The Owl Dragon Guard Fleet's eight hundred interstellar warships were gathered within the closed space of the Machine Race's royal court.
And opposite them stood that Gate of Gaia.
The Hades · the bridge.
Zhao Chen sat within the captain's chair, his eyes fixed all the while upon the Gate of Gaia opposite; and for some cause, the longer he looked upon this Gate of Gaia, the more he had a feeling as though something were calling to him.
"Ah-Yin of the Machine Race's highest standing asks leave to come aboard," the Hades's deputy captain said from beside him.
"Let her come up." Why Ah-Yin should visit at this hour he did not know, but there must be some matter in it.
Very soon Ah-Yin appeared upon the bridge.
"I did not think you would resolve so quickly to pass through the Gate of Gaia." Ah-Yin walked to Zhao Chen's side, and looked at this Owl Dragon Lord.
Zhao Chen shrugged, and explained, "As to the fighting with the Demon Race, my staying here is in truth of no great use. Rather than waste my time here, better to go and do something I can do. That master of yours speaks the half of a thing and hides the rest, and will have it that I go to the Gate of Gaia's far side. There was no help for it, so here I am."
Of course, what Zhao Chen said was only one of his reasons; the other was naturally the last mission standing between him and the T6 shop's permissions.
Ah-Yin said nothing.
"How does your master stand at present?" Zhao Chen asked in his concern.
"For the present all goes smoothly," Ah-Yin answered.
"By what you foretold before, this Gate of Gaia will open within three hours, is that so?" Zhao Chen gazed at the Gate of Gaia.
Ah-Yin nodded, and said, looking at the Gate of Gaia, "Though we cannot govern the time of the Gate of Gaia's opening. Yet we have instruments of detection, and can reckon out roughly the time it will open. By a certain fluctuation of space: the nearer it draws to a certain waveband, the nearer the opening; and joining this to the records of former times. It may be concluded that within three hours we can go to the Gate of Gaia's far side."
Zhao Chen nodded, well satisfied.
Suddenly he seemed to catch at something.
He looked in surprise at the Ah-Yin beside him. "You said just now… we?"
Ah-Yin nodded. "Yes. We."
"You mean to go across with us?" Zhao Chen was startled.
Ah-Yin said calmly, "Yes. Though upon the Gate of Gaia's side our own personnel and fleets are stationed. Yet to act in concert with your operation, and to complete what our master gave in charge. Ah-Jin and I, having talked it over, have decided that I shall follow your fleet across; and in the course of it I will assist you with all my strength. You said yourself, after all, that the fighting upon this side will in the main raise no further waves. And set against matters here, I too hold that the threat upon the Gate of Gaia's far side is the greater. In all the many battles of the past, the master has never taken a wound so grave as this."
As she came to the end of it, Ah-Yin's tone grew grave.
This is indeed to Zhao Chen's advantage.
"Then you mean to ride aboard my interstellar warship?" Zhao Chen inquired.
"Do you mind it?" Ah-Yin asked him in return.
Zhao Chen shrugged. "It is nothing to me."
And so the two of them settled the business.
Ah-Yin would go with Zhao Chen upon this journey as the Machine Race's representative of the highest standing.
"Have you been across?" Zhao Chen asked all of a sudden.
"Three times," Ah-Yin answered.
"What did it feel like?" Zhao Chen inquired in his curiosity.
"It is a place that one dislikes, and loathes." Ah-Yin gave an answer that somewhat startled Zhao Chen.
That a mechanical life should say of a place that she dislikes and loathes it?
That is truly past expectation.
Just at this moment Zhao Chen marked suddenly that the Gate of Gaia, which had been quiet and without the least movement, had begun to stir.
Within the Gate of Gaia there appeared points of light like stars; and these points of light formed whirlpool upon whirlpool, turning at differing speeds.
Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes and gazed closely.
And all at once he felt as though he saw a model of a universe, those whirlpools being so many star systems, nebulae and other bodies of the heavens.
"We may set out," said Ah-Yin.
"Good." Zhao Chen sat upon the sofa he was used to, and pointed at the place beside him. "Will you sit?"
"Thank you; there is no need." Ah-Yin did not sit, but stood at Zhao Chen's side, for all the world like a guard.
Nor did Zhao Chen say anything more.
He called up the command channel. "All fleet commanders of the Owl Dragon Guard Fleet, attend to the order: make ready to set out, and pass through the Gate of Gaia!"
The Owl Dragon interstellar warships, which had lain quietly at anchor within this interstellar anchorage, began to get under way once more, forming slowly into a column of sailing, and passing on toward the Gate of Gaia.
Zhao Chen watched the first Owl Dragon interstellar warship pass through the Gate of Gaia: a T5 Holy-Redeemer-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Heavy-Artillery Battleship.
And thereafter the second, and the third…
And at the last the Hades, where Zhao Chen was, passed through the Gate of Gaia as well.
It is not much like passing through a star gate.
When one sails by a star gate, all about is a haze of mist.
But after passing through this Gate of Gaia, Zhao Chen saw about him numberless miniature bodies of the heavens, falling away behind without cease.
Zhao Chen did not know whether these were real, or afterimages.
But there was a fantastical beauty in it.
Beyond this, in the whole course of it Zhao Chen felt no discomfort whatever.
"The whole passage is looked for to want ten minutes. Within those ten minutes the interstellar warships need perform no operation whatever, nor need the personnel go into sleep. It is just as though it were ten minutes' ordinary sailing," Ah-Yin said from beside him at this point.
Ten minutes.
Not very long.
Yet to the people of the Owl Dragon Guard Fleet it seemed long indeed.
At last the dazzling wonder of the heavenly bodies before their eyes was gone.
And in its place was a hollow darkness.
Saving the particle-light at the engine mouths of the few interstellar warships ahead, there was no light whatever!
This is blacker than those star systems that have no sun, blacker than the border regions of those systems.
Zhao Chen sat within a ship's environment that holds a life-supporting system of even temperature; yet he still felt a cold to pierce the bone sweep over his whole body,
as though he had been thrown into a pitch-black cave of ice.
"This… is the gate's far side?" Zhao Chen looked about him.
Saving the Owl Dragon Guard Fleet's eight hundred interstellar warships, drifting here like a fleet of lonely boats, no other structure or making whatever was to be seen.
"Yes." Ah-Yin nodded.
"And your Machine Race's interstellar warships?" Zhao Chen asked in surprise. "Didn't you build bases and lines of defense here?"
Ah-Yin looked about her at the pitch-black star-sky, and said, drawing her brows together a little, "Because of the instability of the space about the Gate of Gaia, no structure whatever was built. But by rights there should be a patrol fleet upon this side of the Gate of Gaia, going its regular rounds."
A patrol fleet?
Zhao Chen looked at the starship radar; and so far from a patrol fleet, upon the radar Zhao Chen could not see the signal of one single ship that was not of the Owl Dragon line!
Suddenly Zhao Chen seemed to see something flash past before his eyes.
"That quarter, sail," said Ah-Yin, pointing at the quarter Zhao Chen was gazing upon.