“Do I have to, Mother?” I did not wish to share my room with an alien – it was hard enough keeping my siblings out of my room. Now I’d have to keep an alien from pawing through my stuff too. And the breathing chamber took up a lot of space. They couldn’t even match me with someone who breathed our air!

“Yes. You are the only one who isn’t sharing a room. And this is an opportunity – First Contact is a big deal. You will be one of the first to show them our culture. Plus, her language skills aren’t bad – they did a good job preparing her.”

“Her?” I perked up a little. I didn’t know the alien we were hosting were gonochoric – the galaxy was filled with so many genders. It would be easier to relate to her, since I was a girl too.

“Why don’t you come meet her? She is waiting for you. Just remember, you are as strange to her as she is to you, and she is the one who is very far from home.”

I followed Mother out to find a bizarre creature sitting on the couch. A strange uniform skin covered her odd form – only four limbs, and a round helmet encased her head. The plate in front of her face was clear, and the weirdest eyes were staring at me. An almost perfect circle with a single pupil in the center ringed in blue and again in white. The only fur she had was sprouting from her head, in a stripe above her eyes, and short ones on her eyelids. The skin over her mandibles pulled back, revealing a top and bottom row of short, flat teeth. A smile, if I remembered the quick lessons they gave me when my mom signed me up for the exchange program. She did a formal - if awkward - dance of greeting. She missed a few steps, but it did require six limbs to perform correctly.

I remembered what I had been taught of human introductions and offered my right forelimb to her. Her smile grew wider – ew – and she grabbed my forelimb in her five-digit hand. “My name is Erica,” she buzzed with a strange accent from a speaker attached to her suit. My wings fluttered in excitement. “And I am Xllyzx! Come, I will show you my room.”

“I really like your stripes. Is it OK to touch? My gloves let me have tactile sensation.”

My mandibles clicked in consent as I pulled her to my room, and she ran her hand briefly over my yellow-and-black furred thorax. “Very nice!” she danced.

Mother’s compound eyes watched us disappear into my room, antennae sagging with relief.