The thing leans back in its chair in an almost perfect simulation of a human settling into an uncomfortable seat, but there are slight twitches at the wrong moments. Commentators are making notes. Its left eyelid is drooping. Fashion experts are already criticizing its almost cultlike or clinical white robe.

"People of earth," it begins the interview. "We come in peace." It laughs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," it says. "Every one of your movies begins that way. If I didn't, some of you would take it as a declaration of war." It is androgynous, average in every way.

Connie is taken aback - they're already on page three of her list of questions and it hasn't even introduced itself. "I... uh... are we at war?" she stammers. It shakes its head. "We have neither the reasons nor the resources to hurt you." She gestures to its body. "What about this? I'm sure you could hurt me if you wanted to."

"You built this for me," it says. Connie begins to correct it, but it waves her off. "Your scientists, I mean. We sent the signal but couldn't in a billion years force you to put the parts together." It holds up a hand and stares at it. "You even added the little hairs," it says, and plucks one off its arm. "And there's a bomb in the back of my neck if I misbehave."

Connie puts her notes to the side. "Why are you here?" she asks. Might as well jump into it. She's practiced this question for hours. The first fifty times were too accusatory, she had decided, and she's worked her tone down to mild disinterest. "Anything you wanted to say, you could have said through the signal."

It nods and its face falls; it too has been practicing. "If you had a child," it says and pauses. "If you had a child that was sick, would you tell her?" Connie nods. "It would be inhumane not to. Are you saying we're sick?" It ignores the question. "And how would you tell her? Would you pick up the phone? Would you text her, to tell her she will die? Or would you look into her eyes, to be there to hold her?"

"I'm sorry," it says. It adjusts itself in the chair and sighs deeply. "There is a wave roaring through the fabric of the universe, only slightly less quickly than light. It is a leftover, an echo of some awful event we do not understand, something beyond the edge of what we can see." It is quiet too. "Then..." Connie begins. "When it passes, everything will contract and expand in one instant. It will be painless, but nothing will survive."

"When?" she chokes out. It looks into the camera. A clipboard clatters to the ground - her producer has run out. "You know," it says, "that I'm the last of my kind. We had just discovered other life in the universe, you, when we our instruments sensed the first edge of the wave. Like a tsunami, something tugged every so slightly at our space."

"When is it going to get to us?" It ignores her. "Perhaps a week after I was transmitted, the wave hit my planet." "When?" she persists. "We thought that someone should be here with you." "When?!" It puts a hand on her knee. "The night sky will start to shine as the first radiation reaches you. It will be beautiful, but watching it will blind you. Even before the wave itself arrives, the energy released by its passing will scorch your planet."

"When... when will this start?" "If I told you too soon, you would suffer too much. If I told you too late, you couldn't do whatever you needed to. Please understand. Where I come from, I treated diseases in the young. That's why I was chosen for this." "Please," she asks. "When?"

"Certain stars began twinkling more brightly, five minutes ago."