Zhao Chen made a point of bringing Lilith and the little dwarf Annie along, taking a shuttle to the T2 Bronze Eden-class ship.
Aboard the shuttle, the little dwarf Annie sat stiffly in a corner, her eyes darting now and again toward Zhao Chen across from her.
Though the two had known each other a month and more, she still held this man before her in some awe.
Yet because of the living treatment she'd had this while aboard the T2 Queen Bee-class Heavy Carrier Starship, she no longer feared this man quite so much.
But she couldn't understand — why was this man so good to her?
Annie was small and short, ate a great deal, and couldn't fight.
Could it be… could it be he meant to eat Annie!
A terrifying notion struck Annie; in an instant her hair seemed to stand on end, her little hands clutching tight at the hem of her clothes.
She'd heard her mother say before that among the wicked human race were certain bad people who especially liked to seize the females of other interstellar races, and after tending them carefully for a spell, would eat them up!
Annie gulped, her body as if in an ice cellar.
"Are you very afraid of me?" Zhao Chen looked at Annie and asked with a smile.
Annie gave a shudder and looked down at her own toes. "I… I… I'm not…"
"Not… then why don't you dare look at me?" Zhao Chen asked.
Annie was so flustered just then she couldn't get a word out; unable to hold it back, she said, a sob in her voice, "Annie… Annie doesn't taste good… Annie's meat doesn't taste good… don't eat Annie…"
Eat?
Zhao Chen was taken aback, then burst out with a laugh.
Beside him Lilith too couldn't help being tickled into laughter by this little cutie.
Laughter past, Zhao Chen said, all seriousness, "Rest easy — I don't eat children."
Annie let out a breath and patted her own little chest, but then muttered, "Annie's not a child! Annie's a grown-up already!"
Zhao Chen paid no mind to Annie's odd loops of logic. "I hear from Lilith that you've already got a firm grasp of the ship-building techniques for T1- and T2-grade ships."
This while, Zhao Chen's having Lilith look after Annie was, on the other hand, also a way to sound out the abilities Annie possessed.
On her home planet, Annie had known how to build all manner of small electronic devices while still underage.
Given materials enough, she could even hand-craft you a small T1-grade civilian ship.
One might put it thus: give her the blueprints—
—and of T1-grade technology, there was nothing she couldn't do!
As for the T2 grade, Zhao Chen had made a point of giving her a portion of the technical blueprints for the T2 Black-Rhino and the T2 Queen Bee.
After a few hours' study, she could relate the relevant technical knowledge smoothly.
And this past month, the task Zhao Chen had set Annie was to read all sorts of books on T1- and T2-ship technology.
This book-knowledge — what took a person three to five years to learn in the Northstar Academy's starship-technology engineering major, Annie could master and integrate in a single week!
This alone proved Annie's ability.
She was, against ordinary interstellar dwarves, cleverer still! Gifted!
This time Zhao Chen had truly picked up a treasure.
He couldn't say whether it was the doing of the fleet's luck-value bonus.
"I… I know a little bit," Annie said in a small voice.
"I won't eat you — but I hope you can work for me, build ships for me. Just the same, so long as you perform well, I'll give you living treatment finer even than before; I can guarantee your safety, and you can enjoy all manner of fine food too!" Zhao Chen promised formally.
Annie didn't refuse on the spot, but hesitated, a touch torn.
"I can give you time to think it over." Zhao Chen looked at this little dwarf; he knew this little dwarf had already been captured by his sugar-coated cannonballs!
"Submitting" was only a matter of time.
By now the shuttle had reached a hangar gate of the T2 Bronze Eden.
The hangar opened; the shuttle finished docking.
"Hello, Commander. I'm the one in charge of this T2 Bronze Eden." At this a beast-folk crewwoman with rabbit-ear features came out to greet Zhao Chen, plainly a touch nervous, both her ears drooping.
"Don't be nervous — I don't eat people. I've only come to see how things are with the T2 Bronze Eden." Zhao Chen teased, borrowing Annie's words of a moment ago.
"Please come with me." The rabbit-eared girl walked ahead, leading Zhao Chen and the others through a long corridor.
When all before them suddenly turned bright—
Zhao Chen and Lilith were both dumbstruck by the scene before them.
Their faces went slack, yet in their eyes there was a stirred, excited feeling.
But the little dwarf Annie who came along could see only a railing over a meter 60 high, and just so happened not to see the things within the railing.
She tried standing on tiptoe, but still couldn't see.
She was curious what on earth the Commander and Sister Lilith were seeing.
She tried a little jump.
"Heave-ho…"
She seemed to catch a glimpse of green.
"Heave-ho…"
She seemed to see something all white and hazy.
"Heave-ho… aiya…"
Annie plopped down onto the floor, clutching her head, tears welling in her eyes.
Just now, after she'd jumped, she'd not been paying attention and knocked her head straight into a jutting part of the railing, and then plopped down onto the floor.
She rubbed her head, then rubbed her bottom.
But she still wouldn't concede; she stepped back several meters, gauged the railing's height, and reckoned out the height, the speed, the parabola…
"Annie can do it! Annie can definitely do it!"
She drew a deep breath, and her two short little legs began to sprint.
When she was about a meter from the railing, she put every last bit of her strength into a leap!
At the same time she raised both hands, eyes fixed on the railing's edge.
"Heave-ho!"
Got it!
Annie's two hands caught the railing's edge; her whole little face flushed red now, but still she kept straining, trying to work her body upward.
"Go, Annie… Annie can definitely do it." Annie cheered herself on inwardly, and by her efforts her right forearm was already hooked over the railing's edge, her head now clear of the railing.
Annie was overjoyed; she began trying to get her other arm hooked over the railing too.
Bit by bit she strained.
At the same time her two short little legs kept pushing against the railing's wall for a boost.
At last!
Annie's left forearm too was hooked over the railing.
Wild joy filled Annie's heart — she was about to see the sight within the railing!
Just what manner of sight could hold the Commander and Sister Lilith spellbound so long?
Suddenly Annie's whole body was hauled backward by a force from behind.
That railing's edge, so near a moment ago, drew steadily away.
Annie's two legs landed once more on the floor; she looked up, and there again was that railing's edge, so much higher than herself.
"This is dangerous, you know!" Zhao Chen looked at Annie, for all the world like one scolding a small child.
Annie stared at Zhao Chen, those big watery eyes with a look as though the very next second something might come bursting out of them.
"Let's go over that way. There's a passage over there we can walk in through — you can take in the whole scene of the area far more directly." The rabbit-eared girl pointed at a passage a few meters off.
Annie's expression froze; she looked at the railing before her, then at the passage just a few meters away.
Her feelings were a jumble of five flavors at once.
"Annie, hurry and keep up." Lilith had by now stepped onto that passage; seeing Annie behind wearing an odd look and slow to move, she urged her on.
"Ah… coming…" Annie hurried over at a trot.
When she stepped onto that passage, the wronged, jumbled feelings of a moment ago were swept clean away.
It was a transparent glass skywalk set up high, from which one could clearly see the scene within the railing.
Annie stood on the glass skywalk, looking at the sight before her.
Her face went slack, her heart filled with shock and disbelief.
This… this was the inside of a starship?
This was far too beautiful!