Three days later
The Holy Radiance Empire · the Imperial Senate.
This is the most majestic building upon the Holy Radiance Empire's Imperial Star.
It stands upon five 'giants.'
Five steel statues of giants, a full 10,000 meters high, stand in a ring; each holds a war-spear in one hand, turned outward.
And each holds a castle aloft in the other hand.
And that castle is the Imperial Senate.
The five statues without stand for the five Consuls the Imperial Senate elects.
And these five Consuls guard the Holy Radiance Empire.
So Saint Cana used to think.
But now, perhaps, she understood.
What these five statues of power guard is not the Holy Radiance Empire at all. What they guard is those high men of the Imperial Senate, those noble powers, and nothing more.
The shuttle settled slowly.
Saint Cana came down from the shuttle behind her father and her second uncle.
Saint Cana swept an eye about her; no few had come, by twos and threes.
The Sacred Angel family, though it does not match the Disciple family, is among the Holy Radiance Empire's many families a house that may be ranked within the first five.
And this time, because the Sacred Angel family, which had opposed the migration plan from the first, had indicated that it might consider it.
Very nearly all the family powers had come.
Only, even Saint Cana herself had never thought so many would come.
She had supposed that only those several families would attend, and the Imperial Senate's elders, and the several Consuls.
But the numbers here now went beyond her supposition tenfold and more.
The feeling it gave was that this was not a conference at all, but… a banquet.
"How is it that so many have come?" Saint Cana asked with knitted brows.
Her second uncle laughed. "Is this not perfectly ordinary? This conference is of great weight. The migration plan is by no means simply a leaving of this place to live in another. There is, for instance, who is to hold the chief offices in this plan, and the allotment of resources hereafter, and how many people each several power may put aboard these voyaging starships."
The answer was plain enough already.
All of it was for the division of interests.
Saint Cana said nothing, and followed her father and her second uncle in through the Imperial Senate's gates.
And the scene within those gates left Saint Cana in the utmost disgust.
Behind the Imperial Senate's gates lies a very large plaza, and beyond the plaza the Senate's assembly hall.
This Senate plaza was in the ordinary way used for the holding of special ceremonies.
Now, instead, delicacies of every kind had been laid out upon it, and ornaments.
It was to the life a banqueting ground.
And those who had arrived earliest stood at this hour in knots of three and five, dressed in splendid garments, wine-cups in hand, talking with smiles upon their faces.
Some had even brought fair companions with them.
And from time to time one might hear the sound of their teasing laughter.
All of it, in Saint Cana's eyes, was laughable.
A banquet of such a scale as this — there was no telling how much logistical supply for the forward fleets it might have covered.
Laughable!
Laughable in the extreme!
Saint Cana passed through the midst of it without expression.
And in the course of it there were no few who saw Saint Cana appear, and took up their wine-cups and came forward to greet her, wishing to exchange a word or two.
For the Sacred Angel Legion was now among the few Sacred-Light Legions whose combat strength was preserved entire.
But these people Saint Cana ignored outright, and walked straight on past their faces.
"Here — Saint Cana. They are greeting you." Saint Cana's second uncle, seeing it, looked at those guests helplessly. "My apologies, gentlemen. This niece of mine is simply of that character; she is not skilled in occasions of this kind. …………"
Saint Cana paid this second uncle of hers no mind.
Within the Sacred Angel family there were naturally some who supported the migration plan, and this second uncle of hers was at their head.
Whereas her father, Chieftain Saint George, had all along been in a wavering state.
Before this, while Saint Cana held firmly that the Holy Radiance Empire must be held, Chieftain Saint George naturally stood upon his own daughter's side.
"Saint Cana, what… what is it you truly mean to do this time?" Chieftain Saint George walked at his daughter's side and asked it in a voice only the two of them could hear.
Upon this business of his daughter's suddenly indicating that she was willing to consider the migration plan, Chieftain Saint George felt, down to this moment, that the thing passed all understanding.
He held that he knew his own daughter well.
By his daughter's temper, she would never in this world consent to such a thing as abandoning the Holy Radiance Empire.
"Father, I have my own plans," Saint Cana said quietly.
And just as Saint Cana was about to reach the doors of the Senate's assembly hall.
Several figures came out through them.
"Chieftain Saint George; Commander Saint Cana. This conference of ours — let us simply hold it here." An old man of withered frame in a military uniform stood at the middle of them.
Chieftain Saint George, seeing this man, made his obeisance first. "I pay my respects to my lord Consul Andrew."
This man was precisely the Consul of the Central Star Region, Andrew — and at the same time First Elder of the Imperial Senate, and the Disciple family's former head besides.
With these three identities together, one may imagine how exalted this man's standing was within the Holy Radiance Empire.
And upon his two sides stood two men each.
To the left were Consul Ernest of the Eastern Star Region, who had led the expedition to the Warhammer, and Consul Stanford of the Southern Star Region, who had had one meeting with the Owl Dragon Legion at the Stellar Alliance.
To the right was a lady of tall figure and beautiful face — the only one among them not in military uniform — and her standing was Consul Melissa, of the Western Star Region.
And the last, a middle-aged man of powerful build, was of them all the most soldierly in bearing: Consul Gilbert of the Northern Star Region.
All five Consuls were present.
And a crowd of the Imperial Senate's elders came out one after another besides.
They stood upon the steps before the Senate's assembly hall, looking down upon the crowd in the plaza, showing forth the weight of their standing.
The noble guests upon the plaza ceased their talk at this hour as well, and looked toward these holders of power at the summit of the Holy Radiance Empire's pyramid.
"Very well. By the discussion within our Senate it is determined with one accord. The majority consent; the minority abstain. We pass the migration plan, and shall begin its execution. And our purpose in gathering them here this time is to settle the detailed course of the migration plan. These things once fixed, we shall make ready in the shortest time possible. And then bear the seed of the Holy Radiance Empire's hope, and set out for the far distance, and seek a future belonging to the Sacred Light!" Consul Andrew of the Central Star Region raised a hand as he spoke.
The crowd below applauded and cheered.
Saint Cana watched this scene, and in both her eyes there was nothing but ice.
She had told her own father to convey to the Imperial Senate that the Sacred Angel family did not oppose the migration plan.
With the Sacred Angel family's tacit consent, this migration plan naturally had no obstacle left before it.
And so Saint Cana too had obtained the list she wanted.
At this hour she could at last put off her disguise.
And puncture this crowd of hypocrites before her.
Saint Cana suddenly stepped forward, and pointed at Consul Andrew in a fury past all bearing.
"A future belonging to the Sacred Light? I do not know where the Sacred Light's future lies. But I do know that the Sacred Light will never permit you people to abandon the thousand trillion and more[1] of the Holy Radiance Empire's people, and drag out your own lives in safety. You are traitors to the Sacred Light!"