"If I sent 'Houston, we have a problem," do you think we'll be alive to receive their response?"

We were watching the movement on the screen where there shouldn't be.

"Well Kristof," I drawled. "It's about an hour there and an hour back to Titan, so...maybe. Either way, it's some sort of first contact."

The creatures had crawled out of some rock formations...one formation looked like a somewhat crumbled sphere, another like pipes from a huge panpipe, and there were more, but—

"What the hell are those critters anyway?"

I shook my head. "Something new. I guess we get to name them. You streaming this back?"

"Along with my message."

"We were out there. We walked around those formations. There weren't any tracks or spoor or—"

"And now they're out and doing the same to our lander."

And one of them was up the steps and just outside our door.

"This is the first clear day since we landed. No methane clouds, so infinite visibility instead of under one kilometer."

"Could be why they're out, but...what do we do?"

"I'm not going out there...see what Houston says."

Then we heard it as we watched the one at our hatch. It reached out with one pseudopod for the door.

"Tap...tap, tap, tap...tap. Tap. Tap.