The Kaedekin’s forcefield technology was clearly far more flexible than what the words ‘forcefield’ usually implied… although since the Confederacy didn’t have any forcefield technology, Trout had only fictional sources to compare it too. The lack of apparent controls and the relative complexity of what Rain had made the forcefield—the ‘venn’—do also implied either very complex presets or some kind of sophisticated control system, because Rain didn’t do much more than wave around her finger. Trout wasn’t sure why they insisted on calling it magic, but it certainly fit with what he’d seen of the way the Kaedekin insisted on doing things. They had an officer rank called ‘Sorceress’, after all. Why wouldn’t they call their quantum technology ‘magic’?

  It was hardly unusual. Every race humanity had met had their own strange term for quantum technology. The changers had called it ‘Cultivation of Essence’; the pajhadin called it ‘The Night Arts of Time and Space’; the tiwada called theirs ‘Whispering’; and the rakido called their quantum medical procedures ‘Life Techniques’. In the Confederacy, they used ‘quantum engineering’ so that there would be a universal term for reference, something that added to humanity’s reputation as somehow being both ‘mind-numbingly boring and maniacally violent’.

  Trout would have been offended on his species behalf, if the war wasn’t so fresh in his memory, and his most vivid recollections weren’t boredom and violence.

  “Can I keep this?” he asked, hefting the blob. Yup, definitely heavier.

  “Sure, but it’s not going to last long,” Rain said. “If I stop imbuing it, the vennplate will fade away in a few minutes. Faster, depending on the settings.”

  “Oh.” Well, he supposed that a forcefield would need constant power. “What else can you do with it?”

  “Well to be honest, the most common use is to make light.” And suddenly the blob in his hands began to glow with a bright blue radiance. “When we first came to Surcease, we needed to use this to just to grow crops. It took us years to make basic lightbulbs, never mind lights suitable for farming. If it wasn’t for our Thaumaturgy, we’d never have survived long enough to finally meet you.”

  “You use it to make light?” he said incredulously. That… sounded like a massive misuse of this technology!

  “Years without lightbulbs,” Rain repeated. “On a planet that’s always dark.”

  “But you don’t use it for that now do you?”

  “Only sometimes,” Rain said. “We have very good public lighting.”

  “I… see. What else can it do?”

  “Oh, everything. If it can be done with a solid, liquid or gas, we can use venn for it,” Rain said cheerfully. “Uh, just don’t drink it. Or breath it. Both are extremely bad for you. And you need to round out any corners or edges of vennplate planes, because any edge is basically a blade.”

  Trout considered that. “Do you use it to make kitchen knives?”

  “Only when we can’t find the kitchen knife.” The reply was very prompt, as if someone sometimes had trouble finding the kitchen knife. “Or don’t want to wash any plates. Or cups.” A pause. “It’s really convenient. Though don’t use it for spoons and forks, that’s an easy way to accidentally cut yourself.”

  Trout reminded himself that the military using their equipment for silly, frivolous things was an ancient tradition. As captain, he wasn’t supposed to know the engineers put an ice-cream maker on the quantum energy fusion reactor’s heat exchange fluid outflow, or how the Rakido used metal shavings from the machine shop to make pseudo-steroidal drinks in the back room of one of the larger gyms, or how the Changers and tiwada were using a part of one of the hydroponics bays to grow some… herbs for personal use. If the forcefield technology was so ubiquitous that—no, no, he was judging them again for being lax about this. “I… see.”

  “All right, what’s next on the list…” Rain said, raising her arm to look at the screen of the device—no, on Princess’s screen. “Oh yes. We should discuss the details of your own visit to Stargazer Fortress. Have you decided on how many people you want to send on the first visit? When can we arrange for us to test the self-containment the environment suits that you will be using?”

  “We still have a more questions about your… magic,” Bronze said.

  “Like what?” Rain asked,

  “How extensively is it used on your planet? Is it expensive?”

  “Oh, everyone learns to use it in school,” Rain said. “What do you mean by ‘expensive’? We know the word, but… something about requiring more resources than necessary?”

  “Everyone? Everyone on the planet has access to this… magic?” Bronze’s disbelief colored his voice, and Trout had to admit that the thought of quantum technology being that freely available to everyone…

  “Well, there are some people who can’t or don’t. Little sisters who were varianted with something we can’t identify that keeps us from teaching them, or buddies who have chosen to isolate themselves.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Trout had to upwardly revise his estimation of the Kaedekin’s level of technology significantly. If force field technology—that they used for lighting and disposable plates—was so common one had to either deliberately opt out of it or have some sort of learning disability that kept them from using it, then what must their advanced technologies be like? None of the quantum technologies the Confederacy had even came close to that level of availability, being restricted to exclusive family lines, were trade secrets of corporations, ruling groups, or simply the very rich.

