“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 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 pass 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 amusement 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 tittering 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 emptyheaded 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 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 pass 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 pass 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—”

“I know,” said Dua. “I’ve tasted it.”

“You have? I didn’t know that!”

“A bunch of the Emotionals talked about it. They said a Hard One was asking for volunteers to taste it and the sillies were all afraid. They said it would probably turn them permanently hard and they would never be able to melt again.”

“That’s foolish,” said Odeen, vehemently.

“I know. So I volunteered. That shut them up. They are so hard to endure, Odeen.”

“How was it?”

“Horrible,” said Dua, vehemently. “Harsh and bitter. Of course I didn’t tell the other Emotionals that.”

Odeen said, “I tasted it. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Rationals and Parentals don’t care what food tastes like.”

But Odeen said, “It’s still only experimental. They’re working hard on improvements, the Hard Ones are. Especially Estwald—that’s the one I mentioned before, the new one I haven’t seen—he’s working on it. Losten speaks of him now and then as though he’s something special; a very great scientist.”

“How is it you’ve never seen him?”

“I’m just a Soft One. You don’t suppose they show me and tell me everything, do you? Someday I’ll see him, I suppose. He’s developed a new energy-source which may save us all yet—”

“I don’t want artificial food,” said Dua, and she had left Odeen abruptly.

That had been not so long ago, and Odeen had not mentioned this Estwald again, but she knew he would, and she brooded about it up here in the Sunset.

She had seen that artificial food that once; a glowing sphere of light, like a tiny Sun, in a special cavern set up by the Hard Ones. She could taste its bitterness yet.

Would they improve it? Would they make it taste better? Even delicious? And would she have to eat it then and fill herself with it till the full sensation gave her an almost uncontrollable desire to melt?