"I have told you — it truly is a misunderstanding. You saw it yourself: that pair of trousers of mine was covered in her vomit." Zhao Chen had changed into a fresh pair of trousers, and looked back as he walked at the leopard-woman following behind him, swallowing her laughter.
"A misunderstanding it is, a misunderstanding it is." The bodyguard leopard-woman nodded, unable to keep her face straight; but there was a world of insinuation in her eyes.
Zhao Chen could not be bothered to explain further. A straight body, at any rate, fears no crooked shadow!
"What is it, that you should come looking for me of a sudden?" Zhao Chen asked.
"It is Secretary Lilith's side — she says there is a matter of great importance to report to you. She asks that you go to the bridge at once, without fail." Only at this did the bodyguard leopard-woman recall her own errand.
Zhao Chen knit his brows slightly. A matter Lilith would ask to speak of face to face was assuredly of great weight.
Which made Zhao Chen quicken his pace despite himself.
He boarded the hovering elevator, and reached the bridge at very great speed.
"Commander."
The bridge's great door opened, and several crew who happened to be passing greeted the Commander at once.
Zhao Chen nodded slightly, then walked to an area behind the bridge's command platform.
That was a "work zone" Secretary Lilith had made ready expressly for Zhao Chen; as for the command platform, that had naturally been given over wholly to Xue Xiaoxiao's charge.
"Commander." Lilith, seeing that Zhao Chen had come, called up several data windows.
"What has happened?" Zhao Chen asked.
"Look at these. All of them are things recorded within the confidential files of the Disciple family and the Imperial Senate, which we obtained through Saint Cana. We have discovered that the Disciple family had in fact established contact with the Angel Race!" Lilith said gravely.
Zhao Chen was blank a moment. The Disciple family had contact with the Angel Race?
Zhao Chen had originally set Lilith to gathering these files in order to look into the matter of that mysterious Doctor who might have been working with the Disciple family; who could have thought so great a melon as this would be turned up besides.
And of this matter Saint Cana had said nothing to him.
Which showed that she must not know of it either — otherwise she had no reason to deceive him.
The Angel Race… Zhao Chen had heard of this interstellar race, and above all, after meeting the Demon Race, had come to learn a good deal more about them.
Were the universe as Zhao Chen presently understood it to be likened to a balance-scale.
Then the Machine Race stood at the middle; the Galactic Alliance's ground lay at one end of the balance, and the Angel Race and the Demon Race precisely at the other.
The Angel Race and the Demon Race had all along been locked in struggle; in earlier days the two sides were evenly matched, and the Angel Race could even hold the advantage upon certain local fields.
But once the Demon Race developed their life-energy technology, the balance was overturned, and in the standoff with the Angel Race they took the advantage.
This was the whole of the relevant information Zhao Chen had come to learn.
At the time he had thought to himself that if only contact could be established with the Angel Race — the enemy of one's enemy being a friend — the Angel Race might perfectly well be used to keep the Demon Race in check.
Only there was no road by which to reach them.
And now, past all expectation, the Disciple family had made him a present of one.
"How did the two sides get in contact? And how do they stand with each other?" Zhao Chen inquired.
Lilith began to answer Zhao Chen's questions from those decrypted files.
All of it, in fact, had its origin in the Machine Race's withdrawal.
By the figure of the balance just now, the Machine Race stood precisely at the middle, and stopped up the coming and going between the two sides.
But now the Machine Race had withdrawn, leaving a lane open between the two ends.
The Demon Race's attack upon the Warhammer had come along one such lane.
And the Angel Race's contact with the Holy Radiance Empire was made by way of another.
And it was, moreover, the Angel Race who had taken the first step in establishing contact with the Holy Radiance Empire.
It was but a few months after the Machine Race's withdrawal that an Angel fleet paid a visit to the Holy Radiance Empire; and by an unlucky chance it happened to arrive at the star-region territory the Disciple family controlled.
The Disciple family entered into talks with the Angel fleet, and discovered that the Angel fleet's technology far surpassed their own Holy Radiance Empire's.
They possessed a full range of T4- and T3-grade interstellar warships — and by report they possessed T5-grade interstellar warships besides!
And the Angel Race's interstellar warships were very beautiful. In the record of it, the man who received them had used a phrase to describe the Angel Race's interstellar warships: works of art such as he had never seen.
The hulls in a single unbroken pure-white paint scheme, and with it the beauty of their streamlined form — for all the world like some sacred and unsullied holy maiden.
Though it seemed the Angel Race's holdings of interstellar warships were not very great; theirs was the road of the elite fleet, and every single interstellar warship cost a great deal to build.
After that secret meeting, the Disciple family, representing the Holy Radiance Empire, established basic diplomatic relations with the Angel Race.
"It would seem the Angel Race were still somewhat on their guard against them. Several times they wished to carry on a technical exchange with the Angel Race, and were refused every time." Zhao Chen pointed at that document recording the course of the meeting.
"When the other party has found their own starship technology to be the more advanced, how should they let you come and hold a technical exchange for nothing at all?" said Lilith.
Thereafter came the outbreak of the interstellar hive-race Great Calamity.
And it was precisely at this juncture that the Disciple family put forward the migration plan — and the migration plan's destination was precisely the Angel Race's side.
"I did wonder how the Disciple family should so suddenly have discovered a safe star region fit to live in. So this fellow was making ready to take his whole household along and be somebody else's underling!" Zhao Chen said, coming upon one passage of the record.
After it was found that the interstellar hive-race crisis could not be handled, that old chieftain Andrew had got in contact with the Angel Race's side, wishing to request the Angel Race's support and help.
But the Angel Race refused; and as for the reason, Zhao Chen could guess it — they had a Demon Race fleet of the most savage and vicious kind to face themselves.
Where should they find the leisure to see to you?
But after Chieftain Andrew had negotiated a good many times.
At the last, the Angel Race accepted Chieftain Andrew's request to lease several star regions as a living area.
And those subjects of the Holy Radiance Empire who fled there for refuge must become a vassal tribe of the Angel Race, and obey the Angel Race's arrangements.
And those several star regions where they were to be settled were merely star regions left vacant by the Machine Race's withdrawal.
Because the Angel Race's own numbers seemed not to be very great, they had to lean upon other races to develop these star regions at all.
And the Sacred Light's race had a tolerably good power of increase — no match for humankind or the half-orc race, but far, far better than the Angel Race and those other scarce races.
Nor were those star regions to be lived in free of charge by the Disciple family and the rest, over and above the rent: once the star region was developed, a portion of what it produced must be handed to the Angel Race as well.
Was this not the very picture of a hired hand?
"This crew of the Disciple family are something indeed — running off all that long way to labor for somebody else." Zhao Chen shook his head with a laugh.
"Then what do we do now? By the latest report among these, in about three days' time the Angel Race's side will dispatch a fleet to hold another meeting, and nail down the matter of the migration plan," said Lilith.
The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted. "Then let it go forward according to plan. Only that this time, the representative who meets with them will be a different man."