"It is you," she said wonderingly. "Devil Star."
His returning thoughts were heavy. "Yes, World Rim. And I have come to keep my promise. To go with you to the place I found."
She was searching him, whirling nearer, intent with her visions. And he saw with shock that she was changed in some way he could not put into words.
"We will go now," he said.
Still she searched him. Uneasily she rotated against her starred background.
She brooded. Then, with chilling reluctance, she said, "Very well, we shall go to this place. Where is it?"
World Rim was older than when he last saw her; he knew, coldly, that she had had children. And yet she seemed still naive. He was impatient.
"I shall follow you," he said.
A subtle change came over her. She stared. And her thought came. "Very well, Devil Star! Follow me!"
In growing delight, he followed her up the bands, as obedient to his ruinous emotions as any unsuspecting purple light who had followed that path before him. Finally he burst through into the tenth band. World Rim was there, inert in space, watching a tiny, faceted star. Suddenly he was chilled by the immensity of her abstraction.