Negotiations via radio had started almost as soon as the Salvation of Life began decelerating into the Sol system back in 2144. First on the agenda after the Sol Senate’s First Contact Committee started exchanging messages was: You’re not bringing that thing anywhere near Earth. Simple reason: the forty-five-kilometer-long, multi-billion-ton arkship was powered by antimatter. The Olyix had enough of the stuff on board to accelerate it up to twenty percent of the speed of light. Which meant, should they prove hostile, the incoming aliens carried enough destructive energy to wipe out Earth and every asteroid habitat in the solar system, with plenty left over to wreck Mars and Venus for good measure (not that we’d ever bothered trying to terraform them). So the first agreement was that Salvation was to park in Earth’s Lagrange-3 point, directly opposite Earth on the other side of the sun. Even that left some officials and old generals nervous.

Once Salvation reached that orbit, physical contact began. The Lobby was assembled in a couple of months—a kilometer-diameter toroid, rotating at the center of a hexagonal space dock, that serviced dozens of short-range cargo and passenger craft. All the little vehicles did all day every day was fly between the Lobby and Salvation’s zero-gee axis dock.

The ecumenical delegation was led into the decontamination suite—a fine name for what was basically a disinfectant shower. It lasted a compulsory eight minutes, ensuring every follicle and flesh fold on a human body was thoroughly saturated. I think prisoner hose-downs were more dignified. But it did give the contact staff time to irradiate our clothes and shoes and luggage.

We all reconvened in a small waiting room, trying not to show how disconcerting the cleansing experience had been. I wasn’t sure my hair would ever recover from the chemical assault; it smelled like a bathroom air freshener.

“Do the Olyix undergo an equivalent process to travel to Earth?” Nahuel inquired. He was sitting in a plain plastic chair, holding his sandals up to give them a disapproving look. I’m pretty sure his robes were bleached a shade paler, too.

“I’ve no idea,” I told him—not true, but I had to play the part of my new legend, and a Quaker accountant from Lancaster wouldn’t know a whole lot about biological transference protection clauses in treaties the Sol Senate had negotiated. In fact, the Olyix do undergo a mild decontamination on their way to Earth, but then they never leave their embassies, which have a filtered atmosphere. However, when they come back, they’re subjected to the same sanitization as humans before they can return to the Salvation of Life.

Our delegation took the elevator up to the toroid’s axis, and free-fall. When we were halfway up, I offered Nahuel a tab again. This time he took it without a word.