"No, Dua," said Odeen, strenuously, as much to himself as to her. "I don't know how you got those notions, but the Hard Ones aren't like that. We are not destroyed."
"Don't lie to yourself, Odeen. They are like that. They are prepared to destroy a whole world of other-beings for their benefit; a whole Universe if they have to. Would they stop at destroying a few Soft Ones for their comfort?-• But they made one mistake. Somehow the machinery went wrong and a Rational mind got into an Emotional body. I'm a Left-Em, do you know that? They called me that when I was a child, and they were right. I can reason like a Rational and I can feel like an Emotional. And I will fight the Hard Ones with that combination."
Odeen felt wild. Dua must surely be mad, yet he dared not say so. He had to cajole her somehow and bring her back. He said with strenuous sincerity, "Dua, we're not destroyed when we pass on."
"No? What does happen then?"
"I-I don't know. I think we enter another world, a better and happier world, and become like-like-well, much better than we are."
Dua laughed. "Where did you hear that? Did the Hard Ones tell you that?"
"No, Dua. I'm sure that this must be so out of my own thoughts. I've been thinking a great deal about it since you left"
Dua said, "Then think less and you'll be less foolish. Poor Odeen! Good-by." She flowed away once more, thinly. There was an air of weariness about her.
Odeen called out, "But wait, Dua. Surely you want to see your new baby-mid."
She did not answer.
He cried out. "When will you come home?"
She did not answer.
And he followed no more, but looked after her in deepest misery as she dwindled.
He did not tell Tritt he had seen Dua. What was the use? Nor did he see her again. He began haunting the favored sunning-sites of the Emotionals in the region; doing so even though occasional Parentals emerged to watch him in stupid suspicion (Tritt was a mental giant compared to most Parentals).
The lack of her hurt more with each passing day. And with each passing day, he realized that there was a gathering fright inside himself over her absence. He didn't know why.
He came back to home-cavern one day to find Losten waiting for him. Losten was standing there, grave and polite while Tritt was showing him the new baby and striving to keep the handful of mist from touching the Hard One.
Losten said, "It is indeed a beauty, Tritt. Derala is its name?"
"Derola," corrected Tritt. "I don't know when Odeen will be back. He wanders about a lot-"
"Here I am, Losten," said Odeen, hastily. "Tritt, take the baby away; there's a good fellow."
Tritt did so, and Losten turned to Odeen with quite obvious relief, saying, "You must be very happy to have completed the triad."
Odeen tried to answer with some polite inconsequence, but could maintain only a miserable silence. He had recently been developing a kind of comradeship, a vague sense of equality with the Hard Ones, that enabled them to talk together on a level. Somehow Dua's madness had spoiled it. Odeen knew she was wrong and yet he approached Losten once more as stiffly as in the long-gone days when he thought of himself as a far inferior creature to them, as a-machine?
Losten said, "Have you seen Dua?" This was a real question, and not politeness. Odeen could tell easily.
"Only once, H-" (He almost said "Hard-sir" as though he were a child again, or a Parental.) "Only once, Losten. She won't come home."
"She must come home," said Losten, softly.
"I don't know how to arrange that."
Losten regarded him somberly. "Do you know what she is doing?"
Odeen dared not look at the other. Had he discovered Dua's wild theories? What would be done about that?
He made a negative sign without speaking.
Losten said, "She is a most unusual Emotional, Odeen. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes," sighed Odeen.
"So are you in your way, and Tritt in his. I doubt that any Parental in the world would have had either the courage or the initiative to steal an energy-battery or the perverse ingenuity to put it to use as he did. The three of you make up the most unusual triad of which we have any record."
"Thank you."
"But there are uncomfortable aspects to the triad, too; things we didn't count on. We wanted you to teach Dua as the mildest and best possible way in which to cajole her into performing her function voluntarily. We did not count on Tritt's quixotic action at just that moment. Nor, to tell you the truth, did we count on her wild reaction to the fact that the world in the other Universe must be destroyed."
"I ought to have been careful how I answered her questions," said Odeen miserably.
"It wouldn't have helped. She was finding out for herself. We didn't count on that either. Odeen, I am sorry, but I must tell you this-Dua has become a deadly danger; she is trying to stop the Positron Pump." ."But how can she? She can't reach it, and even if she could, she lacks the knowledge to do anything about it."
