“It’s hard to believe,” Trout said skeptically. “I mean, you look exactly like us.”

  “… we don’t though? I mean, not even a little bit. Our jawlines have different shapes, our ears are different shapes, I’m fairly certain you would be much taller and wider than me if we were the same age, and we literally look nothing alike.”

  “Those are only minor differences, though?”

  “Among humans, probably. Your transmissions show that there are several different breeds of humans. However, Kaedekin variation is far less extreme, and is usually internal to neurochemistry and soul.”

  “So, you’re saying this resemblance is a product of coincidence?”

  “Well, it’s definitely a product of parallel evolution,” Rain said with the air of someone providing an explanation. “But if there’s any uncertainty, we have records from the period that show we were already here and predate the human astrocolonization period.”

  “We would be interested in seeing those, if they are available,” Trout said neutrally.

  “That can be arranged. The museum is open every day, and they never cycle out the early history displays. Once you’ve been properly vaccinated, we can go down and see it.” The bright, earnest smile was back, and it was almost enough for Trout to actually believe her. That the Kaedekin were aliens, and that because of some quirk of evolution just happened to look very similar to humans.

  … but there was the garlic. And the viruses for the common cold. And the fact they had eyes despite living in a pitch-black planet.

  Trout knew enough about evolution to realize that if the Kaedekin were native to Surcease, then their eyes would have been very unlikely to evolve to see with visible light… and their camera technology would be designed to perceive the non-visible wavelengths that the Kaedekin would have evolved to see, so the video he was seeing now would be very unlikely to show the color yellow, because that was a visible wavelength.

  “I look forward to it, though I’ll probably need a lot of context to properly appreciate the exhibits,” Trout said. History was like that, uninteresting until there was something you recognized. “Just one last question on the subject though, if you will.”

  “Of course,” Rain said cheerfully.

  “The food you brought to the ship for us to test whether we could eat it…” He resisted the urge to sound like a murder mystery detective bringing up the one flaw in the suspect’s alibi they couldn’t explain away. “Why did it have garlic in it?”

  “Because you can never go wrong with adding garlic to anything. Though it wasn’t my decision, it was just what the cafeteria was serving that day,” Rain said immediately, then frowned. “Ah, was someone allergic to garlic? Were they hurt?”

  “…no, no one was hurt,” Trout eventually said. This had to be an act, right? “It’s just… you said you’ve never encountered humans before.”

  “We haven’t,” Rain said, looking a bit bemused. “This is our first contact with humans, and everyone else for that matter.”

  “And that the Kaedekin are not human and are not from Earth.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Then how do you have garlic?”

  “It was in Fortress’s kitchen pantry when it arrived on Surcease. Which we’ve all been very thankful for over the centuries. The kitchen didn’t have much else in the way of spices that we were able to grow in the garden. If there hadn’t been onion and garlic in the kitchen… actually, I’m pretty sure someone wrote a book about that already. About what could have happened if we’d had black peppercorns and cacao plants growing in the garden instead of onion and garlic in the pantry… Oh, sorry, I got distracted.”

  Trout stared. Rain met his gaze—a part of him noted that she must have been looking directly at her camera, because it seemed like they were making eye contact—looking infinitely patient. Then a thought seemed to occur to her. “Oh! I’m sorry, you must have had absolutely no context for what I was just talking about. That was my mistake, I should have remembered you wouldn’t know anything about our history. The Fortress was a space station where the original Mass Production Models were originally gestated and decanted, and served as their base of operations during… ah, well, it’s not relevant right now, but it was what the original Kaedekin were on when they arrived on Surcease.”

  “… why did this fortress have garlic in it?”

  “Well, either it was brought by someone in the Association who wanted a supply of garlic for when they cooked, or it was part of the rations for feeding the Mass Production Models. Once they were decanted they needed to be fed, and no one wanted to eat bland food.”

  … all right, it didn’t seem like she was being deliberately obtuse. Rain was just answering the questions he asked and only the questions he asked. He’d simply have to be more direct. “Rain, garlic is a plant native to Earth. Why do you have it if this is the first time you’ve made contact with humans?”

  “Oh, the Mass Production Models brought it with them from their original universe. And to my knowledge, they never really dealt with humans, except perhaps at the end when they worked with the Outguard and the Association to finally stop the invaders who were trying to infiltrate and take control of Earth, but we don’t really have records of that, so I can’t really say for sure. Records or it didn’t happen. Although… well, I suppose Nikaede had contact with humans too, since she was impersonating Stardancer, but she died in that universe so she doesn’t really count.”

