After that they both went looking for Dua after all. For a wonder, she had finished wandering about and was just heading down again. It was a very good melting though the time lapse was only a day or so. Tritt worried about meltings then. With Annis so small, even a short absence was risky, though there were always other Parentals who could take over.
After that, Odeen mentioned Estwald now and then. He always called him "the New One" even after considerable time had passed. He still had never seen him. "1 think I avoid him," he said one time, when Dua was with them, "because he knows so much about the new device. I don't want to find out too soon. It's too much fun to learn."
"The Positron Pump?" Dua had asked,
— That was another funny thing about Dua. Tritt thought. It annoyed him. She could say the hard words almost as well as Odeen could. An Emotional shouldn't be like that.
So Tritt made up his mind to ask Estwald because Odeen had said he was smart. Besides, Odeen had never seen him. Estwald couldn't say, "I've talked to Odeen about it, Tritt, and you mustn't worry."
Everyone thought that if you talked to the Rational, you were talking to the triad. Nobody paid attention to the Parentals. But they would have to this time.
He was in the Hard-caverns and everything seemed different. There was nothing there that looked like anything Tritt could understand. It was all wrong and frightening. Still, he was too anxious to see Estwald to let himself really be frightened. He said to himself, "I want my little-mid." That made him feel firm enough to walk forward.
He saw a Hard One finally. There was just this one; doing something; bending over something; doing something. Odeen once told him that Hard Ones were always working at their-whatever it was. Tritt didn't remember and didn't care.
He moved smoothly up and stopped. "Hard-sir," he said.
The Hard One looked up at him and the air vibrated about him, the Odeen said it did when two Hard Ones talked to each other sometimes. Then the Hard One seemed really to see Tritt and said, "Why, it's a right. What is your business here? Do you have your little-left with you? Is today the start of a semester?"
Tritt ignored it all. He said, "Where can I find Estwald, sir?!"
"Find whom?"
"Estwald."
The Hard One was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "What is your business with Estwald, right?"
Tritt felt stubborn. "It is important I speak to him. Are you Estwald, Hard-sir?"
"No, I am not… What is your name, right?"
"Tritt, Hard-sir."
"I see. You're the right of Odeen's triad, aren't you?"
"Yes."
The Hard One's voice seemed to soften. "I'm afraid you can't see Estwald at the moment. He's not here. If anyone else can help you?"
Tritt didn't know what to say. He simply stood there.
The Hard One said, "You go home now. Talk to Odeen. He'll help you. Yes? Go home, right."
The Hard One turned away. He seemed very concerned in matters other than Tritt, and Tritt still stood there, uncertain. Then he moved into another section quietly, flowing noiselessly. The Hard One did not look up.
Tritt was not certain at first why he had moved in that particular direction. At first, he felt only that it was good to do so. Then it was clear. There was a thin warmth of food about him and he was nibbling at it.
He had not been conscious of hunger, yet now he was eating and enjoying.
The Sun was nowhere. Instinctively, he looked up, but of course he was in a cavern. Yet the food was better than he had ever found it to be on the surface. He looked about, wondering. He wondered, most of all, that he should be wondering.
He had sometimes been impatient with Odeen because Odeen wondered about so many things that didn't matter. Now he himself-Tritt!-was wondering. But what he was wondering about did matter. Suddenly, he saw that it did matter. With an almost blinding flash he realized that he wouldn't wonder unless something inside him told it did matter.
He acted quickly, marveling at his own bravery. After a while, he retraced his steps. He moved past the Hard One again, the one to whom he had earlier spoken. He said, "I am going home, Hard-sir."
The Hard One merely said something incoherent. He was still doing something, bending over something, doing silly things and not seeing the important thing.
If Hard Ones were so great and powerful and smart, Tritt thought, how could they be so stupid?
Dua found herself drifting toward the Hard-caverns. Partly it was because it was something to do now that the Sun had set, something to keep her from returning home for an additional period of time, something to delay having to listen to the importunities of Tritt and the half-embarrassed, half-resigned suggestions of Odeen. Partly, too, it was the attraction they held for her in themselves.
