Zhao Chen put one hand to his forehead.
In that instant just past, he had felt his mind pierced through as though by a current.
And now he looked again at that man, the Star Alliance Leader, who seemed somehow to have been seen before.
The other walked on without a change of countenance.
Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes and fixed them on that figure.
His instinct told him that the strange feeling just now was beyond doubt no ordinary thing.
Nor any coincidence whatever.
Indeed he had a presentiment that his coming into this world, and whether he might return to the Owl Dragon's world besides, were bound up with this man.
He must come face to face with this man once, and nothing else would do.
Only, with no more than a colonel's standing as he was now, he was not enough to stand near a Star Alliance Leader.
What followed was the banquet's ordinary course.
The Star Alliance Leader, under the eyes of them all, first praised what the Alliance had put into this campaign, high and low, and the valor it had shown.
And laid particular praise upon Song Qingshan's excellent command in the secret operation; indeed he had this half brother of his stand at his side, and clapped his shoulder as though the two of them were on the best of terms.
On such an occasion Song Qingshan too wore a smile upon his face.
But Zhao Chen knew that smile for a false one.
Indeed every smile, every laugh and every hand clapped in that whole banquet ground was very false.
And when the applause and the cheering had come to their height.
Next came the banquet hour.
Every kind of good thing was carried in, and all manner of performances were to be seen upon the banquet floor besides.
And Zhao Chen marked something.
That certain people had quietly left the banquet ground.
Among whom were the Star Alliance Leader, Song Qingshan, and those of the great families.
Zhao Chen found himself a place in a corner and leaned his back against the wall.
Then put a pair of spectacles on.
Spectacles in this age are worn as ornament merely.
But this pair of Zhao Chen's was out of the common way.
Zhao Chen started them.
And on the lenses appeared an image that Zhao Chen alone could see.
It was a private conference room.
About a round table stood ten chairs.
And Zhao Chen's view lay, as it happened, within one of those chairs.
Just so: this was a device for watching.
One Zhao Chen had quietly built himself of late, the technology of it borrowed from that of T6 interstellar stealth reconnaissance ships,
so that it stood at T6 grade.
After many trials, Zhao Chen could be certain that the counter-espionage equipment presently within the Alliance was unable to detect this device.
Only that it was bounded by distance.
At too great a range, no connection could be made.
And this spying device, which Zhao Chen had fixed upon Song Qingshan, he need not trouble himself to recover at all, nor fear its being found.
For it was very small, so small that the naked eye could not make it out.
It was fixed among Song Qingshan's hair.
So that when Song Qingshan had his hair cut, the device would naturally be gone, and there was no need to think of recovering it.
Zhao Chen sat there with his arms folded.
And ran his eye over the nine about that conference table besides Song Qingshan.
The standing of these people rose in Zhao Chen's mind at once.
He who sat in the head seat was naturally the Star Alliance Leader, Song Chen.
The rest were all representatives of great families and great powers.
Song Qingshan stood for the Song.
There was besides a woman in spectacles, whose look and whose air told without saying that here was a great magnate of technology.
Her name was Shangguan Qiangwei, and she had two standings.
The one, eldest daughter of the Shangguan family.
The Shangguan family had risen by trade, and after that stepped into the industry of starship technology and construction.
In earlier years they might be reckoned a second-rank house merely.
But afterward the Shangguan family's standing was another thing altogether.
For Shangguan Qiangwei founded the White Rose Military-Industrial Group.
Which is to say, Song Chen's military foundation.
Looking at the rest, they were without exception powers of the first rank of families.
Set down in the banquet hall, every one of them would be a magnate.
Of these, there were many Zhao Chen did not care about.
Only one man did Zhao Chen look at particularly.
The head of the Murong family, Murong Bo.
The Murong family is at present among the three greatest houses within the Alliance.
And he is the very leading figure of the conservative faction now.
His Murong family is a great house of military industry as well; but the rise of the White Rose Military-Industrial Group had squeezed no few of the Murong family's concerns.
In these last years the Murong family had laid out its plans afresh, and put great money and great material into the raw materials of military industry.
At the time of the Alliance's civil war he had been wholly of the neutral party.
Which is how he came by his present standing.
But the clashing of interests destined him to stand on the opposite side from Song Chen, the Alliance's Leader.
Though the Star Alliance Council has, in name, some hundreds or thousands of members.
That is only what is seen upon the surface.
Those who truly govern the Star Alliance Council are these ten men before him only,
standing for the very point of the Alliance's pyramid.
Their resolution is the Alliance's resolution.
"Must the small universe's resources and interests be divided at this very time?" Song Chen said then, no expression whatever upon his face.
From which his feeling at that moment could not be read.
Those magnates of the conservative faction all looked toward Murong Bo.
And Murong Bo knew well enough that his standing now made it impossible to watch from the wall as he once had.
He said mildly: "It is very important. For our several families and powers must all make ready beforehand the resources, the money and the material that the building of the small universe will need. Since the small universe is now a thing within our pocket. We may as well divide it directly. In which case the great families can make their preparations. Once the war is ended, and the small universe gathered into our pocket. We can put ourselves to the building of it at once, and turn the small universe's resource-mining regions into the raw materials we require. Which raw materials will supply our Alliance without cease besides. Providing us more interstellar warships and more munitions. So that, whether we face the alien threat or the threat of the other world. We shall have the more to stand upon. And if we do not prepare beforehand. The time wasted in between will be half a year at the least. You must know. That at so critical a moment. Time is of the greatest importance!"
One must say that Murong Bo's argument set out from wholly correct ground.
There was nothing in it to refute.
Make ready beforehand; have the plan laid.
And once the small universe is taken over, gather its resources at once,
which would save a great deal of time,
and make the Alliance stronger in a short while.
One who did not know of the contradiction behind it would surely have praised Murong Bo's far sight and high view.
But at the same time there was information hidden in the words.
Whose meaning was nothing other than this: if you will not divide the small universe's resources now.
Then we cannot lay our plans; and if half a year's resources be wasted hereafter, that will not be laid at our door.
That put Song Chen on the spot.