“Well, the triad is now complete.”
“That’s not all there is to melting.” Tritt said, “But where do we have to go to find her? Little Derola needs me. She’s a tiny baby. I don’t want to leave her.”
“The Hard Ones will arrange to have Derola taken care of. You and I will go to the Hard-caverns and find Dua.”
Tritt thought about that. He didn’t care about Dua. He didn’t even care about Odeen, somehow. There was only Derola. He said, “Someday. Someday, when Derola is older. Not till then.”
“Tritt,” said Odeen, urgently, “we must find Dua. Otherwise—otherwise the babies will be taken away from us.”
“By whom?” said Tritt.
“By the Hard Ones.”
Tritt was silent. There was nothing he could say. He had never heard of such a thing. He could not conceive of such a thing.
Odeen said, “Tritt, we must pass on. I know why, now. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Losten— But never mind that. Dua and you must pass on, too. Now that I know why, you will feel you must and I hope—I think— Dua will feel she must, too. And we must pass on soon, for Dua is destroying the world.”
Tritt was backing away. “Don’t look at me like that, Odeen.... You’re making me.... You’re making me.”
“I’m not making you, Tritt,” said Odeen, sadly. “It’s just that I know now and so you must.... But we must find Dua.”
“No, no.” Tritt was in agony, trying to resist. There was something terribly new about Odeen, and existence was approaching an end inexorably. There would be no Tritt and no baby-mid. Where every other Parental had his baby-mid for a long time, Tritt would have lost his almost at once.
It wasn’t fair. Oh, it wasn’t fair.
Tritt panted. “It’s Dua’s fault. Let her pass on first.” Odeen said, with deadening calm, “There’s no other way but for all of us—”
And Tritt knew that was so—that was so—that was so—
6a
Dua felt thin and cold, wispy. Her attempts to rest in the open and absorb Sunlight had ended after Odeen had found her that time. Her feeding at the Hard Ones’ batteries was erratic. She dared not remain too long outside the safety of rock, so she ate in quick gulps, and she never got enough.
She was conscious of hunger, continuously, all the more so since it seemed to tire her to remain in the rock. It was as though she were being punished for all that long time in which she haunted the Sunset and ate so skimpily.
If it were not for the work she was doing, she could not bear the weariness and hunger. Sometimes she hoped that the Hard Ones would destroy her—but only after she was finished.
The Hard Ones were helpless as long as she was in the rock. Sometimes she sensed them outside the rock in the open. They were afraid. Sometimes she thought the fear was for her, but that couldn’t be. How could they be afraid for her; afraid that she would pass on out of sheer lack of food, out of sheer exhaustion. It must be that they were afraid of her; afraid of a machine that did not work as they had designed it to work; appalled at so great a prodigy; struck helpless with the terror of it.
Carefully, she avoided them. She always knew where they were, so they could not catch her nor stop her.
They could not watch all places always. She thought she could even blank what little perception they had. She swirled out of the rock and studied the recorded duplicates of the communications they had received from the other Universe. They did not know that was what she was after. If they hid them, she would find them in whatever new place. If they destroyed them, it didn’t matter. Dua could remember them.
She did not understand them, at first, but with her stay in the rocks, her senses grew steadily sharper, and she seemed to understand without understanding. Without knowing what the symbols meant, they inspired feelings within her.
She picked out markings and placed them where they would be sent to the other Universe. The markings were F-E-E-R. What that could possibly mean she had no idea, but its shape inspired her with a feeling of fear and she did her best to impress that feeling of fear upon the markings. Perhaps the other creatures, studying the markings, would also feel fear.
When the answers came, Dua could sense excitement in them. She did not always get the answers that were sent. Sometimes the Hard Ones found them first. Surely, they must know what she was doing. Still, they couldn’t read the messages, couldn’t even sense the emotions that went along with them.
So she didn’t care. She would not be stopped, till she was done—whatever the Hard Ones found out.
She waited for a message that would carry the feeling she wanted. It came: P-U-M-P B-A-D.
It carried the fear and hatred she wanted. She sent it back in extended form—more fear—more hatred— Now the other people would understand. Now they would stop the Pump. The Hard Ones would have to find some other way, some other source of energy; they must not obtain it through the death of all those thousands of other Universe creatures.
She was resting too much, declining into a kind of stupor, within the rock. Desperately she craved food and waited so that she could crawl out. Even more desperately than she wanted the food in the storage battery, she wanted the storage battery to be dead. She wanted to suck the last bit of food out of it and know that no more would come and that her task was done.
She emerged at last and remained recklessly long, sucking in the contents of one of the batteries. She wanted to withdraw its last, empty it, see that no more was entering —but it was an endless source—endless—endless.
She stirred and drew away from the battery in disgust. The Positron Pumps were still going then. Had her messages not persuaded the other Universe creatures to stop the Pumps? Had they not received them? Had they not sensed their meaning?
She had to try again. She had to make it plain beyond plain. She would include every combination of signals that to her seemed to carry the feeling of danger; every combination that would get across the plea to stop.
Desperately she began to fuse the symbols into metal; drawing without reserve on the energy she had just sucked out of the battery; drawing on it till it was all gone and she was more weary than ever: PUMP NOT STOP NOT STOP WE NOT STOP PUMP WE NOT HEAR DANGER NOT HEAR NOT HEAR YOU STOP PLEASE STOP YOU STOP SO WE STOP PLEASE YOU STOP DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER STOP STOP YOU STOP PUMP.
It was all she could. There was nothing left in her but a racking pain. She placed the message where it could be transferred and she did not wait for the Hard Ones to send the message unwittingly. Through an agonizing haze, she manipulated the controls as she had seen them do, finding the energy for it somehow.
The message disappeared and so did the cavern in a purple shimmer of vertigo. She was—passing on—out of sheer—exhaustion.
Odeen—Tri—
6b
Odeen came. He had been flowing faster than ever he had flowed before. He had been following Tritt’s sharp new-baby sense perception, but now he was close enough for his own blunter senses to detect her nearness. He could on his own account feel the flickering and fading consciousness of Dua, and he raced forward while Tritt did his best to clump along, gasping and calling, “Faster—faster—”
Odeen found her in a state of collapse, scarcely alive, smaller than he had ever seen an adult Emotional.
“Tritt,” he said, “bring the battery here. No—no— don’t try to carry her. She’s too thin to carry. Hurry. If she sinks into the floor—”
The Hard Ones began to gather. They were late, of course, with their inability to sense other life-forms at a distance. If it had depended only on them, it would have been too late to save her. She would not have passed on; she would truly have been destroyed—and—and more than she knew would have been destroyed with her.