“Ambassador Patel, we are approaching Treaty Station,” announced the ship’s AI pilot.
“Thank you,” she responded.
The ship was a small one. Her position qualified her for something larger, with room for support staff, but she preferred this simpler, automated model. If asked, she explained it as a cost-saving measure. No need for support staff on a largely ceremonial annual visit. After all, she would chuckle knowingly, it wasn’t like the aliens were going to show up.
But Divya had a secret. The aliens did show up. Every year. This would be her seventh encounter with them. And she’d never told anyone.
Of course, they hadn’t always. In fact, that was why Divya had been able to gain the position. There was no real competition for ambassador to a race of aliens that wanted nothing to do with humanity.
Two generations ago, as humans spread outward from their solar system, the question of extraterrestrial life had finally been answered, in the least satisfying way possible, when human ships encountered nonhuman craft with no interest in us.
They made no effort to communicate, and ignored all our attempts to do so. The only thing they did was hold position along an unseen boundary in space. Any attempt by human ships to approach was met by a non-hostile but assertive maneuver to block their way. Eventually, through trial and error, the border was mapped.
Not wanting to risk upsetting the only other sentient species we’d met, with who-knows-what capabilities, everyone had quickly agreed to respect their space. A station was constructed, and towed into position, directly along the boundary. It had no markings, only two docking ports, one facing human space, and the other facing them.
A human ship docked, and the first designated ambassador came aboard, sitting at a large table with a copy of a treaty that basically said, “We’ll stay out of your way, but we’d like to get to know you better.”
They had no idea how the aliens would react. Would they understand this was an invitation? Would they come aboard? Could they come aboard? We didn’t even know if they could tolerate our atmosphere.
Astonishingly, an alien ship did dock with the station. What happened next was broadcast live across all of human space, and is still, to this day, the most-watched recording of all time. The airlock opened, and a single alien entered.
The creature most closely resembled a Portuguese man o’ war. That is, if a man o’ war walked upright on long squid-like tentacles, and had a mantle the size of a horse, with colors rippling along the dorsal ridge like a cuttlefish.
It ducked through the airlock and approached the table. The ambassador stood, and recited a small speech that had been meticulously prepared by a crack team of scientists who were practically frothing at their mouths to define the new fields of xenobiology, xenosociology, and xenolinguistics.
The alien waited calmly as the ambassador spoke, tentacles rippling gently. When he finished speaking, it turned and left. That was the first and only time anyone saw the aliens.
Some eighty years later, Divya Patel was offered the no-longer desirable position of ambassador. She had an office in the UN, a small staff, an even smaller budget, and a single responsibility: Visit the treaty station every year, just in case.
The previous ambassador, who had served for five years, shook her hand, and recommended she pack some books.
Divya’s first visit to the station had been a surprise. She’d watched the first contact recording as much as anyone else, and thought she knew what to expect: A small room with a rather nice table of dark-stained wood, a UN flag hanging on the wall, and a single chair facing the alien’s door.
Instead, the table was pushed up against the wall under the flag to make room for a second-hand sofa on the opposite wall. There was also a cheap flat-pack bookshelf, overflowing with dog-eared paperback novels. Someone had even attempted to make the place more friendly with a few plastic plants on the table.
She’d spent her first few hours doing paperwork, but had eventually given into boredom and investigated the bookshelves. A surprising amount were romance novels, and by her third visit, she’d read most of them. On her fourth visit she brought a set of comfortable pajamas, a fuzzy bathrobe, and contributed several steamy new romances to the collection. On her fifth visit, she also brought a vibrator.
Which is how she found herself naked on her back, legs spread, a book in one hand, magic wand in the other, holding the rumbling head to her clit, when the airlock opened and an alien walked in.
Divya squealed, dropped everything, and jumped to her feet, pulling her robe on. She apologized frantically, knowing she was babbling, and that it probably couldn’t understand her anyway. The vibrator was buzzing loudly on the floor. She cursed, switched it off, and kicked it under the couch.
The alien stood, impassively, near the entrance, tentacles slowly moving as if flowing in a current.
Divya glanced around and felt a burning shame for her role in the state of the room. It looked less like an embassy and more like a dorm room. She crossed her arms, pulling her robe tighter. The air smelled like sex. Her heart was pounding with a mixture of panic and lingering arousal.
Slowly, it dawned on her that she was only the second human in history to be in the presence of an alien. Was it the same one? How long did they live? She stared, trying to compare it to her memory of the one from the recording. That one’s mantle was a darker shade of purple, she thought, while this one had more of a zebra-stripe pattern fading from a dark cerulean to a bright lavender.
Her eyes constantly drifted back to the tentacles. They rippled and flowed in constant hypnotic motion, fading from a rich brown to a rosy pink. Near the mantle, they were as thick as her thigh, but they tapered down to a bulbous, ridged tip. She shook her head, unsure if they’d always looked so phallic, or if her mind was simply primed to see them that way due to her frustrated masturbation session.
“Um,” she cleared her throat, with as much dignity as she could muster, reminding herself she had a job to do. “Welcome aboard. I am Ambassador Patel, and, um, I…” Her mind was a blank. There was something she was supposed to say. Some speech written decades before. The binder! She turned to the bookshelf, pulled down a faded three-ring binder, and flipped through the pages.
“Where is it, where is it,” she muttered. “Ah, here! On behalf of the human race, I, um…” She trailed off as the alien drifted toward her. One tentacle reached up, and gently pushed the binder away. Following its lead, she stopped reading and placed it on the table.
She gazed up at the colors rippling along its dorsal ridge. Was that how they communicated? Its tentacles waved gently as it came closer. She backed away, then stopped, unsure if that would be considered an insult. It raised one arm, and tentatively brushed against her cheek, as tender as a new lover.
She’d expected it to feel cold and clammy, but it was smooth and hot to the touch. She shivered as the tip trailed down her neck. A second arm joined the first, and they slipped into her robe, following her collarbone in opposite directions.
While the tentacles were quite flexible, the ends were a bit stiffer, with taut skin, and a clearly defined ridge. It really was astonishingly like a human erection. An odd coincidence of evolution that would have been fascinating in any other context, but was currently causing her to have a rather inappropriate physical reaction as the firm tips moved along her shoulders.
Divya struggled to remain professional. She was an ambassador of the human race, and this was the most interest the aliens had ever expressed. They had no eyes as far as she could tell. Perhaps they communicated by touch. This could simply be the alien equivalent of a handshake. She resolved to not ruin their second chance at alien relations by being prudish.
She exhaled shakily and released her grip on the robe as it was parted by the wandering tentacles. Additional arms joined the first two, and her skin felt hot as they boldly explored her body. She felt a tip tracing her spine, another moving along her hip, one sliding down her belly, and one wandering over her chest.
The tips fumbled aimlessly, prodding her armpit, bumping along her knee, teasing along the cleft of her buttocks. One tangled curiously through her hair, while another wrapped around her breast, drawing a surprised inhalation from her as it squeezed gently.
