Tritt’s inter-awareness sense did not decrease, but it shifted more and more toward the children. That was clearly the line of useful development, but then the role of the Parental was a simple one, in a manner of speaking, however important. The Rational was far more complex and Odeen took a bleak satisfaction in that thought.
Of course, it was Dua who was the real puzzle. She was so unlike all the other Emotionals. That puzzled and frustrated Tritt and reduced him to even more pronounced inarticulacy. It puzzled and frustrated Odeen at times, too, but he was also aware of Dua’s infinite capacity to induce satisfaction with life and it did not seem likely that one was independent of the other. The occasional exasperation she produced was a small price to pay for the intense happiness.
And maybe Dua’s odd way of life was part of what ought to be, too. The Hard Ones seemed interested in her and ordinarily they paid attention only to Rationals. He felt pride in that; so much the better for the triad that even the Emotional was worth attention.
Things were as they were supposed to be. That was bedrock, and it was what he wanted most to feel, right down to the end. Someday he would even know when it was time to pass on and then he would want to. The Hard Ones assured him of that, as they assured all Rationals, but they also told him that it was his own inner consciousness that would mark the time unmistakably, and not any advice from outside.
“When you tell yourself,” Losten had told him—in the clear, careful way in which a Hard One always talked to a Soft One, as though the Hard One were laboring to make himself understood, “that you know why you must pass on, then you will pass on, and your triad will pass on with you.”
And Odeen had said, “I cannot say I wish to pass on now, Hard-sir. There is so much to learn.”
“Of course, left-dear. You feel this because you are not yet ready.”
Odeen thought: How could I ever feel ready when I would never feel there wasn’t much to learn?
But he didn’t say so. He was quite certain the time would come and he would then understand.
He looked down at himself, almost forgetting and thrusting out an eye to do so—there were always some childish impulses in even the most adult of the most Rational. He didn’t have to, of course. He would sense quite well with his eye solidly in place, and he found himself satisfactorily solid; nice, sharp outline, smooth and Curved into gracefully conjoined ovoids.
His body lacked the strangely attractive shimmer of Dua, and the comforting stockiness of Tritt. He loved them both, but he would not change his own body for either. And, of course, his own mind. He would never say so, of course, for he would not want to hurt their feelings, but he never ceased being thankful that he did not have Tritt’s limited understanding or (even more) Dua’s erratic one. He supposed they didn’t mind for they knew nothing else.
He grew distantly aware of Dua again, and deliberately dulled the sense. At the moment, he felt no need for her. It was not that he wanted her less, but merely that he had increasing drives elsewhere. It was part of the growing maturity of a Rational to find more and more satisfaction in the exercise of a mind that could only be practiced alone, and with the Hard Ones.
He grew constantly more accustomed to the Hard Ones; constantly more attached to them. He felt that was right and proper, too, for he was a Rational and in a way the Hard Ones were super-Rationals. (He had once said that to Losten, the friendliest of the Hard Ones and, it seemed to Odeen in some vague way the youngest. Losten had radiated amusement but had said nothing. And that meant he had not denied it, however.)
Odeen’s earliest memories were filled with Hard Ones. His Parental more and more concentrated his attention on the last child, the baby-Emotional. That was only natural. Tritt would do it, too, when the last child came, if it ever did. (Odeen had picked up that last qualification from Tritt, who used it constantly as a reproach to Dua.)
But so much the better. With his Parental busy so much of the time, Odeen could begin his education that much the earlier. He was losing his baby ways and he had learned a great deal even before he met Tritt.
That meeting, though, was surely something he would never forget. It might as well have been yesterday as more than half a lifetime ago. He had seen Parentals of his own generation, of course; young ones who, long before they incubated the children that made true Parentals of them, showed few signs of the stolidity to come. As a child he had played with his own right-brother and was scarcely aware of any intellectual difference between them (though, looking back on those days, he recognized that it was there, even then).
He knew also, vaguely, the role of a Parental in a triad. Even as a child, he had whispered tales of melting.
When Tritt first appeared, when Odeen saw him first, everything changed. For the first time in his life, Odeen felt an inner warmth and began to think that there was something he wanted that was utterly divorced from thought. Even now, he could remember the sense of embarrassment that had accompanied this.
Tritt was not embarrassed, of course. Parentals were never embarrassed about the activities of the triad, and Emotionals were almost never embarrassed. Only Rationals had that problem.
“Too much thinking,” a Hard One had said when Odeen had discussed the problem with him and that left Odeen dissatisfied. In what way could thinking be “too much”?
Tritt was young when they first met, of course. He was still so childish as to be uncertain in his blockishness so that his reaction to the meeting was embarrassingly clear. He grew almost translucent along his edges.
Odeen said, hesitantly, “I haven’t seen you before, have I, right-fellow?”
Tritt said, “I have never been here. I have been brought here.”
They both knew exactly what had happened to them. The meeting had been arranged because someone (some Parental, Odeen had thought at the time, but later he knew it was some Hard One) thought they would suit each other, and the thought was correct.
There was no intellectual rapport between the two, of course. How could there be when Odeen wanted to learn with an intensity that superseded anything but the existence of the triad itself, and Tritt lacked the very concept of learning? What Tritt had to know, he knew beyond either learning or unlearning.
Odeen, out of the excitement of finding out about the world and its Sun; about the history and mechanism of life; about all the abouts in the Universe; sometimes (in those early days together) found himself spilling over to Tritt.
Tritt listened placidly, clearly understanding nothing, but content to be listening; while Odeen, transmitting nothing, was as clearly content to be lecturing.
It was Tritt who made the first move, driven by his special needs. Odeen was chattering about what he had learned that day after the brief midday meal. (Their thicker substance absorbed food so rapidly, they were satisfied with a simple walk in the Sun, while Emotionals basked for hours at a time, curling and thinning as though deliberately to lengthen the task.)
Odeen, who always ignored the Emotionals, was quite happy to be talking. Tritt, who stared wordlessly at them, day after day, was now visibly restless.
Abruptly, he came close to Odeen, formed an appendage so hastily as to clash most disagreeably on the other’s form-sense. He placed in upon a portion of Odeen’s upper ovoid where a slight shimmer was allowing a welcome draft of warm air as dessert. Tritt’s appendage thinned with a visible effort and sank into the superfices of Odeen’s skin before the latter darted away, horribly embarrassed.