"So this is Stellar City?" There was something of shock in the way Chu Xuan looked at the 'colossus' before her.
Zhao Chen too could not keep from marvelling at the sight beyond the viewport.
It was a structure of steel on a vast scale — vaster, indeed, than a planet.
And this enormous structure could be said to have no beauty whatever about it; it looked rather like something cobbled together from odds and ends.
Even the style of building, and the building materials, differed from one district to the next.
As though this district were done in the European manner, and that one had turned Chinese.
"Stellar City, they say, was in its earliest days no more than a very small star-port; and then, as the interstellar traders coming here grew more and more numerous, it was enlarged, and enlarged again. By now there's no telling how many times it's been built out. Which is how it came by the disorderly style of building it has today — and this, one might say, is a mark of the culture of Stellar City taking in every sort of interstellar race and interstellar civilization." So Xue Xiaoxiao explained it, beside him.
Zhao Chen went on studying this Stellar City.
Round about it lay a great many interstellar warships at berth.
Numerous past counting!
Of every model and every grade.
From those as small as ants, the T1-grade interstellar warships flowing to and fro without a break, to T2-grade interstellar warships in no small number.
Of T3-grade interstellar warships the numbers began to grow scarce, though they were to be seen still.
Of T4-grade interstellar warships, on the other hand, there were none to be seen at all.
And of these ships, seven parts in 10 were interstellar transports, or else auxiliary interstellar hull types of other kinds.
Combat-type interstellar warships, by contrast, were not many.
"This is Stellar City Administrator JK991. We have received the docking application for your starship, the 'Little Skeleton'. The application is approved; please come into port along the designated course." A voice came through on the comm channel just then.
Zhao Chen looked at Chu Xuan.
This was the docking application Chu Xuan had filed earlier.
And the starship Little Skeleton was, in fact, simply the pet name of the interstellar warship Zhao Chen now stood aboard.
For the warship Zhao Chen was travelling in had by this time been changed from Xue Xiaoxiao's T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship to this T4 Skeleton-King-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Destroyer.
To bring that T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship into port would, after all, have been altogether too conspicuous.
The T4 Skeleton-King-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Destroyer was conspicuous enough itself, true — but this warship's hull carried much the style of Warhammer, so that to the eye it fell into the rough-hewn sort.
Which could serve to lessen the notice of outsiders.
And as it happened, the fleet blazon Zhao Chen and the rest were using this time came from a small interstellar trader within the borders of the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth.
Everyone knew that the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's warships ran to a rather particular style.
So a T3-grade warship of somewhat larger hull, somewhat rougher in make, fell within the bounds of what would be accepted.
"The rest of our interstellar warships have hidden themselves in a meteor belt out on the outer edge. If we should meet with anything sudden, they can be within Stellar City's attack range inside five minutes, and support any district of it," Chu Xuan said at his side.
"Don't be so full of fire and slaughter. We haven't come here to shell Stellar City. Kindly, now. Kindly." Zhao Chen waved an easy hand.
After which this little destroyer Little Skeleton steered into the harbor berth, and there made fast.
But this did not mean Zhao Chen had entered Stellar City yet.
Xue Xiaoxiao took Zhao Chen, Chu Xuan, and a squad of women guards charged with Zhao Chen's safety aboard a shuttle made ready well in advance.
The starship's hatch opened, and the shuttle ran out.
And it was then that Zhao Chen found they had entered a channel within Stellar City itself.
"Stellar City is very large; the great majority of interstellar warships lie at berth out on the outer edge. Though some interstellar powers have inner docks of their own built within Stellar City, and channels of their own besides, kept for their exclusive use, into which they can steer a warship directly. Those channels are very large indeed — warships even of the grade of the T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship can run through them. But the hold on all of them lies in the hands of those great families; the ordinary sort can only use these small channels." Xue Xiaoxiao, just now, was for all the world as though she had come home, and went on telling Zhao Chen about the place.
Zhao Chen looked out through the viewport at the scene beyond. It was a dim circular channel, and one could see the channel wall outside it, and on that wall smaller channels, one after another.
Zhao Chen could see shuttles going into those small channels.
The feeling of it was much like a highway running out in every direction.
"Where are we going now?" Zhao Chen asked.
Chu Xuan said, "A place called the Stellar Tavern."
"The Stellar Tavern?" A rather particular sort of name to give it.
Xue Xiaoxiao began once more to display that 'abundant' store of knowledge of hers. "Don't go making light of the Stellar Tavern for its name. It's a 'landmark district' of Stellar City, and behind it stands the rule of the largest intelligence-brokers' organization in the whole Stellar Alliance. There a great many kinds of intelligence can be looked into — on the condition, of course, that one pays."
Chu Xuan put in from the side, "As to funds, that you needn't trouble over. Before this, our Eden Grain-Trade Group had already laid up goods to the value of 10 billion star coins in one of its accounts within the Stellar Alliance."
10 billion star coins.
Buying the intelligence Zhao Chen wanted should present no great difficulty, one imagines.
The shuttle ran on for a dozen-odd minutes before reaching a shuttle berthing area.
The shuttle's hatch opened.
A reception attendant looked toward this shuttle's door — and saw a squad of figures in black leather armor, with black masks over their faces, appear before him.
At attire of this odd-looking sort, the attendant had long since ceased to wonder.
Here, creatures of every kind were to be seen.
Right next door, for instance, was some strange creature crawling along the ground like a puddle of soft mud.
Chu Xuan walked ahead of Zhao Chen; before the other could speak, she drew from her pocket a badge stamped with the device of a wine-cask.
"We're bound for the tavern. We have an appointment."
And in the moment Chu Xuan's voice came out through the mask, it was plainly altered.
The mask carried a voice-changing function of its own.
"Guests of the tavern, then. This way, if you please. A private car has been made ready for you all; may your business at the tavern go smoothly." The attendant's manner was plainly most respectful, and he led the way for Zhao Chen and the rest himself.
Zhao Chen and the others boarded a private car without trouble.
Zhao Chen looked at the badge in Chu Xuan's hand.
"Not just anyone can go to the Stellar Tavern; one needs the standing for it. And there's a limit besides on the number received each day. This we came by through the Eden Grain-Trade Group's channels," Chu Xuan explained.
The Eden Grain-Trade Group again.
Sure enough, with a trading house of one's own out in the wider world, a great many matters went very smoothly indeed.
Riding the private car, passing through several clusters of city built on a small scale and each in a wholly different style, Zhao Chen and the rest came at last to the destination of the journey.
The Stellar Tavern.
The Stellar Tavern stood on an island in the middle of an artificial sea, with a sun thrown overhead by artificial projection.
And say what you like, the view of it was very fine.
"Welcome to the Stellar Tavern." Someone in uniform received Zhao Chen and his party.
And just as Zhao Chen was getting out of the car, another private car pulled up alongside.
"Welcome to the Stellar Tavern."
A party was getting out at that very moment.
Skin of the purest white flashed by at the edge of Zhao Chen's sight.
And as though something in him had caught the sense of it, Zhao Chen turned his head and looked.
Golden eyes. A robe of white plumage. Skin of the purest white showing beyond that white plumage, and points of light on it that came and went at the edge of seeing—
and a face of a cold and holy pride that looked down upon the world.