From the conversation between the three Merrowa officers, I had at least learned two things: the Slave Races brought to God's Kingdom were being used in some kind of "extraction" experiment, though I could not be sure what exactly was being extracted. One thing was certain—it was absolutely inhumane. Secondly, Barrian had obtained some kind of power. That guy had most likely cracked another important Old Empire technology. I only hoped it was not the activation key to Older Sister's Royal Fleet. I pondered those two questions for over ten minutes, then set them aside when I got nowhere. I would probably solve one of them soon enough anyway: what exactly had been done to those slaves?
After about an hour of routine travel, the starship arrived at "God's Kingdom," more than a dozen light-years from Anu Lili's homeworld—the Merrowa People's capital planet. The natives of that Slave Supply Planet would probably never understand that the gods they worshipped were merely aliens from another planet a dozen light-years away—and a bunch of embarrassingly juvenile aliens at that.
Throughout that hour of travel, Lilina had been doing her utmost to flaunt her skills at pestering, acting cute, whining, and clinging to people, trying to make me appreciate the charms of her current form as a sexy, mature elf girl. More often, though, she was analyzing the Merrowa People's juvenile behavior and mocking it relentlessly. As a genuine and professional holy fraud, Lilina's contempt for the Merrowa People knew no bounds. In her words, those idiots who played god, entertained themselves, and did not even understand what a "god" was were just monkeys in costumes putting on an opera. I thought that assessment was a little over the top, but if one compared the Merrowa People with the Starfield Gods, perhaps the