The Snow-Swallow Star Region · Snow-Swallow Base.
This was a large base within the Snow-Swallow Star Region's second system, and the home base Qin Xiaotian had built up in his time as Prince Yan.
The hive-race technology concerned had all been developed here.
At this hour, Marshal Qin Longcheng had come to Snow-Swallow Base's First Research Institute.
He walked along a dim, forbidding corridor and came before a great floor-to-ceiling window.
Within the window was an inner chamber after the manner of a dock.
Qin Longcheng looked at the scene inside; he had seen it several times, and there was an uneasiness in it still.
For within lay, plainly, a T4-grade Hive Mothership, and by the look of things still in a half-dead state.
Upon the chamber's walls, several enormous mechanical arms were performing some manner of remaking surgery upon this T4 Hive Mothership.
What the principle of it was he had no idea; but Qin Longcheng knew that any Hive Mothership which came out of this place was, in the main, as obedient as a hunting hound.
And suddenly that half-dead Hive Mothership's whole body began to convulse, and green fluid ran out at certain places upon it.
Qin Longcheng knit his brows.
"Forgive me, that Marshal Qin should have seen… this scene. What are you about — why was the Marshal not… shown to the receiving room to wait for me." The black-cloaked Doctor came over, saying it in apology, and rebuked the attendants beside him besides.
Qin Longcheng said, "Don't blame them; it was I who wished to come and see how the Doctor's research stood."
The black-cloaked Doctor looked at the Hive Mothership within the glass. "This T4 Hive Mothership's degree of com… pleteness reaches 60%, so handling it… is rather troublesome. But happily our… technology has been upgraded, and the success rate can reach 70%."
"Then this must be very painful." Qin Longcheng brought the words out from nowhere.
"Painful? Coming from the Marshal's mouth, that is… truly a particular thing to say — for at this very hour, some… tens of billions of people are, upon one order of yours, plunged into a burning hell." The black-cloaked Doctor's tone was very even.
Had a normal man said it, there would presumably have been a trace of mockery in the tone.
Qin Longcheng said nothing; and looking closely, one would have found the whites of Qin Longcheng's eyes filled with threads of blood.
"How stands my hive-race spore virus… is the Marshal satisfied with it? Have you brought the data I asked you to re… cord for me? I should like to see the particular data upon its release onto a… planet, so that I may improve and remake it in future." So the black-cloaked Doctor said.
Qin Longcheng brought out a data disc and handed it to the black-cloaked Doctor, but did not answer his question directly.
Nor did the black-cloaked Doctor pay Marshal Qin Longcheng any heed; he simply opened the disc and looked over the various figures.
"Very good… released into a planet's water resources and its food sup… ply, it can infect 80% of the people within 24 hours. And 95% within 48. And the mutated hive-race have the capacity to evolve within a short… span — several hundred times stronger than the ordinary interstellar hive-race's capacity to evolve. Only a pity… that their lifespan is very short; by our… earlier experiments, the shortest was a bare 300… hours, and the longest will not pass 500. And it is on that account that the strongest mutated hive-race so far reaches only a quasi-T4 grade. But the advantage is that they are stronger in their killing, and stronger in their capacity to act in a cosmic environ… ment; even a T1-grade… mutated hive-race unit has the capacity to enter outer space. And one further shortcoming is that these mutated hive-race creatures are not under control… which wants solving in future, for their not distinguishing friend from foe is a hard thing to handle."
At the mention of his own research results, the black-cloaked Doctor's rate of speech quickened.
"If the mode of transmission could be… made airborne, the effect of transmis… sion would be better still. And strengthen its rate of mutation further, and it may tru… ly be possible to break the limit, and bring forth a true T4-grade… mutated hive-race, or a T5. And solve these two problems of the life… span and of their being uncontrolled. Would that not be the creation… of a wholly new organism?"
Qin Longcheng looked at this Doctor before him, and felt that in that even tone of his he heard, of all things, a trace of longing.
"This thing will not have a second occasion of use." Qin Longcheng said it through his teeth.
With that, Qin Longcheng turned and left.
The black-cloaked Doctor watched Qin Longcheng's retreating back. "Pandora's box, once ope… ned, cannot be closed again. This you chose yourselves… Some hundreds of billions of lives. I had not… thought you would truly bring yourselves to it."
…………
Qin Longcheng returned to his own flagship and sat in the captain's chair, his face dark.
The adjutant beside him looked at the Marshal timidly; since that order had gone down, he had found the Marshal's whole air changed.
The Marshal of former days had at most the bearing of one no stranger might approach.
But the Marshal of now gave one the sense of… gazing into an abyss.
"Why do you stand there?" Qin Longcheng's cold eyes went to the adjutant.
The adjutant shivered, and said at once, "It is about the 19 star systems we have… we have released it into. The release work goes very smoothly; 10 of those systems stand at 95% complete. And the remaining nine can have the whole of the release work finished within the five hours left. By our data officers' reckoning— out of each system we can convert at the least 100 million mutated hive-race units. The great majority of them T1-grade; T2 mutated hive-race are estimated at only 1 million; T3 mutated hive-race at fewer than 5,000. And quasi-T4 mutated hive-race at around 10."
"And the Owl Dragon Legion's side?" Qin Longcheng asked.
The adjutant opened the holo-table and marked three positions upon it.
"We have so far found three Owl Dragon Legions, at the Drifting-Snow system, the Falling-Snow system and the Swallowtail system respectively; the release work in all three systems is complete. By the latest we have, all three Owl Dragon Legions have entered combat status within those three systems, and are engaged in a confused fight with the mutated hive-race. But because the mutated hive-race fight without distinguishing friend from foe, the scouts we send out find it very hard to get detailed combat intelligence. Indeed, we have had cases of our own scout ships being destroyed by the mutated hive-race."
Qin Longcheng shut his eyes. "Keep close watch on those three Owl Dragon Legions, and at need bait may be released to slow their advance further. If there is nothing else, do not come and disturb me."
"Yes."
Qin Longcheng wished to lie down and sleep a while; but the moment he had drowsed off, he saw thousands upon thousands of cities turned, upon his own order, into a scene out of hell.
And those people, neither men nor ghosts, came at him weeping and screaming, to bite and tear.
Which woke him with a start, his forehead beaded with sweat.
19 star systems… above 1 trillion lives…
He was adrift in it.