Contact across the Solar System

Questions, Questions

Cristina came out of her cabin and joined her entourage. "I think I'm ready to go," she said.
Her SSC hosts knew that she had a lot of questions for them, so they set up the lounge's seats for that. She and her entourage got seats toward one end, and the SSC people seats toward the other end, with Kalna and Ilmuth on each side of Orthon. Cristina was rather pleasantly surprised at how obliging her hosts were. Some of her entourage started recording video with their smartphones, and some started taking notes on paper. "In case the SSC tries anything on our smartphones."

Orthon wore a white shirt with shiny blue-white trimmings and also dark gray pants, Kalna a tight-fitting black sleeveless knee-length dress with multicolored swirls on it and a jeweled belt, and Ilmuth in shiny loose salmon-colored pajama-like shirt and pants. Almost as if they wanted to compete with Cristina.

Cristina and the three SSC people introduced themselves, and Cristina started by praising and thanking her hosts.
"Orthon, Kalna, Ilmuth, all you people of the SSC, I'm *so* grateful that you've taken me on this trip. The Earth is *so* beautiful from outer space, and I thank you for letting me see it. You are all so very kind to me."

She continued with her praise and thanks, and she said that she very much appreciated that the SSC people kept level heads about the Iskandari incident. Orthon responded "Thank you. It seemed to me like a child's temper tantrum. The best thing to do is stay calm, and we did."
Orthon checked his smartphone.
"We determined that Amin Iskandari's weapons would likely have done only minor damage to the Aurora. Nothing like the Kinden Tarupa explosion -- the Tunguska explosion."
"What a damn fool," said Cristina.

She then praised her hosts for willing to take her seriously and not write her off just because she was an anti-espionager. She next looked at her notes and said "You have done great in a lot of things. Very very great. You have done many things that we ought to be doing. But I have some criticisms of your contacts with us and some questions about why you did what you did. I hope that you can accept them in a spirit of friendly criticism, and I hope that you won't feel that I have repaid your kindness with nastiness. I really do."
Orthon responded "By all means do so. We want to know if we're doing anything wrong. We won't attack you about anything, if that's what you are fearing. You are still welcome here."
He tried to avoid hinting that he was reading Cristina's mind, and he thought "So that's why she was trying to flatter us. So we would be less motivated to get back at her and her entourage."

"I must talk about your sending your people to live among us with false identities. It still seems creepy to me - any of us could be some of you."
She continued in this vein, getting to telepathy.
"Any of you could have learned all our secrets, all our innermost secrets. You could have doxxed us like crazy."
"Doxxed?" asked Orthon.
"Revealing personal information," responded Cristina. "Is my vocabulary too much?"
Kalna responded "No, not at all. We can translate just about anything you give us. So please use your normal vocabulary."
"Thanks. English isn't my first language, and I know how hard it can be to learn another language."
"It isn't ours, either," said Kalna.

Cristina looked at her notes again and said "As I learned of your residents' activities, I was struck by what great people they often were. Well-behaved, friendly, diligent, helpful, you name it."
Kalna broke in with "Cristina, you are looking at two former residents right now. Me and Ilmuth."
Cristina smiled and continued.
"But I was bothered by the principle of it, and I still am."
She paused.
"That's why I was not happy with those aid-for-acceptance deals. It's the principle that bothered me."
"But I thought about doing that and I discussed it with my friends, and I noticed a lot of people wanting to go ahead with it, and that's why I now support it. Your reading my mind is what sealed the deal. So that's why I now support going ahead with it, those aid-for-acceptance deals."

Cristina then asked about why the SSC was so gradual and slow about revealing details of itself. Orthon responded "We wanted to be cautious."
"Cautious?"
"Several reasons."
"Like what?"
"A big one is keeping our more advanced technologies out of the hands of the people of your world. We've seen what many of you like to use your technology for, and we don't want to help any of you fight some horrible war."
"That is all too understandable. I've gotten a lot of grief from the more fervent anti-espionagers about not demanding complete technology transfer. Like how unpatriotic I am and how I'm not doing my job as a Congresswoman by not demanding it. I recently had a challenger whose main argument was just that."
"What happened?"
"He sank without a trace. He barely got any votes. I felt sorry for him."

Orthon continued "Another one is unfamiliarity. We wanted to introduce ourselves to you gradually so you could learn about us at a reasonable pace."
Cristina responded "So that's why you stonewalled us for so long?"
Orthon discussed "stonewalling" with Kalna, and then said "Yes."

He then said "There is another factor. We may seem too good to be true. We wanted to show you that we are real, that we aren't some elaborate fakery."
Kalna checked her laptop, then said "Ilmuth and I once went to a UFO convention. We put on wigs in case anyone read 'Inside the Spaceships'. We weren't discovered."
"I encountered someone there who dismissed contactees as frauds, and I asked why. He mainly talked about fake pictures, but I read his mind and I discovered something deeper. He considered contactee accounts too good to be true. Like a Star Trek sort of society. Cristina, you yourself once said that about us, that our society seemed too good to be true."

Cristina was taken aback by how casually Kalna talked about reading someone's mind. She was well-aware of the SSC people's telepathy, but it could still be startling. She said "It's still ... still upsetting to me. You only wanted to find out about us ... but I still feel hurt by that."
Kalna said "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Should I have introduced my mind reading more ... gently?"
"Yes, that would be nice. But I don't mean to get in your way about it. It will have to come out someday, but it's still painful to me."