Dimly, Odeen remembered being taken through the Hard-caverns, with their equipment, their machinery, their libraries, their meaningless, crowding sights and sounds. More than the actual sense perceptions, he remembered his inner feeling of despair. What would they do with him? His Parental had told him that he would learn, but he didn’t know what was really meant by “learn” and when he asked his Parental, it turned out that the older one didn’t know either.

It took him a while to find out and the experience was pleasurable, so pleasurable, and yet not without its worrisome aspects.

The Hard One who had first called him “left” was his first teacher. The Hard One taught him to interpret the wave recordings so that after a while what seemed an incomprehensible code became words; words just as clear as those he could form with his own vibrations.

But then that first one didn’t appear any more and another Hard One took over. It was a time before Odeen noticed. It was difficult in those early days to tell one Hard One from another, to differentiate among their voices. But then he grew certain. Little by little, he grew certain and he trembled at the change. He didn’t understand its significance.

He gathered courage and finally asked, “Where is my teacher, Hard-sir?”

“Gamaldan? ... He will no longer be with you, left.” Odeen was speechless for a moment. Then he said, “But Hard Ones don’t pass on—” He did not quite finish the phrase. It choked off.

The new Hard One was passive, said nothing, volunteered nothing.

It was always to be like that, Odeen found out. They never talked about themselves. On every other subject they discoursed freely. Concerning themselves—nothing.

From dozens of pieces of evidence, Odeen could not help but decide that Hard Ones passed on; that they were not immortal (something so many Soft Ones took for granted). Yet no Hard One ever said as much. Odeen and the other student-Rationals sometimes discussed it, hesitantly, uneasily. Each brought in some small item that pointed inexorably to mortality of the Hard Ones and wondered and did not like to conclude the obvious, so they let it go.

The Hard Ones did not seem to mind that hints of mortality existed. They did nothing to mask it. But they never mentioned it, either. And if the question was asked directly (sometimes it was, inevitably) they never answered; neither denying nor affirming.

And if they passed on, they had to be born also, yet they said nothing of that and Odeen never saw a young Hard One.

Odeen believed the Hard Ones got their energy from rocks instead of from the Sun—at least that they incorporated a powdered black rock into their bodies. Some of the other students thought so, too. Others, rather vehemently, refused to accept that. Nor could they come to a conclusion for no one ever saw them feeding in any way and the Hard Ones never spoke of that either.

In the end, Odeen took their reticence for granted—as part of themselves. Perhaps, he thought, it was their individuality, the fact that they formed no triads. It built a shell about them.

And then, too, Odeen learned things of such grave import that questions concerning the private life of the Hard Ones turned to trivia in any case. He learned, for instance, that the whole world was shriveling—dwindling—

It was Losten, the new teacher, who told him that.

Odeen had asked about the unoccupied caverns that stretched so endlessly into the bowels of the world and Losten had seemed pleased. “Are you afraid to ask about that, Odeen?”

(He was Odeen now; not some general reference to his left-hood. It was always a source of pride to hear a Hard One address him by personal name. Many did so. Odeen was a prodigy of understanding and the use of his name seemed a recognition of the fact. More than once Losten had expressed satisfaction at having him as a pupil.)

Odeen was indeed afraid and, after some hesitation, said so. It was always easier to confess shortcomings to the Hard Ones than to fellow-Rationals; much easier than to confess them to Tritt, unthinkable to confess them to Tritt.... Those were the days before Dua.

“Then why do you ask?”

Odeen hesitated again. Then he said slowly. “I’m afraid of the unoccupied caverns because when I was young I was told they had all sorts of monstrous things in them. But I know nothing of that directly; I only know what I have been told by other young ones who couldn’t have known directly either, I want to find out the truth about them and the wanting has grown until there is more of curiosity in me than fear.”

Losten looked pleased. “Good! The curiosity is useful, the fear useless. Your inner development is excellent, Odeen, and remember it is only your inner development that counts in the important things. Our help to you is marginal. Since you want to know, it is easy to tell you that the unoccupied caverns are truly unoccupied. They are empty. There is nothing in them but the unimportant things left behind in times past.”

“Left behind by whom, Hard-sir?” Odeen felt uneasily compelled to use the honorific whenever he was too obviously in the presence of knowledge he lacked that the other had.

“By those who occupied them in times past. There was a time thousands of cycles ago when there were many thousands of Hard Ones and millions of Soft Ones. There are fewer of us now than there were in the past, Odeen. Nowadays there are not quite three hundred Hard Ones and fewer than ten thousand Soft Ones.”

“Why?” said Odeen, shocked. (Only three hundred Hard Ones left. This was surely an open admission that Hard Ones passed on, but this was not the time to think of that.)

“Because energy is diminishing. The Sun is cooling. It becomes harder in every cycle to give birth and to live.”

(Well, then, did not that mean the Hard Ones gave birth, too? And did it mean that the Hard Ones depended on the Sun for food, too, and not on rocks? Odeen filed the thought away and dismissed it for now.)

“Will this continue?” Odeen asked.

“The Sun must dwindle to an end, Odeen, and someday give no food.”

“Does that mean that all of us, the Hard Ones and the Soft Ones, too, will pass on?”

“What else can it mean?”

“We can’t all pass on. If we need energy and the Sun is coming to an end, we must find other sources. Other stars.”

“But, Odeen, all the stars are coming to an end. The Universe is coming to an end.”

“If the stars come to an end, is there no food elsewhere? No other source of energy?”

“No, all the energy-sources in all the Universe are coming to an end.”

Odeen considered that rebelliously, then said, “Then other Universes. We can’t give up just because the Universe does.” He was palpitating as he said it. He had expanded with quite unforgivable discourtesy until he had swelled translucently into a size distinctly larger than the Hard One.

But Losten merely expressed extreme pleasure. He said, “Wonderful, my left-dear. The others must hear of this.”

Odeen had collapsed to normal size in mingled embarrassment and pleasure at hearing himself addressed as “left-dear,” a phrase he had never heard anyone use to him—except Tritt, of course.

It had not been very long after that that Losten himself had brought them Dua. Odeen had wondered, idly, if there had been any connection, but after a while wonder burned itself out. Tritt had repeated so often that it was his own approach to Losten that had brought them Dua, that Odeen gave up thinking about it. It was too confusing.

But now he was coming to Losten again. A long time had passed since those earlier days when he first learned that the Universe was coming to an end and that (as it turned out) the Hard Ones were resolutely laboring to live on anyway. He himself had become adept in many fields and Losten confessed that in physics there was little he could any longer teach Odeen that a Soft One could profitably learn. And there were other young Rationals to take in hand, so he did not see Losten as frequently as he once did.