Bridge Crossing by Dave Dryfoos (best free ebook reader for android TXT) 📗

Ida screamed. She burst into tears and covered her face with scratched and bloodied hands.

Surprised, Roddie withheld the blow. He had wept, as a child, and, weeping, had for the first time learned he differed from his friends. Ida's tears disturbed him, bringing unhappy memories.

"Why should you cry?" he asked comfortingly. "You know your people will come back to avenge you and will destroy my friends."

"But—but my people are your people, too," Ida wailed. "It's so senseless, now, after all our struggle to escape. Don't you see? Your friends are only machines, built by our ancestors. We are Men—and the city is ours, not theirs!"

"It can't be," Roddie objected. "The city surely belongs to those who are superior, and my friends are superior to your people, even to me. Each of us has a purpose, though, while you Invaders seem to be aimless. Each of us helps preserve the city; you only try to rob and end it by destroying it. My people must be the true Men, because they're so much more rational than yours.... And it isn't rational to let you escape."

Ida had turned up her tear-streaked face to stare at him.

"Rational! What's rational about murdering a defenseless girl in cold blood? Don't you realize we're the same sort of being, we two? Don't—don't you remember how we've been with each other all day?"

She paused. Roddie noticed that her eyes were dark and frightened, yet somehow soft, over scarlet cheeks. He had to look away. But he said nothing.

"Never mind!" Ida said viciously. "You can't make me beg. Go ahead and kill—see if it proves you're superior. My people will take over the city regardless of you and me, and regardless of your jumping-jack friends, too! Men can accomplish anything!"

Scornfully she turned and looked toward the western twilight. It was Roddie's turn to stand and stare.

"Purpose!" Ida flung at him over her shoulder. "Logic! Women hear so much of that from men! You're a man, all right! Men always call it logic when they want to destroy! Loyalty to your own sort, kindness, affection—all emotional, aren't they? Not a bit logical. Emotion is for creating, and it's so much more logical to destroy, isn't it?"

She whirled back toward him, advancing as if she wanted to sink her teeth into his throat. "Go ahead. Get it over with—if you have the courage."

It was hard for Roddie to look away from that wrath-crimsoned face, but it was even harder to keep staring into the blaze of her eyes. He compromised by gazing out an opening at the gathering dusk. He thought for a long time before he decided to tuck his hammer away.

"It isn't reasonable to kill you now," he said. "Too dark. You can't possibly get down that half-ruined manway tonight, so let's see how I feel in the morning."

Ida began to weep again, and Roddie found it necessary to comfort her.

And by morning he knew he was a Man.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bridge Crossing, by Dave Dryfoos