each other sometimes. Then the Hard One seemed really to see Tritt and said, "Why, it's a right. What is your business here? Do you have your little-left with you? Is today the start of a semester?"
Tritt ignored it all. He said, "Where can I find Estwald, sir?!"
"Find whom?"
"Estwald."
The Hard One was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "What is your business with Estwald, right?"
Tritt felt stubborn. "It is important I speak to him. Are you Estwald, Hard-sir?"
"No, I am not. . . . What is your name, right?"
"Tritt, Hard-sir."
"I see. You're the right of Odeen's triad, aren't you?"
"Yes."
The Hard One's voice seemed to soften. "I'm afraid you can't see Estwald at the moment. He's not here. If anyone else can help you?"
Tritt didn't know what to say. He simply stood there.
The Hard One said, "You go home now. Talk to Odeen. He'll help you. Yes? Go home, right."
The Hard One turned away. He seemed very concerned in matters other than Tritt, and Tritt still stood there, uncertain. Then he moved into another section quietly, flowing noiselessly. The Hard One did not look up.
Tritt was not certain at first why he had moved in that particular direction. At first, he felt only that it was good to do so. Then it was clear. There was a thin warmth of food about him and he was nibbling at it.
He had not been conscious of hunger, yet now he was eating and enjoying.
The Sun was nowhere. Instinctively, he looked up, but of course he was in a cavern. Yet the food was better than he had ever found it to be on the surface. He looked about, wondering. He wondered, most of all, that he should be wondering.
He had sometimes been impatient with Odeen because Odeen wondered about so many things that didn't matter. Now he himself - Tritt! - was wondering. But what he was wondering about did matter. Suddenly, he saw that it did matter. With an almost blinding flash he realized that he wouldn't wonder unless something inside him told it did matter.
He acted quickly, marveling at his own bravery. After a while, he retraced his steps. He moved past the Hard One again, the one to whom he had earlier spoken. He said, "I am going home, Hard-sir."
The Hard One merely said something incoherent. He was still doing something, bending over something, doing silly things and not seeing the important thing.
If Hard Ones were so great and powerful and smart, Tritt thought, how could they be so stupid?
3a
Dua found herself drifting toward the Hard-caverns. Partly it was because it was something to do now that the Sun had set, something to keep her from returning home for an additional period of time, something to delay having to listen to the importunities of Tritt and the half-embarrassed, half-resigned suggestions of Odeen. Partly, too, it was the attraction they held for her in themselves.
She had felt that for a long time, ever since she was little in fact, and had given up trying to pretend it wasn't so. Emotionals weren't supposed to feel such attractions. Sometimes little Emotionals did - Dua was old enough and experienced enough to know that - but this quickly faded or they were quickly discouraged if it didn't fade quickly enough.
When she herself had been a child, though, she had continued stubbornly curious about the world, and the Sun, and the caverns, and - anything at all - till her Parental would say, "You're a queer one, Dua, dear. You're a funny little midling. What will become of you?"
She hadn't the vaguest notion at first of what was so queer and so funny about wanting to know. She found, quickly enough, that her Parental could not answer her questions. She once tried her left-father, but he showed none of her Parental's soft puzzlement. He snapped, "Why do you ask, Dua?" and his look seemed harshly inquiring.
She ran away, frightened, and did not ask him again.
But then one day another Emotional of her own age had shrieked "Left-Em" at her after she had said - she no longer remembered - it had been something that had seemed natural to her at the time. Dua had been abashed without knowing why and had asked her considerably older left-brother, what a Left-Em was. He had withdrawn, embarrassed - clearly embarrassed - mumbling, "I don't know," when it was obvious he did.
After some thought, she went to her Parental and said, "Am I a Left-Em, Daddy?"