Disaster… Plan 0924… the Universe Alliance…
It may have been that too much information had poured into his mind in too short a time.
For even Zhao Chen, whose body had been strengthened, felt his head grown somewhat heavy and dull.
"You… have you come by certain knowledge as well?" Zhao Chengcheng looked at Zhao Chen, and there was much in her eyes.
Zhao Chen nodded.
Zhao Chengcheng began at this to look him over from head to foot.
And after some breaths she said with a light laugh: "I felt before that there was something strange about you. And there were these names of ours besides, the same as by coincidence. But I never supposed that the two of us should be no more than pieces in another's plan."
Zhao Chen drew several deep breaths.
He turned about and walked toward a small room at one side of the bridge.
He… he wanted a little time now to digest what he had come by.
"Give me a few minutes. The arrangements for the voyage that follows are yours to see to."
And without waiting for Zhao Chengcheng to come after him, Zhao Chen said it without turning his head.
And then went into that small room beside the bridge, and shut the door.
Zhao Chen closed his eyes.
"System!"
【I am here】
"So you have stirred at last."
【I have been here all along】
"Then why, this half year and more past, did you never speak?"
【Because the I of that time had not set the intelligent program going】
"And even the yearly missions and the quarterly missions of old were gone, every one."
【Because you had already completed ninety-nine per cent of the plan
The I of that time could give you nothing further
So the System went into dormancy
Waiting upon… an occasion】
"This occasion you speak of. Is it the very case we stand in now?"
【It is】
"And the bringing of me into this universe, was that your doing as well?"
【It was】
Zhao Chen set his teeth; and had that voice in his mind owned a body standing before him at this moment, he would assuredly have failed to govern his own fists.
"Merely to set the present you going?"
【Yes】
"Besides those two cursed words, can you not say something else!"
【I can】
"The devil take you!"
【I am no more than a stream of edited data. I have no mother】
Zhao Chen felt toward this fellow a helplessness that went very deep.
"Good. Good. Good. Let us not go into that. Since you can now speak of your own accord, have you nothing you would tell me?"
【I have
But you have been asking questions all this while
So I answer your questions first】
This cursed System!
Zhao Chen forced his anger down.
For by what he had learned a moment ago, he felt himself at this moment for all the world like a volcano that might burst at any hour.
And had any of the enemy shown themselves upon the bridge just then, Zhao Chen judged he would not have kept himself from killing them by the cruelest means there were.
"Now you may speak."
【I am a System
A cultivation System within Plan 0924
You are one of its candidates
You have triggered the hidden information, and I shall tell you certain things
And after that, I shall vanish utterly
This will be the last time we speak together】
Zhao Chen's heart gave a jolt.
The last time?
"Why the last time?"
【Because my task is complete
What energy I have is very nearly spent, so there is no need for me to exist】
"Good. Go on." Zhao Chen paced back and forth in that room.
For a moment ago he had come by a great deal of information; and though that information was full enough, it filled Zhao Chen's heart now with doubt,
like some vast riddle wrapped about him.
And gave Zhao Chen the feeling of being worked by a pair of hands.
Very angry, and very much at a loss.
It was as though his own life were worked by those hands,
and everything that was his besides.
Had come about step by step under another's arrangement.
Zhao Chen did not like that feeling.
【Order
One of the greatest threats there are in the universe
Unlike the outward invasions of other interstellar universes, they take a universe under their control wholly and entirely, and merge all that is in it into their own body
At the first, they raised the banner of a new ideal
Join them, merge into them, and you may be quit of war, of disaster, of suffering, of all things
……】
What the System set out here answered very closely to what Zhao Chen knew of 'Order'.
【They hold themselves the most noble thing that is, the finest of living bodies
They hold that they have built an order altogether new, and they have named themselves 'Order'
And Order's first law is that no universe's technology may go beyond a T6 technological civilization; the reason being that only Order, the one T7 technological civilization, can make Order endure】
Zhao Chen called to mind the nuclear weapons of the planetary age.
