It bothered Tritt. In point after point, she was different from other Emotionals. She shouldn't be.
Odeen felt differently. He would say on many occasions, "Why don't you leave her alone, Tritt? She's not like the others and that means she's better than the others. Melting wouldn't be as good if she were like the others. Do you want the benefits without paying the price?"
Tritt did not understand that clearly. He knew only that she ought to do what ought to be done. He said, "I want her to do what is right."
"I know, Tritt, I know. But leave her alone, anyway."
Odeen often scolded Dua himself for her queer ways but was always unwilling to let Tritt do so. "You lack tact, Tritt," he would say. Tritt didn't know what tact was exactly.
And now - It had been so long since the first melting and still the baby-Emotional was not born. How much longer? It was already much too long. And Dua, if anything, stayed by herself more and more as time went on.
Tritt said. "She doesn't eat enough."
"When it's time - " began Odeen.
"You always talk about it's being time or it's not being time. You never found it time to get Dua in the first place. Now you never find it time to have a baby-Emotional. Dua should - "
But Odeen turned away. He said, "She's out there, Tritt. If you want to go out and get her, as though you were her Parental instead of her right-ling, do so. But I say, leave her alone."
Tritt backed away. He had a great deal to say, but he didn't know how to say it.
2a
Dua was aware of the left-right agitation concerning her in a dim and faraway manner and her rebelliousness grew.
If one or the other, or both, came to get her, it would end in a melting and she raged against the thought. It was all Tritt knew, except for the children; all Tritt wanted, except for the third and last child; and it was all involved with the children and the still missing child. And when Tritt wanted a melting, he got it.
Tritt dominated the triad when he grew stubborn. He would hold on to some simple idea and never let go and in the end Odeen and Dua would have to give in. Yet now she wouldn't give in; she wouldn't -
She didn't feel disloyal at the thought, either. She never expected to feel for either Odeen or Tritt the sheer intensity of longing they felt for each other. She could melt alone; they could melt only through her mediation (so why didn't that make her the more regarded). She felt intense pleasure at the three-way melting; of course she did, it would be stupid to deny it; but it was a pleasure akin to that which she felt when she passed through a rock wall, as she sometimes secretly did. To Tritt and Odeen, the pleasure was like nothing else they had ever experienced or could ever experience.
No, wait. Odeen had the pleasure of learning, of what he called intellectual development. Dua felt some of that at times, enough to know what it might mean; and though it was different from melting, it might serve as a substitute, at least to the point where Odeen could do without melting sometimes.
But not so, Tritt. For him there was only melting and the children. Only. And when his small mind bent entirely upon that, Odeen would give in, and then Dua would have to.
Once she had rebelled. "But what happens when we melt? It's hours, days sometimes, before we come out of it. What happens all that time?"
Tritt had looked outraged at that. "It's always that way. It's got to be."
"I don't like anything that's got to be. I want to know why."
Odeen had looked embarrassed. He spent half his life being embarrassed. He said, "Now, Dua, it does have to be. On account of - children," He seemed to pulse, as he said the word.
"Well, don't pulse," said Dua, sharply. "We're grown now and we've melted I don't know how many times and we all know it's so we can have children. You might as well say so. Why does it take so long, that's all?"
"Because it's a complicated process," said Odeen, still pulsing. "Because it takes energy. Dua, it takes a long time to get a child started and even when we take a long time, it doesn't always get started. And it's