“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 she can 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—”

“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.”

“It can. She has communicated already and I fear she is advising the other creatures to stop their half of the Positron Pump. If they do that before their Sun explodes, we will be helpless at this end.”

“But then—”

“She must be stopped, Odeen.”

“B—But, how? Are you going to blast—” His voice failed. Dimly, he knew that the Hard One had devices for digging caverns out of the world’s rock; devices scarcely used since the world’s population had begun declining ages ago. Would they locate Dua in the rock and blast it and her?

“No,” said Losten, forcefully. “We cannot harm Dua.”

“Estwald might—”

“Estwald cannot harm her, either.”

“Then what’s to be done?”

“It’s you, Odeen. Only you. We’re helpless, so we must depend on you.”

“On me? But what can I do?”

“Think about it,” said Losten, urgently. “Think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“I can’t say more than that,” said Losten, in apparent agony. “Think! There is so little time.”

He turned and left, moving rapidly for a Hard One, moving as though he did not trust himself to stay and perhaps say too much.

And Odeen could only look after him, dismayed, confused—lost.

5c

There was a great deal for Tritt to do. Babies required much care, but even two young-lefts and two young-rights together did not make up the sum of a single baby-mid— particularly not a mid as perfect as Derola. She had to be exercised and soothed, protected from percolating into whatever she touched, cajoled into condensing and resting.

It was a long time before he saw Odeen again and, actually, he didn’t care. Derola took up all his time. But then he came across Odeen in the corner of his own alcove, iridescent with thought.

Tritt remembered, suddenly. He said, “Was Losten angry about Dua?”

Odeen came to himself with a start. “Losten?—Yes, he was angry. Dua is doing great harm.”

“She should come home, shouldn’t she?”

Odeen was staring at Tritt. “Tritt,” he said, “we’re going to have to persuade Dua to come home. We must find her first. You can do it. With a new baby, your Parental sensitivity is very high. You can use it to find Dua.”

“No,” said Tritt, shocked. “It’s used for Derola. It would be wrong to use it for Dua. Besides, if she wants to stay away so long when a baby-mid is longing for her— and she was once a baby-mid herself—maybe we might just learn to do without her.”

“But, Tritt, don’t you ever want to melt again?”

“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.