—Do we have choice. Did I have choice. For there was the band of decision. Oh, the years have passed, and there is no answer. Space-time began—where?—how? Result without cause! I have searched—searched downward into minuscule universes—striving to find that which came into being without a first motion. I have trapped matter's smallest part, stripped space of all influences around it. And having trapped it, could not observe it! For observation is influence.
—In that vacuous cage, did that particle move in paths of its own choosing? If it did—without cause—
—But no. The universe decays, and draws life into decadence with it. There is no hope....
There was Darkness.
And Sun Destroyer.
And Vanguard.
And the millions, the tens of millions of years that passed.
With drudging energy, Oldster heaved his vast body into a ragged motion that took him for the last time across the flowing rivers of the sky, into the first deeps of the black gulf Darkness crossed. There, beyond sight of the universe, he drew his visions in about him.
He would sleep now. He would decay down to that moment when the centripetal urge for life would grow too feeble. The last hounds of his defense would wander off. For now he could not be disturbed.