They resume walking. The blue says (and speaks, to her group): Welcome to Amenta! Do your people need any assistance?

The three talk for a bit in private telepathy. Then, Rauha sends again. The tone or feeling of the transmission is different. More formal, more distant, more prepared.

:Thank you for your kind welcome. We regret and apologize that we arrived at your planet in such a manner. It was an accident and was unintentional. I am Presbyter Rauha Joiner of the AAV Arch. I have been authorized by the ship's captain, Nenad Kit, to negotiate on his behalf. Our (ex) state is called the Asteral Accord.:

The telepathy is contextful and signals that Presbyter is a title, whereas Rauha Joiner are names.

:I am not authorized to negotiate on its behalf or to make treaties that bind it.

Despite this, it is our (ex) wish for our peoples to engage in much peaceful, productive, and pleasant intercourse with each other, and this is the wish of our state as well.: The transmission is accompanied by a burst of hope and desire. The emotion is palpable internally but seems demarcated, not as though one was feeling it one's self, but through strong empathy.

Are the aliens smiling? Do they smile? They seem to have humanoid months too.

The aliens smile! And they're mostly doing it except one of the greys who is maintaining a serious professional expression!

I'm Sita Mekapi and I've been dispatched to welcome you on behalf of the nation of Tapa, where you've landed. I'm not authorized to unilaterally make treaties either, though I can relay anything you want to say to people who can, and invite more Amentans here if you want to talk to someone with another specialty of any kind. We are so delighted to meet you, accidental or no. She tries to push that through; it's real.

They smile too! Very big smiles. The researchers inside are recording the proceedings with the ship sensors, while the one attached to the airlock party is recording the thought impressions with a wind glass sphere.

Very good sign for friendly aliens! The ship being destroyed is kind of putting a damper on the mood, so he doesn't know if he can say back that he's delighted, exactly.

:We wish to trade for materials with which to repair the communications system of our ship so that we can establish contact with our homeworld.

Once contact has been established, I fully expect, but do not promise, that the Asteral Accord would wish to establish formal trade relations with Tapa and with Amenta in general, such that our (in) peoples may be made more prosperous in the process.

If this is amenable to you, we wish to receive information about what things are valuable among Amentans or Tapai.:

We would most emphatically value information about how you traveled here such that we could try it ourselves, even at the risk of a similar crash. Other science and engineering knowledge is also valuable to us, though of course in expectation little if any biology would translate between biospheres. There will also be great consumer demand for your media and history. What is it that you need to repair you communications?

:Our method will not work for you, because you do not have access to orgone. Orgone is exotic energy obtained from the higher planes: something analogous to 'universe' :which we have access to through the Edicts: theology-law? Social-law? :of our Hierophant.: theologian-leader

:Those who live by his Edicts are granted access to it and can operate orgonic artifacts, which our ship's experimental and sublight drives are. Orgonic artifacts operated by other people cease to work.: The captain forbids him from talking about other nations on Earth. They can think about sharing that later. For now they want to seem like it's plausible they have a world government. Though they probably have inferred it from Rauha's explanation already...

:It is likely, but I do not guarantee, that the Asteral Accord would be willing to organize shuttle services for our two nations or worlds to trade with each other and for people to visit and perhaps even live in or immigrate, and for us to transport Amentans to other places besides.

We are willing to share some scientific knowledge.

We require a very large crystal.: He gives an impression of a crystal that is house sized, though he also sends the impression that it's very possible it needs to be even bigger than that.

:The crystal must be transparent, preferably colorless, and must be as pure as possible. The crystal must contain as few defects as possible and cannot have any grain boundaries — that is to say, it has to be totally monocrystalline. We typically use crystals of corundum or quartz.:

I don't know there to be any currently operating manufacture of crystals that size, but I expect we can accomplish it if we set our minds to it. We would be very happy to travel as your passengers until such time as we can learn more about your theology.

:I am qualified to speak on the topic of theology since I am a priest: theologian 

:What religion or religions are practiced in Tapa, or Amenta in general? We are prohibited from proselytizing but it is permitted to us to speak about it if we are asked: which he was, so.

Probably, Rauha and Sita are using some mental-word-concepts differently. Rauha feels that it is probably so but doesn't ask clarifying questions about it. Yet.

By this time the Amentans are within what would be a reasonable non-shouting conversational distance. People have different beliefs about what sorts of lifestyles and social setups are healthiest for people. We've converged on a shared understanding of some things relevant to international treaties, like a minimum pollution standard and an escalation-prevention approach to greys, but in most ways people can pursue all kinds of theological approaches in things like how they relate to their families, their mental health, their work, and other important things. It wouldn't be straightforward to enumerate all the possible combinations.

Intense psychic discussion ensues. Their faces are really quite emotive, but at the end they revert to Very Big Smiles.

That explanation is both surprising and also not. Not preparing for first contact was such a mistake. He is probably bungling this so badly. He wants to delay explaining the situation on Earth...

:Could you please explain what pollution and greys are?

