# Earth “Gross’’\ \ I looked up in mild annoyance. “You can’t just say that’’.\ \ “But it’s gross’’\ \ He had a point.\ The alien; indeed, this was first contact, stumbled out of its ship in a horrifyingly ungainly shuffle, its lever-like limbs rhythmically locking and unlocking to produce something that resembled motion.\ \ We stared out in horrified fascination; the *Thing* began bellowing in a distinctly shrill, irritating pulse.\ \ Wrenching open the door of the portable laboratory, I stepped outside, the hissed protests of my partner trailing behind me like steam.\ \ I spent my life dedicated to the study of; well, life. I am no stranger to the unique ways in which it can present itself; every single being is, by virtue of existing, beautiful.\ And to achieve interstellar travel; to reach for whatever constellations dotted its undoubtedly strange skies, is no small feat. The constant of curiosity is a beautiful thing.\ \ That is what I attempted to keep in mind as I approached the…creature. *Visitor.\ \*“Stop retching and get to work’’ said my partner, standing a healthy distance away.\ \ Hypocrite!\ \ I knelt down, bracing, and finally forced myself to look directly at It; at the strange, seemingly permeable outer membrane of the slumped creature.\ Viscous fluid seeped from one of its limbs.\ \ I shuddered.\ \ *Think,* I said to myself.\ \ It’s obviously intelligent; how else would it be here?\ Any spacefaring civilisation needs technology, which needs collaboration and most importantly: language.\ \ I waved at it. It pointed what I can only presume was a face at me.\ \ Baby steps.\ \ I crouched down, clutching at the grass for support.\ \ “Can you hear me?’’\ \ A horrible thought flooded my mind; what if it could not perceive sound? Heck, what if visible light was a purely foreign concept to this creature whose biology was so intimately intertwined to another world? Sunlight reflected off the ruined ship and into the Thing’s ‘’face’’. It shrieked, burrowing its oval face into the crook of a limb.\ \ Never mind then. I looked back at my partner, he was pale. “Science?” I said. “Science,” he agreed miserably. We got to work. The first thing we established was that the creature possessed two “eyes’’. They were set at the front of its head, which suggested some degree of binocular vision. They were small, round, and alarmingly wet. This thing was a predator; at least, its species used to be predatory. “Maybe they’re not eyes,” my partner fidgeted with his notebook. “They respond to light.” “So do puddles.” I ignored him. The second thing we established was that the creature possessed a mouth. This was…considerably less pleasant. It opened its mouth when we approached it. It opened its mouth when we gave it distilled water; we were not going to risk accidentally killing it with something in our diet. It opened its mouth when we took the water away. At one point it opened its mouth for nearly twelve consecutive seconds while staring directly at me.\ \ It had bones in there. Sharp bones. The creature had apparently brought several objects with it from its ship. Most were useless (yet fascinating!) pieces of technology, melted or broken beyond recognition. One, however, appeared intact. It was a small rectangular item, approximately the size of its palm. We placed it on the table, a dull clunk alerting the creature, who immediately lunged for it. I recoiled. It grabbed the object with both hands and clutched it to its chest. Interesting. The creature stared at both of us. Then it made a noise. “Brrr-aaa-kk.” “Possible vocalisation,’’ I said. “Possible swearing,” my partner intoned. I looked at him. “Why would it swear?” “It’s stuck on an alien planet surrounded by weirdos poking at it with scientific equipment, I would swear.’’ Communication took three days. We began with gestures, the way you’d do with a child.\ The creature was surprisingly receptive; water, food, tree and fire now added to our growing shared vocabulary. The word for *hand* took particularly long. The creature stared at mine for almost a minute before extending one of its own. I touched it. It immediately recoiled. I apologised. It made a strange sound. As per usual, I wrote down the noise, attempting to replicate the harshness of its prosody on paper.