Part 8 (1/2)
Odeen often scolded Dua himself for her queer ways but was always unwilling to let Tritt do so. ”You lack tact, Tritt,” he would say. Tritt didn't know what tact was exactly.
And now- It had been so long since the first melting and still the baby-Emotional was not born. How much longer? It was already much too long. And Dua, if anything, stayed by herself more and more as time went on.
Tritt said. ”She doesn't eat enough.”
”When it's time-” began Odeen.
”You always talk about it's being time or it's not being time. You never found it time to get Dua in the first place. Now you never find it time to have a baby-Emotional. Dua should-”
But Odeen turned away. He said, ”She's out there, Tritt. If you want to go out and get her, as though you were her Parental instead of her right-ling, do so. But I say, leave her alone.”
Tritt backed away. He had a great deal to say, but he didn't know how to say it.
2a Dua was aware of the left-right agitation concerning her in a dim and faraway manner and her rebelliousness grew.
If one or the other, or both, came to get her, it would end in a melting and she raged against the thought. It was all Tritt knew, except for the children; all Tritt wanted, except for the third and last child; and it was all involved with the children and the still missing child. And when Tritt wanted a melting, he got it.
Tritt dominated the triad when he grew stubborn. He would hold on to some simple idea and never let go and in the end Odeen and Dua would have to give in. Yet now she wouldn't give in; she wouldn't wouldn't - - She didn't feel disloyal at the thought, either. She never expected to feel for either Odeen or Tritt the sheer intensity of longing they felt for each other. She could melt alone; they could melt only through her mediation (so why didn't that make her the more regarded). She felt intense pleasure at the three-way melting; of course she did, it would be stupid to deny it; but it was a pleasure akin to that which she felt when she pa.s.sed through a rock wall, as she sometimes secretly did. To Tritt and Odeen, the pleasure was like nothing else they had ever experienced or could ever experience.
No, wait. Odeen had the pleasure of learning, of what he called intellectual development. Dua felt some of that at times, enough to know what it might mean; and though it was different from melting, it might serve as a subst.i.tute, at least to the point where Odeen could do without melting sometimes.
But not so, Tritt. For him there was only melting and the children. Only. And when his small mind bent entirely upon that, Odeen would give in, and then Dua would have to.
Once she had rebelled. ”But what happens when we melt? It's hours, days sometimes, before we come out of it. What happens all that time?”
Tritt had looked outraged at that. ”It's always that way. It's got got to be.” to be.”
”I don't like anything that's got got to be. I want to know why.” to be. I want to know why.”
Odeen had looked embarra.s.sed. He spent half his life being embarra.s.sed. He said, ”Now, Dua, it does have to be. On account of-children,” He seemed to pulse, as he said the word.
”Well, don't pulse,” said Dua, sharply. ”We're grown now and we've melted I don't know how many times and we all know it's so we can have children. You might as well say so. Why does it take so long, that's all?”
”Because it's a complicated process,” said Odeen, still pulsing. ”Because it takes energy. Dua, it takes a long time to get a child started and even when we take a long time, it doesn't always get started. And it's getting worse.,.. Not just with us,” he added hastily.
”Worse?” said Tritt anxiously, but Odeen would say no more.
They had a child eventually, a baby-Rational, a left-let, that flitted and thinned so that all three were in raptures and even Odeen would hold it and let it change shape in his hands for as long as Tritt would allow him to. For it was Tritt, of course, who had actually incubated it through the long pre-forming; Tritt who had separated from it when it a.s.sumed independent existence; and Tritt who cared for it at all times.
After that, Tritt was often not with them and Dua was oddly pleased. Tritt's obsession annoyed her, but Odeen's -oddly-pleased her. She became increasingly aware of his-importance. There was something to being a Rational that made it possible to answer questions, and somehow Dua had questions for him constantly. He was readier to answer when Tritt was not present.
”Why does it take so long, Odeen? I don't like to melt and then not know what's happening for days at a time.”
”We're perfectly safe, Dua,” said Odeen, earnestly. ”Come, nothing has ever happened to us, has it? You've never heard of anything ever happening to any other triad, have you? Besides, you shouldn't ask questions.”
”Because I'm an Emotional? Because other Emotionals don't ask questions?-I can't stand other Emotionals, if you want to know, and I do do want to ask questions.” want to ask questions.”
She was perfectly aware that Odeen was looking at her as though he had never seen anyone as attractive and that if Tritt had been present, melting would have taken place at once. She even let herself thin out; not much, but perceptibly, in deliberate coquettishness.
