She flushed. “I don’t know what to say. There’s no chance they’d understand our speech. Autotranslation could never work with minds that alien.” Not only minds, she realized; the plasma beings’ whole physical universe was so different from hers that there could be few points of commonality for a translation matrix to latch onto.

Shastri smiled. “Who said anything about speech? You already discovered our common language with them decades ago.”

Uhura stared at him. “I sang to them?”

“Every time. Didn’t I mention that?”

“Yes, but I thought… never mind, I don’t know what I thought.” She searched her memory, but that well seemed to have run dry. “What did I sing?”

Shastri blinked multiple times. “I don’t remember. I never really paid attention to the words. I just loved the sound of your voice.”

“All right, then.” She cleared her throat. “How about ‘Two Moons’?”

He stared. “You hated that song! You made fun of the lyrics every time I listened to it.”

“Did I? I have a recording of it in my voice in my personal database. It’s the song that first tipped me off to the vacuum flare connection, when I found similar acoustic patterns in their emissions.”

“You kept that? I convinced you to sing it once, so you could listen to it in your own voice and see if you liked it more.” He chuckled. “You didn’t. Though I thought it was a real improvement.”

She smiled and touched his hand. “Perhaps that’s why I kept it. Anyway, I think the lyrics are fitting here, even if they are a bit corny.”

“Well, I’m game if you are.”

Uhura triple-checked her adjustments, then opened an intercom channel. “Comms lab to bridge. We are ready to attempt contact.”

“Acknowledged, Commander. Proceed.”

Closing that channel, she nodded at Shastri, who laid his hands on his own control panel, ready to refine the parameters of their transmission in response to their signal feedback. He nodded his readiness in return.

Taking a deep breath, Uhura called up the lyrics to the old Martian love song from memory and began to sing:

It seems like we’ve known each other forever.

It feels like a billion years and a day.

It seems so right that we should come together,

So what is this force that keeps us pulling away?

I meet your eyes and I gaze in a mirror.

The love and the fear are reflections of me.

We know each other’s hearts and yet we keep our distance

Two close and loving strangers feels like all we can be.

Two moons racing through the sky.

Hard to come together, but we have to try.

Fear and panic keep us on the run.

If we overcome them, then the two can join as one.