Freyr studied each of the imposing set of Rothians in turn. It fascinated her how diverse the colouring and patterns were among the physiologically similar aliens. She knew most of these mature aliens had likely hand-picked their colour scheme, but she wondered if their colour and pattern choices somehow denoted societal or gender clues. Freyr spotted Vreta by his yellow stripes, on the end of the row; she gave him a polite smile and a nod. 

She was no expert on body language, but Freyr detected a distinctly frigid vibe from the Rothians after a couple of seconds, which she could see her colleagues picking up on as well. There were some half-hearted verbal greetings while everyone got seated. Masgard, Blue Eye Guy had quickly occupied the middle three seats, and Osman had taken the one opposite Vreta, so Freyr moved to the other end and sat opposite the Rothian with a bright, floral scale pattern. Dr Uchida and Dr Kamau followed her and stood protectively behind Freyr’s chair.

Once everyone was settled, the Under-Secretary began speaking. “First of all, I'd like to thank you for seeing us at such short notice. As you know, I wouldn’t have asked for such urgency if it wasn’t important. I’ll let the Director General explain the situation.” Sequeira turned to the man with the augmented eyes, as did pretty much everyone else in the room. Freyr caught Masgard’s eye and could see he was about as shocked as her to learn the man’s actual title. Director General of what, though?

“Thank you, João. Before I begin though, I would like to ask the Rothian ambassador to drop the charges arrayed against one of my officers, designation Five Nine Five. They were acting autonomously to save the life of our new head of Cradle research from domestic terrorists. It’s extremely regrettable one of your own got injured. It’s nice to see you on the mend by the way, Vreta’Sori.” The Director smiled warmly at Vreta. I'm told we've apprehended all of the Skinners responsible for this attack. We would be happy to question them in co-ordination with Rothian elements, as a gesture of goodwill?”