"I will tell you, humans. It will amuse me to have an audience not of my own creating. Watch!" A slab of the glassy rock took form before them. Deep in it, a spot of brilliance grew. It was a Sun, in the first blaze of its virile youth. It strode the path of its galactic orbit alone. Then, from the wheeling depths of space, a second Sun approached. It was huge, burning with a blue-white radiance. There was a mating, and the nine worlds were born in a rush of supernal fire. And there was life. Not on the nine burning planets. But in free space, little globes of fire, bits of the Sun itself shocked somehow to intelligence in the vast explosion of energy. The picture blurred. The colors of the floating light were dulled and dreamy. "There were many of us," it sighed. "We were like tiny Suns, living on the conversion of our own atoms. We played, in open space...." Dim pictures washed the screen, glories beyond human comprehension--a faded vision of splendor, of alien worlds and the great wheeling Suns of outer space. The voice murmured: "Like Suns, we radiated our energy. We could draw strength from our parent, but not enough. We died. But I was stronger than the rest, and more intelligent. I built myself a shell." "Built it!" whispered Avery. "But how?" "All matter is built of raw energy, electron and proton existing in a free state. With a part of my own mass I built this world around myself, to hold the energy of the Sun and check the radiation of my own vitality. "I have lived, where my race died. I have watched the planets cool and live and die. I am not immortal. My mass grows less as it drains away through my shell. But it will be a long, long time. I shall watch the Sun die, too." The voice was silent. The colors were ashes of light. Falken was stricken with a great poignant grief. Then, presently, the little malicious flames frothed to life again, and the voice said: "My greatest problem is amusement. Here in this black shell I am forced to devise pleasures from my own imagination." Falken gasped. "The hunters, the cleft that vanished, and that hellish castle?" He was suddenly cold and hot at once. "Clever, eh? I created my hunt some eons ago. According to my plan the beast can neither escape nor the hunters catch him. But, owing to the uncertainty factor, there is one chance in some hundreds of billions that one or the other event may occur. It affords me endless amusement." "And the castle?" said Falken silkily. "That amused you, too." "Oh, yes! Your emotional reactions.... Most interesting!" Falken raised his blaster and fired at the core of the light. Living fire coiled and writhed. The Sun-child laughed. "Raw energy only feeds me. What, are there no questions?" Falken's voice was almost gentle. "Do you think of nothing but amusement?" Savage colors rippled against the dim, sad mauves. "What else is there, to fill the time?" Time. Time since little frozen Pluto was incandescent gas.