"We are a created species; our progenitors are called the Valar. There are fifteen of them, and millions of lesser members of the same species. The Valar conceived of the project when they were new to genetic engineering. They wanted to create several planets, each with perfectly balanced ecosystems of immortal beings. They failed many times before they succeeded; they have told us that the stars are littered with inferior, unbalanced, versions of the world they wanted to create. But they succeeded eventually. Our worlds of origin were called Valinor, and Araman, and Tol Eressëa, and Endorë. The nearest is less than ten lightyears from here, but you will not find them; when the Valar were satisfied with their success they sealed their garden from the galaxy, so that it could not be disturbed. 

Eventually, we developed modern technology, and sought and received permission to venture into the larger universe. They created new planets for us to colonize - Beleriand, Nargothrond, Minas Tirith - within star systems they had already sealed. It is their wish that we settle on those, and that among the rest of the universe we pass as travellers. We are happy with this arrangement, as the planets they create are perfectly suited to us."

High Mountain thinks that it's horrifying that they cut out her tongue but he's still mostly following along. He replays things she said in his head if they're hard to catch the first time. We're not planning to keep it a secret that we are very like you; we'd like to establish some things first, but it is not something we can reasonably expect to keep secret permanently. It's fine that you can read us. It's fine to tell them that. Can you lie for us on smaller things, ones that could not be discovered without you?

"Maybe but we can't promise. There are twenty-six of us on Savaek Kan and some of us are really bad at lying, like the three-year-olds, and if we lie and they catch us then they'll hurt us and we don't want the three-year-olds to get hurt."

The Alteri leader yields the floor to her team of handpicked scientists, who want to know the locations of these star systems and information on their biospheres. Maybe they could, like, borrow one of the Singers to ask about the biospheres and then their leader can keep recounting the history.

Okay. That's fine. I don't think we'll need you to lie for us. Do you know if they're truthfully representing the situation on their side?

Singers are happy to point out these systems on a star chart and eagerly discuss their biospheres, all within the previously-provided tolerances - "the planets have different plant and animal life but they wanted us to be capable of surviving on any of them." They can pull up pictures on their chair-computers if those are of interest. They have samples on board of plants from their homeworld, Valinor, but not from any of the other four. 

The leader goes into political structure. "Here I know the most about Valinor, as it is our world of origin. Valinor had three houses of Singer originally, and kept us segregated for the first thousand years of our existence so that we could develop our cultures uniquely. The houses are known as the Noldor, the Vanyar, and the Teleri. Only the Noldor have chosen so far to leave the sealed worlds; we're the most scientific and engineering-minded of the peoples. We have a single ruler, one of whose children inherits power should the ruler die; this has occurred only twice in our history, as the Valar are very angry at the loss of a single Singer, very diligent in pursuing those responsible for such harms, and quite thorough in punishing them. It would never be advisable to try to bring about harm against a superior. - some people dislike that, as it limits their options, but others really like it, as it means that you need never be afraid. And now there are many avenues to advancement on our empty colony planets."

Would we have heard about Maela?

     We wouldn't've, it's military. 

But it sounds like bullshit -

     It sounds like bullshit, but if it weren't, we wouldn't have heard about it, and lots of things happen that sound like bullshit. Exhibit A, aliens with brains just like ours who have somehow gotten this far in dealing with the Alteri - actually that sounds way more like bullshit than the Maela thing -

"Sanae thinks - " begins Haneo, and then the Alteri inside the room shift to look at the pictures and ask questions about them, and Haneo ducks her head because she's not sure which people can see her from their various vantage points and it's kind of hard to keep track of things when she can only look at the room from the perspectives of the Elves and the perspectives of the Liars at the door. She focuses on giraffes and oceans and everything else the Elves are thinking for a bit.

The Alteri find all of this very fascinating (they say - the scientists seem to actually find it fascinating and the other officials seem to be tolerating it), and are in particular interested in how it is that only two of their heads-of-house have ever died; exactly how long have the Singers have existed?

"Eleven thousand years!"

"This is a very short time for a species and a very long time to have gone while having only two instances of inheritance. How long have your Valar existed?"

"They have told us they were created along with the universe itself, thirteen billion years ago. They took a long time to develop the capacities they have now; all of the records of their active involvement in the universe are from the last eighty million years."

"They are indeed ancient, then. They have, in all this time, never encountered the Defilers?"

"If they did, they wouldn't have been worthy of their attention. No Singer has ever met a Defiler."

One of the Alteri makes a series of chirping noises, not unlike those contained in the audio file the Elves received previously. The leader gestures, and the other official falls silent. "I see. And what have we done, precisely, to earn so much more of their regard?"

Do you think they think they're -

     They're not from the Defilers.

But they could be, I bet the Defilers could make Liars if they wanted to and I bet they're billions and billions of years old, and I bet if they were going to make them they'd try to make them immortal and then I bet they'd make them exactly the sorts of people who'd -

     Are you gonna finish telling them about Maela or are you just gonna -

"Sanae thinks the Maela thing is bullshit but if it weren't bullshit then we wouldn't know about it so maybe it isn't bullshit actually, and also we should tell you that they're going to question us after this and Sanae's probably gonna tell them everything she read and she's sorry about that," mouths Haneo, when she thinks probably nobody is paying attention to her.

It's okay. We're not going to be upset and it's not going to ruin anything. 

