"There is an advantage," Haendl said aloud.
Tropile jumped, but then he remembered: Wolf against Wolf.
Haendl went on: "What you get out of it is your life, in the first place. You understand you can't get out now. We don't want sheep meddling around. And in the second place, there's a considerable hope of gain." He stared at Tropile with a dreamer's eyes. "We don't send parties up there for nothing, you know. We want to get something out of it. What we want is the Earth."
"The Earth?" It reeked of madness. But this man wasn't mad.
"Some day, Tropile, it's going to be us against them. Never mind the sheep—they don't count. It's going to be Pyramids and Wolves, and the Pyramids won't win. And then—"
It was enough to curdle the blood. This man was proposing to fight, and against the invulnerable, the godlike Pyramids.
But he was glowing and the fever was contagious. Tropile felt his own blood begin to pound. Haendl hadn't finished his "and then—" but he didn't have to. The "and then" was obvious: And then the world takes up again from the day the wandering planet first came into view. And then we go back to our own solar system and an end to the five-year cycle of frost and hunger.
And then the Wolves can rule a world worth ruling.
It was a meretricious appeal, perhaps, but it could not be refused. Tropile was lost.
He said: "You can put away the gun, Haendl. You've signed me up."