The empire on which the sun never sets at the present time." In 1821, the "Caledonian Mercury" wrote of the British Empire, "On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges." Daniel Webster famously expressed a similar idea in 1834: "A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth
The Empty Planet them a newspaper so they can quickly learn the human language. They reveal the strange image is a countdown. They demand the air and the sun, saying that if it is not given to them by the end of the countdown the human race will not return. Rani realises that they don't mean 'sun and air' but 'son and heir'. It turns out that Gavin's father was an alien king, who has now died. The robots have come to take Gavin to their planet and sent the news he is a prince in the energy trace, but Gavin never received