"In our universe, the products of nature are exceedingly rich. The peoples upon every planet have each their own division of labor. There are bugs whose charge is building, and bugs whose charge is the growing of food; and then it is shared out according to the work of each. There are bugs whose charge is patrolling and keeping order besides. Everyone's life is orderly, and each dwells at peace in their calling," Hive Princess said in a small voice as she ate, telling over the life of former days.
Her eyes were full of the look of remembering.
"But however rich the resources, your hive-race is many in number, and there must come a time when they are used up. And by that time you would need to develop outward, wouldn't you?" Zhao Chen asked in return.
Hive Princess blinked. "Why would they be used up? We can produce resources ourselves. Can you not?"
Produce… resources… themselves?
When Zhao Chen heard this question, he was dumbfounded.
"Most of our materials are the shells other bugs have shed, or else their excreta. The fertilizer for raising crops is excreta as well. At the same time, when some of the lower bugs die, their bodies turn of themselves into a kind of resource and melt into the planet's interior; after a hundred years or a thousand they become new resource. We need only govern the density of the hive-race. Upon every planet there is a Hive-Mother; a Hive-Mother is as a queen, and they govern the number of bugs upon that planet. So, from the time I can remember. Our hive-race has never once launched a war outward; it has always been other interstellar powers, or interstellar fleets from other universes, wanting to seize our planets and our resources, that launched war upon us," Hive Princess said, with a most aggrieved air.
Zhao Chen knit his brows tight. "If it is truly as you say. Then why, within my world. Does a cosmic bug-nest well up every so often, and hive-race fleets come invading?"
Hive Princess paused, thought a moment, and said, "I remember Granny Bug told me. Those pitch-black bad men, they bully us not only for our homeland, but to control us besides. They have the power to control the middle and lower ranks of our hive-race. Our hive-race has its ranks; a hive-race tribe has a high-grade Hive-Mother, and a high-grade Hive-Mother possesses intelligence. And those bad men first control these Hive-Mothers; and if they cannot control them, they kill them. A hive-race tribe that has lost its Hive-Mother is controlled and enslaved by them, and so obeys their orders, and becomes bad bug-bugs. Those that attack your world should be these bad bug-bugs. It has nothing to do with Little Bug!" Hive Princess waved her hands again and again.
Hearing this explanation,
Zhao Chen seemed to think of something.
He remembered still that some years ago, when he was yet dealing with the Starlight Empire's inner crisis, the Doctor and the rebel Prince Yan had held a technology in their hands.
It used a kind of mechanical chip, and so controlled the corpses of the hive-race.
And at that time the Doctor had brought out another technology besides, which could build a batch of mutated hive-race.
One could see that the Doctor, or rather the power behind the Doctor, had studied the hive-race exceedingly deeply.
And these technologies were exceedingly like the powers Hive Princess now told of!
Could it be that the first author behind the interstellar hive-race was in truth Order as well!
Thinking thus, Zhao Chen found that a great many things seemed to run smooth.
The Pitch-Black Legion fleets launch their attack from outside a universe; but the interstellar hive-race possess a special power, and can build cosmic bug-nests directly, launching attacks upon a target universe from within it.
Add to this the talent for battle the hive-race possess of themselves.
It must be said that, for Order, the hive-race were indeed exceedingly fit puppets and claws.
"Little Bug, do you remember what stage of technology the hive-race of your universe stood at then?" Ah-Yin asked at his side.
"Stage of technology?" Hive Princess sucked at a duck neck and blinked at Ah-Yin, seeming not to have taken the meaning of it.
"Then I shall ask, and you answer." Ah-Yin put her question. "Do you possess the power to leave your own universe?"
Hive Princess nodded. "We can; but Mama said. Outside our home there are bad men; do not go out!"
"Then can you go to other universes?" Ah-Yin pressed further.
"We can. Sometimes, when another universe came to bully us, Mama would take a great many bugs and pay them back a little, destroying their fleets and their military works," Hive Princess said.
"Then of beings of the rank of that Granny Bug you spoke of, how many were there in your home at that time? And the Hive-Mother that governs a planet, of which you spoke before, is it of this rank?" Ah-Yin asked.
Hive Princess took a drink of the cola beside her, let out a hah, and then said, "Granny Bug is very strong! Stronger than a Hive-Mother. A Hive-Mother has no fighting power; their charge is mainly the rearing of little bugs. Granny Bug can govern them, and can govern a great many star systems! As for how many… Little Bug is not very clear. A hundred? A thousand?"
Hive Princess shook her head as she said it, signifying that she could not remember.
Ah-Yin asked nothing further at this point, but only swept her gaze toward Zhao Chen.
The meaning within that look was already very plain.
The hive-race civilization Hive Princess came from had assuredly reached the degree of a T6 technological civilization.
And a Granny Bug was the equal of a lord of a star region, able to rule a great many star systems.
Zhao Chen caught hold of one piece of information at this point, and stared at Hive Princess. "Little Bug, you have kept speaking of Mama. Then between your Mama and your Granny Bug, which is the stronger?"
"Which is the stronger?" Hive Princess thought a moment and said, "I do not know either which is the stronger; they have never fought. But Granny Bug respects my Mama very much; she says my Mama is the hope of the hive-race."
The hope of the hive-race?
Zhao Chen guessed that this Hive Princess's mother was very likely a being of the hive-race's ruling stratum, something on the order of an empress or a queen.
Then this Hive Princess would be a princess?
But what was there upon her of such importance?
Zhao Chen examined this glutton before him; apart from being able to eat, she seemed to have no other use.
Nor was there any special power upon her.
Nor had she any strong fighting power of her own; had she been strong, the sixth sense of this body of Zhao Chen's would long since have told him.
Let it be; there was no way to study it through at present.
He had thought at first that coming here would lift every secret.
He had not thought that beneath the secret there was yet another secret.
It had left Zhao Chen with a head full of tangled hemp.
But it might be counted no small gain besides; let him take this little thing back first; such a being was rather safer kept at his own side.
Just at this moment, the little succubus secretary officer knocked at the door, and came in upon receiving leave.
She looked toward the Commander. "Commander, the research detachment has made a study of the battle traces upon the hive-race starship wrecks. They have already reckoned how long ago those battle traces came about."
"How long?" Zhao Chen asked.
"At least ten thousand years ago."