"Ship. Life no. Danger." The alien's words certainly made some sense but in the first contact situations, the captain liked to have absolute clarity. He glanced at the communications officer. The man shrugged. "We can't have anything better than that. Their language is simply too different from ours. The universal translator just won't cope with all the syntax and other grammatical subtleties. Nouns -and little beyond that - is all we can hope for." The captain nodded with disappointment. He turned back to the main viewscreen. "From what I understand, your life support systems are failing. Do you require assistance?" the alien confirmed eagerly: "Assistance. Yes, assistance. Help. Systems. No work." * * * "Your systems are in pretty bad shape," the chief engineer shook his head sadly. "It's not just the life support. Your main computer seems to be having major problems as well." The alien gave him a blank look. They were sitting at one of the tables in the mess hall. The engineer had taken the tour of the alien ship and now they were back for some more tools and equipment. Apparently, the alien had just as much trouble understanding them as they did trying to figure out his language. The engineer sighed and tried again: "Systems no good. Computer failure. Big," he said slowly, feeling stupid. But the alien nodded. "Repairs no?" He said with raising intonation. "I'll try," the engineer waved his hand. "No promise." * * * "What happened to your crew?" The captain wanted to know. "Death. Small patrol. Big ship. Weapons fight. Me," the alien was trying to explain. The captain nodded. "We'd like to retrieve your computer logs if you don't mind," he tried but the alien apparently didn't understand. "Computer logs. We see," the captain repeated patiently. "Yes," the alien agreed simply. * * * "Well, what do you make of it?" A few hours later the captain asked his science officer who had downloaded the alien data base. "I don't know what to think, captain," he admitted. The translation is so crude, one can read many things into it." "Your best guess, Lieutenant," the captain urged. "You know, sir, it's either they stole it or it's been stolen from them…" One look at the captain's face told him it wasn't a good moment for joking, so he immediately added: "I'm not sure if they attacked the other ship or they had been attacked. The fact is, he's the only survivor and his ship is crippled beyond repair. At least for us." "Your recommendation?" "We could tow his ship back to his home planet, sir. It's only ten light years off of our present course. If we leave him behind, he might not make it home on his own." "How about he send a distress signal? Won't his own people come and get him?" "Possible, but we can't be sure," the officer shook his head. "His communications systems are down and there's no way for us to know the proper frequency." "Well, have the alien give it to you," the captain replied impatiently. "He doesn't seem to understand," the lieutenant sighed. "All I've managed to get from him are the coordinates for his home planet." "Set a course," the captain agreed reluctantly. Something about this alien didn't sit well with him. * * * "Water?" The alien didn't understand. It was becoming tiresome. The crewman assigned to see to their guest's needs was having trouble. He took the glass from the table and mimicked the act of drinking. There was no way for them to establish what the alien ate, and he never agreed to a medical check up. He was humanoid – that was all they knew about him. Since the detour to his planet was going to take a few days, he at least had to have some water. "Drink," the crewman repeated and gestured for the alien to try. Instead, the alien drew some device from his uniform and scanned the liquid. "It's not like we're trying to poison you," the irritated crewman muttered. * * * "Leave me alone!" A young woman in an engineering uniform yelled for the second time. The alien finally backed away. He couldn't explain to this woman that he had only wanted to ask her a question. She didn't react to his inquiry so he tapped on her shoulder, thinking she might have not noticed him, busy with her work. He hung his head down and walked away, slowly. The atmosphere around him was getting tense and there was nothing he could do about it. He decided to spend the rest of his journey in the quarters assigned to him. * * * "You finally had your chance to examine the alien, doctor," the captain said a few days later, when they finally got rid of their strange guest. "Have you found anything you'd like to share with us?" The doctor looked baffled. "Well, sir, perhaps you've noticed the tension running rather high recently?" The captain nodded. "Does it have anything to do with him?" He asked. "In a manner of speaking. You see, his sweat glands produce certain chemical that causes irritation and elevated adrenaline levels. Had he stayed longer, we might have had some serious fights on our hands. I don't see how our filters hadn't detected it…" * * * "Are you ready with your final report about the aliens?" On the planet's surface, the conference was about to begin. Doctor Quinn, who just came back from his reconnaissance on the new species, nodded calmly. "I can give you a synopsis now," he looked at his young assistant. "They're technologically underdeveloped, true, but that's not the main reason we shouldn't be contacting them again any time soon. "What is it then?" "Well, they're even more impatient than you, my dear friend," the doctor smiled. "They're an extremely violent race and they're having trouble containing their emotions. They claim to be open to other cultures but it's not exactly how they behave. My opinion is we should give them another hundred years or so…"
