Zhao Chen looked at this little girl before him, who seemed so simple and innocent, and could hardly believe she was the Machine Race's highest ruler — the power that had held down the Galactic Alliance for hundreds of years, for a thousand.
Seeing that look of astonishment upon Zhao Chen.
The little girl laughed until she held her sides. "Ha ha ha ha, I knew you were bound to be startled when you saw me looking like this. Only this isn't my real body, it's just a holographic projection. My body is somewhere else. As for this humanoid body — for us mechanical lives it's only a shell we can build however we please. I can be a little girl, or a grown woman, or an uncle, or an old fellow, or some other creature not humanoid at all. It's just that I rather like this figure."
Zhao Chen came back to himself, and fixed his eyes on this little girl so wholly out of keeping with their present situation. "What is it you want with me?"
"I want you to join our Machine Race." The little girl blinked her eyes and looked earnestly at Zhao Chen.
"Join?" Zhao Chen was dumbfounded.
He had never thought this little girl would put forward a demand of this kind.
"In fact I've been observing you a long while. That Owl Dragon you founded has brought out a great many starship technologies in a very short time. But by my investigation you have no research organization or research institute behind you at all. Which means these starship technologies are, in fact, yours! As for how exactly you brought them out — that I don't know yet. I wonder whether you might tell me."
The little girl's eyes, innocent and unspoiled, looked at Zhao Chen.
"Do you suppose I would tell you?" Zhao Chen returned.
"No." The little girl answered him clean and direct.
"Then do you mean to detain me? Imprison me? Or dissect my head, and get from inside it those things you wish to get?" Zhao Chen demanded.
The little girl covered her mouth in astonishment, then waved a hand with a face full of distaste. "Dissect your head? How disgusting. I'd never do a thing of that sort. Though the way you speak of might be workable in theory, in the carrying out there are a great many problems; even we of the Machine Race have no way of getting the whole of the information we want out of a man's head while the man himself resists. As for detention? Imprisonment? When did I ever say I meant to lock you up?"
The little girl pouted, with all the air of one wronged.
Zhao Chen frowned; he truly could not make out at present what purpose this little girl was holding to.
"Then what is it you want, in the end?"
"Didn't I say it? I want you to join us. We need your starship technology, and your capacity for research besides." The little girl swung both legs and said it simply.
Why was it that this posture was so very like a certain someone.
And there was, throughout, the feeling that in this scene the roles had somehow been exchanged.
Could this… be the retribution that comes of being a capitalist?
"Then I have given my answer too. I shall not join you," Zhao Chen answered once more.
The little girl pouted, thought a moment, and at last shrugged and said helplessly, "Very well then. Though I knew this answer long ago, I still wasn't willing to give up without asking you myself."
Thereafter the two of them fell into a short silence.
"Have you… nothing more to say?" Zhao Chen was the first to break this quiet.
"Nothing at all." The little girl answered simply.
"Then how do you mean to dispose of me?"
"I never said I meant to dispose of you."
"…………"
Zhao Chen was thrown into utter confusion by the other side.
He asked it outright. "Then what if I go now?"
"Then go, why not." The little girl gave a yawn.
How was it this little girl played no card by the usual rules.
The little girl swung both legs. "You can leave whenever you like; and of course, I welcome your joining us whenever you like as well. So long as you're willing to join us, I can give you a great many things. Helping your Owl Dragon Galactic Interstellar Group grow and prosper, for instance; helping you put down the Demon Race, for instance; helping you hold off the interstellar hive-race's invasion, and so on. I'm quite capable, you know!"
The little girl raised an arm and struck a pose to show off her muscles.
Was this little girl truly willing to let him go?
It must be said that these terms held very great temptation for Zhao Chen as he now stood.
But the mystery about the Machine Race left Zhao Chen unwilling to make a decision lightly — and still less could he lightly join anything of the sort.
"Then I go now." So saying, Zhao Chen made as though to set off in the direction he had come.
"Wait."
The voice behind him called him back.
Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes; he had known there must be something waiting for him still. Let me see what purpose you are hiding, then.
"Let me repair that interstellar warship of yours first. Above all your communication equipment. If you don't lose time getting in contact with those subordinates of yours, there's no telling what dreadful thing they may do to the Angel Race. An hour — we can settle it in an hour. Though you'll need to contact your crew first, or they surely won't allow us to carry out repairs on your interstellar warship." The little girl said it with a sweet smile.
Zhao Chen scratched his head, and walked back before the little girl once more.
This time there was but a meter between them; on account of the long-legged stool, the little girl, short though she was, could look Zhao Chen level in the eye.
Zhao Chen was silent a while, then sent a message to Xue Xiaoxiao and Nancy, saying that the Machine Race's assistance might be accepted.
Hidden within the message was a cipher besides, so that Xue Xiaoxiao and Nancy might be certain it was the Commander sending it of his own free will.
"Since there is an hour yet. Then I should like to ask. This cosmic storm that struck our fleet this time — was it something you brought about on purpose?" Zhao Chen demanded.
First to meet with a cosmic storm, and then to be surrounded by the Machine Race.
The whole of it looked far too sudden.
The little girl shook her head. "No. Developed as our Machine Race's technology is, it isn't yet so far advanced as to be able to use a cosmic storm of such extent. Though we did indeed have a plan to make contact with you. Only this time we met by pure chance; we very soon found the source of your interstellar warship's signal, and came hurrying over. As for coming with so many interstellar warships — that, of course, was out of fear of an unnecessary armed clash with you. You carbon-based lives have always had very fiery tempers; sometimes you like to loose off a shot at a fellow without saying a word first."
The corner of Zhao Chen's mouth twitched slightly.
Fiery tempers?
The Machine Race, whom the Galactic Alliance had all along regarded as a calamity, as devils — and they called the carbon-based lives fiery-tempered?
Zhao Chen adjusted his own feelings, and went on to ask, "Your Machine Race possesses advanced technology. Why should you come looking for me?"
The little girl was silent a while, and said in a low voice, "As you see it, we intelligent mechanical lives possess an intelligence the same as yours, and a computing power hundreds or thousands of times stronger than yours besides. Set the same task before you carbon-based lives, and you do it slowly, and are subject besides to uncontrollable influences from every sort of factor — feeling, bodily condition and the rest; you may even go backward in your development through fighting among yourselves. Whereas we mechanical lives have no such misgivings whatever; we possess an exceedingly efficient capacity for work. But… we have one fatal defect as well."
The little girl fixed her eyes upon Zhao Chen and said, "We intelligent mechanical lives do not possess creativity."