The Day the Earth Said 'What?"

Ambassador F*^#in’0s# (name untransliterable due to olfactory component) adjusted her musk through her scent glands and the artificial perfumes in her styling-pod. It was her duty to perform this first contact to perfection, as the chosen delegate of the People (ACTUAL NAME UNTRANSLITERABLE DUE TO OLFAFCTORY COMPONENT).

Already, messages had been sent ahead via radio transmissions, announcing the arrival of her as a diplomat to officially welcome this new species (whose endonym the translation team had roughly translated as meaning ‘Kindlies,’ or [SMELL ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT TO ROTTING EGGS EXPLODING FROM WITHIN UNDER THE INTERNAL PRESSURE OF THEIR OWN BLOATING DECAY] when smelled) to the People’s growing galactic network of intelligent life.

She would be touching down right outside of their planetary government, a diplomatic forum for the various regional powers on the planet, in their capital, the city of Fresh Vomit. (She had no idea why any species would name their capital ‘Fresh Vomit,’ but mostly just chalked it up to the dual factors of aliens being weird and the universal translators struggling slightly with proper nouns.)

She began breathing exercises to calm herself, as her shuttle coasted down through the atmosphere, an escort of the Kindlies’ in-atmosphere fighter craft flying in to escort it down. She could feel the slight vibrational tremor through her foot pads, as she continued breathing to calm herself. The air was rich, on this planet, supposedly, so she would need a breathing apparatus in order to not be overwhelmed by the absurd amount of oxygen, once she exited her craft.

But there was another, even more pressing concern on her mind right now. While the translation team had managed to crack the local species’ written language, the non-written version was still evading them. While a visual component had been identified, it wasn’t enough to explain the full depth of their written communication there was some unnoticed X-Factor that the species used, a component that was neither visual, olfactory, nor tactile, which their sensors could not detect. Perhaps, some among the species whispered, the species were the first true psychics that the People had ever encountered! The Universal Translators would be analyzing the species’ expressed language as the meeting proceeded, attempting to discover the X-Factor, and bridge the gap between them and enable true communication.

Personally, F*^#in’0s# was hoping that the Kindlies’ mysterious X-Factor was that they were psychic. Mostly because it would be scorching awesome.

The shuttle landed with a shuddering jolt that echoed up through the shock absorbers, and F*^#in’0s# steeled herself, curling her tail and setting all four of her legs firmly as she clasped her ancillary gripper arms in the People’s gesture of peace. She could walk bipedally, but that would’ve been far too aggressive for the first meeting. Flexing her scent glands, she readied herself for the Smell-Sequence-of-Peaceful-Greeting.

This was it.

Time to make history.

Secretary-General Hao Huang of the UN was a touch surprised to be the man on the spot, when news came that first contact had been made. He’d been ecstatic, when it was revealed that the aliens would be going to him first for diplomatic contact! This was going to make history! Moreover, it was going to be the apex, the ultimate highlight of his long and arduous career of diplomatic wheeling and dealing, the final flourish that made all it took to get here worth it!

So, he stood out in front of the UN’s General Assembly with what he could only hope was historically photogenic dignity, an unfading politician’s smile on his face, and his hands neatly folded in front of him, at the head of the crowd waiting and watching as the shuttle carrying the alien People’s diplomat touched down. It was a touch more… ovular than most ships portrayed in Star Wars and the like, but he supposed that the People had their reasons.

And then, the ramp opened, and the ambassador… her name had been listed in the initial diplomatic exchange, but the UN’s linguists hadn’t been able to transliterate it, so he was just calling her ‘the ambassador’ in his head. Well, the ambassador, name pending a pronunciation guide, stepped out, and Star Trek had lied to him, because this alien didn’t look anything like a human.

She was reptilian, her skin bare and scaly, her head long and lizard-like, but not quite shaped like either a lizard or a snake. She was big, about the size of a horse, walked down the ramp on all fours, with an extra set of vestigial limbs (which reminded Hao of nothing more than a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s tiny two-digited arms) clasped politely over her midsection, her long, reptilian tail swaying behind her as she walked. Her four eyes stared at him through the glass pane of her breathing helmet. She wasn’t wearing much clothing, but frankly, Hao didn’t know enough about her species’ anatomy to be in any way aware of which bits he should be scandalized by.