"Honestly, I think it was mostly a consequence of internal politics. The Valar are at war now with one another. The one who started it wants to annihilate all life in the universe, and so the other ones have grown more - positively inclined about other species, and just as we met you. They've also grown to consider it terribly evil for species to war against another with the intent to destroy them, so they were horrified by the evils of the Defilers we were told of. And you have invented many things we hadn't, they respect that. They particularly respect talent at genetic engineering, and were delighted at the mindreaders -" he gestures at the children - "that's something they wanted to do for a long time and could not achieve. Eventually they developed a workaround - we have computer chips in our heads which contain backups of our minds, and which we can use for communicative telepathy - but they never managed it organically. So - you're clever, you're inventive, you're the victim of a great evil which happens to especially anger them, and you were in the right place at the right time."

Haneo shrinks into herself when gestured at. Sanae gives no sign that she's noticed.

"This is sensible. We are glad your Valar appreciate our advancement, and we hope they are soon united once again, preferably under the ones that don't want to annihilate all other life. We are intrigued by your ship; we had not noticed its approach until a few days ago. Is it a method of cloaking?"

"Yes. One we're open to sharing - I think there are some prospects for an alliance against Melkor, the Vala we're fighting - but that's being negotiated elsewhere and beyond our power to offer right now."

       "I think the Alteri we contacted wanted to check Melkor to see if everything added up. They were very courteous about it but -"

"Well, it does sound awfully unlikely. The planet where Melkor is waging his war is unsealed now, they'll be able to go look for themselves."

There is more chirping. The leader ignores it this time. "We would of course require more military intelligence before committing any of our forces to your war. I am sure you will be much better-served by planets in the stellar network, on that front. Savaek is only a colony system, and our resources are limited."

"The Defilers didn't even try to wipe them out," mouths Haneo, when she's finished calming down.

"Yes, we know. We weren't expecting your assistance, we just wanted to make contact since you were so nearby. I am terribly sorry that we came on the heels of such awful news from Maela, and we understand if now is not the time for the cultural exchange we'd hoped for."

"It's quite all right. There are many of us in this system. I should return to Savaek Nas to discuss these events with my superiors, but military matters need not halt scientific or cultural exchanges. I believe Navan Atekri wished to take a team to visit you aboard your ship, if possible, but that is better discussed with him than with me." She gestures to one of the scientists.

"We'd be delighted!"

Navan is also delighted! "We will of course need some time to gather our team together - I'm not sure how many people you'd like to invite aboard, the ship is very large but we don't want to be an imposition."

Sanae is listening for any thoughts or feelings associated with the Melkor person. Haneo is fidgeting. "They're gonna take us out in a second, do you need to know anything else right now?"

They mostly aren't thinking about it but they despise Melkor! Really despise him! They're really really hopeful about the alliance with the Alteri there, destroying Melkor is super important, he is torturing trillions of people and everything. 

I don't think so. He projects wordless concern for their wellbeing, as if this were a normal osanwë conversation.

Huh. Sanae doesn't even despise the Alteri that much, though she's not actually sure she remembers how to despise things, so maybe that isn't a very good measure.

"OK! You're nice, thanks for the giraffes, hope you don't all get enslaved and stuff," mouths Haneo. And then one of the Alteri gestures at the other Liars, and the psyons are led out of the room. The Alteri leader also excuses herself, and tells them to ask one of the scientists if they need anything or have any further questions.

Oh, we can't get enslaved. We die immediately. You can tell them that. He sends, to back it up, the way Elves feel about having their movement confined in any way.

Haneo is super dubious about this being as good of a protection as the Elves think it is, but she dutifully relays it to the Alteri when she and Sanae are separated from the network and questioned at opposite ends of the station. She tells them allll about how the Singers can be read, and about how they seem basically mentally like Liars except also kind of a little bit different, and they showed her lots of pretty things and they think that cutting people's hair is terrible and everything they said was heavily scripted and she thinks some of the things they said were lies, but she isn't sure which ones, except that she kind of doesn't think they've been to Maela. Also they have really good vision and phonetic language and she talked to them a bunch and she's sorry about that and she won't do it again if they don't want her to, promise. 

The Alteri dutifully listen to her testimony and dutifully compare it to Sanae's, which is much more organized but apparently non-contradictory. They inform Haneo that she is going to be assigned to the ship team, because she is especially observant. She will not be losing any more body parts today, but honestly, kid, if you can't stop talking to people then they might have to do something drastic, do try to think about this stuff. It's really not that much fun to come up with ways to torture baby animals, if they wanted the torture-baby-animals job then they wouldn't be hanging out at an astronomical research station.

The Alteri scientists ask the Singers questions about their history and their homeworld and their technological advancement for a bit, and in general stall until their superiors are done comparing notes and their psyon is back from infodumping. This really isn't hard, the scientists are entirely genuinely fascinated.

And the Singers are happy to cooperate! They have plant samples and animal samples and huge libraries of photographs and videos. 

They also have a Maia. They explain what the Maiar are - lesser members of the same species as the Valar. They can take physical forms, though they don't have to. This one is in a physical form. The Alteri can meet it if they'd like, and probably should, understanding the Valar is very important to understanding the Singers, but, well, Maiar can read minds and are impossible to kill and aren't all that tolerant of rudeness, so they wanted to make sure the Alteri understood what was going on before they made that introduction.

The Alteri appreciate the warning and do some last-minute shuffling of their boarding party. When they're finished they have six people - four scientists and two others, all of them passably polite and willing to have their minds read (and, in the worst case, expendable).

They're totally going to bring Haneo, too. When she comes back she's wearing mittens and a face-obscuring biosuit, and is still occasionally bouncing on the balls of her feet. She listens to everything (she can't not listen to everything, but she can pay more or less attention to it - there are something like two hundred people in range and she's trying not to pay attention to most of them). She tries really hard not to wave.

The Maia is in the form of an enormous sheepdog; the Elves bow when he enters. Then they get to showing off their art and technology and music and so on.