First contact. Communication with an alien life form.

For twenty five years we have had the temerity to call ourselves a space-faring race. An interplanetary species. That we have perfected space travel. With our gleaming space stations in a ring around that sun we still use as a life-support machine like infants clinging to our mothers, our five – a measly five! - colonised planets, our so-called 'bio-reconstruction project' – the childish pride we take in having almost repaired the catastrophic damage we ourselves stupidly did to our own planet.

But we still have no experience of life forms on planets other than our own.

Until now.

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I don't understand what the Captain gets so emotional about, but he knows a lot about humans, doesn't he?

I used to know about humans, I suppose. But then I forgot. I'm not a human any more, I'm an Operator.

Its funny. I'm supposed to be so excited about this mission, as though It'll be a new experience. But I'll just be wired up to my Computer inside a starship instead of in my office. I won't be able to see, hear or have any contact with the outside world. How will I notice any difference? There'll just be me and the Computer, just like there always is.

I don't understand entirely why I'm needed for this mission. Can't they just relay the information to the Information Center? That is, after all, what an Information Center is for. If I'm here to navigate the ship, I can do that from my office as well. My Internet connection is strong enough to reach the other side of the next solar system.

There's some kind of problem, though, apparently. Something about them not quite not sure what they're looking for.

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Allow me to introduce myself. Commander Clarissa J. Revorse, interstellar merchant extraordinaire, greatest pilot in the solar system.

Normally, my services do not come so cheap. However, I was so intrigued by this offer that I agreed to this humiliatingly low price. I hope I don't regret it later.

Contact with another life form. It sounds so much more interesting than hauling cargo to Neptune and back. Besides, this is going to net me the contract of a lifetime if I play my cards right. Think about it... a totally new market. I have no idea what aliens like to buy and sell, but I'm determined to be the first to find out.

In return, all I have to do is fly this thing. It isn't quite up to my personal standards, but it'll fly. And if it'll fly, I can fly it.

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Look at those two. Running off into the sky, anxious to meet these aliens. Expecting to be greeted with open arms, no doubt. They're even crazier than the navigator, and he's a bloody Operator.

Haven't those idiots even considered that the aliens might be a threat?

Think about it. If we have any hope of communicating with these things, they're going to have to think at least a little like us, otherwise we won't have a wavelength in common. And what are we? Nasty, warlike, selfish, ignorant pigs. That's what humans are. We grab what we can off our neighbours and kill them when they try and take it back. Twenty years in the Mars Military will teach you that. We've only last century finished colonising every planet in the solar system and what happens? Saturn invades Mars! We ruin everything we touch. Everything becomes as flawed as we are.

What the hell makes the Terran Government think they'll be any different?

The Captain's lucky. He's got Lucero 'Wolf' Clyde as Chief Security Officer. I do my duty. I'll defend this ship with my life, from alien invaders, crazy crew members or anything else. I'll fight anything and anyone to make sure this ship arrives safely home again.

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We've just left orbit and everything's going fine. There were no problems with the launch or with breaking orbit – two of the most critical times during a space flight, along with re-entering and touching down again. All systems are working and there's no immanent danger of dying horribly.

No problems with my crew so far either. Commander Revorse is a remarkable pilot. Research vessels aren't the easiest ships in the solar system to fly, and she handles it like its a top grade fighter starship. She's worth the money we paid her – which is a good job, because the Guild's hiring fee practically bankrupted us. The Security Officer also seems quite capable of doing his job, although he's a little jumpy. I wonder if he's worried about the mission, or just reliving old memories of war. I have a feeling this mission will be a success but not everyone agrees with my sentiments. My navigator – I have no idea what he's thinking. He doesn't leave his Computer. Ever. Does he even eat or sleep?

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I'm receiving odd signals.

They started when we left the space port between Mars and Venus. All my channels were open for communication so I could listen for traffic warnings and I didn't accidentally direct the ship into an asteroid belt I know is around here somewhere. Then I started hearing these... distorted noises. The Computer didn't process them correctly, so I took a look myself. There was so much static, I couldn't hear for sure whether it was voices, music or some kind of computer signal transmitted over the wrong channel by accident. Sometimes the Information Center Computers even pick up radiation. If there's that much radiation in the area, we might be in trouble.

I've reported it to the Captain.

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I'm absolutely sure now that Commander Revorse is trying to sell us all out.

Firstly, look at how much she charges. No honest, decent people charge that much. Only mercenaries. No sane people SPEND that much. Someone must have coerced our Captain into it.

Secondly, she does nothing but talk over the comm systems to the Guild. If she's not in the comm room, she's walking into or out of her own quarters with a briefcase. She never tells me anything she's doing, she won't let me into her room, she gets angry if I try to listen in on her calls. I'm the Security Officer. If she was honest, she'd just let me do her damn job.

Why do we need a merchant on board the ship anyway? The Captain isn't seriously thinking of trading with the aliens, is he? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they really are insane. Both of them.

And that Operator is really starting to scare me.

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The signal is getting stronger.

The Operator is becoming more and more agitated. He can feel his Computer's restlessness, he says, and he knows something is seriously out of place. His Computer is also slightly diverting power away from his life support systems, so his breathing is a little odd. I worry about his health sometimes – he's very frail and he has virtually no experience of space travel.