“Greetings on behalf of all the people of Earth!” he said politely. “As Secretary General of the UN, I welcome you to our planet. May this meeting be a foundation for future peace between our species, and with all of the galaxy.”

The ambassador stared at him for a second, blinking slightly, as her tongue flicked in and out.

And then, some sort of… odd apertures on her neck flared, and, with a sound like a trumpet being blown underwater, she released a growing cloud of… some foul-smelling, invisible gas, which made Hao Huang's eyes water when it reached him.

Hao blinked out the tears, confused as to what in the hell was going on, here.

Behind him, someone with considerably less tact asked, “Did the alien dinosaur just fart?”

Ambassador F*^#in’0s# was seriously starting to panic slightly. First, her Universal Translator hadn’t been able to detect the missing piece in the Kindlies’ communication, even though she knew from her briefing packet that the Kindlies’... bizarre mouth flaps moving was apparently a sign that they were actively communicating. So, it wasn’t readily apparent even face-to-face.

It was only her good manners that kept her from stress-urinating under the pressure. They had thought that the Kindlies were telepathic, and that it’d be readily apparent in-person. Now… now, she would have to improvise. Her emotional display reader in her helmet indicated that the Kindlies in front of her were displaying body language that indicated they were confused, and, apparently, somewhat insulted, which she took to mean that they didn’t understand the Smell-Sequence-of-Peaceful-Greeting. Olfactory scanner revealed no smell-traces of communication from the Kindlies, and visuals couldn’t do much more than read their body language. It was… Then, she blinked.

As the Kindly in front of her moved his mouth-flaps again, she noticed a faint vibration through the ground. And... there'd been ground-vibrations... every time one of the Kindlies opened their mouth-flaps. She couldn't quite feel the pattern to them... but they were there.

No…

It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

Time for Plan B. She stood up on her hind legs, wincing slightly as the weight of their planet’s slightly-higher-than-preferred gravity pushed down on her poor tail (she really shouldn’t have skipped Tail Day at her local gym so often), and began pulling up holoscreens in front of her, quickly searching through the extant data on the planet’s datanet for the precise phrase that could get this first contact back on track.

Hao Huang watched in some confusion as the enormous lizard, after letting out a loud and noisy cloud of particularly vile smelling… something, just froze in place, blinking rapidly with all four eyes.

“Ambassador?” he asked cautiously. Then, in the eternal language of rude foreigners everywhere he tried repeating the same thing again, but louder. “Ambassador? Are you alright? Can you understand us?”

Suddenly, the creature reared up, deathly quiet, and a variety of glowing screens flashed into existence. Hao Huang had not quite appreciated, beforehand, just how intimidating a seven-foot-long reptile suddenly going up on its hind legs could be. But by thunder, he was feeling quite intimidated right now.

“It’s attacking!” one of the soldiers providing security shouted, pointing his gun and-

“No!” Hao Huang shouted, throwing himself into the soldier and knocking the gun off course, clear of the ambassador.

And then he immediately froze in panic, because oh god, why did he just do that, he could have died! He was a late-middle-aged bureaucrat, not some kind of action hero!

Everyone was looking at him.

He could work with this.

“If we’re quite finished gawking,” he said, clearing his throat and adjusting his glasses, and shoving that panic attack deep, deep, down, where he could think about it later. “Could someone please get this idiot out of here?”

“Right away, Secretary-General,” one of the UN Troopers said, giving him a look with a certain respect in it that wasn’t there five minutes ago.

Yes, Hao Huang was definitely going down in the history books for today. He resisted the urge to preen. He had damage control to do.

“Ambassador,” he said, turning to the still-standing alien ambassador. “I am so sorry for my men’s shameful display, and understand completely if you… wish to… delay this meeting… Ambassador?”

She wasn’t looking up. In fact, she hadn’t even flinched at the gunshot, or in any way diverted her attention from the glowing screens she was typing on.

“Um, Ambassador?” Hao Huang repeated, confused. “Can you hear me?”

And just then, Ambassador F*^#in’0s# finally finished what she’d been working on.

A glowing sign appeared in front of her, with a simple message written on it in a hundred different human languages.

“Sorry,” it read. “I’m deaf.”