The Gods Themselves (18 page)

No, they wouldn't stop, those other people; for they had been persuaded to start and they would be persuaded to keep going until they were destroyed—and then they would be needed no longer by the Rationals, Hard or Soft —just as she, Dua, would have to pass on (be
destroyed)
now that she was needed no longer.

She and the other people, both being betrayed. Almost without being aware of it, she was cushioning deeper and deeper into the rock. She buried herself, out of sight of the stars, out of touch with the wind, unaware of the world. She was pure thought.

It was Estwald whom she hated. He was the personification of all that was selfish and hard. He had devised the Positron Pump and would destroy a whole world of perhaps tens of thousands without conscience. He was so withdrawn that he never made his appearance and so powerful that even the other Hard Ones seemed afraid of him. Well, then, she would fight him. She would stop him. The people of the other Universe had helped set up the Positron Pump through communications of some sort. Odeen had mentioned those. Where would such communications be kept? What would they be like? How could they be used for further communication?

It was remarkable how clearly she could think. Remarkable. There was fierce enjoyment in this, that she would use reason to overcome the cruel reasoners.

They wouldn't be able to stop her, for she could go where no Hard One could go, where no Rational or Parental could—and where no other Emotional would.

She might be caught eventually, but at the moment she didn't care. She was going to fight to have her way—at any price—at any price—though to do it meant she would have to go through rock, live in rock, skirt the Hard-caverns, steal food from their stored energy batteries when she had to, flock with the other Emotionals and feed on Sunlight when she could.

But in the end she would teach them all a lesson and after that they could do as they wished. She would even be ready to pass on then—but only then—

5b

Odeen was present when the new baby-Emotional was born, perfect in every way, but he had not been able to feel enthusiasm over it. Even Tritt, who cared for it perfectly, as a Parental must, seemed subdued in his ecstasies.

A long time had passed and it was as though Dua had vanished. She had not passed on. A Soft One could not pass on except when the whole triad did; but she was not with them, either. It was as though she had passed on, without passing on.

Odeen had seen her once, only once, not very long after her wild fight on the news that she had initiated the new baby.

He had passed a cluster of Emotionals, sunning themselves, when he was moving over the surface on some foolish notion that he might find her. They had tittered at the rare sight of a Rational moving in the vicinity of an Emotional cluster and had thinned in mass-provocation, with no thought among the foolish lot of them but to advertise the fact that they were Emotionals.

Odeen felt only contempt for them and there was no answering stir along his own smooth curves at all. He thought of Dua instead and of how different she was from all of them. Dua never thinned for any reason other than her own inner needs. She had never tried to attract anyone and was the more attractive for that. If she could have brought herself to join the flock of empty-heads she would be easily recognized (he felt sure) by the fact that she alone would
not
thin, but would probably thicken, precisely because the others thinned.

And as he thought that, Odeen scanned the sunning Emotionals and noted that one indeed had not.

He stopped and then hastened toward her, oblivious to the Emotionals in his way, oblivious to their wild screeching as they flicked smokily out of his path and chattered desperately in their attempts to avoid coalescing one with the other—at least not in the open, and with a Rational watching.

It
was
Dua. She did not try to leave. She kept her ground and said nothing.

"Dua," he said, humbly, "aren't you coming home?"

"I have no home, Odeen," she said. Not angrily, not in hate—and all the more dreadfully for that reason.

^"How can you blame Tritt for what he did, Dua? You know the poor fellow can't reason."

"But you can, Odeen. And you occupied my mind while he arranged to feed my body, didn't you? Your reason told you that I was much more likely to be trapped by you than by him."

"Dua,
no!"

"No, what? Didn't you make a big show of teaching me, of educating me?"

"I did, but it wasn't a show, it was real. And it was not because of what Tritt had done. I didn’t
know
what Tritt had done."

"I can't believe that" She flowed away without haste. He followed after. They were alone now, the Sun shining redly down upon them.

She turned to him. "Let me ask you one question, Odeen? Why did you want to teach me?"

Odeen said, "Because I
-wanted
to. Because I
enjoy
teaching and because I would rather teach than do anything else—but learn."

"And melt, of course. . . . Never mind," she added to ward him off. "Don't explain that you are talking of reason and not of instinct If you really mean what you say about enjoying teaching; if I can really ever believe what you say; then perhaps you can understand something I'm going to tell you.

"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
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
’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."

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."