Solar Cloud remained behind, bewilderedly searching for her. A wild excitement shook Devil Star. He must get closer. Solar Cloud knew nothing of a forty-eighth band, but surely the green light would somehow draw him into it. And Devil Star would inadvertently be drawn with him!
And, subtly, he knew why he must follow. There was the memory—the damning memory of his birth—and he must know if it was memory, or a phantasm without meaning in fact.
He moved closer to Solar Cloud ... and, abruptly, felt himself swept along in some giant tide. He had his moment of surprise before his consciousness momentarily blurred.
Then, sharply, he was aware.
His visions darted out, contracted. The full knowledge of where he was smote him. Crystalline tongues of fire quivered from his contracting body. He knew he had done an impossible thing.
He, unmatured, was in the forty-eighth band.
Time passed, the great, vital pulses of time, flowing like an unseen river through that band where life was born. Devil Star watched numbly, without horror, triumph, feeling.
He saw that mating of green and purple light as their central cores met in annihilating fusion.
He saw the grayness of coming death settle over Solar Cloud.