Before Zhao Chen stood two women in wholly different states of feeling.
The Harpy King on the left stood bolt upright, the feathers all over her drawn tight, looking exceedingly nervous, her head kept the whole while in the posture of one studying the floor.
From the moment she came in until now, she had not once looked Zhao Chen in the face.
The other was greatly the reverse — and her form, besides, was perhaps a little frightening.
Her lower half was that of a black spider; her upper half a human woman's soft body, shapely in its curves, and though there were certain black markings upon the skin, they roused not the least aversion, and had, on the contrary, a kind of alluring beauty.
Looking at that upper half alone, she was without question a great beauty.
This person was the Spider Queen.
The Harpy King out of the Harpy tribe and the Spider Queen out of the Spider Queen tribe — these were the guests Zhao Chen was receiving this time.
As for why the two of them had accepted Zhao Chen's invitation and come to the meeting—
one reason was that Charlotte's Revolutionary Army had been in private contact with them beforehand.
"Harpy King Avina," Zhao Chen began.
"Here… I… I am here…" The harpy Avina gave a shiver, and clasped her two hands — feathered, and winged — tight before her.
Which gave Zhao Chen the feeling of a teacher dressing a student down in the staff room.
"There is no need to be so nervous; I invited you here this time. We may be reckoned friends." Zhao Chen said it with a smile.
"No… no… I dare not…" the harpy Avina said in a small voice, her head still not daring to lift.
"Avina, if you keep your head down like this and never look at me— how are we to look at the business ahead of us?" Zhao Chen asked with a smile.
"I… I…" The harpy Avina hesitated a moment, then lifted her head with great care; but her eyes, looking at Zhao Chen, were all evasion.
There was truly no telling how a woman so frail and timid-seeming as this had come to hold a tribal chieftainship.
"The Harpy tribe is a single-sex breeding tribe; there are only females. Being at a disadvantage as individuals, they are of themselves rather timid. Add to that the Golden Eagle tribe's long oppression of them, with the result that although their tribe is called one of the twenty great tribes, they serve more as a kind of tool. Because they possess the ability to fly under the conditions of open space. So they are commonly used to extract ores upon this planet or that — being reckoned… interstellar miners. By strength the Harpy tribe long ago ceased to count among the twenty great tribes," Lilith explained in a low voice at Zhao Chen's ear.
Miners?
Zhao Chen looked at the frail harpy before him. Were it not for the outward form, on temperament alone Annie would likely be the bolder of the two.
If her kinswomen were all of this kind — think of the scene of them, day after day, at work beside the interstellar mining ships at resource-collection point after resource-collection point.
For reasons he could not himself say, there rose in him a thread of the wish to protect her.
"This starship — was it developed and built by you?" At this point the Spider Queen, whom Zhao Chen had all this while been 'ignoring,' spoke up and asked him of her own accord.
From the moment she came in, her eyes had been sizing up this interstellar warship.
Because this was the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship!
A ship class the Spider Queen had never seen at all, and starship technology of an advanced order.
Zhao Chen looked at this woman, plainly more at her ease than the harpy Avina, and the relevant material surfaced in his mind.
The ruler of the Spider Queen tribe, Spider Queen Iris.
The Spider Queen tribe might be reckoned the artisans of the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth; upon the strength of their exceedingly strong all-round physical capacities, in matters of industrial production one of them could commonly do the work of several.
Most of the industrial production within the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth could not do without the Spider Queen tribe.
"It was independently developed, produced, and built by us," Zhao Chen acknowledged.
"What is it called?" Spider Queen Iris asked, at home with him at once.
"Blue-Eyes White Dragon," Zhao Chen said.
"That name is well chosen — a great deal better than those great burly fellows are at naming things. Ankylosaur this… Butcher that… not one artistic cell among them." Spider Queen Iris folded her arms across her chest and grumbled.
The T4 Ankylosaur-class Medium Interstellar Frigate and the T4 Butcher-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
Zhao Chen knew what she was grumbling at.
"If our Spider Queen tribe were to join your Revolutionary Army — no, it should be called the Hundred Beasts Alliance now. If we join your Hundred Beasts Alliance, could the manufacture of this class of interstellar warship be given over to our Spider Queen tribe? That's right — and those several classes of T4 interstellar warship in your service. What were they called, now?" Spider Queen Iris put a finger to her lips, wearing the look of one calling something to mind.
"The Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser, the Paladin-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Frigate, the Tyrant-class Heavy Interstellar Missile-Battlecruiser, the Gorgon-class Heavy Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship, the Skeleton-King-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Destroyer, the Fallen-Angel-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starship. And that other one… the Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ship." Zhao Chen kept nothing back either, and named these combat-type T4 interstellar warships out one by one.
"Yes, yes, yes! That last one above all, the Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ship… I have heard, too, that there is a passage written specially for it. What was it… Where the angel's wingbeat reaches, the starry sky is made a purgatory, and stillness itself is annihilation. This… this… is far too artistic!" Spider Queen Iris's cheeks had, astonishingly, gone somewhat flushed, and she wore a look of excitement; her red lips were biting at her own fingertip, and had even bitten it to blood.
This woman… no… this spider — there was something not quite right about her.
Zhao Chen fixed his eyes upon this Spider Queen Iris. "How is it that you are willing so readily to come over to us? By my understanding, the Dragon-folk tribe can hardly have treated your Spider Queen tribe badly. Your Spider Queen tribe may be no fighting race either, but your standing among the twenty great tribes is very high. Wholly the reverse of the Harpy tribe: your quality of life is better by several times at the least. You have no reason to betray the Dragon-folk tribe."
The harpy Avina beside them wore a look of pure injury — how was it that she got shot lying down?
That her tribe had not developed well could hardly be laid at her door.
"You want a reason, do you? It's very simple: following the Dragon-folk tribe is far too dull. That crew have courage without craft, and not one artistic cell among them! That dragon princess Blanche can design interstellar warships, granted — but what sort of thing is it she designs? Not a scrap of beauty in it. An interstellar warship is an art; it must be beautiful… beautiful…" Spider Queen Iris said it with something morbid in her.
Then she pointed at Zhao Chen's bridge. "Look at this outline of yours, look at this arrangement of yours, look at these majestic lines. This is what deserves to be called art! If I could produce and build works of art like this, that would be my life. And not the manufacture of those ugly contrivances!"
Diagnosis confirmed.
This Spider Queen was certainly sick!
Set beside a technical artisan, the place she assigned herself was more that of an artist.
A morbid artist.