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.

Now, as she was slowly gathering life out of the energy supply, the Hard Ones stood silently near them.

Odeen rose; a new Odeen who knew what was happening exactly. Imperiously, he ordered them away with an angry gesture—and they left. Silently. Without objection.

Dua stirred.

Tritt said, “Is she all right, Odeen?”

“Quiet, Tritt,” said Odeen. “Dua?”

“Odeen?” She stirred, spoke in a whisper. “I thought I had passed on.”

“Not yet, Dua. Not yet. But first you must eat and rest.”

“Is Tritt here, too?”

“Here I am, Dua,” said Tritt.

“Don’t try to bring me back,” said Dua. “It’s over, I’ve done what I wanted to do. The Positron Pump will—will stop soon, I’m sure. The Hard Ones will continue to need Soft Ones and they will take care of you two, or at least the children.”

Odeen didn’t say anything. He kept Tritt from saying anything, either. He let the radiation pour slowly into Dua, very slowly. He stopped at times to let her rest a bit, then he started again.

She began to mutter, “Enough. Enough.” Her substance was writhing more strongly.

Still he fed her.

Finally, he spoke. He said, “Dua, you were wrong. We are not machines. I know exactly what we are. I would have come to you sooner, if I had found out earlier, but I didn’t know till Losten begged me to think. And I did; very hard; and even so it is almost premature.”

Dua moaned and Odeen stopped for a while.

He said, “Listen, Dua. There is a single species of life. The Hard Ones are the only living things in the world. You gathered that, and so far you were right. But that doesn’t mean the Soft Ones aren’t alive; it merely means we are part of the same single species. The Soft Ones are the immature forms of the Hard Ones. We are first children as Soft Ones, then adults as Soft Ones, then Hard Ones. Do you understand?”

Tritt said, in soft confusion, “What? What?”

Odeen said, “Not now, Tritt. Not now. You’ll understand, too, but this is for Dua.” He kept watching Dua, who was gaining opalescence.

He said, “Listen, Dua, whenever we melt, whenever the triad melts, we become a Hard One. The Hard One is three-in-one, which is why he is hard. During the time of unconsciousness in melting we are a Hard One. But it is only temporary, and we can never remember the period afterward. We can never stay a Hard One long; we must come back. But all through our life we keep developing, with certain key stages marking it off. Each baby born marks a key stage. With the birth of the third, the Emotional, there comes the possibility of the final stage, where the Rational’s mind by itself, without the other two, can remember those flashes of Hard One existence. Then, and only then, he can guide a perfect melt that will form the Hard One forever, so that the triad can live a new and unified life of learning and intellect. I told you that passing on was like being born again. I was groping then for something I did not quite understand, but now I know.”

Dua was looking at him, trying to smile. She said, “How can you pretend to believe that, Odeen? If that were so, wouldn’t the Hard Ones have told you long ago; told all of us?”

“They couldn’t, Dua. There was a time, long ages ago, when melting was just a putting together of the atoms of bodies. But evolution slowly developed minds. Listen to me, Dua; melting is a putting together of the minds, too, and that’s much harder, much more delicate. To put it together properly and permanently, just so, the Rational must reach a certain pitch in development. That pitch is reached when he finds out, for himself, what it’s all about: when his mind is finally keen enough to remember what has happened in all those temporary unions during melting. If the Rational were told, that development would be aborted and the time of the perfect melt could not be determined. The Hard One would form imperfectly. When Losten pleaded with me to think, he was taking a great chance. Even that may have been— I hope not—

“For it’s especially true in our case, Dua. For many generations, the Hard Ones have been combining triads with great care to form particularly advanced Hard Ones and our triad was the best they’d ever obtained. Especially you, Dua. Especially you. Losten was once the triad whose baby-mid you were. Part of him was your Parental. He knew you. He brought you to Tritt and me.”