  …

  “What?” Trout said, not quite sure what to make of Rain’s words. The repetition of ‘Mass Production Models’ sounded ominous, and had so many unspoken implications, although perhaps that was just him reading into it since Rain seemed completely relaxed…

  “Oh, sorry. You need context again, don’t you? The Mass Productions Models were the first Kaedekin created by Stardancer and Nikaede because they needed forces to help them repel an alien invasion.”

  “…was this the same alien invasion that was trying to take control of Earth?” Trout said.

  “The exact same one, actually.”

  “It’s been some years since I last opened a history book, but I don’t recall any invasions of the Earth by aliens.” The Hegemony never even gotten close, despite making several aggressive attacks at major production centers.

  “Well, of course not. That didn’t happen in this universe, it happened in the previous one.”

  “The previous one,” Trout repeated flatly.

  “Yes. The one that the Mass Production Models came from.”

  “… Paladin Rain… is this your idea of a joke?”

  “No…? I don’t know what you think I’m joking about, but I haven’t been joking with you. First contact is a very serious matter, so clear communication is very important. It would be very unfortunate if there was some sort of misunderstanding between our peoples caused by erroneous information.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “So you’re seriously claiming that your people came from another universe?”

  “Of course. It’s the truth after all, and we have no reason to keep the information secret. It’s not as if we’re trying to conceal our identity from you because you’re our parents and if you knew you’d try to stop us going out and fighting criminals, monsters and supervillains to save people.”

  …

  Trout studied the image of the woman on the screen. The image wasn’t as crisp and clear as he was used to, likely because of the camera the Kaedekin were using and the communications protocols they were utilizing, but he could detect no hidden amusement or any no visual cues that he was being deceived. Rain just looked earnest, helpful, and perhaps mildly confused. Of course, that only held true if he was correct and she was human and therefore had human body language that he was interpreting correctly. But if she was being sincere, then she wasn’t a human, and she was telling the truth about being from another universe…

  … all right, this was clearly not something he had to sort out himself. He was a captain, not… whatever poor bastard was going to need to have to come to some kind of conclusion about this. At the very least, Rain seemed to sincerely believe her story that her people had garlic because it came to them from another universe.

  Wait…

  “Rain, you say that the garlic came from another universe, but where in that universe did it come from?”

  “Oh, the garlic’s from Earth. That’s the only planet garlic grows, as far as we know.”

  …

  “Doesn’t that mean that the Kaedekin are from Earth in another universe?”

  “No, because no Kaedekin was ever made on Earth. Even the Mass Production Models were gestated in high geosynchronous orbit, so we cannot in good conscience claim to be from Earth.”

  …all right, he couldn’t keep ignoring it now. “You’ve mentioned before that the Kaedekin were made. Could you… elaborate on that?”

  “Uh… we’re made. I’m not sure what requires further elaboration?”

  “… the Mass Production Models. Could you elaborate on them specifically? How exactly were they made?”

  “Oh, the Mass Production Models were part of a secret cloning project to create an army to protect the Earth from an alien invasion. Unlike previous invasions that were easy to repel because they relied on holding the orbitals, bombardment with kinetic weapons, air superiority using high-maneuverability fighters and waves of either robots, drones, robot drones, or a portal that opens to a waiting army—” those were easy to repel!-? “—these invaders worked by sending in infiltrators to impersonate key individuals of already volatile states and either have them agitate for war against that country’s neighbors, cause internal division by exploiting existing differences of opinion, commit terrorist actions that destroy the country’s military infrastructure and morale, or try to subvert key defensive institutions.”

  That… sounded absolutely horrifying to try and fight against, especially since one would need to know about it first. “And how was creating a… a clone army supposed to deal with this problem?”

  “The invader’s infiltration methods weren’t perfect. Some of Earth’s Magical Girls had the capacity to detect them by virtue of the fact the infiltrators’ shapeshifting released emissions of magic. However, the problem was the infiltrators were also well-trained military fighters with powerful magic, and when discovered and unable to escape they would cause massive damage to population centers or defensive infrastructure, and not everyone who could detect them could survive that fight. Stardancer was one of few who could do both, and… well, to make a long story short, when it became clear that she couldn’t find and stop all the infiltrators by herself, she decided that the optimum solution was to utilize supervillain-developed cloning technology to clone herself in sufficient numbers to be able to brute-force the hunt for infiltrators with a fighting force capable of subduing them when they were revealed. She made Nikaede as a proof-of-concept prototype and assistant, and together they made the Mass Production Models.”

  … and things sounded insane again. They were talking about ‘magic’ now. Trout reminded himself making sense of things wasn’t his problem. This was something to throw at the analysts. “So… the Kaedekin are clones,” he said, voice neutral as he summarized the part he felt was relevant to the overall conversation. “All of you?”