Odeen said, ”But you might not understand the implications, Dua. It takes a great deal of energy to initiate a new spark of life.”
”You've often mentioned energy. What is it? Exactly.”
”Why, what we eat.”
”Well, then, why don't you say food.”
”Because food and energy aren't quite the same thing. Our food comes from the Sun and that's a kind of energy, but there are other kinds of energy that are not food. When we eat, we've got to spread out and absorb the light. It's hardest for Emotionals because they're much more transparent; that is, the light tends to pa.s.s through instead of being absorbed-”
It was wonderful to have it explained, Dua thought. What she was told, she really knew; but she didn't know the proper words;, the long science-words that Odeen knew. And it made sharper and more meaningful everything that happened.
Occasionally now, in adult life, when she no longer feared that childish teasing; when she shared in the prestige of being part of the Odeen-triad; she tried to swarm with other Emotionals and to withstand the chatter and the crowding. After all, she did occasionally feel like a more substantial meal than she usually got and it did make for better melting. There was a joy-sometimes she almost caught the pleasure the others got out of it-in slithering and maneuvering for exposure to Sunlight; in the luxurious contraction and condensation to absorb the warmth through greater thickness with greater efficiency.
Yet for Dua a little of that went quite a way and the others never seemed to have enough. There was a kind of gluttonous wiggle about them that Dua could not duplicate and that, at length, she could not endure.
That was why Rationals and Parentals were so rarely on the surface. Their thickness made it possible for them to eat quickly and leave. Emotionals writhed in the Sun for hours, for though they ate more slowly, they actually needed more energy than the others-at least for melting.
The Emotional supplied the energy, Odeen had explained (pulsing so that his signals were barely understood), the Rational the seed, the Parental the incubator.
Once Dua understood that, a certain amus.e.m.e.nt began to blend with her disapproval when she watched the other Emotionals virtually slurp up the ruddy Sunlight. Since they never asked questions, she was sure they didn't know why they did it and couldn't understand that there was an obscene side to their quivering condensations, or to the way in which they went t.i.ttering down below eventually-on their way to a good melt, of course, with lots of energy to spare.
She could also stand Tritt's annoyance when she would come down without that swirling opacity that meant a good gorging. Yet why should they complain? The thinness she retained meant a defter melting. Not as sloppy and glutinous as the other triads managed, perhaps, but it was the ethereality that counted, she felt sure. And the little-left and little-right came eventually, didn't they?
Of course, it was the baby-Emotional, the little-mid, that was the crux. That took more energy than the other two and Dua never had enough.
Even Odeen was beginning to mention it. ”You're not getting enough Sunlight, Dua.”
”Yes I am,” said Dua, hastily.
”Genia's triad,” said Odeen, ”has just initiated an Emotional.”
Dua didn't like Genia. She never had. She was empty-headed even by Emotional standards. Dua said, loftily, ”I suppose she's boasting about it. She has no delicacy. I suppose she's saying, 'I shouldn't mention it, my dear, but you'll never guess what my left-ling and right-ling have gone and went and done-' ” She imitated Genia's tremulous signaling with deadly accuracy and Odeen was amused.
But then he said, ”Genia may be a dunder, but she has has initiated an Emotional, and Tritt is upset about it. We've been at it for much longer than they have-” initiated an Emotional, and Tritt is upset about it. We've been at it for much longer than they have-”
Dua turned away. ”I get all the Sun I can stand. I do it till I'm too full to move. I don't know what you want of me.”
Odeen said, ”Don't be angry. I promised Tritt I would talk to you. He thinks you listen to me-”
”Oh, Tritt just thinks it's odd that you explain science to me. He doesn't understand- Do you want a mid-ling like the others?”
”No,” said Odeen, seriously. ”You're not like the others, and I'm glad of it. And if you're interested in Rational-talk, then let me explain something. The Sun doesn't supply the food it used to in ancient times. The light-energy is less; and it takes longer exposures. The birth rate has been dropping for ages and the world's population is only a fraction of what it once was.”
”I can't help it,” said Dua, rebelliously.
”The Hard Ones may be able to. Their numbers have been decreasing, too-”
”Do they pa.s.s on?” Dua was suddenly interested. She always thought they were immortal somehow; that they weren't born; that they didn't die. Who had ever seen a baby Hard One, for instance? They didn't have babies. They didn't melt. They didn't eat.
Odeen said, thoughtfully, ”I imagine they pa.s.s on. They never talk about themselves to me. I'm not even sure how they eat, but of course they must. And be born. There's a new one, for instance; I haven't seen him yet- But never mind that. The point is that they've been developing an artificial food-”