"Honored guest, the intelligence you wished to know of we have finished looking into on our end — though on certain parts of it there is still no getting anything definite. And this intelligence is of a very high grade, so it will require you to come up to the tavern's topmost floor in person, and deal with our people face to face."
"Very well," said Zhao Chen.
"Understood," said Saint Cana.
The doors of the two rooms opened at very nearly the same moment.
Zhao Chen came out with his mask on, and looked with some surprise at the Saint Cana emerging next door.
The fate that bound these two was a curious thing indeed — even their coming out of doors fell at one and the same hour.
Over the three days just past, Zhao Chen had naturally not let slip the chance of keeping a watch on the Saint Cana next door.
But the answer from Panther-Girl's people was that over those three days, exactly like Zhao Chen's own party, Saint Cana and her people next door had not stirred half a step from their room either.
Food and the rest of it had all been sent straight into the room by way of a mechanical channel kept for the purpose.
Saint Cana looked at the party coming out next door, and knit her brows slightly.
Three meetings.
And this time she looked this masked man before her over with care.
If the first time and the second could be called coincidence—
then to come out of doors together at the same moment a third time was surely too much of a coincidence by half.
Which set her, despite herself, to doubting the standing of Zhao Chen and his party.
And besides that, her instinct told her that this masked man was one she had seen before.
This time Zhao Chen made no point of keeping clear of Saint Cana and her people, but walked straight for the elevators.
Under the watching eyes of Saint Cana and the rest, the elevator Zhao Chen's party took rose upward.
"My lady?" The subordinate looked at Saint Cana, who had been staring after that party in a study of her own.
Saint Cana spoke. "Send someone to look into the standing of the people in the room next to ours. I have a feeling they have something to do with us."
"Yes."
With that, Saint Cana and her party boarded an elevator too, and began to rise.
Half a minute later.
Her party arrived at this tavern's topmost floor — a place after the manner of a great dome, where overhead one could see a holographic projection of blue sky, and flowers and birds and fish and insects besides.
And within this dome stood several small wooden cabins.
"This way, if you please." An attendant, who seemed to have known well beforehand what Saint Cana and the rest had come up for, asked nothing further and led them straight toward one of the cabins.
And just as they came up to the cabin's position—
Saint Cana's gaze grew fixed. She saw, at a cabin 10 meters opposite, that same party who had gone up a step ahead of her.
Only that from that party three people were missing.
By the look of it they should have gone into the cabin.
"No more than three may go into a cabin." The attendant now pushed the door open as he said it.
And though the cabin's door was opened, there was a visual barrier upon it; those outside could see nothing at all of the interior, only a layer of white mist.
"I'll go in alone. The rest of you wait outside." And as Saint Cana finished speaking, she looked to her own subordinate, and let her eyes slide once toward the cabin opposite.
The subordinate nodded slightly, understanding that the Lady Saint Cana meant her to keep an eye on those suspicious-looking characters across the way.
Saint Cana went into the cabin, and the cabin door shut.
The subordinate's gaze went across to that squad of masked figures standing outside their cabin in the same way, and the air between the two sides grew, just then, a little strange.
Within the cabin.
Zhao Chen sat in the middle, with Xue Xiaoxiao and Chu Xuan standing behind him.
Because there was only the one seat in the place.
Opposite Zhao Chen stood something after the fashion of a folding screen.
"Honored guest, upon the intelligence you earlier wished to obtain, we sent people to gather and inquire, and in the end came away with only a part of the material. And by our judgment, the worth of this material comes to 30 million star coins. Please settle this intelligence fee first, and then I shall tell you the results our investigation turned up." From the other side of the screen came a woman's gentle voice.
"Here now — paying before we've so much as inspected the goods. And you said it yourself: you haven't got the whole of it clear. So how are we to know what you've actually turned up!" Xue Xiaoxiao folded her arms, and there was no pleasure in the way she said it.
"This is the tavern's rule: money first, and intelligence after. Besides which, whether the intelligence we turn up is worth the money or not, our tavern naturally has its own means of telling. That our Stellar Tavern has lasted to this day is a matter of good faith — or nobody would come here at all. Now then, sir. Please make your decision." So the woman's voice came.
"I hope this intelligence of yours won't disappoint me," Zhao Chen said coldly, and then waved a hand.
Chu Xuan, behind him, opened the account they had readied and made the 30 million star coins in it over to the other party outright.
"Now you can let me have that intelligence." Zhao Chen put out a hand.
"The intelligence you want, you may ask of me directly. I am unable to furnish any data or document on my end. Beyond that, neither you nor your companions will be able to use any device to record this conversation," so the woman's voice said.
Chu Xuan knit her brows, raised her right hand and tapped a few times at her handheld terminal — and sure enough, a great many of its functions were locked out.
It seemed this cabin was the cause of it.
"You people ask a great deal, truly," Zhao Chen said, with some displeasure.
"Pray forgive it, sir. Because the intelligence you wish to know of is very particular, we keep it, for secrecy's sake and safety's, in the memory of persons appointed to the purpose. For however tight the equipment and the recording instruments, there will always come a time when something goes wrong with them. And at such a time, a living creature's brain is the safest recording device there is. Sir, you may ask after the intelligence you wish to know," so the woman's voice said.
Zhao Chen had no thought to spare for any of that; with his physical constitution strengthened as it was, his memory had been much strengthened too, and setting down a few spoken words was no trouble at all.
"Are there dealings between the Holy Radiance Empire and the Starlight Empire's Qin Xiaotian!"
"There are."
"What dealings do they carry on?"
"By what our investigation turned up, the Holy Radiance Empire's side, by way of the Stellar Alliance's channels, ships certain half-finished interstellar warship components into the Starlight Empire along a hidden course. These are handed over to the Light-Swallow Group, sited in the Starlight Empire's Snow-Swallow Star Region, and the Light-Swallow Group then assembles these half-finished parts straight into a warship. Beyond that, Qin Xiaotian has certain secret arrangements in private with nobles of the Holy Radiance Empire — but the substance of those secret arrangements we could not get clear. As for the particulars of those half-finished parts, I can set them out for you if you wish."
Just as Zhao Chen had reckoned it, sure enough.
Rather than carry a whole interstellar warship, it went far more efficiently to carry the half-finished parts outright!
And by his guess, Qin Xiaotian at this hour would not be trusting another's starship technology either; with the pit of the Northern Goose Group's T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers dug in front of him already, he would not make the same mistake twice.
So the best method was to procure the components and half-finished parts, and then have his own starship works build his own warships out of them.
By which the cost might well go up—
but the building efficiency would rise several times over!
As for the secret arrangements between the two sides, of those Zhao Chen was very curious.
Presumably they too were some part of the price Qin Xiaotian had paid for working with the Holy Radiance Empire.
Only a pity that even the Stellar Tavern could not turn it up — in which case there was still less possibility of Zhao Chen's getting it clear.
"Which course is it they run! Who in the Stellar Alliance is charged with the handover, or the carriage — is there a fixed schedule for the runs…" Zhao Chen asked it with his eyes narrowed.
"By what our investigation knows, three courses are so far known to be in use…"
And the other party set about laying out these three courses by their coordinates.
Chu Xuan said nothing — but being the secretary-officer, she had already begun drawing the run out in her head.