At which again Dua interrupted, eagerly, “Are you Estwald?”
The Hard One said briefly, “No.”
Odeen looked annoyed, as though it embarrassed him that Dua didn’t recognize the Hard One. Dua didn’t care.
The Hard One said to Tritt, “What did you take from the lower caverns?”
Tritt was silent.
The Hard One said, without emotion, “We know you took something. We want to know if you know what it was. It could be very dangerous.”
Tritt was still silent, and Losten interposed, saying more kindly, “Please tell us, Tritt. We know now it was you and we don’t want to have to be harsh.”
Tritt mumbled. “I took a food-ball.”
“Ah.” It was the first Hard One speaking. “What did you do with it?”
And Tritt burst out. “It was for Dua. She wouldn’t eat. It was for Dua.”
Dua jumped and coalesced in astonishment.
The Hard One turned on her at once. “You did not know about it?”
“No!”
“Nor you?”—to Odeen.
Odeen, so motionless as to seem frozen, said, “No, Hard-sir.”
For a moment the air was full of unpleasant vibration as the Hard Ones spoke to each other, ignoring the triad.
Whether her sessions at rock-rubbing had made her more sensitive, or whether it was her recent storm of emotions, Dua couldn’t tell, and wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to analyze; she simply knew she was catching whiffs -—not of words—but of understanding—
They had detected the loss some time ago. They had been searching quietly. They had turned to the Soft Ones as possible culprits with reluctance. They had investigated and then turned to Odeen’s triad with even greater reluctance. (Why? Dua missed that.) They did not see how Odeen could have had the foolishness to take it, or Dua the inclination. They did not think of Tritt at all.
Then the Hard One who had so far not said a word to the Soft Ones recalled seeing Tritt in the Hard-caverns. (Of course, thought Dua. It was the day she had first entered the rock. She had sensed him then. She had forgotten.)
It had seemed unlikely in the extreme, but finally, with all else impossible and with the time lapse having grown intolerably dangerous, they came. They would have liked to consult Estwald, but by the time the possibility of Tritt arose, he was unavailable.
All this Dua sensed in a gasp and now she turned toward Tritt, with a feeling of mingled wonder and outrage.
Losten was anxiously vibrating that no harm had been done, that Dua looked well, that it was a useful experiment actually. The Hard One to whom Tritt had spoken was agreeing; the other still exuded concern.
Dua was not paying attention to them only. She was looking at Tritt.
The first Hard One said, “Where is the food-ball now, Tritt?”
Tritt showed them.
It was hidden effectively and the connections were clumsy but serviceable.
The Hard One said, “Did you do this yourself, Tritt?”
“Yes, Hard-sir.”
“How did you know how?”
“I looked at how it was done in the Hard-caverns. I did it exactly the way I saw it done there.”
“Didn’t you know you might have harmed your mid-mate?”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I—” Tritt seemed unable to speak for a moment. Then he said, “It was not to hurt her. It was to feed her. I let it pour into her feeder and I decorated her feeder. I wanted her to try it and she did. She ate! For the first time in a long while she ate well. We melted.” He paused, then said in a huge, tumultuous cry. “She had enough energy at last to initiate a baby-Emotional. She took Odeen’s seed and passed it to me. I have it growing inside me. A baby-Emotional is growing inside me.”
Dua could not speak. She stumbled back and then rushed for the door in so pell-mell a fashion that the Hard Ones could not get out of the way in time. She struck the appendage of the one in front, passing deep into it, and then pulled free with a harsh sound.
The Hard One’s appendage fell limp and his expression seemed contorted with pain. Odeen tried to dodge around him to follow Dua, but the Hard One said, with apparent difficulty. “Let her go for now. There is enough harm done. We will take care.”
4b
Odeen found himself living through a nightmare. Dua was gone. The Hard Ones were gone. Only Tritt was still there; silent.
How could it have happened, Odeen thought in tortured fashion. How could Tritt have found his way alone to the Hard-caverns? How could he have taken a storage battery charged at the Positron Pump and designed to yield radiation in much more concentrated form than Sunlight and dared—
Odeen would not have had the courage to chance it. How could Tritt; stumbling, ignorant Tritt? Or was he unusual, too? Odeen, the clever Rational; Dua, the curious Emotional; and Tritt, the daring Parental?
He said, “How could you do it, Tritt?”
Tritt retorted hotly. “What did I do? I fed her. I fed her better than she had ever been fed before. Now we have a baby-Emotional initiated at last. Haven’t we waited long enough? We would have waited forever, if we had waited for Dua.”
“But don’t you understand, Tritt? You might have hurt her. It wasn’t ordinary Sunlight. It was an experimental radiational source that could have been too concentrated to be safe.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Odeen. How could it do harm? I tasted the kind of food the Hard Ones made before. It tasted bad. You’ve tasted it, too. It tasted just awful and it never hurt us. It tasted so bad, Dua wouldn’t touch it. Then I came on the food-ball. It tasted good. I ate some and it was delicious. How can anything delicious hurt. You see, Dua ate it. She liked it. And it started the baby-Emotional. How can I have done wrong?”
Odeen despaired of explaining. He said, “Dua is going to be very angry.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“I wonder. Tritt, she’s not like ordinary Emotionals. That’s what makes her so hard to live with, but so wonderful when we can live with her. She may never want to melt with us again.”
Tritt’s outline was sturdily plane-surfaced. Then he said, “Well, what of it?”
“What of it? You ask. Do you want to give up melting?”
“No, but if she won’t she won’t. I have my third baby and I don’t care any more. I know all about the Soft Ones in the old days. They used to have two triad-births sometimes. But I don’t care. One is plenty.”
“But, Tritt, babies aren’t all there is to melting.”
“What else? I heard you say once you learned faster after you melted. Then learn slower. I don’t care. I have my third baby.”
Odeen turned away, trembling, and flowed jerkily out of the chamber. What was the use of scolding Tritt? Tritt wouldn’t understand. He wasn’t sure he understood himself.
Once the third baby was born, and grown a little, surely there would come a time to pass on. It would be he, Odeen, who would have to give the signal, who would have to say when, and it would have to be done without fear. Anything else would be disgrace, or worse, and yet he could not face it without melting, even now that all three children would have been formed.
Melting, somehow, would eliminate the fear.... Maybe it was because melting was like passing on. There was a period of time when you were not conscious, yet it did not hurt. It was like not existing and yet it was desirable. With enough melting, he could gain the courage to pass on without fear and without—
Oh, Sun and all the stars, it wasn’t “passing on.” Why use that phrase so solemnly? He knew the other word that was never used except by children who wanted to shock their elders somehow. It was dying. He had to get ready to die without fear, and to have Dua and Tritt die with him.