The Savaek system consists of two small rocky planets, two gas giants, an asteroid belt, and a variety of outer icy planetoids. Neither of the inner rocky worlds has been settled; both of the major population centers are large moons orbiting the smaller of the two gas giants. There's also a lightly populated, highly volcanic moon, and a series of lesser, non-spherical moons that are more or less completely uninhabited.

It will take about one and a half days for the lightleaper to be noticed by the research station on the icy planetoid Savaek Kan, which happens to be passing between the lightleaper and the star. A nir trainee picks up the anomaly and notifies his superiors that there is a massive starship of unknown make just outside the system; he is ignored for a few minutes until his superiors independently confirm that there is, in fact, a massive starship just outside the system. 

It's either Alteri or Carthon - probably Alteri, there's no obvious reason why the Carthons would need such a massive ship, although there's also no obvious reason why such an enormous slaver vessel or colony ship would be headed this way - but it's better to find out sooner and not later what they're in for. They report the unknown ship to the local government, then hail the ship in Confederate One without waiting for further instructions.

You have arrived at the Savaek system. Your ship is unregistered. Please state your House and purpose in this system.

They checked their grammar with Imrainai in advance.

This is the Singer science ship L.L. Discovery, 23rd division. Three local years ago it was communicated to us that contact had been made between the Singer people and the Alteri in the Maela star system. We are at peace. The Singer people are committed to peaceful relations with all people; our borders cannot be encroached and we have no desire to encroach upon the borders of others. This ship is armed only for defence. With your permission, we will approach. If you prefer to hear of the news of contact with our species from your own people, we will depart.

By the time this message is received, there are six warships circling Savaek Kan and several more taking defensive positions throughout the system.

There is a delay long enough to indicate that several hours of deliberation took place between receiving the message and sending the next one.

You may approach the planetoid broadcasting this message.

The giant ship glides research station-wards.

The Alteri allow it to do so. The warships keep circling and the research station keeps scanning, attempting to determine the chemical composition of the ship's hull and make guesses as to its military capabilities. They resume communications when the ship is a matter of minutes out.

Greetings, Singers. We have not made contact with alien races in some time, and are eager to learn about your people. How did you encounter us?

We sent out ships to explore beyond our sanctified borders for the first time three hundred years ago. You are the only other intelligent race we have encountered. We know that our creators scattered the universe with early attempts at creating the people the Singers descend from, but the Alteri are unlike any of those, and it seems you are a civilization as ancient as our creators yourselves. 

Who are your creators?

They are called the Valar. They do not typically leave our sanctified borders, but they made an exception in order to convey to your people their respect and their desire for peaceful relations.

Convey our respect to your Valar. We are always pleased to add to our understanding of the universe. Our rulers will be eager to discuss your diplomatic status. We are not prepared for visitors, but will be able to complete our preparations in the next few days. Do you require anything more immediately?

Not at all. We will await your preparations.

Excellent! What can you tell us of your chemical composition? We understand that not all species require methane atmospheres. We have also filled some areas of our complexes with oxygen, which may be corrosive. Additional information regarding your physical forms is required to maintain a safe environment.

Elves send over information about the range of atmospheres that they can tolerate without breathing devices and the range of gravities that they can move in comfortably and their approximate dimensions. All of these are skewed such that the atmosphere the Alteri are familiar with for Liars is within tolerances but on the edge of it.

The Alteri ask clarifying questions on that front for a bit, then declare that they would like to take some time to discuss these developments among themselves.

Three hours later the Elves get a list of one hundred and twenty-six questions on topics ranging from their chemistry and biology to their basic history and political structure, but also they should just think about these and not answer them yet because the sender isn't actually supposed to be asking things. Three minutes later they receive a message saying that they might have received a message just now, but they weren't supposed to, and the Alteri are dealing with it and they're sorry for the inconvenience and they actually really cannot talk right now. Also whatever that person sent was unofficial, and if they were rude then that's totally on them and not on, like, the government or on anyone with any qualifications beyond owning a radio.

