They were only a few light-years away. In fact they had just passed Alpha Centauri C on their route to the next planet selected for probing.
Proxima Centauri. source: Wikipedia
The hive-mind made itself small in the background so Gnaxl could notice the ship slowing down drastically; what could be the hold-up? They were only 4.25 light-years removed from their next destination, a distance traversed in only a couple of Earth-hours had his navigator not dialed down on the speed-controls. And after the pale blue dot called "Earth" they only had 3 more stops to make before they could finally return home to report their findings.
Raising his ghost, to make himself heard over the constant murmurs of the hive-mind he asked Xontax, his one and only physically present companion and trusty navigator:
"Why are we slowing down?"
Their race, the Xanzi, communicates in short form, because with the words all Gnaxl's emotions and mental imagery around the matter at hand were also communicated. Literally, half a word would suffice in most cases to communicate something that would take us several paragraphs of text.
"They're much more evolved than our researchers at home anticipated, and the planet is surrounded by technology; they apparently mastered spaceflight, and also some experimental laser technology was picked up by the ship's sensors."
Feeling the urgency and caution in Xontax's ghost, Gnaxl understood immediately; from now on they had to be cautious or their last three stops on this research trip may never even happen.
The Xanzi are an old race and our travelers had traversed more than 12 billion light-years to get to Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system that held their next destination; a small blue planet where Xanzi astronomers had detected intelligent life. All other planets and moons they had visited had life, but none of them had intelligence or technology.
In their rich experience with blooming intelligent life across the universe, they have become cautious with the ones that just gained the ability to explore outside their own planet; those tend to be hostile towards any visiting life-forms. Something to do with fearing the unknown and inflating the self...
Both "self" and "fear" were extinct in the Xanzi language, leaving only "caution" and "urgency" to guide their actions in this moment of discovery. Especially the many telescopes, radars, satellites and energy-weapons, the lasers, pointed towards danger. Their ship had no weapons of any kind, as the Xanzi were content with just learning from and if developed sufficiently, even sharing their knowledge with all intelligent life-forms they encountered.
Proxima Centauri as seen by Hubble. source: Wikipedia
Navigator Xontax reduced the ship to a proverbial crawl to be able to engage the magnifying equipment; they simply had to make sure to not be detected and shot down, as their research was simply too important to go to waste. It would take two generations before the next expeditions could be sent out, so they had to make sure they made it home.
The first images received from their magnifying device, almost re-introduced the two Xanzi with the concept of "fear", as they were genuinely startled by the sheer amount of surveillance satellites and laser-guns hanging around this "Earth". The inhabitants of this planet must be extremely cautious and hostile toward alien visitors. The surveillance equipment spanned the entire globe, so they could see visitors approaching from any direction, and the laser weapons were a lot less "experimental" than initial observations indicated. This could prove to be a very short visit indeed...
The ships translation device was still learning the planet's language, taking longer than our travelers were used to, but the fragments they could already decipher held feelings of hate and hostility. This left our visitors confused but doubled their alertness; every precaution had to be taken to make sure they could make a hasty exit when they were noticed by the Earthlings' spying devices.
Gnaxl, preparing the ship for the anticipated need to quickly escape from enemy laser-fire, decided to try and switch the magnifying equipment to maximum capacity; every last bit of data could prove essential to the mission's survival...
Seconds later the new pictures arrived and upon inspecting them our Xanzian researcher started laughing. It's not clear if this sudden joy was born out of relief or pure comedy, but Gnaxl discovered something in the pictures that made him say to his navigator, with half a word, to resume normal speeds and undo all precautionary measures. With another half word he explained to Xontax:
"There's nothing to worry about! These Earthlings are a peculiar life-form... Everything that had us worried, all the surveillance and laser equipment is aimed at themselves. All the hostile chatter we intercepted was directed at each other and was in many different languages."
He felt Xontax's ghost laugh alongside his: how ridiculous was that? This is an highly intelligent but super-ignorant life-form indeed! They both immediately knew they struck researcher's gold, as it was many millennia ago that they last encountered beings with this particular ghost-disorder, and they destroyed themselves long before Xanzi scientists were able to unravel the causes for this rare mental disease...
"We'll take a couple of specimens with us, for more research when we get home; I'm sure we'l be decorated for this!"
The travelers slipped back into routine, letting the hive-mind back in to share all new knowledge instantly and let them know about these rare beings called Earthlings...
THE END
U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin Deliver Nation’s Next Surveillance Satellite Photo Credit: Lockheed-Martin. source: AmericaSpace
Yeah, I know I'm no William Shakespeare, heck I'm not even a @meno ;-) But still I hope you have found other reasons than the apparent lack of writing-skills to laugh and be sad about in this little story... Alien visitors would get scared and then laugh at our social ineptitude's when approaching us for the first time. Or at least I would. Maybe I'm one of the aliens then..? You decide.
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