Juna shook her head. She needed to think of something else besides how homesick she was, or she would go crazy. To distract herself she imagined the reaction at base camp when she strode out of the jungle, accompanied by a pair of sentient aliens. Kinsey, the Alien Contact specialist, would kiss her feet in gratitude. A-C Specs were probably the most frustrated people in the Survey. They spent their entire careers as supercargo on Survey ships, doing scutwork, writing theoretical papers, and hoping that someday someone would discover an alien race.

Humans had so far discovered only three alien races. Two of those had been long extinct. The third, the Sawakirans, had fled human contact, whole cities vanishing into the wilderness. The few Sawakirans that humans contacted died a few hours later. It was not entirely clear whether the deaths were from fear, sickness, or suicide. The Survey put the Sawakirans’ planet on the proscribed list and left them alone.

Kinsey would cut off his right arm for the chance to be turned green and live in a bug-infested tree with a bunch of smart frogs. All Juna wanted was to go home, take a nice hot bath, eat food that had been cooked first, and talk to people she could understand.

Tears of self-pity welled up. Juna shook her head, angry at herself. Tears wouldn’t change things. It was time for her to stop acting like a frightened child and start acting like a scientist. She had been given an incredible chance to study an alien race. This discovery could make her career; she shouldn’t waste time being homesick.

First she needed to learn to communicate. She reviewed everything she had learned about the aliens’ language. The patterns on their skin seemed to carry information; the colors showed the emotional content of their words. Blues, particularly turquoise, were associated with pleasure, and greens with approval or agreement. Reds and oranges were related to anger and fear. Purple was connected with curiosity and questions.