getting worse. . . . Not just with us," he added hastily.
"Worse?" said Tritt anxiously, but Odeen would say no more.
Chapter 12
They had a child eventually, a baby-Rational, a left-let, that flitted and thinned so that all three were in raptures and even Odeen would hold it and let it change shape in his hands for as long as Tritt would allow him to. For it was Tritt, of course, who had actually incubated it through the long pre-forming; Tritt who had separated from it when it assumed independent existence; and Tritt who cared for it at all times.
After that, Tritt was often not with them and Dua was oddly pleased. Tritt's obsession annoyed her, but Odeen's - oddly - pleased her. She became increasingly aware of his - importance. There was something to being a Rational that made it possible to answer questions, and somehow Dua had questions for him constantly. He was readier to answer when Tritt was not present.
"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