by Amon_K
First contact goes exactly the way the aliens expect it to — until it doesn't. They've done this before. They know how to read a species, how to sort them, how much attention they're worth. Humans look easy: slow, soft, obviously no threat. They're wrong, and it takes them a while to notice. Told from both sides of the airlock — the astronauts navigating a society whose rules for power, ownership, and affection don't map onto anything human, and the alien commander who's about to learn that "harmless" was never the right word.
