“Explode! But then what happens to the people?”

“What people?”

“The people in the other Universe.”

For a moment, Odeen looked blank, then he said, “I don’t know.”

“Well, what would happen if our own Sun exploded?”

“It couldn’t explode.”

(Tritt wondered what all the excitement was about. How could a Sun explode? Dua seemed angrier and Odeen looked confused.)

Dua said, “But if it did? Would it get very hot?”

“I suppose so.”

“Wouldn’t it kill us all?”

Odeen hesitated and then said in clear annoyance, “What difference does it make, Dua? Our Sun isn’t exploding, and don’t ask silly questions.”

“You told me to ask questions, Odeen, and it does make a difference, because the Positron Pump works both ways. We need their end as much as ours.”

Odeen stared at her. “I never told you that.”

“I feel it.”

Odeen said, “You feel a great many things. Dua—”

But Dua was shouting now. She was quite beside herself. Tritt had never seen her like that. She said, “Don’t change the subject, Odeen. And don’t withdraw and try to make me out a complete fool—just another Emotional. You said I was almost like a Rational and I’m enough like one to see that the Positron Pump won’t work without the other-beings. If the people in the other Universe are destroyed, the Positron Pump will stop and our Sun will be colder than ever and well all starve. Don’t you think that’s important?”

Odeen was shouting too, now. “That shows what you know. We need their help because the energy supply is in low concentration and we have to switch matter. If the Sun in the other Universe explodes, there’ll be an enormous flood of energy; a huge flood that will last for a million lifetimes. There will be so much energy, we could tap it directly without any matter-shift either way; so we don’t need them, and it doesn’t matter what happens—”

They were almost touching now. Tritt was horrified. He had better say something, make them get apart, talk to them. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Then it turned out he didn’t have to.

There was a Hard One just outside the cavern. No, three of them. They had been trying to talk and hadn’t made themselves heard.

Tritt shrieked, “Odeen. Dua.”

Then he remained quiet, trembling. He had a frightened notion of what the Hard Ones had come to talk about. He decided to leave.

But a Hard One put out one of his permanent, opaque appendages and said, “Don’t go.”

It sounded harsh, unfriendly. Tritt was more frightened than ever.

4a

Dua was filled with anger; so filled she could scarcely sense the Hard Ones. She seemed stifled under the components of the anger, each one filling her to the brim, separately. There was a sense of wrongness that Odeen should try to lie to her. A sense of wrongness that a whole world of people should die. A sense of wrongness that it was so easy for her to learn and that she had never been allowed to.

Since that first time in the rock, she had gone twice more to the Hard-caverns. Twice more, unnoticed, she had buried herself in rock, and each time she sensed and knew, and each time when Odeen would explain matters to her, she knew in advance what it was he would explain.

Why couldn’t they teach her, then, as they had taught Odeen? Why only the Rationals? Did she possess the capacity to learn only because she was a Left-Em, a perverted mid-ling? Then let them teach her, perversion and all. It was wrong to leave her ignorant.

Finally, the words of the Hard One were breaking through to her. Losten was there, but it was not he speaking. It was a strange Hard One, in front, who spoke. She did not know him, but she knew few of them.

The Hard One said, “Which of you have been in the lower caverns recently: the Hard caverns?”

Dua was defiant. They found out about her rock-rubbing and she didn’t care. Let them tell everybody. She would do so herself. She said, “I have. Many times.”

“Alone?” said the Hard One calmly.

“Alone. Many times,” snapped Dua. It was only three times, but she didn’t care.

Odeen muttered, “I have, of course, been to the lower caverns on occasion.”

The Hard One seemed to ignore that. He turned to Tritt instead and said sharply. “And you, right?”

Tritt quavered, “Yes, Hard-sir.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, Hard-sir.”

“How often?”

“Once.”

Dua was annoyed. Poor Tritt was in such a panic over nothing. It was she herself who had done it and she was ready for a confrontation. “Leave him alone,” she said. “I’m the one you want.”

The Hard One turned slowly toward her. “For what?” he said.

“For whatever it is.” And faced with it directly, she couldn’t bring herself to describe what she had done after all. Not in front of Odeen.

“Well, we’ll get to you. First, the right.... Your name is Tritt, isn’t it? Why did you go to the lower caverns alone?”

“To speak to Hard-One-Estwald, Hard-sir.”

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.