Free again from the author via KDP Select @
Amazon:
Beyond the Waters of the World by Nebula-finalist Ruth Nestvold (
ISFDB,
Wikipedia), a recently-written follow-up to her Asimov's SF-published gender-bending science fiction novella "Looking Through Lace" which was a multiple Tiptree & Sturgeon & Asimov's Reader's Choice Award nominee back in the day (also previously offered free to us).
The Allied Interstellar Community first contact team on the planet Kailazh is faced with even more challenges than most. But dealing with an alien culture is not only difficult for those who arrive on a foreign world. What of the inhabitants of the planet, who now have to deal with realities so strange to their way of thinking, it will have an impact on everything they believe?
Kislan is a factor in his family's shipping company, a man who has seen many ships arrive at the docks of Edaru from many different cities, who deals with foreign goods from all over the known world. But the ship that arrives from the stars brings more than exotic innovations, it brings ideas that will change his life.
And it brings the beautiful ambassador from the stars, Toni Donato.