But his luck held out. He reached the lungs, and a great burst of air flung him forth into the oxygen helmet again.
Loman's form still twitched on the floor. One enemy was erased from the immediate future at least. Loman—or the pseudo Ronald Payten—had been removed as an active force of history, but the fury he had helped stir up was by now self-sustaining. Ed gave him a brief, almost rancorless thought. A woman had lost her husband in the Moonblast. And he was her memory re-created. She had had reason to hate science. And he had been warped and marked by her view. He was a bitter product of his times—impossible in the centuries that came before. Ed knew that he himself—as he was now, certainly—was also the child of his era. His uncle must always have been that. Babs—wherever she was now—was also of these years. And his dad, and countless others. Maybe, therein you had to find a tiny spark of tolerance for Loman, though not much. And would anyone ever want to bring him back to life, even if the world went on existing?
[IX]
Ed's score stood at two points gained—Loman out of the way and the source of the monsters revealed. But these were small victories compared with what must be gained if there was to be any hope. Masses of human beings and androids faced each other, their emotions inflamed to the point of final folly. And the end of one troublemaker and the revelation of his tools were small items beside all that.
Ed got out of Loman's oxygen helmet the way he had entered. Les Payten, a dazed Atlas, was stumbling around. Ed felt cut off from his old friend by a strange, great distance. But he could talk to him at least.
Ed floated to the radio in a corner of the workshop, found his way through a vent in its back, and touched a wire with the minute contact points of a crude microphone as large as his hand. The infinitesimal electric currents it bore were amplified and converted into sound. Ed's voice came forth loud and clear: "Les! It's me—Ed Dukas. I'm here, just as Prell came to me once. I'm an android just a few thousandths of an inch tall. I'm inside the radio, Les. First, I want to know how you feel about all this. Yes, I killed Loman."
There were world tremors of footsteps approaching with slow caution. A panel of the set was opened. The giant stared inside. Ed was now sufficiently accustomed to the vibrations of human speech to interpret the mood behind them.
There was a brief, hard chuckle, controlled and distant and unfriendly.
"Yes, Dukas, I'm quite sure it's as you say. It's odd, maybe, but I'm not surprised at all. In our time, you have to accept too much. Thanks for finishing Loman—not my father. Dad died on the lunar blowup, as you know, a victim of technology or history, as we all will probably soon be. I've told you before how I feel about everything. And what has happened to me tonight can scarcely have made my view of the androids any kinder. Once upon a time, in my callow youth, I thought I belonged to this crazy period. How wrong can you get? You take your strength and durability. I wonder what finer flavors of life you've lost. So there's my standard, and I'll live and die by it, Dukas. It's sad to lose a pal, but as you are, I guess you'll have to be an enemy. It's like an instinct, Dukas."