\ \ It was slow going, but we could somewhat communicate our friendly intent; and it its constant need for water. The creature seemed to understand tone more quickly than vocabulary. If we laughed, it stretched its mouth open, its mouth-bones glittering. If we shouted, it became agitated. Once, my partner accidentally dropped a metal container on his foot; the creature watched him hop around the laboratory making sounds that would have embarrassed a lesser scientist. The creature then began what I hesitantly term, laughing. Not a pleasant laugh. It was a wheezing, breathless sound that made it look as though several internal organs were attempting to escape simultaneously. My partner stopped hopping, an expression of pure bewildered horror on his face. The creature laughed harder at that. Food was an issue. We had no idea what this thing could eat, and we really, *really*, did not want to kill the first alien this planet has ever received by feeding it broccoli.\ \ I decided that the best course of action would be to snoop around the Thing’s ship while it slept for its staggering 28800 seconds, and try to snag any organic material I could find; some of it is bound to be edible. The interior of the destroyed spacecraft was, to put it politely, a *mess.* With no centrifuge to simulate gravity, objects were haphazardly strapped to every available surface; the walls a blinding white despite their ruined state. I felt around the wreckage. There was no way I’d be able to find food at this rate; it’d be like digging for a needle in a particularly sharp and pointy haystack that also wanted to capsize on my decidedly non-indestructible body.\ \ I pushed onwards; I *had* to find some source of sustenance for the creature. I recalled the wounds on its limbs and face, and my heart constricted painfully.\ This creature. This *Thing,* that had travelled light-years to find us. What was it doing up there? Studying us? Cataloguing our planet; maybe our solar system?\ \ Maybe we represented first contact for it as well; were what its species spent many fervent years searching for, a signal that they were–are–not alone in the cosmos. I stumbled over a hunk of metal, cursing. The ship groaned and creaked, clicking like the challenge of a living beast.\ \ I decided not to comply, turning around and crawling out.\ \ By the time I returned to the laboratory, the sun had begun to set; the creature was still sleeping. I was relieved. There was something reassuring about its breathing; the faint, wet rattle of it, the rise and fall of its strange chest. I had found nothing edible; just a half-sealed container containing something that looked vaguely organic, but the substance had been contaminated by some form of fungus and I did not trust it. Tomorrow, I decided. Tomorrow, we would figure it out. I sat beside the creature. My partner was asleep in the other room, though I could hear him occasionally turning over. He had spent most of the afternoon complaining that his neck hurt. I watched the creature, lying on a soft nest of blankets and stolen pillows. Twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred seconds. That was how long it slept. I had counted. It had become a habit. I reached out and, very carefully, touched one of its limbs. It was cold. I frowned. The creature did not move. “Wake up,” I whispered. Nothing. I nudged it again. “*Wake up*.” Its body shifted slightly beneath my hand; I smiled in relief, waiting for it to wake and perform a yawn.\ \ It didn’t move. I pressed a finger into its neck trying to determine if it still had what passed as a pulse.\ \ Silence. For the first time since it arrived; *silence*. This strange creature emanated *noise* with a frequency so constant it grew irritating during the first two days of its arrival. Rattling, squelching, thrumming; its anatomy composed an irregular symphony of sound for the world to hear. A song that screamed “I’m here, I’m alive.’’\ \ Its absence was now discomforting. I called my partner; stumbling half asleep into the room.\ \ *“What is it,’’* he groused, but stopped short at the sight of my tear-sticky face.\ \ “Oh.’’\ \ We didn’t know what to do with the body. The simplest course of action would have been to bury it; but again, we simply didn’t know enough about its culture to even fathom what a funeral looked like on its planet. On the other hand; this was, after all, an *alien.* It would be a disservice to science itself not to study it.\ \ I toyed with the black rectangle it had clutched even in the throes of death, feeling the thin seam along its edge.\ \ *Click* The two halves unfolded, like a pair of wings. Inside, embedded into the dark surface, was a picture of a pale blue dot, streaked with green and white; A planet. Its home.\ \ Strange symbols decorated the underside of the device, etched in gold.\ \ For the sake of provenance, I have etched them below:\ \ \ \        **E A R T H**