Navy captains rarely greeted visitors to the ship himself, not in this day and age. The ship was too big and the captain usually too busy unless it was someone really important, like the great hunter/final lord/president/prime minister/dictator for life/queen/king/emperor/CEO of a nation or sovereign corporation, or some sort of diplomatic envoy.

  As the duly appointed representative for the entire planet of Surcease—formerly known as Black Pearl—the Kaedekin envoy Rain qualified as 'important enough to meet with the captain', and so did those with her by extension. However, the captain couldn't just meet her at the metaphorical door, so to speak. That was what junior officers were for.

  Which was how Lieutenant Vocthuu found herself standing outside of one of the ship's larger quarantine rooms, intended for bringing and sterilizing large amounts of fresh foodstuffs by the pallet, her tentacles wrapped politely around her as she patiently contained her excitement. Like many on the ship, the junior officer had been excited to learn they had encountered a new alien race, an excitement that had turned to an almost childish glee when she'd heard their envoy say 'We have journeyed from beyond the edge of the unknowable sky' in understandable if accented Pagabat. She never thought she'd hear aliens actually saying that old cliché unironically, and the fact they were among the envoy's first words…

  The videos that had been released about the captain's interactions with the alien had been fascinating and confusing by turns. Thankfully both parties had been talkative. What images the screen in her room could translate from the light-based images of the recording had simply been the alien sitting at the table and speaking with the captain, except for the times she'd taken something from the picnic basket she carried. Fortunately, her words had been helped define the volume of a new race, one whose thoughts were clearly alien despite claiming to have been listening to the humans and other members of the Confederacy for centuries.

  The revelation that the Kaedekin were human this whole time had sparked a lively debate among herself and her roommates. Vocthuu had been of the opinion that simply because they were physically human did not change the fact that a significant portion of the psychology they had revealed had been very non-human. It had not missed her ears that the Kaedekin never spoke about 'money', 'credits', 'scrypt', or any other currency, they spoke of 'resources'. The fact they seemed to be completely divorced from the concept of capitalism meant they had absolutely nothing in common with humans, in her opinion.

  Field of Prismatic Beauty—Field, for short—had agreed, but had cited their societal infrastructure as her evidence, specifically its lack of any sort of overarching central authority outside of the alien's 'defense services' and the way captain's attempts to identify such a figure had confused the Kaedekin. Ellen had insistently asserted that they were making it all up, and that clearly they'd stumbled on some corporation's secret black site, and the captain should be sending shuttles down to the plant to prevent them from destroying evidence of whatever illegal shit they were doing, though that seemed to be more performative than anything else. No one was quite sure what to make of the Kaedekin's claims of being from another universe.

  Vocthuu straightened as she perceived the far airlock of the quarantine room cycle, and the armored forms of the honor guard who had been sent out to meet the Kaedekin came in, escorting a group of six pajhadinoids. The doors to the quarantine room were closed but they were solid, letting her perceive what little darkness there was on the other side. It wasn't much, simply the corners and edges of the chamber, along with the contours of the various sensors and emitters along the walls and ceiling.

  By the way the helmets of five of them were moving, excitedly turning to face every direction at once as they tried to perceive everything around them, the one in the middle was likely the Kaedekin envoy Paladin Rain. From this distance and through the door, there didn't seem to be any distinguishing markings she could perceive, or at least none that could cast shadows. She'd heard that each suit was differentiated by the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation they reflected, which was really unhelpful! Vocthuu supposed she'd have to keep her perception on the one that was most likely to be the envoy and hope they had more distinguishing characteristics inside their helmet she could use to identify them.

  The usual open space of the quarantine room had been replaced with the freestanding structures of a pair of portable chemical showers, the kind for when you needed to decontaminate armor or suits immediately because removing the person inside them would get them contaminated. While Vocthuu would have thought that taking a walk through the endless emptiness would be enough to kill any possible contaminants on the Kaedekin's suits, clearly someone disagreed, so now they were being foamed and scrubbed to make sure they were sterilized. She took the opportunity to check her uniform, making sure she was presentable and surreptitiously licking the air to taste it. There didn't seem to be any tastes clinging to her person, but with the air circulation…

  She turned her head towards the petty officer leading the security detail with her. "PO, any stains?" she asked. "I can't see."

  "You're clean, ma'm," Petty Officer Laguyog said, his lips spreading in that way humans did when they were trying to be reassuring. It was a lot easier to not misunderstand when they didn't show their teeth.

  "Thank you," she said, doing her best to return the gesture without… well, showing her teeth and making it a threat display. Laguyog wouldn't be offended or intimidated by it, but she needed the practice…

  As the last of the decontamination showers finished, Vocthuu did her best to seem small without actually slouching. Height was an intimidation factor among many species, and the Kaedekin barely reached her chest—

  The blast doors in front of her opened as the officer leading the honor guard signaled the all clear. With the layer of metal out of the way, Vocthuu could perceive more clearly. The interior of the Kaedekins' helmets was shadowed enough that she had a clear perception of the shapes of their faces. At this range, she could perceive that their suits weren't quite as skintight as they seemed, with plenty of room that probably made the suits both comfortable and easy to move in. The pajhadin didn't look closer than that. If nothing else, most people didn't like it when someone was perceiving their internal organs.

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  She hid her deep breath as she stepped forward. "Paladin Rain?" Vocthuu said, hoping that she'd managed to keep track of the right one.

  Her tentacles relaxed in relief when the Kaedekin in question raised their hand. "That's me," they said cheerfully. "Greetings, hunter! We have journeyed through the unknowable sky to stand before you. We come in peace. Permission to come aboard?"