Pollution is our word for things that are contaminated or unclean and therefore risky to handle without appropriate distance and equipment. Greys are one of our castes. She indicates the greys flanking their group. Amentans have different castes to specialize in different categories of work, and greys are where we draw our soldiers from, so to avoid any conflict progressing to total war we have some international rules about them in a way we don't for other castes; we wouldn't expect you to necessarily have converged on anything quite like that.

Huh. He thought he felt something different when they mentioned that thought-concept but Earth also does have pollution standards, so. That makes sense.

Oh, a casted society. That makes sense. And they mark it with hair color. He supposes all of them would be greys under this classification. Both because of their hair and because the Asteral Accord runs on a militia system. He does not volunteer this information.

:What castes does Tapa have? Could you give an overview of them and their roles?

We (ex) do not have any — or rather, we only have one caste.:

I'm a blue, the governance and diplomacy caste. Our escorts are greys, as you see, and these three here are greens, the scholarly and artistic caste. Most people are purples, which covers farming, manufacture, shipping, and most other miscellaneous good and service provision. There are also oranges, teachers and medics and such, and yellows, programmers and bureaucrats. Regularly polluting work is sequestered to the red caste, which is otherwise quarantined.

:Is this caste system shared by any other states on Amenta? Are the castes biologically distinct from each other? How does reproduction work among them? Would we be expected to try to fit ourselves to your caste system, given our situation?

Which types of work are regularly polluting? Our understanding of pollution is such that polluted people can be cleaned with appropriate decontamination.:

A broadly similar caste system prevails everywhere, with some local quirks like how to caste firefighting or boat operation. Most marriages are within caste, and there are plenty of biological traits that prevail in one and not another, but cross-caste reproduction is not unheard of. People will want to know what to most closely round you off to, especially in some languages that lean more heavily on everyone having a caste, but we do understand that you're aliens and won't have come to the same arrangements! People can be cleaned of incidental contact with pollution, but unfortunately the red caste was established at a time when that was impossible to do thoroughly and someone still needed to handle bodies and waste, and now have a generational problem.

Oh. Pollution is a metaphysical thing too.

:Our world has much more diversity in caste arrangements and, regarding linguistics, we (ex) tend to prefer to come to a consensus as to select which caste we want to be the closest to socially, so to speak.

Is caste denoted by hair color? We have black, grey, or white hair, which I think corresponds to the grey caste. Most of the people on this ship are researchers and so would be green by profession. What are the proportions and populations of each of the castes, in Tapa and Amenta in general?

Our Hierophant's Edicts grant us a blessing which magically keeps our bodies and spaces pure, and those who choose to convert and live under them would be granted this same blessing too. I am capable of performing this ordinance, as a presbyter. I can also demonstrate this magical cleanliness blessing to you.:

Caste is signaled by hair color, but that's a marker, not the underlying meaning, and Amentan hair doesn't even come in black. If you're researchers it sounds like you're closer to green. That blessing sounds absolutely wonderful! What's the process like?

Rauha explains the blessing. Broadly speaking, dirt and grime do not accumulate on their bodies or clothing. Both internal dirt like particles of skin or skin oils, etc., and external dirt like...dirt, or spilled food, etc. This extends to the spaces they frequent, such that homes, offices, cities and the like also are cleansed. This is both involuntary and voluntary — if you put on makeup and want to take it off, you can just think of it as 'dirt' and it will vanish from your skin.

Yes, they still excrete waste. Yes, they still have indoor plumbing and sewers and sanitation systems, but like. In space. 

Showering or sweeping or other cleaning activities are still done, but only for pleasure or familiarity, not necessity. Yes, it does violate conservation of matter in that just causes the offending material to disappear. 

The blessing does not tidy or rearrange messes, nor does it repair things. Stains and spills are cleansed, but if say, bleach was spilled on clothing, the bleach will disappear, but it won't fix the bleached part of the clothing.

Wow, the Amentans are really into cleanliness. It's evident from their mind-voice. So they really ought to give a demonstration of it. Some discussion ensues and the researcher with the party volunteers to come down from the airlock.

Rauha transmits the researcher's mindvoice. The man carefully drops down from the airlock and walks closer.

:Hello!: He is Very Cheerful and Very Smiley. :I'm Felicity Cornerstone. I can demonstrate the cleanliness blessing for you. It is very good, I agree — many other Crowned do not grant this blessing, or grant a lesser version of it which does not extend to spaces.

As for demonstrating it, I can throw sand on myself, or you could do so, and then I can will it away. Or if you have some sort of liquid like water, that would work too.:

They did bring water on their walk through the desert! One of the greens excitedly hands over his canteen.

Okay! Actually he's going to combine both of these: he accepts the green's canteen with two hands and a small bow, and then pours out some water on the desert sand. Then, he grabs a bunch of the wet sand and smears it on his coveralls and on his face. He raises his muddy hands to show them.

:Once I think of the mud as being undesirable dirt, I can do a mental action and...:

It vanishes!

Do Amentans do handshakes? He wants to shake the hand of Canteen Green with his now magically cleaned hand. And also return the canteen.

Canteen Green will shake hands!! Wow!!!