They were moving quickly homeward now, with Odeen adapting himself eagerly to the characteristic waver of the Emotional flow.
Dua said, “Tell me about the other Universe. Why are they different? How are they different? Tell me all about it.”
It did not occur to Dua she was asking too much. It did occur to Odeen. He felt rich with an astonishing quantity of knowledge and was on the point of asking, How do you come to know enough about the other Universe to grow so curious about it?
He repressed the question. Dua was coming from the direction of the Hard-caverns. Perhaps Losten had been talking to her, suspecting that despite everything Odeen would be too proud of his status to help his mid-ling.
Not so, thought Odeen gravely. And he would not ask. He would just explain.
Tritt bustled about them when they returned home. “If you two are going to talk, go into Dua’s chamber. I will be busy out here. I must see to it that the children are cleaned and exercised. No time for melting now. No melting.”
Neither Odeen nor Dua had any thought of melting, but there was no thought in either mind of disobeying the command. The Parental’s home was his castle. The Rational had his Hard-caverns below and the Emotional her meeting places above. The Parental had only his home.
Odeen therefore said, “Yes, Tritt. We’ll be out of your way.”
And Dua extended a briefly loving part of herself and said, “It’s good to see you, right-dear.” (Odeen wondered if her gesture was part relief over the fact that there would be no pressure to melt. Tritt did tend to overdo that a bit; even more than Parentals generally.)
In her chamber, Dua stared at her private feeding-place. Ordinarily, she ignored it.
It had been Odeen’s idea, He knew that such things did exist and, as he explained to Tritt, if Dua did not like to swarm with the other Emotionals, it was perfectly possible to lead Solar energy down into the cavern so that Dua might feed there.
Tritt had been horrified. It wasn’t done. The others would laugh. The triad would be disgraced. Why didn’t Dua behave as she should?
“Yes, Tritt,” Odeen had said, “but she doesn’t behave as she should, so why not accommodate her? Is it so terrible? She will eat privately, gain substance, make us happier, become happier herself, and maybe learn to swarm in the end.”
Tritt allowed it, and even Dua allowed it—after some argument—but insisted that it be a simple design. So there was nothing but the two rods that served as electrodes, powered by Solar energy, and with room for Dua in between.
Dua rarely used it, but this time she stared at it and said, “Tritt has decorated it ... Unless you did, Odeen.”
“I? Of course not.”
A pattern of colored-clay designs was at the base of each electrode. “I suppose it’s his way of saying he wishes I would use it,” Dua said, “and I am hungry. Besides, if I’m eating, Tritt wouldn’t dream of interrupting us, would he?”
“No,” said Odeen, gravely. “Tritt would stop the world if he thought its motion might disturb you while you were eating.”
Dua said, “Well—I am hungry.”
Odeen caught a trace of guilt in her. Guilt over Tritt? Over being hungry? Why should Dua feel guilty about being hungry? Or had she done something that had consumed energy and was she feeling—
He wrenched his mind away from that impatiently. There were times when a Rational could be too Rational, and chase down the tracks of every thought to the detriment of what was important. Right now, it was important to talk to Dua.
She seated herself between the electrodes and when she compressed herself to do so, her small size was only too painfully evident. Odeen was hungry himself; he could tell because the electrodes seemed brighter than they ordinarily did; and he could taste the food even at that distance and the savor was delicious. When one was hungry, one always tasted food more keenly than otherwise and at a greater distance. ... But he would eat later.
Dua said, “Don’t just sit silently, left-dear. Tell me. I want to know.” She had adopted (unconsciously?) the ovoid character of a Rational, as though to make it clearer that she wanted to be accepted as one.
Odeen said, “I can’t explain it all. All the science I mean, because you haven’t had the background, I will try to make it simple and you just listen. Later, you tell me what you didn’t understand and I’ll try to explain further. You understand, first, that everything is made up of tiny particles called atoms and that these are made up of still tinier subatomic particles.”
“Yes, yes,” said Dua. “That’s why we can melt.”
“Exactly. Because actually we are mostly empty space. All the particles are far apart and your particles and mine and Tritt’s can all melt together because each set fits into the empty spaces around the other set. The reason matter doesn’t fly apart altogether is that the tiny particles do manage to cling together across the space that separates them. There are attractive forces holding them together, the strongest being one we call the nuclear-force. It holds the chief subatomic particles very tightly together in bunches that are spread widely apart and that are held together by weaker forces. Do you understand that?”
“Only a little bit,” said Dua.
“Well never mind, we can go back later.... Matter can exist in different states. It can be especially spread out, as in Emotionals; as in you, Dua, It can be a little less spread out, as in Rationals and in Parentals. Or still less so, as in rock. It can be very compressed or thick, as in the Hard Ones. That’s why they’re hard. They are filled with particles.”
“You mean there’s no empty space in them.”
“No, that’s not quite what I mean,” said Odeen, puzzled as to how to make matter clearer. “They still have a great deal of empty space, but not as much as we do. Particles need a certain amount of empty space and if all they have is that much, then other particles can’t squeeze in. If particles are forced in, there is pain. That’s why the Hard Ones don’t like to be touched by us. We Soft Ones have more space between the particles than are actually needed, so other particles can fit in.”
Dua didn’t look at all certain about that. Odeen hastened onward. “In the other Universe, the rules are different. The nuclear-force isn’t as strong as in ours. That means the particles need more room.”
“Why?”
Odeen shook his head, “Because—because—the particles spread out their wave-forms more. I can’t explain better than that. With a weaker nuclear-force, the particles need more room and two pieces of matter can’t melt together as easily as they can in our Universe.”
“Can we see the other Universe?”
“Oh, no. That isn’t possible. We can deduce its nature from its basic laws. The Hard Ones can do a great many things, though. We can send material across, and get material from them. We can study their material, you see. And we can set up the Positron Pump. You know about that, don’t you?”
“Well, you’ve told me we get energy out of it. I didn’t know there was a different Universe involved.... What is the other Universe like? Do they have stars and worlds the way we do?”
“That’s an excellent question, Dua.” Odeen was enjoying his role as teacher more intensely than usual now that he had official encouragement to speak. (Earlier he always had the feeling that there was a kind of sneaking perversion in trying to explain things to an Emotional.)
He said, “We can’t see the other Universe, but we can calculate what it must be like from its laws. You see, what makes the stars, shine is the gradual combination of simple particle-combinations into more complicated ones. We call it nuclear fusion.”