“Do they have that in the other Universe?”
“Yes, but because the nuclear-force is weaker, fusion is much slower. This means that the stars must be much, much bigger in the other Universe otherwise not enough fusion would take place to make them shine. Stars of the other Universe that were no bigger than our Sun would be cold and dead. On the other hand, if stars in our Universe were bigger than they are, the amount of fusion would be so great it would blow them up. That means that in our Universe there must be thousands of times as many small stars as there are larger stars in theirs—”
“We only have seven—” began Dua. Then she said, “I forgot.”
Odeen smiled indulgently. It was so easy to forget the uncounted stars that could not be seen except by special instruments. “That’s all right. You don’t mind my boring you with all this.”
“You’re not boring me,” said Dua. “I love it. It even makes food taste so good.” And she wavered between the electrodes with a kind of luxurious tremor.
Odeen, who had never before heard Dua say anything complimentary about food, was greatly heartened. He said, “Of course, our Universe doesn’t last as long as theirs. Fusion goes so fast that all the particles are combined after a million lifetimes.”
“But there are so many other stars.”
“Ah, but you see they’re all going at once. The whole Universe is dying down. In the other Universe, with so many fewer and larger stars, the fusion goes so slowly that the stars last thousands and millions of times as long as ours. It’s hard to compare because it may be that time goes at different rates in the two Universes.” He added, with some reluctance, “I don’t understand that part myself. That’s part of the Estwald Theory and I haven’t got to that very much so far.”
“Did Estwald work out all of this?”
“A great deal of it.”
Dua said, “It’s wonderful that we’re getting the food from the other Universe then. I mean, it doesn’t matter if our Sun dies out, then. We can get all the food we want from the other Universe.”
“That’s right.”
“But does nothing bad happen? I have the—the feeling that something bad happens.”
“Well,” said Odeen. “We transfer matter back and forth to make the Positron Pump and that means the Universes mix together a little. Our nuclear-force gets a tiny bit weaker, so fusion in our Sun slows up a little and the Sun cools down a little faster.... But just a little, and we don’t need it any more anyway.”
“That’s not the something-bad feeling I have. If the nuclear-force gets a tiny bit weaker, then the atoms take up more room—is that right?—and then what happens to melting?”
“That gets a tiny bit harder but it would take many millions of lifetimes before it would get noticeably harder to melt. Even if someday melting became impossible and Soft Ones died out, that would happen long, long after we would all have died out for lack of food if we weren’t using the other Universe.”
“That’s still not the something-bad—feeling—” Dua’s words were beginning to slur. She wriggled between her electrodes and to Odeen’s gratified eyes she seemed noticeably larger and compacter. It was as though his words, as well as the food, were nourishing her.
Losten was right! Education made her more nearly satisfied with life; Odeen could sense a kind of sensual joy in Dua that he had scarcely ever felt before.
She said, “It is so kind of you to explain, Odeen. You are a good left-ling.”
“Do you want me to go on?” asked Odeen, flattered and more pleased than he could easily say. “Is there anything else you want to ask?”
“A great deal, Odeen, but—but not now. Not now, Odeen. Oh, Odeen, do you know what I want to do?”
Odeen guessed at once, but was too cautious to say it openly. Dua’s moments of erotic advance were too few to treat with anything but care. He hoped desperately that Tritt had not involved himself with the children to the point where they could not take advantage of this.
But Tritt was in the chamber already. Had he been outside the door, waiting? He did not care. There was no time to think.
Dua had flowed out from between the electrodes and Odeen’s senses were filled with her beauty. She was between them, now, and through her Tritt shimmered, with his outlines flaming in incredible color.
It had never been like this. Never.
Odeen held himself back desperately, letting his own substance flow through Dua and into Tritt an atom at a time; holding away from the overpowering penetrance of Dua with every bit of strength; not giving himself up to the ecstasy, but letting it be wrenched from him; hanging on to his consciousness to the last possible moment; and then blanking out in one final transport so intense as to feel like an explosion echoing and reverberating endlessly within him.
Never in the lifetime of the triad had the period of melt-unconsciousness lasted so long.
3c
Tritt was pleased. The melting had been so satisfactory. All previous occasions seemed skimpy and hollow in comparison. He was utterly delighted with what had happened. Yet he kept quiet. He felt it better not to speak.
Odeen and Dua were happy, too. Tritt could tell. Even the children seemed to be glowing.
But Tritt was happiest of all—naturally.
He listened to Odeen and Dua talk. He understood none of it, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t mind that they seemed so pleased with each other. He had his own pleasure and was content to listen.
Dua said, on one occasion. “And do they really try to communicate with us?”
(Tritt never got it quite clear who “they” might be. He gathered that “communicate” was a fancy word for “talk.” So why didn’t they say “talk”? Sometimes he wondered if he should interrupt. But if he asked questions, Odeen would only say, “Now, Tritt,” and Dua would swirl impatiently.)
“Oh, yes,” said Odeen. “The Hard Ones are quite sure of that. They have markings on the material that is sent us sometimes and they say that it is perfectly possible to communicate by such markings. Long ago, in fact, they used markings in reverse, when it was necessary to explain to the other-beings how to set up their part of the Positron Pump.”
“I wonder what the other-beings look like. What do they look like, do you suppose?”
“From the laws we can work out the nature of the stars! because that is simple. But how can we work out the nature of the beings? We can never know.”
“Couldn’t they communicate what they look like?”
“If we understood what they communicated, perhaps we could make out something. But we don’t understand.” Dua seemed aggrieved. “Don’t the Hard Ones understand?”
“I don’t know. If they do, they haven’t told me so. Losten once told me it didn’t matter what they were like, as long as the Positron Pump worked and was enlarged.”
“Maybe he just didn’t want you bothering him.” Odeen said, huffily. “I don’t bother him.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. He just didn’t want to get into those details.”
By that time Tritt could no longer listen. They went on arguing for quite awhile over whether the Hard Ones should let Dua look at the markings or not Dua said that she could sense what they said, perhaps.
It made Tritt a little angry. After all, Dua was only a Soft One and not even a Rational. He began to wonder if Odeen was right to tell her all he did. It gave Dua funny ideas—
Dua could see it made Odeen angry, too. First he laughed. Then he said that an Emotional couldn’t handle such complicated things. Then he refused to talk at all. Dua had to be very pleasant to him for a while till he came around.