"It is," she said wonderingly, "the place you had been when I last saw you so many years ago. But no. It is impossible, Devil Star! Perhaps you are deceiving me again."
He surged closer, reckless, uncaring. "Deceived you! It is you who deceived me, deceived me and all purple lights. But I was not fooled green light!"
And it flooded out of him, half in pride, half in scorn, the whole story of his anarchistic fight against destiny.
"I fought you, World Rim," he lashed out, "and I fought all other green lights—and the universe itself!" Stay it though he would, a yawning cavern was engulfing him. He trembled, striving to bring himself up out of that utter chaos of dark. But he spoke on, raging, alternately frightened and astounded at what he was speaking.
And from World Rim came silence.
"Speak!" he said wildly. "There is a need in me, a longing. I do not know what it is!"
She seemed to shrink, until she was small, her central light wavering.
"Then I know," she whispered. "Devil Star, you wish to die."
"No!"
"And you wish to create. To create and die."