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hellish din have been replaced by angelic, celestial light pouring through the narrow opening in the iguman's cellar? And even that, it was not hard to see, was but a tiny gleam of the divine blaze now accompanying the apparition of the finger of God.
    And the finger of God, our righteous and merciful Lord, continued to descend mightily to earth, bringing a new day even before the full dawn, beheld by only my joyful gaze, until in ineffable splendor it gently touched the tops of the dark eastern hills, just at the spot where a moment later the morning sun peeped over the rosy horizon in powerful, final affirmation of this divine revelation.
     
    9. DESCENDANT OF THE RING
     
    HE HAD NO name, but was not nameless either.
    The few worlds that knew of his existence gave him various names, none of which suited him, however accurately they all described him. On Threesun they called him Gatherer; he did not feel like one, although it was true that he occasionally, for amusement, collected small forms composed of hardened energy when they happened to swim into his net. Because of the net, stretched between seven large stars near the galactic center from which he originated, on the Blue Sphere they named him Spider; the significance of that name eluded him. He did not understand the name "Being," either, which those on the Outer Edge con-ferred on him, but because he sensed anxiety and disquiet underlying it, he tended to avoid them, since any distress he might create would quickly pass to him, and he did not like unpleasant experiences.
    Of all his nicknames he liked Player best. He received it from the fishlike inhabitants of the Great Arm, a world enveloped in soft, slushy energy, under the dense sun of the nearby globular cluster; these creatures seldom rose to the surface of their world but were nevertheless aware of him; they sensed his probing, yet delicate, vibrations originating from the very edge of the Black Star to which he was connected by the powerful threads of living force. In the vibrations they discerned a closeness, even a kinship with their own mental structure, albeit at the level of a newborn who innocently takes everything around him as a game.
    This perception of his childlike, naive nature, although inaccurate, inspired them with affection, so that they indulged and understood his prankishness and whims, which, occurring on an astral scale, disturbed other races and sometimes even drove them to despair. But the fishlike individuals soon grew up and stopped playing, while Player appeared to remain unchanged, with the same simple, open nature, though it only seemed so to the swimmers in the vast ga-seous ocean of the Great Arm because of their brief life cycle.
    Although he had already been in existence for inconceivably longer than their species and would probably still be after they had died out, he envied them, just as he envied all other creatures, short-or long-lived, similar to him or dissimilar.
    He envied them all because of the one thing he lacked, or thought he lacked. All others knew their origin, and many had some inkling of their purpose in the
overall scheme of things, trifling though it might be, while he, as far as both were concerned, was filled only with a dark void.
    He knew the place in which he had first become aware of himself quite well, for he maintained contact with it. This awakening, however, could not have been his birth: nobody was born near the Black Star. The Black Star was the end of everything. All that came into its proximity vanished forever into that colossal, black whirling funnel, whose hunger for all forms of energy only grew the more it devoured.
    Nobody knew where the maw of that insatiable Leviathan was located. It had already gulped down half the suns from the galactic center with their accompanying worlds and all the creatures who had lived on them. But the bottom of the mighty funnel, responding with infinite blackness to even the most insistent poking by inquisitive