The story of Vanguard too has been told. He was renamed Yellow Light by his taunting playmates, because of imperfections in his central core. Physically disabled by his long stay in the seventeenth band, he was never to know happiness. Oldster, in his compassion and wisdom, led Vanguard to mate—to create and thus to die—for he knew Vanguard's true greatness, that he was destined to father a new race who would supplant the old.
And this is the last story of the Darkness, the story of the purple light named Devil Star.
Youth and play. Youth and that great yard of galaxies with the great high fence of the darkness. Youth and the joys of living ... and the deep-fluttering memory of his birth.
Into his ten-millionth year he never spoke of that memory. He kept it cold and suffocating in an unplumbed chamber of his thought swirls. Then it pressed upward in its wild escape.
"Moon Flame!"
His companion in the joyous race across that galaxy touched him briefly with his visions.
"You spoke?"
"Yes! Moon Flame, listen to me. I must know something. Whether you—if the others—if they remember. Remember the moment of birth! Remember the mother—the dying father—the band of life—"
His aura quivered. He strove not to read concern in the gaze of Moon Flame.