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Page 174
She suffered a trauma when her Parental's triad passed on; she does not want to help to create a baby Emotional because then she too might have to pass on. Odeen, who is happy with Dua and even fonder of Tritt, is unhappy only because Tritt is unhappy. Tritt is unhappy because he does not have a little Emotional to complete his group of children. He keeps after Dua to eat and after Odeen to make her eat.
All of this is gradually complicated by what Odeen and later Dua learn about their world. Thousands of cycles ago, for instance, there were many thousands of Hard Ones and millions of Soft Ones. Now there are only three hundred Hard Ones and fewer than ten thousand Soft Ones. Energy is diminishing; their sun is cooling. All the stars in their Universe are coming to an end. The fusion reaction in the para-Universe works so easily that all the particles are combined after a million lifetimes.
So the Hard Ones, led by an unseen and mysterious Hard One named Estwald, have initiated the plutonium-tungsten exchange with Earth's Universe in order to provide an artificial source of energy to keep their world going. At first, the energy is harsh and bitter to the taste, but Estwald has been working to improve it.
Part II comes to a climax when Tritt, pushed beyond endurance by Dua's unwillingness or inability to cooperate in producing a baby Emotional, goes to the caverns of the Hard Ones to get Estwald's help. When he does not find Estwald, he does something, the results of which are not apparent until later. Dua, meanwhile, in drifting away from Tritt, goes to the caverns of the Hard Ones and senses Tritt's presence. She melts completely into the cavern wall, which she has never done before, and in this state finds herself much more able to understand the Hard Ones and what they are doing. She returns in excitement to Odeen and asks him questions while, hungry for once, she eats at the private feeding station that Odeen has installed for her (Dua is hungry because her melting into the rock consumed energy).
While Dua is eating, Odeen discusses with her the differences between the Universe from which they are getting energy and their own. Dua has the feeling that something bad happens in the process. Odeen says that their sun cools down a little faster, but that they do not need the sun anymore. That was not what was bothering Dua. But the discussion ends there. Dua's feeding has made her larger and compacter, and she makes an unusual erotic advance that results in a new and more satisfying melting than ever.
Later, Dua asks Odeen whether their Universe's laws don't get into the other Universe. Odeen says they do, and their suns speed up and

 
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