"Barbara!" he exclaimed.
Her laughter tinkled. "Think I wasn't come back, Eddie?" she teased. "That I couldn't share any interest in what happens to a big world?" Her blitheness almost angered him. Her expression sobered at once, and he saw that she looked worn. "I know," she said. "It's not funny. We might have burned up with the Earth—far apart. But I kept busy. I tried to call you yesterday from a station in the City. But I wasn't sure I touched the proper contacts. And last night I had to be a good saboteur. I got three weapon-feeding power houses—though I guess that the fine equipment could be shielded against us easily enough. Later, I was lost—high up in the wind. With you along, it could have been wonderful. Of course, I heard news broadcasts. About Loman's lab. And from Freeman's station, a report of how Les arrived with a strange device. This morning I heard your call, but there was no way to answer. Eddie, Freeman's experts could copy us in normal size quite easily and quickly, couldn't they? And in better vitaplasm. The methods have been improved. Our personal recordings, perhaps lost, wouldn't be needed. Should we try to have it done? Then there'd be two of each of us, in different sizes. Two...."
Ed chuckled. "Not a word about returning to the old flesh, eh?" he said. "So have we learned? Android freedom to go anywhere, to be almost anything. Yep, magic almost. I think you'd rather perch on thistledown or a sunset cloud, or be pushed by light pressure, like sleeping spores, to a thousand light-years away! Well, it could still happen. Part of us has been changed enough by things like that to belong there. But the older part seems much like it was and belongs to the size plane that we first knew about."
They hugged each other and laughed. And they were reassured by the comparative calm around them. But the forces were still there, only awaiting someone's ultimate madness. And what can a world's end be like, coming in a split instant, to one's dissolving senses? Certainly it must be a quick, almost trivial experience.
Ed became aware of a bluish flicker. Then there was something like an awful thud; he could scarcely tell whether a crash of sound took part in it or not. Around him everything was dazzling whiteness, without shadow or form. Then there was nothing.
[X]
Consciousness came back to him, bringing a cloudy surprise. Rough rocky walls were around him. This was an artificial cavern crowded with neo-biological equipment, most of which he could recognize. He lay firmly on a hard couch contrived of planks and a folded blanket, part of the latter covering him. A pair of dungarees and a mended shirt had been tossed casually across his bare torso.
Someone who looked like a young medico laughed near him.
"One week's time, Dukas—that's all we need now for a major transformation," he said. "You must have thought that we were all goners; it would have seemed like that to you. But it was just a freak attempt at sniping from the hills, with a Midas Touch focused to a thin beam. Whoever tried it must have been aiming at our chief's shelter. Only he wasn't there! Still down in miniature, you were caught in the backlash of the blast. But it only knocked you out and singed you a little. You kept holding onto some solid object. Your wife and the equipment were scarcely hurt at all. Then Prell showed up again. They talked with our chief the way you did before. They engineered the transformation. I thought you'd want to know all this quickly."