Zhao Chen at this moment did not yet know that on account of his own being "missing," the world outside had already boiled over into confusion.
At hearing the word this little girl had spoken.
Creativity?
At hearing this term.
Zhao Chen was plainly struck blank a moment.
Seeing Zhao Chen's puzzlement.
The little girl explained further. "Let me give you an example. If our Machine Race were thrown into an interstellar age that had only the technology of regular engines. We might perhaps develop that field of starship regular-engine technology to the very summit, and more efficiently than you carbon-based creatures. But we could not research out a more advanced warp-engine technology, and still less could we research out spatial fold-jump engine technology."
Zhao Chen saw it all at once.
So the intelligent mechanical lives had such a drawback as this in that field.
"Then where does the technology your Machine Race now possesses come from? And plainly you possess T5 interstellar warships — so why, in your former attacks upon the Galactic Alliance's three great empires, did a T5 interstellar warship of your Machine Race's fleets never once appear!" Zhao Chen asked it outright.
The little girl blinked her eyes and looked at Zhao Chen. "Join us, and I'll tell you."
Zhao Chen rolled his eyes.
He could be certain now that there must be a great many secrets about the Machine Race.
"There now, your starship's communication equipment is nearly repaired. You had best be getting back. I'll arrange a fleet to escort you." The little girl waved a hand at Zhao Chen, and so gave him his marching orders.
Zhao Chen knew he would find it hard to get any more of the intelligence he wanted out of the other side.
Zhao Chen turned about, and walked toward the doors of the hall.
And just as he was about to reach them, he turned his head sharply and looked toward that little girl beneath the light, upon the long-legged chair. "Shall I be able to contact you hereafter?"
The little girl blinked her eyes. "Contact me? Why?"
"In case at some time I think better of it. If I want to join you, must I not have some means of contacting you?" Zhao Chen said with a shrug.
The little girl showed a trace of a smile; whether she had seen through Zhao Chen's little scheme there was no telling.
She raised a hand and tapped lightly upon the empty air.
Zhao Chen's handheld terminal gave a buzz.
"I've put a little program inside your communication software. When you want to contact me, you need only start up that little program. And you may set your mind at rest besides — I've installed no back door of any kind upon your equipment." The little girl swung both legs and said it in her innocence.
Zhao Chen opened the handheld terminal, and sure enough found within his equipment a little program, whose icon was the cartoon head of a little girl; one who did not know would take it for some game or other.
The great doors of the hall opened.
The two mechanical beauties stood outside; by the look of it they had been waiting there all the while.
Thereafter Zhao Chen went back to that shuttle by the way he had come.
The hatch closed.
Several minutes later.
The hatch opened once more, in the same form as when he came.
This transparent glass case floated into the hangar of Zhao Chen's Hades.
Zhao Chen saw the crew waiting within the hangar in their anxiety, and the look of glad surprise coming over their faces at the sight of him.
The glass case opened.
Zhao Chen walked down out of it.
That disc mechanism too returned into the shuttle outside the hangar, and the shuttle made off and away.
"Commander!"
The crew looked at their Commander in their agitation.
One could see they had been truly anxious for him.
"Go on with your work." Zhao Chen left them that one sentence, and went back to his bridge.
At the moment of his walking onto the bridge.
The eyes of every soul upon it fell upon Zhao Chen.
Xue Xiaoxiao, Secretary Nancy and the Panther-Girl of his guard all ran up before Zhao Chen and looked him over from head to foot.
"Commander, you're back!"
"Commander, are you unhurt? Those Machine Race people didn't do anything to you?"
They asked it in their concern.
"I am unhurt. Is our Hades' communication equipment repaired?" Zhao Chen inquired.
Secretary Nancy nodded. "The communication equipment is repaired complete; and at the same time the starship's other faulty modules… with the help of the Machine Race's repair robots, are projected to be wholly repaired within an hour."
"Contact the other interstellar warships we lost touch with at once; and at the same time get me Charlotte."
"Yes!"
Before long, the first to establish communication were the 30 Owl Dragon interstellar warships that had come with them.
The captains of these 30 Owl Dragon interstellar warships, on learning the Commander was safe, were all as though a weight had been lifted from them.
Had the Commander truly met with some mischance while under their escort.
Then though they came back safe themselves, in their own hearts they could never have forgiven it.
For they knew very well that their own starships had broken safely clear of the cosmic storm in great part because the Hades had held up a star-shield for them then.
Otherwise these 30 Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships of theirs, and those interstellar warships of the Angel Race's besides, would all have been buried within that cosmic storm.
"By the intelligence we have come by, the interstellar warships that came with us this time are all present, only that the hulls have all taken some effect, more or less. The communication equipment of every interstellar warship failed; to this moment only a scant few have repaired short- and medium-range quantum communication, and cannot yet establish communication with our side or with the Angel Race's." Secretary Nancy reported it to Zhao Chen.
"Have them tell us the coordinates where they lie; then we shall hurry across and join with them," said Zhao Chen.
"Yes."
Thereafter a video window appeared before Zhao Chen.
Two anxious faces appeared before Zhao Chen.
Charlotte and Lilith, seeing their Commander whole and unhurt and smiling at them besides, found that of the countless words in their hearts they could not now speak one.
"There now, I know you were both very anxious for me. Am I not perfectly well here? How does the case stand upon your side?" Zhao Chen inquired.
From what that little girl of the Machine Race had said, Zhao Chen knew the Owl Dragon's side must have learned he was out of contact, and he could foresee that Charlotte and Lilith would assuredly be in a great taking.
They might well have done something dreadful besides, for the sake of finding him.
Lilith calmed her own feelings, and told Zhao Chen how the case stood now.
Zhao Chen held his head helplessly.
He had never thought that being out of contact for a bare few tens of hours would come near to raising a campaign between the Owl Dragon and the Angel Race.
Happily, though, this had not yet happened.
Zhao Chen explained the case of their losing contact besides — that it was on account of the cosmic storm, and no plot of the Angel Race's.
"Happily it has not come to a pass beyond mending. Since I am safe and unhurt, you may all restore things to what they were," said Zhao Chen.
"Do you still mean to go on to the Angel Race?" Charlotte inquired in her concern.
"Since we have come so far, of course the business must be finished." Zhao Chen nodded.
"Then let me lead an Owl Dragon legion across myself, to guard your safety," Charlotte volunteered.
Zhao Chen shook his head, and refused Charlotte's proposal.
"Carry it out by the plan first fixed. Do not be anxious for me." Zhao Chen had no small trouble in soothing the two women.
This interlude was closed at last.
Under the Machine Race's escort the Hades soon reached the coordinates of the scattered fleet.
Zhao Chen watched the Machine Race's fleet draw away.
And at once gave his orders to Xue Xiaoxiao and Secretary Nancy. "Carry out a data scan of the whole Hades, and give me a full-body examination. Only when it is settled that there is no trouble whatever do we join with the fleet."
A guard against others is not to be wanting.