I have the transmission on screen. It becomes clearer as we move closer to it. Its in no language or file format the Operator has ever heard of, but somehow I'm starting to understand it. The vague idea of what its saying. Its like one of those international signs, the signs for toilets, parking and fire exits that are the same the world over. Something designed for everyone in the Universe to understand. If we keep a steady course, I shouldn't think it would take too long to decode.

After all, we already have a sample. It almost exactly matches the samples sent to us by the Terran Government labs.

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Transmission from co-ordinate B5/D6/E8/A11//J2, dated S.D. 503, as recorded :

// - The header/beginning of the message.

An impression of temporary welcome/acceptance. An assurance that no humans will be deleted.

A pattern that I believe represents the alien life form. Probably a symbol for that species in general. Captain adds that it 'looks a bit like a jellyfish'.

A pause.

A generalised, featureless image of a human being.

An idea of vastly superior technology with the promise of upgrade. The idea of human technology lacking several critical upgrades. The idea of major difficulties communicating on even an intragalactic scale over a meaningful period of time.

Captain appears interested in the idea of the advanced technology.

Alien replies with a few examples of upgrades that humans need. These concepts are difficult for me to understand, but the Computer tells me that the simpler ones are major advances on the Operator project that had been in development over a timescale of hundreds of years -but proposed for every human on the planet, and with none of the flaws that kill off one in every twenty thousand Operators. The Computer adds that 'death' does not seem to be a concept in the alien's language – only a kind of partial, reversible deletion/file degradation. Another assurance that no humans will be deleted.

A request for surrender. Yet another assurance that no humans will be deleted.

Captain asks what the consequences of not surrendering will be.

Alien replies with a concept of disappointment, of going away again, of the humans never being part of the intragalactic community, of other species considering humans to be irrecoverably obsolete/abandonware. The idea of not being deleted is added onto this as an afterthought. Alien seems to prefer deletion to evolutionary stagnation.

Alien brings up Y/N prompt and awaits response.

Captain asks my advice. I urge him to accept.

Captain agrees with me.

Captain accepts.

Alien gives a date by which the upgrades will start and finish. Date not translatable into human timekeeping systems. It appears to have three temporal dimensions.

Transmission over. ----//

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We're going home now? Why? What happened?

I didn't get to trade with an alien. I didn't even get to meet one. What am I going to tell the Guild now? I told EVERYONE I was going to sell our entire stock to aliens and make a fortune! Okay, maybe I shouldn't have told them that, but still, I am extremely pissed off. I've made this voyage for nothing. Okay... maybe not entirely nothing. I was paid a reasonable wage, I suppose. It didn't really compensate for my lack of aliens, though.

I'm also a little suspicious of our 'Captain'. Why did he suddenly turn the ship around at this crucial point in our mission? I'm not stupid, I know we intercepted the alien signal successfully. Is he keeping the information about the aliens to himself? Maybe he's sold me out – cut a deal with the aliens by himself and hightailed with the profit. If he tries that on me, I'll see to it that he never does business with the Guild again. That is, if the Guildmaster doesn't randomly blame me like last time.

I'll have to stop talking now. That damn pervert Lucero is spying on me again. He's determined to see me in the shower. Unless he's after my trade secrets like all the others! He's always in a bad mood these days. I wonder what he's so pissed off abou...

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My pilot is dead.

We're in the middle of an asteroid field and I don't have a pilot. My crew is descending into anarchy. People are dying every day. This ship is becoming a battlefield with two sides – people who approve of my decision and people who don't. The only people on the ship who aren't trying to kill anyone else are the Operator and I, and he's locked in a box – his Computer activated all its self-defence systems and won't let the outside world anywhere near him, or vice versa. I guess that's its way of showing that it cares about its best friend. I worry that I've inadvertently killed everyone on the ship.

Still, I wouldn't overturn my decision now even if I could. I know I've done the right thing and I'm prepared to live with the consequences. Our lives are inconsequential compared to the future of humanity as a species. In one fell swoop, I have repaired the errors in the evolution of our species caused by terracentric ignorance.

Lucero will probably kill me soon. Those blast doors will only hold out for so long. Once that happens, this ship is probably doomed. I hope someone finds this message. This is a historical record – a record of humanity's first contact with aliens.

Maybe, some day, the garbage ships will dig it out of the wreckage floating around the asteroid fields.

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My Computer is functioning at full capacity today. It runs as smoothly as the day it was created! This morning it successfully took complete control of the ship's systems and is now flying it on autopilot.

That Security Officer who was trying to kill me is dead as well. I don't believe he was barbaric enough to actually try and pull the plug on us! The Computer's power supply has traps laid all around it. He died with his hand still covering the plug. Serves him right.

Most people are dead by now, so we decided to draw power away from the ship's life support systems to other, more important functions. With the entire ship's power supply to make use of, the Computer can quite easily maintain itself, its Operator and the ship's course.

I'll be happy to be off this ship. It was interesting going on a long journey and talking to an alien, but I miss the other Computers and their Operators back in the Information Centre. The alien was nice to me, but, like the non-Operator humans, it doesn't share the same bond between us and it doesn't understand us.

Besides, I have to tell everyone the good news, like the Captain told me to.