Though the great powers that held nuclear weapons would often, with their own interest at the center, wave the banner and do a deal of bullying with it.
Yet in some sort it is true that by nuclear weapons war on the great scale was made to vanish, and a peace formed over the greater part of the world.
And Order is much like that.
【At the first, the other civilizations of the universes merely disliked that Order existed
But felt nothing beyond it; for Order, strong though it was, did not threaten them; and as for the forbidding of research into T6 technology
That, to the greater part of the civilizations, was a very distant matter; and to set oneself against a strong T7 civilization over a thing so distant was hardly reasonable
So that at the first all men held to Order's existence with a tacit consent
Nor can it be denied that in that time Order's existence did indeed keep off no few wars of the broad kind across universes
But from what time there is no knowing
Order was no longer the Order of the beginning
They bared their fangs, and grew more and more given to invasion
They began setting upon certain universes the label of researching T6 technology, and launching invasions
They built a legion of their own, the Pitch-Black Legion fleet
Which is a fleet of bodies of consciousness, that can be revived without cease
And leaning upon this mighty fleet, they destroyed one after another the regimes of the universes so labeled, and then devoured all life within those universes, and merged it into Order
Proclaiming abroad that it was the willing choice of the life within that universe
At the first no man doubted it
But soon certain 'refugees' appeared
Natives, that is, escaped out of universes Order had already devoured
Who proclaimed abroad that Order's devouring was a thing compelled
That at the first they would wash the minds of the natives of that universe, and would indeed bring some to believe that joining Order would rid them of their present poverty, their suffering, their calamity……
And that there were some who would not give up the life they had and merge into Order
But to the voices of these, Order gave no heed whatever
Nor had they the power to resist, and at the last could only be made a part of Order
And when these things had happened again and again
The other civilizations of the universes naturally began to protest, every one fearing that his own would be the next universe devoured
But before a T7 technological civilization, were they so much as qualified to resist】
"And so that organization came to be?" Zhao Chen asked.
【The Exiles' Universe Alliance
Whose full name is the Anti-Order Stellar Exiles' Universe Alliance Organization
An exiles' alliance organization founded in private
In name a thing founded by those refugees who had fled the devoured universes
But could those refugees alone have founded a universe alliance organization so vast
They could not
For behind it there are in truth a great many, a very great many civilizations of the universes supporting it in silence
Providing men, providing materials, providing money
And sending such scientists as are wanted into this organization
To study the undoing of Order】
"And that is Plan 0924?" Zhao Chen called to mind a certain singular numbered plan within that data of memory.
【At the first it was not Plan 0924
The Exiles' Universe Alliance, from its founding, carried on and opened a number of plans against Order
And researched T6 technology and even T7 technology
Seeking to break through Order's blockade upon technology
Many lines of it at once
But a great many of the plans failed
And Plan 0924 is in fact one among the failed plans】
"A failed plan?" Zhao Chen was startled. "This plan has failed already?"
【It has
At the least, in the newest data I have, I am of the last batch of trans-spatial system particles sent out by Laboratory Nine's Plan 24】
"Wait. You say that you were sent out? Then how did you come to choose me? Was it you who carried me across into that world?"
Hearing this question of Zhao Chen's,
the System was silent a moment.
【Is it not possible
That you are no crosser-over at all】
The answer, coming so suddenly, left Zhao Chen at a loss.
【None of those who hold a System are in truth crossers-over
The memories in their minds of having crossed over are every one of them made by the System
We were in truth made by Laboratory Nine; you may take us for so many seeds
Laboratory Nine's notion in Plan 24 was this
They held that by their own organization's strength alone, Order could hardly be overthrown
But that those paymasters behind them, which is to say those civilizations of the universes, were unwilling to set themselves openly against Order
And so, the stake being too small, the variability was lessened
And Plan 24 was to increase that variability
And to hasten greatly the speed at which one universe after another should develop
And make of them a fleet within the war-torrent against Order
And so Plan 24 came to be
Every seed is very small, so small that it cannot be found out by the most advanced glass there is; only so can it escape Order's blockade
But within these seeds are Systems such as we
And into the Systems were entered beforehand technologies of every kind, and above all in the matter of interstellar warships】
"Wait. If it be so, then how are certain things that appeared out of thin air to be explained! Such as those starship cores, and… and the super-soldier serum that was put into me!" There was something near a breaking in Zhao Chen's feeling just then.
