Buu lay in his leafy arbor nest and looked up at the stars in the dark sky.
The hairy young humanoid should have been asleep, but his curiosity kept him
awake. A half-million years in the future that twinkling of curiosity would
have led his mind out into the universe to explore the mathematical mysteries
of relativity. Now ...
Buu continued to stare at the bright stars above him. One speck suddenly flared
brighter. Frightened—but fascinated— Buu watched the growing point of intense
light until it went behind a dense tree branch. He would be able to see it again
if he went to the nearby clearing. He clambered down from his nest—into the
striped coils of Kaa.
Kaa did not enjoy his kill for long. Things were difficult for him in a world
with two suns. The new sun was tiny and white, while the old one was big and
yellow. The new sun circled constantly overhead. It never set, and he could no
longer catch things at night. Kaa died—along with other hunters who could not
change their habits fast enough.
For a year the new light shone from above, searing the sky. Then it slowly grew
dimmer and dimmer, and within a few years night returned to the northern hemisphere of Earth.
Fifty light-years away from the Solar System there was once a binary star system.
One star was in its normal yellow-white phase, but the other had bloated up until
it turned into a red giant, swallowing the planets around it. The nuclear fuel for
the red giant ran out just fifty years before Buu's curiosity got the better of him.
With its fusion-bomb center turned off, the energy the star needed to hold itself up
against its self-gravitation