He was being watched, and it was the green light, she who had conceived a life and heartlessly destroyed one, who was watching. A sudden cunning hate took hold of him. He held her stare, flung it back arrogantly. And she watched him with coldness from the eminence of her greater size. She said chillingly, "I saw you there. And it was not meant to be. Will you forget?" "Forget?" The cry was shocked from him. "You are begging me to forget, Comet Glow?" And as he mockingly uttered her name, she drew back, a darkness creeping into the brilliant depths of her. Slowly: "If that is the word you wish to use, yes." He surged closer to her. "It <i>is</i> the word, Mother of four children! Then let me also forget the arts of existence--the eating of energy, the dispelling of it--the use of my para-propellents. I would as soon forget them. And let me also forget the dread moment of my birth!" And he knew what effect that had on her, for he had told none but Moon Flame. Involuntarily she expanded, looked at him with dawning horror. "Remember--that?" The words were torn from her. "I remember it. And I will not forget," and he was gone from her sight into another band of hyper-space. But she followed, reaching out with tight bands of energy, holding him fast, and yet at a distance. "Devil Star!" The words came faintly. "What is it you search for?" She was debasing herself, she, a green light, millions of years older than he. And he knew his moment of gloating should be put aside. He was young. There was much knowledge to be had. "I am searching for--" He stopped. For what? A restless quiver of sparks leapt from him. "Comet Glow, perhaps I am seeking to be master of my own fate." <tb> For long and long her somber gaze rested on him. "Devil Star, it is not possible." Instantly he tore from her restraining bands of energy. "You say that," he cried, "who saw me, an unmatured purple light, in the band of life! Who knows that I have a memory which carries me to the moment of my own birth!" And he stopped, chilled by her odd, pitying silence, by the dread answer she seemed to be giving him. Another thought rose clamoring. Green lights are--different. They have a cruel, natural wisdom purple lights cannot hope to possess. And, mockingly, that ruinous other-thought: <i>They?</i> He was sinking into his dreadful abyss. "Devil Star." The sorrowing thoughts of Comet Glow came. "You are young. Live as life <i>must</i> live." She pressed closer, laving him with her anxiety. "Do you seek to change the natal matrix of the vast universe? Ten thousand billion years ago--and perhaps even longer, Devil Star! The pattern of all that is was foreordained--and all that will be! No electron that moved along its path but what moved in response to a prior event. "There has been no thought--and shall be none--that was not caused by a prior thought. "No result without cause. And no event without result!"