【Because within the seed there is also a technology of space, that carries a small space of its own.
Those things were merely laid up within it beforehand.
As rewards to the System's holder when he completes the answering tasks】
Zhao Chen's tongue was tied.
He had the feeling of a man very near to being stifled.
【Afterward Laboratory Nine would cast these seeds out, which is commonly called 'sowing'
And at intervals these seeds would of themselves gather afresh such breakthroughs in technology as the System's holder had made
And upon the death of the System's holder, send them secretly back to the laboratory
And though Plan 0924 failed, one must own that under a method of this kind the System holders so cultivated did greatly hasten the turning over of technology in the Exiles' Universe Alliance
Where a technology will commonly want some thousands of years of research within the Alliance
It wants, with a System holder, no more than a few hundred years, or even a few tens of years
And the seeds cast out were very great in number
For the number of the universes is very great as well
And this is that feature of variability in Plan 0924
And as batch after batch of seeds was cast out, the technology held within the later seeds grew higher and higher
And the black technology they carried more and more past believing】
"Then why did Plan 0924 fail?" Zhao Chen demanded. "Was it that Order found it out?"
【Plan 0924's failure was not by reason of Order
But by reason of those civilizations of the universes behind the Exiles' Universe Alliance
They had at first not questioned the Alliance's research, but they detected as well the swift rising of certain small universes
And so discovered that Plan 0924 existed
It was they who put an end to Plan 0924, and closed Laboratory Nine outright, and dispersed every one of its people
And you, Zhao Chen, are of the last batch of seeds sent out
And after that, Plan 0924 was declared a failure】
Zhao Chen was silent.
And then he asked: "Do you know how long it is, from Plan 0924's being declared a failure, to this present time?"
【Do you mean this universe's present
Or the Owl Dragon universe's present】
Zhao Chen checked.
"What difference is there in that? Do the universes run at different speeds of time?"
【The time of different universes at the same time is the same
But the time of universes at different times is naturally not the same】
Words that ran like a tongue-twister.
Which left Zhao Chen at a loss in the first moment; and then he came to himself.
"Wait! You mean to say! That I! Am not at the point in time of my own universe!" There was a shake in Zhao Chen's voice.
【You are not】
And this fellow was back to that cursed way of his, and threw out two words only.
"What in the world is the meaning of it? Have you a technology for crossing through time besides! For if it be so. Then Laboratory Nine might perfectly well go back to the point in time before Order was born, and destroy Order!" Zhao Chen demanded.
【It is indeed a technology of space and time
But it is not a technology well perfected
It is even set down by the Exiles' Universe Alliance as a technology forbidden to research
Just as, before this, in your own universe, high artificial intelligence was set down as a technology forbidden to research
Because though this plan may cross space and time and alter the line of time, the calamity it might bring would perhaps go beyond the threat of Order
And so it is forbidden to research
But a certain scientist of Laboratory Nine, having word that Plan 0924 was to be stopped and Laboratory Nine closed forever
Merged this incomplete plan into that batch of seeds as well】
"An incomplete technology. Then why did it trigger?" Zhao Chen did not understand.
【Because of coincidence
This incomplete plan has been within the System seed all along
And wanted only an occasion】
And Zhao Chen thought of something all of a sudden.
Of a thing that had happened before he crossed over into this universe.
"The three-dimensional world falling in upon itself into a two-dimensional world?"
Zhao Chen called to mind the event of that time.
【It was】