  “Yes,” Rain said, nodding in confirmation.

  He considered what he’d just been told a little bit more. “Are you… still cloning youselves?”

  “Of course. It’s the only way for our population to grow.”

  “But… don’t you have any…” No, they wouldn’t, would they? The Mass Production Models were cloned from a single person, literally mass produced. And from the sound of it, the results worked as intended, so why try to clone someone else?

  Huh. Trout supposed the paper was right. They technically were a monogender species. There would be no boy clones because there was no reason to make any. “You’re clones of someone from Earth, even if that Earth is in another universe,” Trout said slowly, picking up from where he’d left off.

  “Correct.”

  “Then doesn’t that mean you’re human?”

  “No, of course not. We’re Kaedekin.”

  Trout reminded himself that Rain probably wasn’t trying to be deliberately contrary, and that there was probably a reason for it. “Why not? If all Kaedekin are clones of a human, doesn’t that make you all humans?”

  “… not all Kaedekin are clones of Stardancer, though? Many are clones of Lyrica.”

  “I don’t believed you mentioned her.”

  “Oh! Sorry, it was very rude of me to not mention her involvement. Lyrica was Stardancer’s buddy. Just as all girls were clones of Stardancer, all buddies are essentially clones of Lyrica—” Rain suddenly cut off, looking at something off-screen. “Excuse me, Captain Trout, but Princess says she wishes to talk to you. She says she can better explain what a buddy is.”

  It took Trout a moment to recall who Rain was referring to. She had mentioned being in communication with someone named Princess when she’d first come aboard the Venture, hadn’t she? Was this the technical officer spoken of earlier?

  However, instead of getting up and vacating her position in front of the camera or switching to another feed, Rain raised her arm and removed some kind of device from a carrying frame on her forearm. The device was set in the middle of the camera’s view, which promptly tilted down to center it, revealing the device had been set on a table or desk as Rain continued to sit in the background.

  It looked vaguely like a phone, although many times thicker, perhaps as much as two centimeters. Set in the middle of the upper left corner of the face oriented towards the camera was a spherical attachment, possibly an antenna or emitter. The sphere began to glow a bright blue.

  “Bawipu guranah weepuh ninibong, Captain Trout of the FTCS Venture,” said a surprisingly deep and bassy but unmistakably feminine voice. “Good afternoon. I am Star Ranger Paladin Princess, buddy of Star Ranger Paladin Rain. I am a self-aware digital intelligence life form Kaedekin. Do you understand?”

  “… are you shitting me?”

  It took Trout a moment to realize he’d actually said that out loud.

  “If I am interpreting your meaning correctly, then no, I am not doing that, Captain Trout. The Kaedekin are composed of two separate kinds of lifeforms: girls and buddies. I am a buddy. My partner Rain is a girl. Do you understand?”

  Trout stared at the small device. Not for the first time since meeting Rain, he wondered is this was all just some very elaborate prank. Being called ‘Earthlings’ and being told they came in peace. All the things about prime numbers. The supposed ignorance about communications equipment protocols. All the insistence about preventing bacterial and viral contamination. It all seemed like a bunch of perfectly sensible things for an ‘alien’ civilization to do when encountering another for the first time…

  But they spoke English. They served food with garlic. They had the common cold, of all things. And now they were revealed to not actually be aliens, but basically humans, except they had some elaborate science fiction backstory involving another universe, an alien invasion of another Earth, and now self-aware AI, which basically completed the standard list of science fiction tropes. The only things missing were energy beings that were a higher level of existence and time machines.

  And yet…

  Stargazer Fortress had been completely undetectable before it had revealed itself, and now that it had, the fact they had missed it seemed even more impossible. Some very advanced technology was clearly at work there, technology that humanity, the Confederacy, the Cooperative, and as far as Trout knew the Hegemony didn’t have.

  Trout didn’t immediately assume that just because they could hide a space station from cutting-edge military sensors it meant they could travel to different universes… but perhaps it was just enough to make him consider that they could create a very advanced artificial intelligence that could act like it was self-aware.

  He’d leave whether it actually was up to other people. Really, a lot of this was things he needed to leave to other people anyway! All he really needed to do was negotiate in good faith. After all, he didn’t have any orders to do otherwise.

  “I understand,” he finally said. “So… you’re both Kaedekin?”

  “Yes, we are,” the voice that belonged to Princess said as Rain nodded behind her.

  “Then I’d like to rephrase my question. If Kaedekin girls are all clones of the same human, doesn’t that make them all humans?”

  It was Princess who replied rather than Rain. “Only genetically, in theory. However, it does not matter. We are Kaedekin.”

  Rain nodded cheerfully.

  Trout decided to stop belaboring the point.