Ambassador Zero leaned back on his chair in the debating chamber. He just wanted one. One. Now he was faced with many. With… about two hundred, by his reckoning.

Two hundred polite, blushing, totally identical fourteen-year-old girls.

It had been quite an experiment.

Normally, a representative of one planet met with a representative of another planet. It didn’t matter whether the other planet consisted of crab monsters or centaurs or things that looked like seafood-robot hybrids. Whatever the species, they always sent one.

The informally named “Clone Planet” presented certain problems.

For one thing, the clones had no concept of leadership. If their hive city needed repairs, everyone chipped in until repairs had been done. They didn’t have experts. They sort of picked things up on the job, and somehow it all worked out.

Well, the rest of the galaxy might look upon them with respectful awe, but Zero had served countless armies. He refused to be easily impressed.

“Now, Miss…” He made a show of reading his notes.

“Kimura,” said the nearest one, who then smiled apologetically.

“Kimura.” Zero briefly wondered if the original Kimura was still alive somewhere, perhaps in secret cryogenic freeze or hiding with her artificial sisters. “Look, we want these peace talks to go ahead, but if incidents like these break out again…”

The Kimuras exchanged panicky looks. Evidently, word got around fast in clonesville.

One said, “What did they say?”

“Hm?” said Zero, pretending to be distracted by his papers.

One said, “The poor men involved?”

One said, “We hope they are recovering, Ambassador Zero.”

One said, “We all wish to apologize for the lapse in standards.”

One said, “We’re so ashamed.”

One said, “You are right to seek redress for this crime.”

Already, Zero was getting that headache again. Ambassadors were supposed to be suave and cunning and impressive and charismatic. The clones had clearly been neglecting certain portions of their odd civilization, since any one of them looked like they’d have the political longevity of a snowflake in a flamethrower test site. Yet for all that…

Zero had done diplomatic duty for dozens of cutthroat scum across the galaxy. His nerves made steel look flimsy as paper. Yet one glance at the nearest Kimura’s watery eyes made him want to give up politics, raise a family, and be the cuddly daddy. It made him squirm.

The original Kimura had been a good student, a child prodigy, a friend to all, and therefore a prime target for some utopian nutcase who’d taken the phrase “Kimura if only there were more people like you” far, [i]far[/i] too literally. By the time the Galactic Union had caught up with Professor “Me Too!” Motoo, she’d made a whole civilization of immortal, supergenius teenage college girls, and no one had the heart to pull the plug on any of them. So once the press had enjoyed the shocking news, the whole thing was just absorbed into modern society.

Zero hated modern society. Modern society had cured his lost leg, and he’d been looking forward to telling his grandchildren old war stories about the stump. It just wouldn’t be the same now.

Grimly, he brought a paper up for inspection.

“The incident in question,” he said loudly, in case of any more apologetic interruptions, “was this: at 2200 hours, in the Court Park adjacent to the debating chamber, it was witnessed by several in the Abecedarian Company that two of your clones—sorry, I mean two Kimuras—were involved in an altercation with Privates Lambda and Mu.”

One said, looking down at her shoes, “Yes, sir.”

Zero lowered the paper. Suddenly, he had an urge to look over his spectacles, which was worrying because he didn’t wear any.

“According to both privates and about half of the eye-witnesses, Lambda and Mu were attacked without provocation.”

Despite himself, he almost smiled at this. It was in theory possible that Lambda and Mu were attacked without provocation, just as it was in theory possible that the planets orbited their stars without physics. They had histories.

Unfortunately, all the Kimuras were busy examining their shoes. Hardly a defence.

“There were mitigating circumstances?” he tried.

Some of the clones swallowed. Some wrung their hands.

“Nothing at all?” he said. “It wasn’t a provoked attack, was it?”

One or two opened their mouths, but hastily were shushed by nearby sisters.

Zero groaned. “It wasn’t, for example, a case of two drunks not recognizing when no means no?”

Finally, one said, “We don’t want anyone to get into trouble on our account, sir.”

“Including two of your own?” snapped Zero.

Yet he could tell it was hopeless. The clones were identical. And even if, say, two of them confessed, how could he tell they were telling the truth? Numbers provided the perfect cover, and for all their impressive knowledge of trade routes and socioeconomic theory, they were still, at heart, teenage girls. They held together.

Zero made a private memo to give Lambda and Mu hell later on, and sighed. “Wasted time… Case dismissed. We can’t convict unfairly, now can we? Now perhaps we can get back to reality?”

At once, all two hundred clones beamed at him and raised papers.

He slumped in defeat.

They’d all done their homework on this negotiation. And they’d be insightfully brilliant; by comparison, [i]he[/i] was a huckster. At least his diplomatic missions with the Kimuras were—on the whole—quickly satisfied.