"Rock," whispered the Discoverer. "Be cautious, now." They slid from the blackness into the green light. This was a cave, seemingly endless. Embedded into walls and sides, glittering and sparkling, were bits of onyx, carnelian, opal and amethyst. Thor caught his breath at the iridescent wonder of the jewelled cavern. "Far off, Thor, to the right. Look there." Brilliant green fire, rising and falling. Alive, and waiting. "Aava!" "Careful. Think not so harshly. He will be aware of you. Come. It is time to go." They went back, high into space. Once again the planets and the stars left them alone, and again they came. But this time the planet Aava was molten, filled with shooting flames, burning with white, silvery flames. Thor and the Discoverer went down into the bowels of the planet, seeking Aava. They found the green flame burning with brilliance in a sea of molten rocks. It leaped and danced, and gathered bits of matter around it, as though weaving a garment for itself. "That is the oval in which we saw him encased," said Thor. "Pure quartz. When hot, it goes cherry-red." "This is four hundred million years ago. He is truly eternal." There was amusement in the Discoverer's mind as he said, "We will go back even further, back to the remotest beginnings. And even then, Aava was." * * * * * Eight times the universe came to them and receded. At last they stood in utter darkness, for a long time. There were no stars, no suns. There was emptiness. "We are in the very dawn of all things. We are so far back that there is no Time, no Space. Only emptiness." "If there is nothing, what are we here for?" "Wait." Faint rosy shafts of light streamed up from nothingness, incredible distances away. The light bathed them, sent tingles of electrical power throbbing through their beings. Although he was only brain, Thor felt that force. It was something from beyond, godlike. Where there had been emptiness, was now matter. Here and there were stars. "Is this creation?" "Call it creation. Call it a life-force coming from somewhere that our animal minds can never fathom. Say the force gathered the floating electrons and bound them into balled suns. And in one of the suns, we will find what we seek." They hunted through the weird wonders of this weird universe. And deep in the heart of a gigantic star that pulsed and threw its forces hundreds of thousands of miles high, they saw it. A green blob, restlessly burning, circling within itself, like a fluid always in motion. Cradled and warmed by the heat of the star, given not only existence, but life itself by the rosy shafts of light, was Aava. "Not eternal. But almost so." "Master of this cancerous universe, this alien from known Time and known Space. Remember, the only thing that penetrated the force-shell around this space-cancer was the light, the rosy light." "Aava is not absorbed by the sun." "He is different."