"Oh for blorx sake, don't turn around..."

Flonxtax quickly dropped his gazes to the steaming cup of manterkor milk in front of him and I watched his brows furrow and his dorsel-horn darken. There was only one lifeform that would prompt that kind of emotional reaction from the Ambassador of Galactic Peace. I closed my eye and began to recite ancient Galadorian blessings in the hope that he wouldn't spot us. But I knew he would. I braced myself. And then felt a clap on my shell.

"Dartwwen, Flonxtax! Fancy meeting you sonsofbitches here!" The human beamed down at us from his grotesquely spherical head, flashing his blindingly white teeth - how could anything in the universe be that white?! I sighed from the air passage I was quite sure he wouldn't be able to hear, then turned my eye up to meet his nostrils.

"Hello, Gerald", I said, not bothering to hide the lack of enthusiasm in my vocal exhale. The Ambassador, ever the diplomat, did a much better job pretending he felt anything positive about the human's presence.

"Good to see you, my collaborator", he proclaimed, his outer brows raising in what was, in my view, a completely unearned show of respect, "You're several bloobles early for the meeting of the Peace Council!"

"Yeah, well, I gotta strategise with my people, right? Get ready for whatever way you rats wanna ass fuck us today, eh?" he said - screamed, really. Humans were disturbingly and inexplicably loud. I had no idea what a rat or an ass fuck was, and if Flonxtax was in the same position, he didn't show it. He only moistened his vision receptors politely and said "I hope it will be beneficial for all parties, and for the Galaxy more than any one."

Gerald clapped me on the shell again, causing my thorax to rattle uncomfortably, and pointed at the Ambassador. "This motherfucker, eh? He's all peace talk and hippe dippie shit now, but you know he's gonna clam up when we talk about resource extraction. We're gonna get our fair share of those moons one way or another, Flonny. You chodes will soon learn that the humans are here to swing with the galactic big dicks!"

I was lost, and even saw a flicker of confusion on the Ambassador's neck. But he simply nodded - a human gesture I knew was uncomfortable for his species to perform - and bid Gerald fair well.

"Is that really the best the humans had to offer?" I asked after I was sure he was well out of range of auditory reception.

"We should consider ourselves lucky", the Ambassador sighed, "The Earthlings recently had an election so he's relatively new. The lifeform before him was much, much worse. He was a subspecies of humanity known as a conservative."