Seventeen minutes later they get a message that can be converted into an audio file of chirping noises and the sound of metal scraping on metal, and then the Alteri cut all nonessential external communications and assure the Singers that someone official will be ready to meet with them in the next, like, day or so.

Several lightly-armed transport ships leave the research station and head for the moons, escorted by heavily-armed warships. Several more warships move from one of the moons and into orbit around Savaek Kan, and for a few hours shuttles ferry people from the ships to the station. The entire process will take about fourteen hours.

Elves hang out, and sing, and discuss the list of one hundred and twenty-six questions, and practice maneuvering in the wheelchairs they told the Alteri that they use, and make efforts to better decipher the chirping-noises message.

Eventually the Alteri report that they are ready. They have assembled a team of government officials and scientists, all of which are eager to speak to them. They would, if possible, like to speak to the ship's captain and any other representatives he would like to bring with him. They have prepared a section of the Savaek Kan research station to the specifications they received, although frankly it was built kind of hastily and the Singers might want to bring biosuits just in case. Not that it's a problem if they don't have biosuits, their scientists assure them that it's very safe. Just, if they were the Singers they would definitely also bring biosuits.

The Singers would be delighted to bring biosuits, makes the problematic resemblance less apparent anyway. In their biosuits they are even taller, willowy and ambiguously limbed, seated in throne-liked wheeled chairs they control from their chips, with a front panel translating into Confederate One. 

The ship's captain brings four representatives.

The Alteri have repurposed one of their larger meeting rooms. It's empty apart from a few tables and something that looks like a shallow, drained swimming pool on the other end of the room. The walls are decorated in ornate silvery designs composed of various geometric patterns. There are eight Alteri, and all of them are wearing biosuits themselves, given that the air inside the room is now outside Alteri tolerances. Their resemblance to insects is still readily apparent - they have segmented bodies, antennae, and several legs (some have eight, some have ten, and two of them have twelve). Each of them has a cluster of seven bioluminescent panels on the front of the thorax, and a matching one on the top of the abdomen.

There are four Liars in the room. They wear breathing devices but not full biosuits. Two of them are standing at the door, looking like they're very determinedly avoiding making any facial expressions. There are two more standing in the corner, apart from the others. The first is a teenage girl whose head has been shaved and whose eyes have been put out. She appears to be staring into space. The second is younger, maybe six or seven, with neatly braided brown hair; her eyes are intact, but clouded over. The younger girl waves excitedly at the Singers as soon as they enter the room. 

Those are probably the psyons. The Elves weren't sure if they'd be able to read Elves or not. Hello! one thinks cheerfully at them, in case this gives any information about that question.

The Elves are thinking about a pretty landscape that they're watching through the eyes of a friend back in the ship, because this place is not pretty. They are also filled with horror on behalf of the girl with shaved hair, though they're firmly reminding themselves that isn't even torture for humans.

The younger girl stops waving when addressed and pulls back her hand as if burned.

She's OK, observes the older girl, to the three barely-in-range psyons who want to know what the heck just happened to the younger one, the younger one is like their favorite and is barely broken at all right now.

     I'm OK but they said things to me, I didn't think they were gonna say things to me -

Haneo's totally fine. Don't wave.

     They're really nice, their brains are full of nice things and they think it's really bad that Sanae's hair's been cut although it's kind of weird that they care more about that than the eyes thing but the hair thing is maybe different for them oh I guess they must have hair? - also they're practically Liars, we can hear like everything they're thinking, it's really weird, you'll know more when I know more - Sanae are you OK you seem really not OK all of a sudden, more than usual not-OK -

"Blessings upon your ancestors," blinks one of the Alteri, ignoring the psyons. She introduces herself and each of the other seven Alteri in turn. All of their given names will be unrecognizable light patterns, but two of them have house-names that correspond to what Imrainai calls House Atekri. 

