Ed guided the craft toward the City, where Les would certainly spend several weeks in a lab tank before his injured flesh was back to normal. Les kept muttering in semi-delirium, "Damned robots. Freeman, too. And damned, ornery people. Got to pick between them, don't we? So maybe zero will cancel zero. Can't stay on the fence all the time. Sorry, when the going gets rough, I'm for the people. Peaceful common sense? There just isn't any."
Les's voice sounded like a dirge for two races.
Barbara said, "Maybe he's right. There isn't any sense left. Only a picking of sides for battle. Our efforts went to waste."
She sounded remote, almost unfriendly. Ed suddenly felt that he was losing her, too.
[IV]
That was a bad evening for Ed Dukas. He left Barbara at her house, which was now guarded. But he did not get home easily. For that was the evening trouble became general. John Jones of old-time flesh and blood, and George Smith of vitaplasm forgot all their politeness and let their smoldering thoughts come to the surface:
"So now you brew up monsters like yourselves, to attack us. I wouldn't be like you if it was the last way to be alive."
"Oh, no, brother? Those creatures must be yours. What makes you so good? Born with your own hide, eh? The elite. With jelly for insides, and a mean nature."
Talk swiftly led to flying fists. But who could hurt an android with a human fist? Before their hardened knuckles a human jaw could become mush. Still, there were heavier primitive weapons. Then, by progression, weapons that were not so primitive.