“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 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 “passing on” to spare their feelings. And of course, Emotionals and Parentals passed 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. 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 pass 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 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.”