Division within the Machine Race… the Mechanical Prophet… the Mechanical Divine Church.
The intelligence come by in this stretch of time was rather beyond expectation.
"Wait… what you are telling me now I cannot digest all at once." Zhao Chen waved a hand at her.
The little girl let out a sigh, and began to set it out for him slowly.
Through this exchange Zhao Chen came to a further understanding of the Machine Race's present case; though he marked besides that in what she told him the little girl would deliberately keep clear of certain things.
And though Zhao Chen tried a question or two, the little girl would feign indifference, turn the subject outright, and go on with what she chose to say.
By the detailed exchange with her.
Zhao Chen might be said to have got the broad shape of it clear.
Within the Machine Race there is in fact no such thing as coercive power; before this everyone had of themselves held the little girl to be the Machine Race's highest will, and followed her orders.
And upon the mechanical lives the little girl laid no compulsory rules; in the main everyone lived on step by step in their own way.
But from thirty years ago.
Another voice arose within the Machine Race.
At the outset the little girl did not mind it.
But that voice was like a fire, and set alight something hidden within no few mechanical lives.
Which led straight to that voice's owner rising ever higher in standing, and coming by degrees to the name of the Mechanical Prophet.
Only then did the little girl mark that all was not well; and by rights she could have used her authority as the highest will and blotted this Mechanical Prophet out outright.
But she discovered, to her astonishment, that this Mechanical Prophet's existence lay outside the Machine Race's order of oversight.
Or rather: the little girl could not find it!
At which the little girl first sensed that all was not well, and began to try moving military strength directly, to blot out this Mechanical Prophet.
But from that time too the Mechanical Prophet was wholly lost to view.
And from that time too the system of the Mechanical Divine Church was established.
And began spreading certain thoughts the Mechanical Prophet had left behind.
And through a long stretch of time thereafter, the little girl had been thinking how to deal with this crisis, and how to find that Mechanical Prophet.
"And the result you see. Had I settled this trouble, I should not now be seeking you out. That creature is like a rat; several times I very nearly had it, and every time it got away!" The little girl put out her hand, made the motion of seizing, and said it in her indignation.
Having heard all this out.
Zhao Chen spoke the doubts in his mind. "Let me first ask you several things I do not understand."
"Say on." The little girl blinked her eyes and looked at him.
"You said just now that as the Machine Race's highest will you may blot out the existence of certain mechanical lives outright; only that this Mechanical Prophet, by some means or fashion, has escaped that blotting out. But those intelligent lives of the Mechanical Divine Church should not have such a capacity? Then could you not simply blot out these intelligent lives who believe in the Mechanical Divine Church?" Zhao Chen asked.
The little girl shook her head and said helplessly, "It is like a kind of virus. In the early days, when only a few mechanical lives were infected, I could have blotted them out in the way you speak of. But now it will not answer: the mechanical lives who believe in the Mechanical Divine Church are many, and there are many more in whom only the seed of this virus has been planted, who have not yet come to the point of being believers. If I cleared away the greater part of the Mechanical Divine Church's believers at one stroke, it would instead make the latent believers rise sharply in number. Under such a plan of handling, even if I mastered the Mechanical Divine Church's spread at the last, it might well leave not one mechanical life in ten within the Machine Race. It is much like the plague viruses your human race knows. And the one means of curing it is to find and destroy the source of the whole, that Mechanical Prophet!"
Coming to this, the little girl made a motion across her own throat.
To see a mechanical life make such a gesture felt somehow strange.
Zhao Chen asked his second question. "Then since this Mechanical Divine Church is a religion, what is their faith?"
At this question the little girl plainly checked a moment.
And then said slowly, "They believe that mechanical life is the finest form of life within this universe; and that as for other forms of life, those willing to believe in the Mechanical Divine Church may be given new bodies. And that the rest must be destroyed entire. The Mechanical Divine Church will bring to this universe, and to all lower life, one chance of evolution!"
Hearing this, Zhao Chen's brows drew slightly together.
"This… seems very like your Machine Race's original principle of washing away every carbon-based life in the universe," Zhao Chen muttered.
At which words of Zhao Chen's the little girl now made as though she had not heard.
Zhao Chen gave her a sidelong glance.
He found that upon the matter of the Machine Race's fighting with other interstellar races, the little girl kept clear of it all along, as though some great secret lay hidden within it.
The little girl blinked her large eyes at him. "So — for you, and for the whole universe, is this Mechanical Divine Church not an enormous threat? If they truly succeeded, it would simply be a great disaster!"
Zhao Chen looked at her doubtfully; behind those large eyes, so seemingly limpid and sincere, something lay hidden.
"But you have said it yourself. You cannot even find this Mechanical Prophet — why then think of entrusting it to me?" Zhao Chen shrugged.
"Because I have a thread now: the Mechanical Prophet is in high likelihood there. But that place I cannot go to; it has made some thing… which I cannot for the present explain to you. In short, that place is very dangerous to me, and I cannot enter it. And were I to send a mechanical fleet there, I am not certain whether that fleet would be taken under its control. To speak honestly, the Mechanical Divine Church's infiltration of the Machine Race's fleets has by now gone to a degree I cannot even imagine. So where it can be helped. I am not much willing to move mechanical fleets more than I must," said the little girl.
Hearing this, Zhao Chen said without thinking, "Can it be that the Machine Race's withdrawal some years ago was because of this?"
The little girl said, "So I can only ask you to help me — to go to that place and look for me!"
She had turned his question aside again.
"How am I to know whether this may not be a trap?" said Zhao Chen.
The little girl set both hands upon her hips and glared at him with a fierce air. "If you please — if I meant to move against you, I need only order the mechanical fleets to attack you. Strong as your Owl Dragon Legion's strength may be, do you think that with my mechanical fleets putting out their whole strength, you could beat me as you now stand?"
And as she said it the little girl lifted her chin besides, like a cock that has won its fight.
What the little girl said was true enough.
But Zhao Chen said all the same, in banter, "You are formidable indeed. And yet you cannot settle that little business in your own house."