"Will you have some coffee?" Oridin asked. "It will refresh you after your long trip, and you must have had a long trip, for we are in a very sparsely filled part of the sky."
Oridin lifted the pot and poured the brown steaming liquid into a thick, metal mug.
Caddo waved it aside.
"I have no time!"
"Do not be alarmed," Oridin said. "The patrol will not be near Azair for three days."
Oridin sat down. His fingers felt under the arm of the chair where a series of buttons controlled other mechanisms in the room. Caddo had relaxed his watchfulness.
"In three days I'll be well toward the other side of the solar system," Caddo said.
Oridin lifted his eyebrows.
"Toward the earth? You have undertaken something this time!"
"Yes!" Caddo said. "It's the Earth I am after! I have all I want of the outlying planets and planetoids. You can capture a hundred of them and be no better off than you were at first. But if you capture the Earth, you can rule the universe."