Annie's mouth was all round with grease.
A beef leg before her was not yet gnawed through, and her hand was already feeling toward the plate beside her.
Feeling to the left, feeling to the right.
Strange, there had plainly been another beef leg here a moment ago.
Annie raised her head full of doubt, and saw only an empty plate at her left.
"Where is my beef leg!" Annie was in an instant as though her house had been robbed.
"Eh?" A voice came from under the table beside her.
Annie turned her head, and only then saw that in the seat beside her sat a little girl a meter high, holding in her hands that beef leg, the greater part of it gnawed away.
Her two eyes looked timidly at Annie.
Seeing this girl, Annie's eyes brightened.
"Who is she?" Annie asked in her curiosity.
"She is called Hive Princess; you may call her Little Bug. I brought her back from outside; she has to do with the hive-race. I mean to take her for some study afterward besides," Zhao Chen explained at his side.
The hive-race?
Hearing this word, those at the table all paused a moment; but having given Hive Princess a single glance, they went silently about their own affairs.
Though the food was spread full before Nana, yet she was still studying the three sets of data the Commander had given her a moment since.
Beside her was Spider Queen Iris besides, who had come hurrying without pause.
The two chief engineers exchanged a word now and again as well.
Annie, on the other hand, had taken an interest in Hive Princess; she pointed at the great beef leg in Hive Princess's hands, and looked again at the dinner plates stacked up beside her chair.
Her eyes brightened, and she asked in her curiosity, "Have you eaten all of these?"
Hive Princess nodded.
"You like eating too?" Annie asked.
Hive Princess nodded.
Annie's eyes gave out light in an instant.
She looked Hive Princess up and down, closely.
Shorter than herself.
Fond of eating, no matter.
And she looked besides like one easy to bully, not so overbearing as her younger sister Nana.
Favorability +99
"Is it enough? If it is not, I shall order some more. Do not stand upon ceremony; tell Elder Sister Annie what you would like to eat. Here it is Elder Sister Annie who has the say!" Annie clapped her own chest, promising it to Hive Princess with the firmest assurance.
Zhao Chen opposite did not puncture Annie; this meal was upon his bill.
Hearing this, Hive Princess looked at Annie at once with her eyes giving out light.
And then the two of them began to go through the menu, choosing one thing after another.
"Beef leg, mutton leg, pork leg, horse leg… bring a portion of every one. And these fish besides……" Annie had all the air of a country nabob, and ordered a dozen dishes and more at one go.
Zhao Chen opposite let fall a sentence out of nowhere. "Whoever orders the dishes is answerable for eating them. If they are not finished, it comes out of her salary. No taking it away, either."
Annie's heart gave a shiver; she hesitated a moment, and canceled half the dishes she had ticked.
"Let us… let us have these first."
Zhao Chen paid no further heed to the two gluttons opposite, eating and drinking without measure.
He looked toward Nana. "Among these three technologies, the T6 Dyson Sphere. It can greatly lessen the pressure upon us for energy. But the choosing of the site is very important as well. If there is only one fixed star within a star system, then once it is built into a Dyson Sphere, that star system will lose the light and the heat it had. Even where there are several fixed stars. Losing the light and heat of one will yet work a very great effect upon the natural environment and the ecology within that star system. So the choosing of the site is very important."
Nana nodded; she had considered this point as well.
She opened up the present map of the Owl Dragon Galactic Interstellar Group's power.
It included the Three Great Empires.
"The region of best choice is naturally the Fifteen Owl Dragon Star Regions. Because these fifteen star regions were formerly under the Machine Race's control, so a great many star systems have no one living in them. It was only after our Owl Dragon Group moved in and began to develop them that life began to return by degrees, with the several resource mining districts for centers. But for them to recover wholly will need several centuries at the least. If we now choose out from among these a set of suitable star systems, and build the fixed stars within them into Dyson Spheres. In this way the effect upon the outside world can be brought down to the least. And if they can be built at positions rather near some industrial bases or mining districts, supplying energy at close range, that will make an exceedingly good frame," Nana said in her analysis.
Zhao Chen nodded; this was a thought of his as well.
"And within this there are in truth a great many choices. By my first screening alone, those that answer the requirements wholly come to as many as seven hundred and sixty-five fixed stars, and these touch upon three hundred and sixty-eight star systems. And this is only within the compass of the Fifteen Owl Dragon Star Regions. Considering that the industry of the Three Great Empires is now by degrees being taken into the Owl Dragon Group's system as well. If a small number of Dyson Spheres can be built within the Three Great Empires' borders, that can greatly ease their need of energy!" Nana finished.
Zhao Chen nodded, and still said nothing.
All this he had considered.
Hereafter, he would set up an Owl Dragon Dyson Sphere Energy Group expressly.
If he could hold above eighty percent of the Three Great Empires' energy supply, then it might be said thus.
Should Zhao Chen but wish it, every industry of those Three Great Empires would collapse within minutes.
"The theory of this Dyson Sphere technology has in truth existed for a very long time. But there have always been many problems, and the greatest of them is that the return upon the outlay is not high; so even where some technologies answered, it was very hard truly to build one. But within this Dyson Sphere technology of yours, the stellar-energy conversion technology can turn the stellar energy collected into a new energy tenfold the original. It is past all belief…… Even looking at these building technologies now, I can hardly understand the… theory within them……" Nana looked at these technologies with a face full of wonder.
T5 technology she could yet catch up with by hard cramming, but some of the theory of T6 technology she truly could not understand or make her own.
Happily the Commander every time edited out the building technology in detail, so that even where they did not understand, they could build it so long as they built by the requirements.
"But it is by reason of this technology besides that the return upon this Dyson Sphere technology is exceedingly high. By the bulk of one standard fixed star, the building cost is only ten trillion star coins, but the output value of a single quarter reaches ten trillion star coins! A year through, that is forty trillion star coins. And it rests upon so long-lasting a source as a fixed star besides," Spider Queen Iris praised at her side as well.
Nana added a sentence. "The one flaw in the jade is that the building time is somewhat long. Even with a T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base to build it, it needs five months!"
Zhao Chen said, smiling, "This is its one defect; but in many places its technical requirements are not high. Even industrial technology of the T3 grade can build one. We have a great number of T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships. When the time comes, the Northern Goose Group may be brought into this building work as well."
Next, Zhao Chen and the two chief engineers settled the first batch of Dyson Spheres to be built.
Because it was the first batch, and considering that people within the Three Great Empires might feel some resistance to it.
They were therefore all to be built about the main resource-mining-district star systems of the Fifteen Owl Dragon Star Regions.
Ten in number.
They would strive to have several finished before the end of this year, and to have the whole of the Dyson Sphere phase-one works finished and delivered before January of next year.
By that time, the Owl Dragon Group could get a steady energy supply of thirty trillion star coins a month on the average!