  …

  Also, who thought ‘expensive’ meant ‘requiring more resources than necessary’? It was… technically correct, but…

  …

  No, no, he’d leave things like that to the analysts like Bronze… who looked like he was trying to figure out how to diplomatically phrase asking for a sample of the technology. Trout decided to step in to prevent the inevitable awkwardness. “What do you mean by ‘varianted’?” he asked.

  Rain rarely hesitated, so they fact she did after he asked was… notable. “Well, when we’re cloned—I’ve mentioned we’re clones, right?”

  Trout nodded. “It’s come up previously.”

  "Well, the Redmane cloning process contains a certain amount of… leeway, shall we say. There's deliberately room for slightly altered neurochemistry and soul composition from the sample baseline, which allows for everyone having different personalities and personal preferences, but on the extreme ends… well, we regularly decant batches of more than a hundred. Some extremely varianted little sisters sometimes have specific requirements."

  “And sometimes this… variance… results in the ‘little sisters’ being unable to use ‘magic’?”

  “Oh no, that’s very rare. Currently there’s only three people on the planet—” Rain paused, looking down at her forearm. “Wait, I stand corrected. Currently there is only one person on the planet unable to use magic due to a physical inability to do so. However, we’re hopeful that she’ll figure out how to correct that any day now.”

  He wasn't sure what to think about the fact that Rain knew exactly how many people on the planet had such an extremely specific disability… or the fact that Princess either had the updated information in its memory or could somehow access the Kaedekin's planetary database for such things from inside the Venture. Through the ship's armor belt. Which should be blocking transmissions.

  “Now, if I may step away from this subject for the moment, how many of those who will be visiting Stargazer Fortress will Children of Tianiata and Those Who Change?” Rain asked. Oh dear. Trout belatedly realized they might have inadvertently stepped on a touchy subject. This was the first time he’d ever seen Rain so clearly uncomfortable.

  Trout decided to stop take the out. “We’ve tentatively decided to not include any Changers and tiwada due to the fact we have no space suits capable of accommodating them.”

  “W-what? B-but don’t you have power armor meant to be piloted by them? C-can’t you use those?”

  He managed to ignore the very vivid resemblance to his nieces and nephews being disappointed because they’d been expecting chocolate cake and got vanilla cupcakes instead. “The power armor is armed,” he pointed out.

  “That’s perfectly fine! It’s not like you’re here to invade and would use them on us. If that’s all that’s keeping the Those Who Change and Children of Tianiata from being considered, then having them come over won’t be a problem as long as the armor’s environmental systems are completely isolated.”

  “…you have no objections to having military from an unaligned polity in armed power armor visiting your space station?” Trout said, just to make sure he was interpreting this correctly. Bronze was writing on his tablet, coming to who knows what conclusions.

  “Of course not. Why would we?” Rain asked.

  “I would think that you would be concerned about safety.”

  “… what does that have to do with the power armor being armed?” She genuinely sounded confused, as if unable to understand what his statement had to do with the rest of the conversation. “Are their safety mechanisms damaged? If that’s the case, perhaps don’t use those particular armors?”

  …

  Fuck it.

  “Well, if you have no problems with having armed power armors aboard your station, then I’m sure we have many volunteers who will be quite glad to learn they can participate,” Trout said, deciding to just roll with it. “How many people would you be willing to accommodate?”

  “We would have no trouble with welcoming a couple of hundred people,” Rain said, causing Bronze to actually look up sharply, “so the limiting factor would be how many space suits you have that are suitably contained, how much air they can carry, and what sort of waste disposal system they have.” She tilted her head. “Actually, does your waste disposal store the waste or eject it?”

  Trout almost brought up how difficult it would be to keep track of that many visitors… then reminded himself that wasn’t his problem. If the Kaedekin were willing to extend such an open invitation, then they were probably prepared. “It’s stored, although not all systems have a waste disposal system. There should be no risk of the waste being exposed to the atmosphere.” Although he should probably double check with his officers who’d know for sure. He hadn’t put on a suit outside of readiness exercises in years.

  Discussions became almost mundanely logistical. The method by which the visiting crew members was discussed, with the Kaedekin volunteering to use one of their ships to ferry the visitors, although Trout ultimately declined the offer. While getting inside one of the Kaedekin’s smaller spacecraft would probably provide some intelligence, it would require them to remain in their suits for the duration of the flight. Sending one of their own boats would both allow them to conserve suit air tanks as well as getting a ship’s sensors close to Stargazer Fortress, and also allow them to be in control of their own transport. Rain didn’t object although they asked for the dimensions of the spacecraft that would be used so that they could prepare to receive it.

  Rain had also asked about how long the air in the suits would last so the Kaedekin could prepare an itinerary, which was only reasonable. Trout wondered if they could request to be shown a disassembled forcefield unit, but that was a bit too unsubtle. He almost asked anyway, just to see if Princess would somehow interrupt. Twice now the ‘buddies’ had interrupted one of the Rangers about to give an explanation of something that would have been a significant intelligence coup. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but if it happened a third time…

  Well, there was a saying about that. And it would probably give the analysts more data to theorize about.