Grim Hagen continued with an apologetic smile. “I’m only joking. But I do know certain things. Your father, Wolden, is a brilliant man, Ato.” He bowed slightly as he admitted this. “From time to time, as you hurtled through the star spaces, I picked up scraps of conversation with my instruments. Also, I knew something of what Wolden has been working on all these years.”
“Now, you’re quibbling,” Gunnar jeered. “Get on with your speech, Grim Hagen.”
Grim Hagen bowed to the broad-shouldered little man. “Some day, Gunnar, I may have to kill you—”
“Now. Now.” Gunnar urged, fairly jumping in rage. “Just the two of us, Grim Hagen. Just the two of us with bare hands—”
“Not yet.” Grim Hagen sneered. “Now, I will continue. From what I have learned, it appears that Wolden’s work has been a success. It is possible for men to master both time and space. I have mastered space, but time is turning everything to dust and ashes. What good is it to be an old emperor? No better than to be an old herdsman.” Again he tossed a sneer in Gunnar’s direction—
“That’s easy,” Gunnar retorted. “The old herdsman sleeps well at night.”
“Bah. Who wants to sleep? Please quit interrupting, Gunnar.”
“Even before we came to Aldebaran,” Hagen went on, “I was in contact with a dying world out there at the edge of space. Those people are desperate. And they are weary of life, having seen too much of it. They have agreed to go with me. Why, this sun and these worlds are piddling trifles. With that invention we could go from sun to sun. Space would be ours to play with—”
“Loki, the Mischief-Maker, running through creation—” Gunnar muttered.