"There was no need of high uniform, it will be just a voice message" said Jeremhia when I came out from my box, wearing the black suit of the  Human Senate with the golden circle drawn on my breast and the red bottons. 

"It's not just for the heereen, my friend. Wearing this in public is part of my role"

"You're a diplomat, your role is talking. I think you would be good at it even naked"

Rafkins are spacenoids so they strictly follows the rule of the essential. Everything is not needed to survive in space it's useless and should be thrown away. Jeremhia, as always, was wearing just his large belt, with all the tools he needed as section leader, and connected glasses, a terminal embedded in two heavy lens that is the most common way Rafkins access their computers. He had his glasses on his head, used just to keep back his massive hair.

Rafkins are very similar to earth's little mammals like opossums or weasels, their body, except for the thick bush on their head , is covered with a thin layer of grey fur (or blond, rarely black). Thanks to this, they appear quite normal to humans but reality is they're just naked all the time, unless they have to go in the outer space or they need some other kind of protection. And it's very hard to explain to a nudist race the importance of a dress like a uniform.

We arrived in the lab where we were going to record the message. The only human there easy caught my eye. She was a girl, around 20, dark hair, purple eyes, slim and fit as expected by someone that works in space. The senate sent her too, but I could recognize by her uniform that she was just some kind of technician. 

All the other Rafkins were ignoring me and Jeremhia too left me alone to attend to some issue so I went to her and waited she finish talking to a Rafkin that was bearing some kind of big screwdriver.

"Diplomat Callus, I suppose" she said, when the Rafkin was gone.

"Happy to see I'm not the only human here" I answered, smiling.

"Well, if what I read about you is true you like this people a lot" I saw the dark circles around her eyes. Probably she was on the ship for a time longer than mine, living in another unconfortable box.

"Yes, but I like my people more"

She extended her arm, I shook her hand. She appeared  relieved, like she was fearing me. "I'm Cassandra Opender, i'm a linguist. I worked with the Rafkin scientists to find a way to communicate with the heereen"

"Are there problems about that?"

"The heereen learned our common language very fast, but the sounds they produce are not in the audible spectrum so we had to arrange some kind of device to hear them talking"

"Are you saying I'll naver hear heereen real voice?"

"You'll never be able too"

That was another obstacle, as the fish tank. Another wall difficult to climb to reach some kind of understanding.

Cassandra lowered her eyes, the way she behaved with me, like I was some kind of  harsh ogre, made me feel older than my 40 years. "While I was working on that I noticed something that could probably interest you" 

"Please, tell me"

"I felt like this is not the first time heereen manages a first contact wit an alien race"

"Yes, this is very interesting. How can you say that?"

"They were prepared on many problems about interaction with us and they're not... curious about us, not enough"

I wanted to trust Cassandra because she appeared clever to me from  first sight. In my mind, I took a note about what she was saying. "I'll investigate about this, but it's not a problem now. As diplomatic protocol says, we're here just to record a message from me to the heereen people where I'll state my role and I'll explain how things work in our space. Unfortunately it's not yet time for tough questions"

Cassandra smiled, relieved again. "I understand"

I was ready for the official blah-blah-blah, happy to do that. It's a condition a experiment very rarely so I pushed to take advantage of it "Give me a mic, please. I think we should start."