of time."

At that, the doctor gave a human-looking wince. "That is. I am sorry, Captain. I ask, next time."

Geh!aoa sighed. "It is good. We do not have a lot of time, so we all do wrong things, say wrong things."

Nick frowned, thinking over their interactions. "Do they really not have leaders on their world?" Sana and Geh!aoa looked at him. Nick opened his mouth, then thought a few moments. "On my world, who are the leaders are clear. They talk, they argue, but for one area, one person says, 'send missiles' or 'we will trade' or make decisions—" Petra beeped "—choose what to do."

"It is the same on Ooafa. Was the same," Geh!aoa amended.

Sana half-shrugged. "Some worlds do this. Some do not."

How would that even work? Nick wondered, but it wasn't the first time or even the hundredth time he had thought that since the Goldaskians arrived at Ooafa. The galaxy was big and strange and alien, and a lot of it made no sense to him.

The flood of incoming messages continued, but a few were flagged for attention. Geh!aoa opened one in particular. Nick recognized the Arrurran from an earlier message.

"Hello, Captain Geh!aoa. I want to trade. I give you place where my ship is. I have eighty-two tons of food. I will give you forty-one tons. I want to know to make new things. I also want...things you do not want. You come now. I am still far from moon, no one stop our trade." There followed a few diagrams, and distances of the Arrurran ship from three planets.

Geh!aoa looked at Sana, then at Nick, then at the helm. She straightened up and her ears flared deliberately. "Pilot, move us to that ship."

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