He watched that sun falter in mid-space, watched it reverse direction, and fall back, with its message, to the untroubled galaxy that had urged it forth. His joy was a mighty song as that particle, of itself, jousted with the destiny that bade it continue along its straight-angle course—fought and won!
That rebel particle was rushing, rushing, back to the heart of the deep-buried mechanism that ejected it. Soon it would strike. And there would be—explosion!
And for him, now, was the time of glory.
For that particle, that sun, was himself, as all these turning, studious galaxies were himself—the mind of him. What need to question himself now? Why question the manner in which he was given access to this glory under his conscious mind? The golden lights knew. But the minds of those golden lights—the descendants of Vanguard—were wrapped in a spiritual blaze beyond his comprehension.
His thoughts rolled on, growing rich within him as that falling sun hurled itself along its returning path.
"Darkness—Sun Destroyer—Vanguard—and Devil Star! Rebels all. Where are those who followed the worn paths? Gone, of no consequence. But you Darkness, you Sun Destroyer, you Vanguard—" almost he could see the shadowy pained shapes of them beckoning to him out of a past beyond recall "—have we not created as no other energy creature has created? For there are the golden lights."
His thoughts dreamed on, and the strangely visible "galaxies" of his inner mind seemed to glitter their accord.
"The golden lights knew what you never knew, Darkness," he dreamed. "The answer to life itself. But even I, in these last moments, see some portion of that distant answer. Yes, Darkness! Life the rebel—the mighty force that combats the entropic gradient of the universe. Let the universe slope down, but life eternal moves upward, building on its own discarded forms. And life will rebuild all that is.
"Were we ourselves not changelings, mutations with strange powers? And it was the dark rebel within us that made us so! The dark rebel, that moves as it will...."