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destroyed; I beg pardon, we will all pass on."
"No, Dua," said Odeen, strenuously, as much to himself as to her. "I don't know how you got those
notions, but the Hard Ones aren't like that. We are not destroyed."
"Don't lie to yourself, Odeen. Theyare like that. They are prepared to destroy a whole world of
other-beings for their benefit; a whole Universe if they have to. Would they stop at destroying a few Soft
Ones for their comfort? " But they made one mistake. Somehow the machinery went wrong and a
Rational mind got into an Emotional body. I'm a Left-Em, do you know that? They called me that when I
was a child, and they were right. I can reason like a Rational and I can feel like an Emotional. And I will
fight the Hard Ones with that combination."
Odeen felt wild. Dua must surely be mad, yet he dared not say so. He had to cajole her somehow and
bring her back. He said with strenuous sincerity, "Dua, we're not destroyed when we pass on."
"No? What does happen then?"
"I I don't know. I think we enter another world, a better and happier world, and become
like like well, much better than we are."
Dua laughed. "Where did you hear that? Did the Hard Ones tell you that?"
"No, Dua. I'msure that this must be so out of my own thoughts. I've been thinking a great deal about it
since you left"
Dua said, "Then think less and you'll be less foolish. Poor Odeen! Good-by." She flowed away once
more, thinly. There was an air of weariness about her.
Odeen called out, "But wait, Dua. Surely you want to see your new baby-mid."
She did not answer.
He cried out. "When will you come home?"
She did not answer.
And he followed no more, but looked after her in deepest misery as she dwindled.
He did not tell Tritt he had seen Dua. What was the use? Nor did he see her again. He began haunting
the favored sunning-sites of the Emotionals in the region; doing so even though occasional Parentals
emerged to watch him in stupid suspicion (Tritt was a mental giant compared to most Parentals).
The lack of her hurt more with each passing day. And with each passing day, he realized that there was
a gathering fright inside himself over her absence. He didn't know why.
He came back to home-cavern one day to find Losten waiting for him. Losten was standing there, grave
and polite while Tritt was showing him the new baby and striving to keep the handful of mist from
touching the Hard One.
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Losten said, "It is indeed a beauty, Tritt. Derala is its name?"
"Derola," corrected Tritt. "I don't know when Odeen will be back. He wanders about a lot "
"Here I am, Losten," said Odeen, hastily. "Tritt, take the baby away; there's a good fellow."
Tritt did so, and Losten turned to Odeen with quite obvious relief, saying, "You must be very happy to
have completed the triad."
Odeen tried to answer with some polite inconsequence, but could maintain only a miserable silence. He
had recently been developing a kind of comradeship, a vague sense of equality with the Hard Ones, that
enabled them to talk together on a level. Somehow Dua's madness had spoiled it. Odeen knew she was
wrong and yet he approached Losten once more as stiffly as in the long-gone days when he thought of
himself as a far inferior creature to them, as a machine?
Losten said, "Have you seen Dua?" This was a real question, and not politeness. Odeen could tell easily.
"Only once, H " (He almost said "Hard-sir" as though he were a child again, or a Parental.) "Only
once, Losten. She won't come home."
"Shemust come home," said Losten, softly.
"I don't know how to arrange that."
Losten regarded him somberly. "Do you know what she is doing?"
Odeen dared not look at the other. Had he discovered Dua's wild theories? What would be done about
that?
He made a negative sign without speaking.
Losten said, "She is a most unusual Emotional, Odeen. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes," sighed Odeen.
"So are you in your way, and Tritt in his. I doubt that any Parental in the world would have had either the
courage or the initiative to steal an energy-battery or the perverse ingenuity to put it to use as he did. The
three of you make up the most unusual triad of which we have any record."
"Thank you."
"But there are uncomfortable aspects to the triad, too; things we didn't count on. We wanted you to
teach Dua as the mildest and best possible way in which to cajole her into performing her function
voluntarily. We did not count on Tritt's quixotic action at just that moment. Nor, to tell you the truth, did
we count on her wild reaction to the fact that the world in the other Universe must be destroyed."
"I ought to have been careful how I answered her questions," said Odeen miserably.
"It wouldn't have helped. She was finding out for herself. We didn't count on that either. Odeen, I am
sorry, but I must tell you this Dua has become a deadly danger; she is trying to stop the Positron
Pump."
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."But how can she? She can't reach it, and even if she could, she lacks the knowledge to do anything
about it."
"Oh, but shecan reach it." Losten hesitated, then said, "She remains infused in the rock of the world
where she is safe from us."
It took awhile for Odeen to grasp the clear meaning of the words. He said, "No grown Emotional
would Dua would never n
"She would. She does. Don't waste time arguing the point. . . . She can penetrate anywhere in the
caverns.Nothing is hidden from her. She has studied those communications we have received from the
other Universe. We don't know that of certain knowledge, but there is no other way of explaining what is
happening."
"Oh, oh, oh." Odeen rocked back and forth, his surface opaque with shame and grief. "Does Estwald
know of all this?"
Losten said, grimly, "Not yet; though he must know someday."
"But what will she do with those communications?"
"She is using them to work out a method for sending some of her own in the other direction."
"But she cannot know how to translate or transmit."
"She is learning both. She knows more about those communications than Estwald himself. She is a
frightening phenomenon, an Emotional who can reason and who is out of control."
Odeen shivered. Out of control? How machine-like a reference!
He said, "It can't be that bad." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]