looked so weary. There were definite wrinkles in his ovoid. And he made no effort to smooth them out.
Tritt said anxiously, "Is anything wrong, Odeen?"
"A hard day and I'm not sure I'm going to get differential equations before the next melting." (Tritt didn't remember the exact hard words. It was something like that Odeen always used hard words.) - "Do you want to melt now?"
"Oh, no. I just saw Dua heading topside and you know how she is if we try to interrupt that. There's no rush, really. There's a new Hard One, too."
"A new Hard One?" said Tritt, with distinct lack of interest. Odeen found sharp interest in associating with Hard Ones, but Tritt wished the interest didn't exist Odeen was more intent on what he called his education than any other Rational in the area. That was unfair. Odeen was too wrapped up in that. Dua was too wrapped up in roaming the surface alone. No one was properly interested in the triad but Tritt.
"He's called Estwald," said Odeen.
"Estwald?" Tritt did feel a twinge of interest. Perhaps it was because he was anxiously sensing Odeen's feelings.
"I've never seen him, but they ail talk about him." Odeen's eyes had flattened out as they usually did when he turned introspective. "He's responsible for that new thing they've got."
"What new thing?"
"The Positron Pu - You wouldn't understand, Tritt It's a new thing they have. It's going to revolutionize the whole world."
"What's revolutionize?"
"Make everything different."
Tritt was at once alarmed. "They mustn't make everything different."
"They'll make everything better. Different isn't always worse. Anyway, Estwald is responsible. He's very bright. I get the feeling."
"Then why don't you like him?"
"I didn't say I didn't like him."
"You feel as though you don't like him."
"Oh, nothing of the sort, Tritt. It's just that somehow - somehow - " Odeen laughed. "I'm jealous. Hard Ones are so intelligent that a Soft One is nothing in comparison, but I got used to that, because Losten was always telling me how bright I was - for a Soft One, I suppose. But now this Estwald comes along, and even Losten seems lost in admiration, and I'm really nothing."
Tritt bellied out his foreplane to have it just make contact with Odeen, who looked up and smiled. "But that's just stupidity on my part. Who cares how smart a Hard One is? Not one of them has a Tritt."
After that they both went looking for Dua after all. For a wonder, she had finished wandering about and was just heading down again. It was a very good melting though the time lapse was only a day or so. Tritt worried about meltings then. With Annis so small, even a short absence was risky, though there were always other Parentals who could take over.
After that, Odeen mentioned Estwald now and then. He always called him "the New One" even after considerable time had passed. He still had never seen him. "1 think I avoid him," he said one time, when Dua was with them, "because he knows so much about the new device. I don't want to find out too soon. It's too much fun to learn."
"The Positron Pump?" Dua had asked,
- That was another funny thing about Dua. Tritt thought. It annoyed him. She could say the hard words almost as well as Odeen could. An Emotional shouldn't be like that.
So Tritt made up his mind to ask Estwald because Odeen had said he was smart. Besides, Odeen had never seen him. Estwald couldn't say, "I've talked to Odeen about it, Tritt, and you mustn't worry."
Everyone thought that if you talked to the Rational, you were talking to the triad. Nobody paid attention to the Parentals. But they would have to this time.
He was in the Hard-caverns and everything seemed different. There was nothing there that looked like anything Tritt could understand. It was all wrong and frightening. Still, he was too anxious to see Estwald to let himself really be frightened. He said to himself, "I want my little-mid." That made him feel firm enough to walk forward.
He saw a Hard One finally. There was just this one; doing something; bending over something; doing something. Odeen once told him that Hard Ones were always working at their - whatever it was. Tritt didn't remember and didn't care.
He moved smoothly up and stopped. "Hard-sir," he said.
The Hard One looked up at him and the air vibrated about him, the Odeen said it did when two Hard Ones talked to