  Vocthuu resisted the urge to roll her tentacles even as the urge to giggle filled her. That sounded like something out of a cheap children's play, down to the rather stilted cadence of the Pagabat words! "Permission granted, Paladin Rain. I am Lieutenant Vocthuu. On behalf of Captain Trout, I welcome you and your party to the Venture." It had taken her a long time to learn how to speak this language clearly and without an accent.

  "It's nice to meet you, Lieutenant Vocthuu," Paladin Rain said. Yes, Kaedekin definitely weren't human: Rain had pronounced her name correctly after only hearing it once. "If I remember correctly, Lieutenant is a red rank, right? I mean, officer rank. How should I address you?"

  "Lieutenant Vocthuu or Lieutenant will suffice, Paladin Rain."

  "Understood, Lieutenant Vocthuu." She glanced back towards one of the other Kaedekin for a moment. "I hope you won't think it rude if I don't introduce the rest of the First Contact Team at the moment."

  "That won't be a problem, Paladin Rain. If your party would follow me?"

  Despite the fact that the Venture's hallways were designed to be deliberately bland and unhelpful unless one knew the key to navigating it, the Kaedekin's heads were turning this way of that as if it was full of interesting things to perceive.

  The Kaedekin perceived people, not pointing or speaking loudly, but it was very clear that they were communicating between themselves through their suits. Everyone seemed to merit intent observation. Rakido wearing uniforms large enough to make daywear for two, perhaps three humans of the same gender. Changers that would be near-indistinguishable if it weren't for the rank insignia and name plate floating inside their masses. Other Pajhadin, wearing their hunting trophies and honors under their clothes where only other hunters could perceive them, marking accomplishments from both before and after joining the navy. The Kaedekin probably didn't know about that last. Or maybe they did. They spoke of magic and the soul like people who actually knew what they meant, rather than just words to be dismissed.

  They ran their perception over the walls, at the various pipes running just beneath the ceiling, and when they did that they gestured. It took Vocthuu a moment to realize they were probably talking about how easy or hard it was to access things for repairs. They pointed at the barely defined textures making lines on the deck—or perhaps they perceived the reflected wavelengths associated with the textures—and turned their heads to try and perceive details of side hallways that intersected the hallway.

  Which wasn't to say they ignored her. Paladin Rain would often ask her questions, and Vocthuu got the sense they had been relayed to her.

  "Yes, everyone wears the same uniform," she said.

  "And they're the same?" Rain asked, sounding incredulous. "Exactly the same? Made to the same specifications, pattern and printed design?"

  "Yes," Vocthuu confirmed.

  "And everyone is required to have the same haircut?" The tone of voice intensified.

  "For the males. Females have discretion when it comes to length. If they have hair. Changers and tiwada are exempt because they have no equivalent of hair. In the tiwada's case, it's also because they photosynthesize from the growths on their bodies, so over-trimming would cause health problems for them."

  "So if everyone has the same hair and the same clothes, wouldn't they all look exactly the same? How does anyone tell each other apart?" Through the Kaedekin's helmet, the volume of her human-like face was contorted into something like confusion. Well, in a human it would be confusion. She wasn't sure it was the same with Kaedekin, but it seemed close enough.

  "It can be a little confusing, especially when there's not much dark to define things," Vocthuu admitted. Then she realized what she'd just said. "My apologies. I forgot myself."

  "Don't worry, I know what 'define' means," Paladin Rain replied before switching back to English. "But back to the matter, doesn't the system cause confusion? What if two people get mistaken for each other?"

  "Well, there are the name tags." The lettering was both raised enough to cast shadows and contained hollow inserts to make them easier to perceive. "And there's always asking someone who they are."

  "I suppose… still, wouldn't it be embarrassing to walk up to someone assuming they were someone specifically and it turned out they were someone else?"

  "That's happened a few times," Vocthuu admitted. When she'd first started interacting with humans, many of their faces seemed quite alike to her perception. "But you learn to remember what people's faces are shaped like eventually."

  For some reason, this made the Kaedekin frown. "But people's faces are shaped exactly the same, though?"

  The ends of her tentacles twitched. Was this that 'racism' humans were so obsessed with, while at the same claiming they weren't? She remembered that it included claiming that people of a certain group all looked the same—

  A thought occurred to her, and she directed her perception towards the other Kaedekin, narrowing her attention to their faces. She noted the contours, the curves, the plain-like stretches and the caves, observing each one of them…

  To a casual definition, there were no variations at all in the shapes of their faces. Each even had the same little nub on their right ear.

  They really were clones of the same person. Putting them in uniform and requiring them to comply with regulations about appearance actually would make differentiating between them nearly impossible.

  "You'll find that isn't the case among the Confederacy," Vocthuu said, "though it might take you some time to learn where on the face to perceive such variance." She paused a moment, then lowered her voice and hoped the Kaedekin would still be able to hear it. "Though if I may advise, if you need help telling the humans apart, look toward their ears." She wiggled her own long ears—which humans insisted on describing as 'elfin' for some reason—for emphasis.

  "Ears?" was the confused reply.

  Vocthuu nodded, her entire body swaying with the human gesture. "If you need to differentiate between people, ear shapes are very well-defined and distinct markers that are often immediately obvious."

  Rain tilted her head, then looked back towards the passing crowd. "Hmm… I think I understand. Thank you for the advice, good hunter."

  Vocthuu turned her perception ahead of them, checking for markings on the wall. "Ah, we're approaching our first diversion, Paladin Rain. Our destination is on another deck, so we will need to take one of the ship's lateral lanes…"