The heereen had to wait twenty minutes before all the people needed was reunited around the fish tank. 

I obviously used this time to grab my uniform and nothing more. Dressed as the human diplomatic emissary I went to the docking bay, finding there all the Rafkin contact team (more or less twenty people), Cassandra and Jeremhia. They were all nervous, a lot of electricity was in the air.

Most of the Rafkins were just nose up, looking at the fish tank, like accolites of some dark cult. Fortunately the ones with a real meaning to be there were at work, Cassandra was leading her team to check the translation device.

I went beside Jeremhia. "Where is he?"

"He is coming" he whispered.

"What's this emergency?"

"They didn't tell us... and there wasn't emotion in their message"

"I expect them to be scared to talk like that"

"If they are, they don't show"

I wanted to know more about the message from the heereen, but the fish tank started to seethe. The liquid in it was so dark and thick that few of the movement in it could be seen, but the sound of flushing fluid was loud, as a gigantic spoon was stirring up the tank.

After that, a raging sound and then something was in the fish tank, a big shape, dark as the liquid, moving in circle, coming near the glass walls, looking through it.

The shape went on swimming around for a while and then stopped in front of me. There, it started to glow. It wasn't all its body glowing, there were something like large red wires inside it and all of them where lit of deep red. The most intense lights came from three circles on the top of the creature, pointed on me like eyes.

Thanks to the glowing wires I could finally see the form of an heereen. It was around 11ft long, the shape of his body was quite similar to the one of a fish. Two circles of tentacles divided him in three section. The first section, that we called the "head", was the one with the three red circles, the "eyes". The central one, the "torso", seemed to be just plain, with nothing visible, and the third, the "tail", ended in a pointy way, with little fins.

Most of the movement of the heereen was done using the tentacles, the fins appeared to be of little help directing him and there were no other movement organs visible. It was a big creature, but the black liquid was its element and it was agile in it. 

The heereen said something, we found out he had a mouth, hidden under the first circle of tentacles. Its words were just buzzes and whistles. The translation device of Cassandra translated for us.

"Greetings. I'm Dau-Natara-Comu, captain of the scientific ship Haw"

Jeremhia looked at me, waiting for my response.

"I'm diplomat Callus Horeblood, emissary of the Human Senate.  I speak for the human race and for the Rafkin Caravan, our friends. We welcome you in the space we inhabit, hoping you're coming in peace"

New funny noises and new translation. "Heereen is a peaceful race and we're explores, we come in peace" All the body of the creature shaked and most of the glow fade out, leaving just the three eyes to illuminate the creature. 

Then, more noises. "We come in peace, but the ships that are flying toward us are not"