"Solar Cloud!"
His cry of warning blasted through space. He expanded to normal, came into full view of green and purple light. But neither heard his cry. They could not—would not—see or hear him. They were caught on that barbed law from which the mere interference of a Devil Star could not set them free. They hung motionless in space, the huge green light languidly rotating, the slightly smaller purple light, Solar Cloud, staring at her in hard, bright wonder. And Devil Star knew that they were speaking along such tight bands of energy he could not hear what they said.
"Solar Cloud," he whispered, "stop!"
And then reaction. The full knowledge of his ultimate triumph came to him. Solar Cloud would die. But Devil Star would live—would grow old beyond death.
At once he was transformed back into a creature of cunning.
The green light disappeared into a hyper-space. The purple light appeared bewildered. Then he too disappeared, and Devil Star, bitterly frightened that already he had lost them, felt the click in his thought swirls which transported him into the second band of the universe's forty-eight faces. Here was cosmos in wild, disordered motion. Spasms of pain ripped through Devil Star as eating vibrations impinged on him. For a nickering moment he allowed himself to wonder at the reason behind that amok universe. Causeless?
Nothing without cause!
Or was there?
He flicked into the next band, following green and purple light upward until around them were those cubed celestial bodies of the forty-seventh band.
The green light vanished.