|
|
|
|
|
|
Parental. The Odeen-Dua-Tritt Hard One is destined to be the best ever formed. They melt and form Estwald. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Once more Asimov is not content simply with the problems of the energy exchange, which Hallam has called ''the road that is downhill both ways." That part does have its central interest, to be sure, with its twists and turns and logical confirmations. In the para-Universe the Electron Pump is called, of course, the Positron Pump: it pumps positrons, not electrons. The facts of the para-Universe that have been the subject of ingenious speculation in Part I are strikingly confirmed in Part II: the small suns, the relatively short lifespan of the para-Universe (the questions raised about how the para-Universe was created and if it was created at the time our Universe was created, why it is still around; or if it was created later, by what mechanism, are avoided by Odeen's comment that time may pass differently in the two Universes), and most of all the alien life-patterns. Creatures of diffuse substance are made possible by the stronger nuclear force, and energy-eaters are more probable where energy is made more easily available by the fusion process. Odeen points out that in their Universe "matter doesn't fly apart" because "the tiny particles do manage to cling together across the space that separates them." Melting is not possible in the other Universe, Odeen says, because the particles spread the wave-forms more and need more room. With the transfer of natural law from the other Universe, melting would slowly become more difficult, but the Universe would long be over before this became noticeable. It is even credible that creatures who feed directly on energy might be more likely to recognize the existence of an alternate Universe and be able to transfer material to it. Moreover, the para-people have the motivation to initiate the exchange: their own imminent starvation and racial death. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
These details must have delighted Asimov the "click-click as unexpected pieces fall into place, as annoying anomalies become anomalous no more" especially the attributes of the Hard Ones. The Hard Ones are most rational and are mostly concerned with the mind and their inquiries into the Universe, not only because they are the result of a process guided by a Rational but because they are more dense. Rationals are more dense than Parentals, who are more dense than Emotionals; thus Emotionals rarely are capable of thought, Parentals are capable of thought only about family matters, and Rationals devote most of their time to abstract thinking. In the para-Universe, to be dense is to be intellectual. (This does not work out completely; Dua, intellectual though she is, has "retained a girlishly rarefied structure.") Thus when Dua merges with the cavern wall and becomes more dense, she can |
|
|
|
|
|