The Hades
Once aboard the starship, Zhao Chen set Hive Princess down.
"Come here, walk through this little door?" Zhao Chen pointed at a doorframe robot that had moved up before them.
Hive Princess blinked, and looked at the little door with great care.
"This is to check whether you carry any germs or harmful substances upon you," Zhao Chen explained.
Seeing Hive Princess still wearing a hesitant look, Zhao Chen added, "Once the check is done, I will take you to eat something good."
At the mere hearing that there was something good to eat.
Hive Princess walked through the doorframe without a second word; an information screen appeared beside the frame, and the relevant data showed upon it.
"Check passed; no harmful substances carried," a mechanical voice sounded.
Hive Princess turned her head and blinked at Zhao Chen. "Can we go and eat something good?"
"We can." Zhao Chen had no sooner said it than he thought of something, and said further, "But you must go and have a bath first."
Hearing that she must have a bath besides, Hive Princess pursed her lips; by the look of her she was not best pleased.
"You may eat this first." Zhao Chen held out a bar of chocolate before Hive Princess.
Hive Princess stuffed the chocolate into her mouth, and in an instant her eyes widened not a little.
"So sweet… truly good!"
Hive Princess's mood was greatly mended; thereafter Zhao Chen had the Panther-Girl take her off to wash.
Watching that figure that looked back every third step,
Zhao Chen looked toward Ah-Yin at his side. "Did your mistress truly leave no other instruction at all? She simply flung this fellow upon me and had done?"
Ah-Yin nodded silently.
Zhao Chen grumbled inwardly: every one of them is so fond of playing the hands-off boss.
But in deciding to take this Hive Princess along, one part of it might be the working of pity in his heart.
And another great part of the reason was still a weighing of Hive Princess's own value.
That such a creature could, within this space, be kept alive by a T6 Hive Mothership and a hive-race fleet using every means they had, there was assuredly a reason of theirs in it.
"A moment ago I made an analysis of that flower-bud structure in which the little bug was. That is a sealed device. Put simply, it can shut off all reconnaissance from outside of what is within. I reckon that at the time, this T6 Hive Mothership knew it could not escape the pursuit of its assailants, and chose to let the little bug sink into sleep, sealed within that space. And then, once all was safe, the outward broadcasting equipment would start of itself, and seek for aid. It may also be that there was some trigger mechanism. And this it was that made contact with the mistress," Ah-Yin said.
Zhao Chen nodded; this point he had guessed at before as well.
"For the present the main thing is to examine the traces of battle upon those Hive Mothership wrecks, and determine how long ago this war took place. And what this hive-race is, after all. From the little bug's words, it seems the hive-race as it was is not the killing, savage thing we know it for." Zhao Chen knit his brows.
Ah-Yin nodded in agreement.
Not long after, Zhao Chen met the little bug at the door of the ship's restaurant.
Only the little bug at this moment was being carried along dangling by the Panther-Girl; and one could see that the little bug was very angry, her lips pursed, like a child in a temper.
The Panther-Girl came before the Commander and said with a wry smile, "Commander, this little fellow is most unwilling to bathe; the least touch of water and she makes an uproar. There was no help for it; in the end we could only use the air-cleaning technology."
"Little Bug doesn't like water!" the little bug muttered in a small voice.
The little bug at this moment had no longer that timid look she had worn at their first meeting.
Bugs do not like water… there did seem to be some sense in it.
But she had not been dirty to begin with; a cleaning was near enough.
"Very well, let us go and eat," Zhao Chen said.
At the mere mention of eating, the little bug's spirits rose at once.
In the space of a whisk she had darted to Zhao Chen's feet, her small hand tugging at his trouser leg, gazing up at him with eager eyes, as though she were looking at her own wet-nurse.
Zhao Chen could not hold back a smile.
Had he not known what she was, this manner of hers was truly near enough that of an ordinary child.
So Zhao Chen took the little bug, with Ah-Yin following behind, into the private room of the ship's restaurant, made ready long since.
Upon the table some food prepared beforehand had already been set out.
"Look at this food, do you like it? If it is not to your taste, you may call up the ordering interface and order some yourself." Zhao Chen pointed at the food upon the table.
A slurp.
Hive Princess slurped back her drool, and without a second word darted up onto the chair, pointing at the rich spread before her. "Can Little Bug… eat all of these?"
"All of them." Zhao Chen nodded.
Thereafter, Zhao Chen seemed to see a familiar figure upon the little bug, greeting him.
Annie… (^▽^)
The amount that one ate assuredly surpassed Annie's.
The portions ordered at first were nowhere near enough; and having asked Zhao Chen with great care, and got his leave.
Hive Princess ordered several more portions straight off.
Looking at Hive Princess's small body, and then at that food heaped up together, in an amount that could assuredly have stacked up several Hive Princesses.
Was there a black hole connected inside this fellow's belly, that she could eat so much food?
At last, after half an hour of gorging, Hive Princess's speed of eating slowed.
Zhao Chen could at last put some of his questions.
"Little Bug, you said before that someone assaulted your homeland. Do you know who it was that assaulted your homeland?"
Hive Princess said, calling it to mind as she spoke, "It was some pitch-black interstellar warships; they came to our world, destroyed our planets, and slaughtered our hive-race."
Pitch-black interstellar warships.
This answer was very nearly self-evident.
The Pitch-Black Legion fleets again, and Order again!
"They are bad men, very, very bad men!" Hive Princess said in her hatred.
This was the first time Zhao Chen had seen anger and vengeance in the depths of Hive Princess's eyes.
"But do not you of the hive-race like to attack the worlds of others as well?" Ah-Yin, at his side, spoke this sentence at an unfitting moment.
Hearing this, Hive Princess left off even eating; she jumped up onto the chair, set both hands upon her hips and said, "Who says so! We of the hive-race have a beautiful world of our own and pay it no mind; why should we invade your homes?"
Zhao Chen knit his brows slightly, and asked in a probing way, "Little Bug… has your race never launched a war upon other universes, or upon other interstellar races?"
"There have been wars, but for the most part it was others striking us, and we striking back. They are all very bad; they all want to seize our homeland, and our resources besides! They are all wicked men!" Hive Princess said with great gravity.
This, now, was nothing at all like the interstellar hive-race Zhao Chen had known.
Zhao Chen looked at Hive Princess in all earnestness and said, "Little Bug. But so far as we know, the judgment the several interstellar civilizations and powers pass upon your hive-race is not of this kind. You invade other universe-planes from time to time; and having taken a planet, you use the natives upon it for food, and make the planet into a culture-dish of your own. You produce more hive-race fleets, and then attack more planets. You are the symbol of calamity and destruction!"
"No! It is not so! We are not so!" Hive Princess roared all of a sudden, with tears besides in her eyes.
It was as though she had suffered some bullying.