Zhao Chen was silent.
The corner of Ge Hui's mouth rose in a mocking smile. "But that is not the whole of the business.
"Do you know.
"Looking deeper into it, I found besides.
"That crew of the Starlight Empire had even taken to their own use the whole of the pensions that should have belonged to us common servicemen's families!
"Perhaps to keep those pet dogs in the noble ladies' hands!"
The taking of pensions.
That such a thing should happen, Zhao Chen did not find strange.
Think of the Starlight Empire as it was, and such a thing seems no wonder at all.
"My father and mother, hearing of the deaths of my wife and child.
"Fell gravely ill and could not rise; and could come by no treatment whatever.
"For they had no money at all, and the hospitals upon those planets do not know any certificate of a fallen soldier.
"And even the pension that might at the last have saved them was long in coming to their hands.
"Until… they died in their sorrow!" Ge Hui's left eye was shot through with blood — blood even ran from it.
Having said all this, his feelings grew calm at a stroke.
He said with a light laugh, "I had supposed I had forgotten these things…"
The air was very heavy.
Zhao Chen looked toward Chu Changhe; Chu Changhe's face was very ugly too, and his fist was clenched hard.
He is a marshal of the Starlight Empire; these words are beyond doubt a slap upon his face.
"So you would take revenge.
"Take revenge upon the Starlight Empire?
"Then why should you turn against the Holy Radiance Empire besides?" Zhao Chen, unable to change what is past, could only go coldly on with the questioning.
"It is not the Starlight Empire I would revenge myself upon." Ge Hui said it of a sudden with a cold laugh.
Zhao Chen's brows drew together.
"I would revenge myself upon every carbon-based life within this universe.
"They are the virus, the most sinful thing existing in this world.
"They bring nothing but war, oppression, enslavement, pain and disease!" Ge Hui's feeling at this moment was something like an extremist of some faith.
Hearing Ge Hui's fixed purpose.
The story about Ge Hui was in the main now clear from head to tail.
But one core was wanting within it still.
"Ge Hui, then why did you not die in that campaign?
"And how in the end did you become this thing?" Zhao Chen demanded.
"Because of a god," Ge Hui answered.
A god?
Zhao Chen's brows drew together again.
"The god looked kindly upon me.
"And granted me a new mission.
"A great mission!
"And from that time Ge Hui was dead.
"There is only the doctor, who exists for the divine oracle," Ge Hui said with a cold laugh.
"Who is this god?" Zhao Chen asked again.
"The god is the god."
Very well; the asking was wasted.
Zhao Chen put several further questions, sounding him out upon this god.
But Ge Hui's answers were in the main all of one kind, and gave no thread whatever.
He knew only this: that within the Machine Race too there were those who had received the divine oracle, and that his body, wounded in that campaign, had come by the help and the reconstruction of that part of the Machine Race.
Which is how he became this thing he now is.
"Zhao Chen, if you are willing to join us.
"I am willing to present you to the god's oracle.
"And then we who believe, having completed the task of cleansing this filthy universe, may live within the new world.
"There will be everything there that we could wish.
"We may see the kin we have lost, and the life we would have.
"No war, no pain, no disease!" Ge Hui looked at Zhao Chen with a mad laugh.
"Then let your god first appear before me.
"And perhaps I shall consider it." Zhao Chen spread both hands.
Ge Hui checked; then he sat straight again and shook his head. "No. You are not of one kind with us.
"You cannot hear the divine oracle.
"You shall assuredly be destroyed together with this old world."
"How in the end did you come by this oracle of yours?
"And how do you know I am not of one kind with you?" Zhao Chen said with a smile. "How do you know, if you do not try?"
"There is no need to try; at the first sight of you I knew it.
"As for how I hear the divine oracle."
Ge Hui raised a finger and pointed at his own head, showing a somewhat sickly smile. "The oracle is here."
And just as Zhao Chen would have got some further intelligence.
Ge Hui of a sudden said with a great laugh, "Zhao Chen, do you suppose that having taken me you have won?
"No!
"Within this old world the god's apostles are many still.
"I am but one among them.
"Farewell.
"I go to the new world, where my wife and my child await me.
"And you, the sin of this old world, shall be washed clean along with it."
Hearing Ge Hui say this.
Lilith at once put Zhao Chen behind her, and at the same time cast several small spheres from her sleeve; these, thrown out, started up of themselves and formed several star-shields before Lilith and Zhao Chen.
And at the same time.
Upon Ge Hui, in that other room, cracks appeared over his whole body, and from the cracks a golden light shone out.
And with his mad laughter that golden light filled the whole room.
Some seconds later it dispersed.
Lilith, for that light, saw nothing but white before her a moment, and was some seconds recovering.
She looked upon the scene before her.
The room across was empty of all life; that electromagnetic cage had vanished.
About the room, cracks ran everywhere.
And upon the glass between the two rooms too were cracks like a spider's web — though happily it had not been broken through.
Those emergency shields Lilith had thrown out had of course served no purpose either.
"Commander?" Lilith looked back at her Commander; and only having made certain he was in no way harmed did she let out a long breath.
And Zhao Chen at this moment stood where he was, his look grave.
"Is Ge Hui dead?" Chu Changhe asked from the video window beside them.
After that flash of golden light just now, he too did not know what had happened.
"Ge Hui is dead.
"But whether the doctor is dead there is no telling.
"By what he said just now, that thing called a god — those it upholds should be more than him alone," Zhao Chen said, his voice low.
"What in the end is this god? Is it the Machine Race?" Chu Changhe asked.
Zhao Chen did not answer.
He looked toward Chu Changhe. "Upon the business of Ge Hui, I must trouble Marshal Chu to keep it for the present from those outside."
"Very well." Chu Changhe agreed to it.
"I have some matters here yet to see to; let us leave it so." So saying, Zhao Chen cut the communication outright.
By the look of it Zhao Chen had important business still.
Having heard Ge Hui's story out, Chu Changhe was exceedingly heavy within; without thinking he made to take up the teacup beside him.
But grasped at nothing.
And only then found that the cup had, somewhere along the way, been crushed to pieces in his own hand.
"Someone come," Chu Changhe called.
Very soon an officer came in from outside.
"Marshal, what are your orders?" the officer inquired.
"Look into the business of the expeditionary army in Galactic Star Calendar 2988 for me.
"Above all this business of abandoning the families of commoner officers in the withdrawal, and the embezzling of those families' pensions.
"Look into it for me; I will have it made clear — who dared do such a thing beneath my very eyes!" Chu Changhe's voice came cold and grim.
The officer looked at the Marshal in surprise; this is fifty years distant from the present — how should the Marshal raise it of a sudden?
But he marked the Marshal's gaze, like a pool of cold water, and dared not go against it, but went at once to look into it.
Though he knew besides that someone was going to suffer for it!