We
can find ways to return you to your own world intact. You have near
immortality now. We can fill that entire lifetime with pleasures. We'll
give you jewels to buy an empire. Or if it is vengeance against whatever
you feel we are, you shall know my secret name and the name of everyone
here. Do with us then what you like. _But fix the sky!_"
It shook Hanson. He had been prepared to face fury, or to try lying his
way out if there was a chance with some story of having needed to study
Menes's methods. Or of being lost. But he had no defense prepared
against such an appeal.
It was utterly mad. He could do nothing, and their demands were
impossible. But before the picture of the world dying and the decay of
the old Sather's pride, even Hanson's own probable death with the dying
world seemed unimportant. He might at least give them something to hope
for while the end came.
"Maybe," he said slowly. "Maybe, if all of the men you brought here to
work on the problem were to pool their knowledge, we might still find
the answer. How long will it take to get them here for a council?"
Ser Perth appeared from the group. Hanson had thought the man dead in
the ruins of the pyramid, but somehow he had survived. The fat was going
from his face, and his mustache was untrimmed, but he was uninjured. He
shook his head sadly. "Most have disappeared with their projects.
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