The familiar face of the little girl appeared before Zhao Chen's eyes.
"You've contacted me as soon as this!" The little girl looked at Zhao Chen in glad surprise. "Is it that you agree to join my camp?"
Zhao Chen said, "My contacting you this time is not to talk of joining. But if you can bring a certain business about for me, perhaps I shall give this choice of yours the more consideration."
The little girl looked at Zhao Chen doubtfully.
Zhao Chen paused, and went on. "I have entered into a cooperation with the Angel Race; hereafter I shall produce interstellar warships for them, and help them hold off the Demon Race's invasion. But you know as well that the one lane now safe is exceedingly inconvenient for interstellar travel. There is simply no building star gates within it. So I should like to borrow several sites within the Machine Race's territory, and build a star gate route through to the Angel Race. Three! I need only three nodes at which star gates may be built!"
At hearing Zhao Chen's requirement.
The little girl might be said to have grasped the other side's intent; she pouted unhappily. "For this, of all things? You won't even join me, and yet you want me to do things for you!"
"If you would have me join, must you not first let me see your sincerity? And in this way I shall have a handle in your hands besides: you may lead your mechanical armies at any time and sweep away these star gates of mine within your territory. It is because I trust you that I put such a request at all. Otherwise, why should I have contacted you!" Zhao Chen said it with a show of gravity.
The little girl showed a thinking expression, and muttered in a small voice, "It does seem to have… a little sense to it…"
"This may be reckoned a cooperation between the two of us — this is drawing you and me nearer together. Who knows but that some day hereafter I may be willing to join your camp? At present we are not familiar with one another; must we not first build up good feeling?" Zhao Chen said it with a face of perfect harmlessness.
The little girl's expression eased a good deal; she blinked her eyes and looked at Zhao Chen. "Say on, then — at what positions do you want to build the star gates?"
Zhao Chen at once put up a star chart, and marked three points upon it.
By Zhao Chen's calculation, if the present T4 Voyager-class Medium Star Gate were built, three at the least were wanted to establish a star gate route with the Angel Race.
And the building positions of these three star gates were in fact close by that lane, keeping so far as might be to the border of the Machine Race's controlled region.
The little girl gave it a glance, and nodded. "There is no trouble with these three positions."
And just as Zhao Chen was rejoicing.
The little girl fixed her eyes upon him without warning. "I can permit you to build star gates at these three places. But the interstellar industrial ships that come across must be under the watch of an interstellar fleet dispatched from our side, and may travel and work only within fixed routes and regions. And once these three star gates are built, the compass of their working will be restricted as well. Beyond serving as nodes of passage, no more than a set number of interstellar warships may be present within the star gates' compass. Otherwise, the consequences are your own."
To these conditions Zhao Chen could agree entire.
So long as this star gate route could be established, it held the greatest good for the Owl Dragon.
It would raise the Owl Dragon's influence upon the Angel Race by a very wide margin.
"Then let it be agreed between us!" Zhao Chen laughed happily.
The little girl blinked her eyes, and smiled of a sudden. "You're a very strange person."
Zhao Chen was puzzled. "Where am I strange?"
"Looking at those intelligence briefings on you, they all say you're a very formidable man. But the decision you're making now is like a child's game. Are you not anxious at all that I might betray our agreement without the least ceremony, and cause you enormous losses by it? For before this, our Machine Race has all along been your enemy. With your Galactic Alliance it may be said we have a blood feud as deep as the sea." The little girl put her head on one side and looked at Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen nodded. "I know these objective facts. But I trust my own eye for people the more. I trust you. There now, I have business here to see to, so I shall say no more for the present. Of the building of the star gates hereafter, we shall be in contact again. You have a way of contacting me upon your side too; if there is any trouble you may contact me directly."
So saying, Zhao Chen cut the communication with the little girl.
The communication at an end.
Zhao Chen leaned back upon the sofa.
This was within his own private office.
But he was not the only one here; in a corner beside him a graceful figure sat.
"You trust her as much as that?" Lilith inquired.
"Yes." Zhao Chen nodded.
"Why?"
"I do not know either; it may be simply… my sixth sense. All along I have judged people rightly. Though I have reckoned beforehand upon such mischances as might arise. I hold that the profit of this plan far outweighs the risk that must be borne. Even were we stabbed in the back when the time comes, we should lose at the very most three star gates, and one batch of military-order goods bound for the Angel Race. Whereas if we cannot establish this star gate route, what we lose may be military orders of above 5 trillion star coins a month!" Zhao Chen said it with a burning in both eyes.
Lilith nodded.
5 trillion star coins of military orders in a single month — the thing was past imagining.
And it was more than the three great empires here could provide.
Nor does so good a thing last forever; once the fighting on the Angel Race's side steadied, or even turned to their advantage, these military orders would shrink.
As the old saying has it: past this village there is no such inn.
So Zhao Chen must seize this chance.
And the cost of building three star gates, and the star gate on the Angel Race's side — four in all — came to no more than 2 trillion star coins.
"I have a feeling that if we do not seize every chance now to gain resources and develop our Owl Dragon. In future… we may meet with the greatest danger," Zhao Chen said, his voice low.
The interstellar hive-race, the Machine Race, the Demon Race's evil technology.
All these unknown things left Zhao Chen very uneasy.
"To this arrangement of yours I have no objection. But there is one point of which I must remind you. This already counts as cooperating with the Machine Race. Do not forget. The Machine Race and the former Galactic Alliance's three empires have a blood feud as deep as the sea. Even under our own Owl Dragon Legion there are those who hate the Machine Race. To say nothing of the rest. Chu Xuan. The Chu family. Marshal Chu Changhe. If they learned of your cooperating with the Machine Race, what then?" Lilith said gravely.
Zhao Chen scratched his head, with a vexed expression.
"This trouble you speak of I have thought of too. But at present… never mind; take one step and look to the next. If it truly will not answer, I shall go and explain to old Chu myself. As for Chu Xuan…" Zhao Chen knew the Machine Race was a scalding-hot potato; but there was no help for it in the present case — he was driven to it.