"You must listen," he said tensely. "We must all beware. For all of us will die!" Moon Flame did not lessen his speed. "Die?" "You do not understand, Moon Flame. Death is our destiny. It was destined long before we were born." Moon Flame stared. "Then if this strange thing is destined, no one can win against it." "No one?" Devil Star swerved in his backward flight, brushing the violet furnace of a super-sun. He said, "I shall win, Moon Flame. I shall fight death--the death green lights will attempt to give us. I shall interrupt destiny. I shall be its master!" But Moon Flame did not understand. He brushed Devil Star aside with an impatient tractor ray. With a scornful glance backward, he went shooting off leaving Devil Star caught in a wake of incandescent sparks. Devil Star stared after him, but all he saw was the immortal blaze of his life's years. He was the rebel. He would not die! <tb> Devil Star had five million more years of peace, of caniptious play. And then.... He was alone, and cradling his loneliness, atop a galaxy shaped like a masterfully blown, brimming wine-glass, with the bubbles of stars clouding about its rim. The moment of his curse had come, for a vast cunning had grown in him. He would lie here, shielded by a giant star, and he would wait. The waiting was not long. Came the beat of a life force. He felt himself tremble. Deep inside something was whispering that he should forget, turn back--play--skim along the surface of life as did Moon Flame and the other energy children. Accept destiny! Destiny! The cunning shift and quiver of sub-atomic particles that began when the universe began. He would not. The life force pressed in, strengthened. And with a thread of vision he saw a matured green light, her central core burning with an hypnotic, frightening radiance. Devil Star surged up closer to the star that shielded him, for now he sensed the swirl and pulse of another life. With a thinned ray of sight, he beheld the purple light ripping through space toward the deadly source of the vibration that drew him. For one chaotic moment, Devil Star's purpose was as nothing. He knew this energy creature. "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.