As the lift's doors opened, I saw Jeremhia run towards me on his four legs. As always, in the deep of my mind, I had to admit that that pose was a bit ridicoulus, making him look like a moving bush of thick thorns. Jeremhia was half my height (and still a good height for a Rafkin) but lowered that way he appeared even smaller, a little animal from Earth's grasslands.

That was a rude thought and, as a diplomat, I knew that was very important to bury it in the deep of my mind, never making him know about it. A Rafkin runs on his four legs only in presence of good friends, coming that way to me was a sincere demostration of trust.

"I was happy hearing you were appointed for this, Callus." he said, when he came on his foot, at last "I'm glad we can work together once again"

"I'm glad too, Jeremhia. And I hope noone is thinking I came to steal your work. Human Senate knwos that the first contact is an achievement of the Rafkin Caravan and officially ratified it. I'm here just to see the heereens and show them what my people looks like."

"There's no need for a statement like that, Callus. The Rafkin Caravan trusts the Human Senate and, above all, I trust you. We're here as friends, playing the game of politics as always."

Jeremhia led me along the corridor. To overcome the differences of environment between us and the heereen an hangar of the Sot'quan, the ship where we were, was equipped with a particular structure. I read about that during the voyage, but I was stunned when the chamber appeared in front of me. In the middle of the docking bay something like an enormous fish tank was erected, 70ft on the side, 50ft of height. A thick liquid similar to oil, black, filled it. A large pipe came out from the tank, heading for the hangar hatch, disappearing behind plastic blue curtains.

"An heereen vessel went alongside our ship. Then they asked us to open the hatch and weld it to something similar to it they have on the flank of their ship. When the link was good they came here just with servo-bots and with our help they built the tank."

The darkness of the oil inside the tank was disturbing and scary as the deep of the oceans on Earth. I couldn't stop staring at it. "How are they going to use it?"

"They filled it with that... goo using the pipe you see. That duct goes directly to their ship. Our hypothesis is that the heereen delegate will come to us through it too."

"He will... swim in that?"

"That's their environment, we think. They gave us samples of it, but I had no time to question our exobiologist about that. We are quite sure they need it to survive."

I went to the tank, placing an hand on the armored glass. Diplomacy between different races is always something strange and difficult, but with Rafkins and with the Teculpa we can talk face to face, shake our hands, walk together. That tank represented a new kind of obstacle, a very hard, tricky obstacle.

And, as Loranna Artell says in his book, obstacles, in diplomacy, often mean war.