Odeen had done such things as a baby, of course, but never since his adolescence. “Don’t do that, Tritt,” he said sharply.
Tritt’s appendage remained out, groping a little. “I want to.”
Odeen held himself as compactly as he could, striving to harden the surface to bar entry. “I don’t want to.”
“Why not?” said Tritt, urgently.
“There’s nothing wrong.” Odeen said the first thing that came into his mind. “It hurt.” (It didn’t really. Not physically. But the Hard Ones always avoided the touch of the Soft Ones. A careless interpenetration hurt them, but they were constructed differently from Soft Ones, completely differently.)
Tritt was not fooled by that. His instinct could not possibly mislead him in this respect. He said, “It didn’t hurt.”
“Well, it isn’t right this way. We need an Emotional.”
And Tritt could only say, stubbornly, “I want to, anyway.”
It was bound to continue happening, and Odeen was bound to give in. He always did; it was something that was sure to happen even to the most self-conscious Rational. As the old saying had it: Everyone either admitted doing it or lied about it.
Tritt was at him at each meeting after that; if not with an appendage, then rim to rim. And finally Odeen, seduced by the pleasure of it, began to help and tried to shine. He was better at that than Tritt was. Poor Tritt, infinitely more eager, huffed and strained, and could achieve only the barest shimmer here and there, patchily and raggedly.
Odeen, however, could run translucent all over his surface, and fought down his embarrassment in order to let himself flow against Tritt. There was skin-deep penetration and Odeen could feel the pulsing of Tritt’s hard surface under the skin. There was enjoyment, riddled with guilt.
Tritt, as often as not, was tired and vaguely angry when it was all over.
Odeen said, “Now, Tritt, I’ve told you we need an Emotional to do this properly. You can’t be angry at something that just is.”
And Tritt said, “Let’s get an Emotional.”
Let’s get an Emotional! Tritt’s simple drives never led him to anything but direct action. Odeen was not sure he could explain the complexities of life to the other. “It’s not that easy, right-ling,” he began gently.
Tritt said abruptly. “The Hard Ones can do it. You’re friendly with them. Ask them.”
Odeen was horrified. “I can’t ask. The time,” he continued, unconsciously falling into his lecturing voice, “is not yet come, or I would certainly know it. Until such time—” Tritt was not listening. He said, “I’ll ask.”
“No,” said Odeen, horrified. “You stay out of it. I tell you it’s not time. I have an education to worry about. It’s very easy to be a Parental and not to have to know anything but—”
He was sorry the instant he had said it and it was a lie anyway. He just didn’t want to do anything at all that might offend the Hard Ones and impede his useful relationship with them. Tritt, however, showed no signs of minding and it occurred to Odeen that the other saw no point or merit in knowing anything he did not already know and would not consider the statement of the fact an insult.
The problem of the Emotional kept coming up, though. Occasionally, they tried interpenetration. In fact, the impulse grew stronger with time. It was never truly satisfying though it had its pleasure and each time Tritt would demand an Emotional. Each time, Odeen threw himself deeper into his studies, almost as a defense against the problem.
Yet at times, he was almost tempted to speak to Losten about it.
Losten was the Hard One he knew best; the one who took the greatest personal interest in him. There was a deadly sameness about the Hard Ones, because they did not change; they never changed; their form was fixed. Where there eyes were they always were, and always in the same place for all of them. Their skin was not exactly hard, but it was always opaque, never shimmered, never vague, never penetrable by another skin of its own type.
They were not larger in size, particularly, than the Soft Ones, but they were heavier. Their substance was much denser and they had to be careful about the yielding tissues of the Soft Ones.
Once when he had been little, really little and his body had flowed almost as freely as his sister’s, he had been approached by a Hard One. He had never known which one it was, but he learned in later life that they were all of them curious about baby-Rationals. Odeen had reached up for the Hard One, out of nothing but curiosity. The Hard One had sprung backward and later Odeen’s Parental had scolded him for offering to touch a Hard One.
The scolding had been harsh enough for Odeen never to forget. When he was older he learned that the close-packed atoms of the Hard One’s tissues felt pain on the forcible penetration of others. Odeen wondered if the Soft One felt pain, too. Another young Rational once told him that he had stumbled against a Hard One and the Hard One had doubled up but that he himself had felt nothing —but Odeen wasn’t sure this was not just a melodramatic boast.
There were other things he could not do. He liked rubbing against the walls of the cavern. There was a pleasant, warm feeling when he allowed himself to penetrate rock. Babies always did it, but it got harder to do as he grew older. Still, he could do it skin-deep and he liked it, but his Parental found him doing it and scolded him. He objected that his sister did it all the time; he had seen her.
“That’s different,” said the Parental. “She’s an Emotional.”
At another time, when Odeen was absorbing a recording—he was older then—he had idly formed a couple of projections and made the tips so thin, he could pass one through the other. He began to do it regularly when he listened. There was a pleasant tickling sensation that made it easier to listen and made him nicely sleepy afterward.
And his Parental caught him at that, too, and what he had said still made Odeen uncomfortable in remembering it.
No one really told him about melting in those days. They fed him knowledge and educated him about everything except what the triad was all about. Tritt had never been told, either, but he was a Parental so he knew without being told. Of course, when Dua came at last, all was clear, even though she seemed to know less about it even than Odeen.
But she didn’t come to them because of anything Odeen did. It was Tritt who broached the matter; Tritt, who ordinarily feared the Hard Ones and avoided them mutely; Tritt, who lacked Odeen’s self-assurance, in all but this respect; Tritt, who on this one subject was driven; Tritt—Tritt—Tritt—
Odeen signed. Tritt was invading his thoughts, because Tritt was coming. He could feel him, harsh, demanding, always demanding. Odeen had so little time to himself these days, just when he felt that he needed to think more than ever, to straighten out all the thoughts—
“Yes, Tritt,” he said.
1c
Tritt was conscious of his blockiness. He didn’t think it ugly. He didn’t think about it at all. If he did, he would consider it beautiful. His body was designed for a purpose and designed well.
He said, “Odeen, where is Dua?”
“Outside somewhere,” mumbled Odeen, almost as though he didn’t care. It annoyed Tritt to have the triad made so little of. Dua was so difficult and Odeen didn’t care.
“Why do you let her go?”
“How can I stop her, Tritt? And what harm does it do?”
“You know the harm. We have two babies. We need a third. It is so hard to make a little-mid these days. Dua must be well fed for it to be made. Now she is wandering about at Sunset again. How can she feed properly at Sunset?”