"And upon yours." The Elves introduce themselves as well; they have made an effort to translate into appropriate light patterns, though this means their names render as High Mountain, Great Tide, Powers-Blessed, Powers-Loving and Joy Land.

The Alteri politely do not comment on their ridiculous names.

"We apologize for the concentration of warships in this area. We assume you have been apprised of our ongoing military conflict; we would be poor stewards of our people if we did not take care to defend them from unknown powers. We received word recently that Maela had been attacked and that its star rail had been dismantled to contain the enemy's forces. We found it unlikely that anyone approaching from that direction would prove a friend rather than a Defiler trick. We are eager to learn of your people and their culture, but at the moment we are even more eager to learn how our brothers and sisters in the Maela system fare."

The psyons are following this but are also mostly occupied with other things. Haneo is obsessively following and broadcasting Elf thoughts, and is in particular trying to figure out whether she's offended them by not-waving, because it occurs to her that if someone is friendly and you act like that's awful then maybe the person will think you don't like them, and that would be terrible.

Sanae is having a tiny mental breakdown over whether she should tell the Alteri that the Singers are basically-liars, given that they seem to be trying to conceal this, or if there's any way at all to contain this information for longer than the next couple days, at best. Haneo is broadcasting this, too; their station-wide game of telephone weighs in with estimates on how long they could hypothetically contain things and what the consequences will be for doing so. There will probably be torture. Some of the other psyons helpfully note that they are broadly against doing things that lead to lots of torture.

"If that's so then your news is more recent than ours, and we are grieved to hear it."

The Elves are still mostly looking at pretty things elsewhere but immediately start discussing this.

Would we not have heard if -

- there's no particular reason the news would have reached us before it reached here. 

Hello, says High Mountain cheerily to the psyons. We thought it might work out like this, though we weren't sure. Our species is of a wholly different design than yours - we run our brains on computers - but our bodies are surprisingly similar. I could use some assistance, but I don't want to get you in any trouble, so in the meantime is there anything you'd like to see? I can ask my friend to change what she's looking at.

"Ah. That is unfortunate. We would appreciate a timeline of your contact with our species so that we can compare it to our existing knowledge of events, but if you have no knowledge of the immediate situation, I am sure our scientists will be happy to discuss - whatever exactly it was they wanted to discuss, there are a lot of them and they're all very excited about this."

Haneo nervously bites her lip and rocks on the balls of her feet a few times, but she nods at High Mountain in the hopes that this will be taken as either "yes, we want to help" or "yes, more pretty things", without making it super obvious to the Alteri that communication is taking place.

You know talking to them is going to make it obvious they're talking to you, which is bad for whatever they're doing, right? Even if the Alteri already know what they are, you know they can take more than your tongue out next time, right -

     But I never get to talk to anyone except you, and you're awful. I didn't mean that. But you know what I do mean, right, half of your thoughts are the compulsive suicide thought things, and it's really a pain to listen to it literally all the time -

"Our scientists are similarly enthusiastic. I regret that we can't be more helpful. Should any of the Alteri desire to settle in the sanctified worlds I expect our borders would be open to you, as you are a great people, but I doubt our leaders will enter the war unless your enemies are foolish enough to attack us directly. - perhaps I should begin by explaining our history to your scientists so there is more context for the politics."

The distant Elf in charge of prettiness pulls up some scenes Imrainai liked in the VR game. Giraffes. Oceans. Forests. 

Don't move your hands, says High Mountain, Elves have very good vision and a spoken language, and I can read your lips through those breath masks. If we need to communicate that should be safer.

"That sounds extremely useful. I'm sure our leaders would be grateful for the possibility of a safe haven away from our enemies. We would of course be delighted to learn the history of your people," says the Alteri leader.

"Sanae needs to know whether you need us to hide that we can read you," mouths Haneo. "She doesn't think we can. Also sorry if it's hard to read my lips, I haven't tried to lipread people without tongues and I don't know how much harder it is, and I don't talk out loud normally anymore, and Sanae can't do it because she's really scared."