"For longer than you can dream, Oldster. For longer than the life of a star. You have slept, slept ages beyond calculation. Yet here, in this pulseless emptiness, we have found you. And the time of glory has come." There was a rustling of thoughts, unfettered with fear, not chained to hope. And the golden central cores shone in beauty. "The time of glory comes to you, Oldster." Now that unlocated voice swelled, filling the darkness with its lordly sweetness. "For see, Oldster! We are all you dreamed of--and more. We stem from Vanguard! And Vanguard gave life more than he dreamed. Clearly and purely we see the answers to those ultimate questions of life and death Darkness himself asked. Sun Destroyer, in her ancient past, never dreamed that her vain quest would be reached in us--through her!" <tb> The giant words drummed against Oldster. He quivered with sudden fear, searched among those serenely watching beings with their crystal-sparkling, golden-lighted bodies for some thought that would make meaning burst on him. The answers did not come. And, in depraved ugliness, came doubt. "No," he cried softly. "You speak of impossibilities! There are no answers. You are mockeries, and I want nothing of you--I do not want hope. Now leave me, leave me in my sadness!" He lashed out at them, feeling his old agonies return, for they too were but atoms trampling over each other in that mad rush toward the bottom level of inertness. Even perfection must die, ruled by destiny. He started to withdraw his vision when they, far from retreating, whirled nearer, their bright golden centers glowing in upon him until he was trapped in a blaze of fire. He stared, quivering with the dread that in spite of himself they would fill him with hope. Then, thundering through his thought swirls, came that lordly measured voice, a voice sublime in the surety of its owner's purpose. "Oldster! You have not failed!" Involuntarily Oldster flung the words back. "Not failed? You are mockeries, you golden lights. Not failed!" The words echoed in their frenzied dreariness. He felt the outer limits of his being expanding, quivering with miniscule flarings of yellow energy. "I, Oldster, have failed in ways your blind minds could never perceive. You do not understand failure, you who stemmed from Vanguard. Could you ever feel the tortures of Vanguard himself--or of Sun Destroyer or Darkness? Ah, you have reached a perfection beyond such burrowings! And I shall not let you give me peace! For I have failed, and I shall continue to be tortured with my failures. You would not understand."' "We understand." That voice, with its merciless love of him, drove in. "We understand, and we say you have not failed. For see! You have created, and has not that driving urge to create been the great pain of your life?" His thoughts swept out in blind denial. "I have not created." "You created us."