"Ahem, ahem… Charlotte, come and eat with us. Lilith has made things for you too — little dried fish, clam soup, fish dumplings, fried fish sticks…" Zhao Chen went on looking, and found something not quite right.
This breakfast — how was half of it to do with fish?
Zhao Chen looked at Lilith dubiously. It was for all the world as though she had prepared it specially for Charlotte.
Seeing this breakfast, Charlotte's every taste bud stirred, and without the least ceremony she fell to sampling it.
"Charlotte, go slower; if it isn't enough, I'll have more sent up from the starship canteen." Lilith watched the nimble work of Charlotte's hands, and asked, dubious, "Charlotte? Have you… felt nothing amiss with your body?"
Charlotte, chewing away at the food, looked at Lilith and shook her head. "No. My body's very well."
Seeing that, Lilith looked at the bed, and then looked at the two of them, Zhao Chen and Charlotte.
"Lilith, what are you looking for?"
Zhao Chen's voice sounded of a sudden at Lilith's ear.
Lilith gave a start, but said without a change of expression, "It's nothing. Do eat something, Commander-in-Chief."
Zhao Chen took a few buns from the breakfast.
"Commander-in-Chief… your state yesterday…" Lilith looked at Zhao Chen, her gaze somewhat concerned.
Charlotte swallowed the little dried fish in her mouth and stared wide-eyed at Zhao Chen. "Do you trust us or don't you? Whatever it is, tell us — we can share the load with you."
Zhao Chen looked at the two of them.
These two years and more, the three of them had come through wind and rain together — from a single assembled warship at the outset, to an Owl Dragon Legion possessed of above 10,000 warships now.
Perhaps he truly had been in the wrong.
"In truth, before our interstellar jump earlier, you said you saw a T4 Hive Mothership. But at that moment I saw a vast eye. And after that, I felt my head go heavy and clouded." Zhao Chen said it gravely.
"A vast eye? Could there be, back in there, a Hive Mothership vaster still than a Leviathan-Monarch?" Charlotte said, working it through.
Lilith thought it over. "Heavy and clouded? Then it may be some manner of mental attack. Though technology in the line of mental control has always been at the research stage, in reality such technologies do exist — in biological technology above all. Just as we succubi can, by nature, set the hormones of the opposite sex surging; that too counts as a kind of mental interference."
"You… believe what I say?" Zhao Chen looked at the two of them in surprise.
Charlotte and Lilith said with one voice, "Of course we believe it."
"But at the time what you saw was plainly a T4 Hive Mothership… and I alone…"
Lilith cut Zhao Chen off and said, "From a scientific standpoint this can also be described as mental infiltration. By what I know, there is a certain profession within a certain star race that possesses this ability; by way of certain drugs, language, and the infiltration of mental force, they can make a person see something only he can see. And that thing is not necessarily before the person's eyes; it may be a thousand miles off… rather… rather like the feeling of a mirage. In sum… these matters are rather complicated. But the possibility of their existing is there."
Charlotte sucked down another little dried fish and drank a mouthful of clam soup. "There are inconceivable things enough in this cosmos to begin with. For instance, among us beast-folk there is a rare race whose sex is a very complicated business — it isn't fixed. One minute they may be male, and the next they've become female. Isn't that beyond all reason?"
Lilith's lovely eyes rested on Zhao Chen. "Of course, had another said this, we might have held a doubting attitude. But because it is you, Commander-in-Chief, who says it, we choose to trust it without condition. Because you are our Commander-in-Chief."
Charlotte, with two little dried fish held in her mouth, said, "That's it… that's it… and if that cosmic bug-nest really does have… some great monster in it… at worst we blast it clean over on its back!"
Looking at the two of them, Zhao Chen felt himself unburdened.
"All right — let us be serious a moment. Suppose what I saw was real. Then what in the world is this eye? And why is it that only I can see it?" Zhao Chen said plainly.
"That… I can't work out. You talk it over with Lilith." Charlotte gave up thinking outright and settled contentedly to enjoying her breakfast.
Lilith considered a moment and said, "There are many possibilities; it cannot be settled in a short while. Since it appeared out of a cosmic bug-nest, it ought to have to do with the world of the interstellar hive-race."
"Then are we to tell others? To speak the truth, when I saw that eye I had a feeling of deep disquiet — as though… as though I were an ant gazing up at a god. If the power behind it covets our world, then in the short term this is absolutely not a thing our one Owl Dragon Legion can stand against." Zhao Chen said it warily.
Lilith shook her head. "I would not advise making it public. First, others will not believe what you say, Commander-in-Chief. Seeing is believing in a great many things, after all. They will see these interstellar hive-race swarms, and they will believe this is a permanent cosmic bug-nest; but they will absolutely never believe what you say of a crisis, of a vast eye. And second, even should someone believe it, we do not know whether that unidentified being is friend or foe. And what if panic arises among our own people? A powerful enemy is not to be feared; it is the unknown enemy that is most fearful. To my mind, on the surface we may behave as though nothing has happened, and go on doing our work step by step. Deal with Qin Xiaotian as we should deal with Qin Xiaotian; prop up the little princess as we should prop up the little princess; thrash Warhammer as we should thrash Warhammer. And at the same time, we can open an investigation into this matter in private."
Lilith's words persuaded Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen put Lilith in charge of investigating the matter — with the emphasis upon investigating that mysterious Doctor!
"How does the refitting of our legion fleets come along? And the state of the fighting in the other war zones?" Zhao Chen set this worry down in his heart and at once busied himself with the matter at hand.
"The legion fleets have all finished refitting and resupply, and can set out for the other fields at any moment. As for the details, if the Commander-in-Chief would remove to the bridge, it will be easier for me to report to you," Lilith said.
"Very well; I'll get ready and come." Zhao Chen went into the washroom.
At this Lilith at once drew close to Charlotte's side. "Charlotte, did nothing happen between you and the Commander-in-Chief last night?"
Hearing Lilith's question, Charlotte was on her guard at once, and eyed Lilith warily. "Happen… happen what?"
"Don't pretend. I know you like the Commander-in-Chief!"
"Like… like the Commander-in-Chief! Who… who said so!"
Lilith looked at Charlotte protesting far too much. "Above nine in 10 of the women in the whole Owl Dragon Legion like the Commander-in-Chief. Is that any secret?"
"I… I don't like him at all! He's hardly any fur on him — less than I have!" Charlotte said it with a guilty conscience.
"Is that so. Well, since you don't like him, take it that I never asked. Earlier I discussed it with the Commander-in-Chief's elder sister and younger sister, and with that acting governor of the Owl Dragon Star System, and we hold that the most important matter at present is the Commander-in-Chief's carrying on of the line. Originally I had you in mind. But since you don't like the Commander-in-Chief— then I think Chu Xuan… or Shen Bing, or Su Lan… or the little princess's standing would suit very well too. I'll think over how to arrange it later." Lilith rose to her feet.
But thereupon Lilith felt the hem of her clothes being seized.
"No… no… no, you're not to arrange it with them… anyway… you're not to… at the very least… at the very least… I was the first to know the Commander-in-Chief!" Charlotte pouted.
This white-tiger girl was formidable at fighting, but at these twists and turns she was no match at all for those lovely eyes.
"Then tell me first what the two of you did yesterday. All of it."
Charlotte, red in the face, in the end confessed honestly.
Having heard this tale out, Lilith put a hand over her own forehead. "Biting mouths? That's it? In future, when you want to learn such things, don't go to Annie. What would that brat Annie know — and she's out recommending it to others besides. In a while, I'll send you some study material. Study it properly."