"Luo Shouhai, you dared to plot against my life. By rights you can't be left alive—going soft on an enemy isn't my way. But my level now is past anything you can guess at, so sparing you once is possible... only you'll have to work for me for ten years. Work for me in the form of a Superbrain."

Shen Cong laid out what he had in mind and how it would be arranged.

In the state he was in now, Luo Shouhai was essentially no threat, and Shen Cong could let his guard down around a harmless object.

Simply letting Luo Shouhai go, of course, was out of the question.

Working for Shen Cong in the form of a Superbrain was a very good solution. On one side it got him Luo Shouhai's nuclear-grade carrier vehicle; on the other it left Luo Shouhai's intelligence intact. And as long as the sheet-iron box stayed in Shen Cong's hands, every bit of the initiative stayed with him.

As for the ten-year term, the way Shen Cong saw it, that was only an insurance measure.

The Earth's changes had not stopped. Firestarter fragments were still eating into the planet, perhaps down in the mantle by now, and sooner or later plate movement would break out on a massive scale. That would be within a year. And within a year Shen Cong probably still couldn't get off the ground. If he couldn't dodge it, then it was all over anyway; if he did dodge it, he would carry on with the original plan.

A few more years of research and he would be about ready to leave the Earth, heading for the moon first.

By then Shen Cong felt he should have enough technology stockpiled, and his biological brain should have evolved into a Firestarter—enough for interstellar travel, enough to leave the Earth.

Whether Luo Shouhai lived or died would hardly matter by then.

"Ten years of work like this?" Luo Shouhai pleaded. "Couldn't it be a few years less?"

"Cooperate hard and keep your mind on the work, and depending how you…