"Good-by, son of my spirit," Uvrei said. "We shall meet again corporeally in a few centuries." The fog thickened about him and disappeared, leaving its characteristic odor behind. And still Emrys could not resign himself. _Dyall could have had this, too, if he had wanted it. This was what he was offered and what he was strong enough to refuse. If I accept my fate, then I will always know that I have come off second best to him._ And this prospect, more than immortality, more than the knowledge of what would happen to Earth and its people, was the one that Emrys found intolerable. IX _Why doesn't he leave me alone?_ Peter Hubbard thought, as, wearily, he told the Dyall machine to let Emrys Shortmire up. _I am a very old man and I will die soon. Can't he leave me alone in the little time left?_ But he could not forget the obligations of courtesy. He was polite to Emrys Shortmire when the other man came in. Even if he hadn't been, he saw, Emrys wouldn't have noticed; he was too full of his own thoughts. "Peter," he cried, almost before he was fully in the room, "did you know that, in dying, Nicholas Dyall won a final victory over me?" The old man muffled a yawn. "You mean you can't die? Well, I was afraid of that. I am sorry for you, Jan, but you brought this upon yourself." "I know," Emrys said, looking a little disappointed that the knowledge did not startle the lawyer. "I will be alive when they come," he went on, more subdued. "I will be waiting, or so they think." "I imagine that's what they counted on," Hubbard said indifferently. "You not only giving them the secret of the engines but acting as a--an outpost. They didn't sell their wares cheap, did they?" Emrys' eyes flashed copper fire. "But I will _not_ be waiting to help them. I will be waiting to _fight_ them." "Brave words." "You think I can't fight them?" "Of course you can't. They have powers far beyond yours. And why should you want to fight them? I know you hadn't planned to be alive when they came, but it won't be bad for you. You're one of them now." Emrys sat down on the couch. "Physically I am. That's why I _can_ fight them. Look, Peter, I have centuries ahead of me. By giving me immortality, they have also given me time." "Splendid. Time to do what?" "I don't know," Emrys confessed. "But time is such a valuable commodity in itself. With it, I could learn how to turn their own powers against them." "Easier said than done," Hubbard observed. "Maybe I could--oh--invent a machine that will amplify my mind powers until it can overcome all of theirs...." Hubbard said nothing.