"We're here."

Kressa's voice echoed through the ship. I blinked as I lifted my head from the desk. Damn, I fell asleep while working again. "Cool, honey. How is first contact going?"

"Um. Kind of weird, actually, Mum. They're... they're like me. And all the other electrokids. No born humans-"

"You were born! And you're not weird, you're my own little girl, and don't you ever forget it."

An electrokid was much more of a miracle than a meatkid, these days. Compatible sperm and ovum meet in the Petri dish, zygote placed in the artificial uterus at the appropriate point, meatkid removed at the right time, bingo, we have a new human. Electrokids, on the other hand... hours of coding, melding of compatible programs, thousands of prayers to gods that don't exist that this time the magical alchemy will happen... Kressa had been produced with as much blood, sweat and tears as an old-fashioned body birth, and she was my dear daughter. Say my baby isn't my baby because she's an electrokid, and I will eviscerate you with my pencil.

"Anyway, Mum, will you come down and talk with them? The diplomats are stuck on the whole 'one species two forms' thing. Maybe a parent of an electrokid can communicate with them."