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