"Oh," Zola exclaimed aloud. "that reminds me," she continues in signs.
"Did you ever get our messages?"
Missy paused in using their knives as whetting stones for one another and glanced at her.
"What messages?" they signed back.
"We sent messages out to deep space decades ago in search of intelligent life." Zola's eyes sparkled with wonder as she leaned forward.
"How long ago was this?"
"We've been doing it for a while... since the 60s?"
"Those numbers mean nothing to me. How many Earth revolutions ago was this?"
"Over 40 of those ago."
Missy stroked their chin in thought, still clutching the knife.
"What did it contain?"
"Lots of different messages, some are signals, some are physical records on spacecraft. Those records had photos of human experiences, math, maps, science... Human music from all over the globe, and a dozen human languages telling whoever received it that we wanted them to visit, to say something back, that we mean well."
She sat back on her knees.
"Did your kind ever get them?"
Missy raised her head up in a near-recognition, as if to recall from faint memory.
"Those messages. Yes, we did get them."
Zola sat even further backwards in incredulity.
"Why didn't you ever send something back to us?"
Missy scraped one of their knives against the other, creating a spark. They paused again, draping a hand over their bent knee.
"Because humans wouldn't care to get to know us."
"Don't say that. We're getting along just fine."
The Young Blood scraped their knives aggressively yet again, seemingly out of contempt.
"We keep our existence hidden from humans. For good reasons. I don't imagine they would like the planet of human-Hunters to respond to pleas of goodwill and companionship. Not that we would want it, anyways."
They looked up in thought, tapped their fingers upon their knee, then signed again.
"The history between you and I, is different than the history between our peoples."
Zola couldn't muster a quick response, twisting her mouth in awkward silence.
"Well... did you guys at least learn something from it?"
Missy once again looked up, but inhaled and exhaled deeply, out of annoyance.
"It would have been useful information... 300,000 of your human years ago. We've known most, if not all, of what could be considered 'useful' on those discs long before they were sent out. The rest was considered irrelevant."
Zola sank, and looked down in agreed disappointment.
"Such as the music?"
Missy looked at her.
"Yes. Irrelevant. The fauna and human voice samples were appreciated, as were the brainwaves. Good references for language, fauna identification, and living human vitals. If not in a very primitive format, and potentially outdated."
Zola barely looked up, continuing a downcast glance to a random spot on her bed.
"Are you the only other intelligent species in the galaxy?"
"No," Missy signed frankly. "but you all are in quite a dead zone. We're the only ones nearby because we travel to you frequently. We are always on or by Earth. We have been for over 300,000 years."
"So, we're not alone, but we are lonely."
"That is a contradiction. I do not understand."
Zola extended her arms grandly, rolling her wrists dramatically, purposefully near Missy's face.
"We're just calling out into empty space, and the only people who can hear us don't care. If we call and someone nearby doesn't respond, they might as well not be there. There are others nearby, but we don't know they're there. So we aren't alone, but we feel lonely."
She tucked her arms back to her side, splayed out.
In the ensuing silence, Missy put their knives down onto the bedsheets beside them and leaned over ever so slightly, staring at Zola. Quietly, they raised their hands, the sign version of inhaling in preparation of speech.
"...I was young when we received those messages. Only a little older when got our hands on those records. They were broadcast planet-wide."
Zola perked up.
"Really?"
Missy leaned back, their head contacting the wall as if relaxing, idly glancing into space with nostalgia.
"Humans hadn't perfected interstellar travel yet—you still haven't—and we knew you were not aware of extraterrestrial life, so when all of a sudden humans managed to send a message we could pick up, it was a commotion."
They glanced over at Zola with what almost seemed a sympathetic look.
"It was like a joke. Patronizing, if you will. We all knew those messages asking for us to respond and come to Earth would not be met with the promised goodwill. Humans were not ready for a third party to reveal themselves. Humans can barely handle other humans. Some saw it as an insult. Or a threat, a trick. Most found it amusing."
Before Zola's rekindled joy could escape, Missy planted it down with a hand on her shoulder.
"But I thought it was delightful. It is very one-half of human behavior to send such messages."
"One-half?"
"The other half is what my kind see when we reveal ourselves."
"Ah." Zola vocalized aloud. She looked aside awkwardly, but looked back with a good-natured smile. "What did you do with the records?"
"Saved their contents, and put them back. If you want to send messages into deep space where no one can read it, who were we to stop you?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Zola sat straight up. "You just have a copy of the entire thing, ready to view?"
"I could request access to our copy, but... do humans not...?"
"See, for a long time it wasn't available to the public, but a few years ago, the audio was made so. But can you do the..."
Zola mimed typing over her left forearm, pinching her fingers together, then expanding them as she lifted her hand up, sound effects provided with her mouth.
"... that? It was audio and visual. Oh, I know you said you all already know what the contents were, but I could explain them better!"
She clapped her hands and cupped them around her face.
"I'm having movie night with an alien..." she sighed with wonder.
Missy hesitantly opened their wristcom and input the request.
"It needs to be approved for access first. If I am denied, we can listen to the human copy instead."
"That's not as fun."
For several minutes, Zola awaited with bated breath as Missy stared at the REQUEST PENDING notification in her biomask vision.
"Will it be, like, hours until it reaches your planet?"
"It should be quicker than that, if not instantaneous."
Suddenly, the display blinked from PENDING, to a flashing APPROVED banner with an OVERRIDE COMMAND subtitle before disappearing.
"He... said yes?" they clicked aloud, blinking their eyes and shaking their head to regain their bearings. Noticing their surprise, Zola placed a hand on Missy's arm and leaned in, beaming.
"You got it? They said yes?!"
Missy silently nodded their head, furrowing their brow in confusion as they slowly opened the recording.
"Why did he say yes? It was so superfluous..."
They closed the analog display on their wristcom and activated the holo-projector, shooting a light construct visualization of the audio pattern of English speech, the accompanying audio emanating from Missy's biomask.
Zola leapt across the room to dim her lights, then dived back onto her bed, and yanked her phone from her dresser.
As she scrolled, Missy carefully slipped the gauntlet off, and placed it between the two of them.
"Okay, so," Zola began to sign, thumbing over the Wikipedia page of the Voyager's contents. "This is the Secretary-General of the United Nations... from over 40 years ago. Like their leader, an overseer."
"Was he defeated in combat?"
"... no. I wish he was, he sounds like a fucking tool. Oh, oh! This is the greeting track! This one is Sumerian..."
Zola looked up at the holograms, a quick second of eye contact with Missy past it, and back down at the phone for information which she interpreted to ASL.
Missy listened closely to her voice past the message, and only looked past the holograms, at Zola's delighted smile, framed by warm cheeks.