The Gods Themselves Part 14

"I've been learning a great deal since I left you, Odeen. Never mind how. I have. There's no Emotional left in me at all, except physiologically. Inside, where it counts, I'm all Rational, except that I hope I have more feeling for others than Rationals have. And one thing I've learned is what we really are, Odeen; you and I and Tritt and all the other triads on this planet; what we really are and always were."

"What is that?" asked Odeen. He was prepared to listen for as long as might be necessary, and as quietly, if only she would come back with him when she had said her say. He would perform any penance, do anything that might be required. Only she must come back-and something dim and dark inside him knew that she had to come back voluntarily.

"What we are? Why, nothing, really, Odeen," she said lightly, almost laughing, "Isn't that strange? The Hard Ones are the only living species on the face of the world. Haven't they taught you that? There is only one species because you and I, the Soft Ones, are not really alive. We're machines, Odeen. We must be because only the Hard Ones are alive. Haven't they taught you that, Odeen?"

"But, Dua, that's nonsense," said Odeen, nonplused.

Dua's voice grew harsher. "Machines, Odeen! Made by the Hard Ones! Destroyed by the Hard Ones! They They are alive, the Hard Ones. Only they. They don't talk about it much. They don't have to. They all know it. But I've learned to think, Odeen, and I've worked it out from the small clues I've had. They live tremendously long lives, but die eventually. They no longer give birth; the Sun yields too little energy for that. And since they die very infrequently, but don't give birth at all, their numbers are very slowly declining. And there are no young ones to provide new blood and new thoughts, so the old, long-lived Hard Ones get terribly bored. So what do you suppose they do, Odeen?" are alive, the Hard Ones. Only they. They don't talk about it much. They don't have to. They all know it. But I've learned to think, Odeen, and I've worked it out from the small clues I've had. They live tremendously long lives, but die eventually. They no longer give birth; the Sun yields too little energy for that. And since they die very infrequently, but don't give birth at all, their numbers are very slowly declining. And there are no young ones to provide new blood and new thoughts, so the old, long-lived Hard Ones get terribly bored. So what do you suppose they do, Odeen?"

"What?" There was a kind of fascination about this. A repulsive fascination.

"They manufacture mechanical children, whom they can teach. You said it yourself, Odeen. You would rather teach than do anything else but learn-and melt, of course. The Rationals are made in the mental image of the Hard Ones, and the Hard Ones don't melt, and learning is terribly complex for them since they already know so much. What is left for them but the fun of teaching. Rationals were created for no purpose but to be taught. Emotionals and Parentals were created because they were necessary for the self-perpetuating machinery that made new Rationals. And new Rationals were needed constantly because the old ones were used up, were taught all they could be taught. And when old Rationals had absorbed what they could, they were destroyed and were taught, in advance, to call the destruction process "pa.s.sing on" to spare their feelings. And of course, Emotionals and Parentals pa.s.sed on with them. As long as they had helped form a new triad there was no further use for them."

"But that's all wrong, Dua," Odeen managed to say. He had no arguments to pose against her nightmare scheme, but he knew with a certainty past argument that she was wrong. (Or did a little pang of doubt deep inside suggest that the certainty might have been implanted in him, to begin with?-No, surely no, for then would not Dua be certain with an implanted certainty, too, that this was wrong?-Or was she an imperfect Emotional without the proper implantations and without- Oh, what was he thinking. thinking. He was as crazy as she was.) He was as crazy as she was.) Dua said, "You look upset, Odeen. Are you sure I'm all wrong? Of course, now they have the Positron Pump and they now have all the energy they need, or will have. Soon they will be giving birth again. Maybe they are doing so already. And they won't need any Soft-One machines at all, and we will all be destroyed; I beg pardon, we will all pa.s.s on."

"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're 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." 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 pa.s.s 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 sure that this must be so out of my own thoughts. I've been thinking a great deal about it since you left" 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 pa.s.sing day. And with each pa.s.sing 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 comrades.h.i.+p, 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 must come home," said Losten, softly. 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."

"Oh, but she can can reach it." Losten hesitated, then said, "She remains infused in the rock of the world where she is safe from us." 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-n "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 s.h.i.+vered. 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."

"Nome? But what can I do?" But what can I do?"

"Think about it," said Losten, urgently." Think about it." about it."

"Think about what?" 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 pa.s.s on. I know why, now. I've been thinking about it ever since Losten- But never mind that. Dua and you must pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s on soon, soon, for Dua is destroying the world." 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 her pa.s.s on first." Odeen said, with deadening calm, "There's no other pa.s.s 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 for her, but that couldn't be. How could they be afraid for her; afraid that she would pa.s.s on out of sheer lack of food, out of sheer exhaustion. It must be that they, were afraid her, but that couldn't be. How could they be afraid for her; afraid that she would pa.s.s on out of sheer lack of food, out of sheer exhaustion. It must be that they, were afraid of 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 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.

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.