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."