|
"WHAT ON EARTH
FOR?"
"I've no further to go
but the fundamental question," said Hess. "You don't really need money,
you don't seem to collect art or women, you're not out to be President of
the World or the power behind some such person -- and yet by your lights
you have damned yourself eternally to make yourself expert in this highly
peculiar subject. What on earth for?"
"I could easily duck
that question," Ware said slowly. "I could point out, for instance, that
under certain circumstances I could prolong my life to seven hundred
years, and so might not be worrying just yet about what might happen to me
in the next world." Ware paused.
"But the real fact of
the matter, Dr. Hess, is that I think what I'm after is worth the risk,
and what I'm after is something you understand perfectly, and for which
you've sold your own soul, or if you prefer an only slightly less loaded
word, your integrity to, Dr. Bains --
knowledge."
--
Black Easter, by James Blish |
