"Sorry, I must sound vague. You see, Leader, I've been thinking about this for some time and therefore I am inclined to think over the well-worn thought-trails swiftly and in considerable elision. However, according to this equation, the fact is this. The spatial continuum is strained by the unnatural presence of three congruent pathways through the present time. "As we know, only the most probable of these will continue to exist. That--unfortunately--is Earth One. The Alamogordo experiment on Earth One was the most probable, of course. Obviously Earth Two is destined to die soon, leaving but Earths One and Three. "But," continued Maddox thoughtfully, "we have posed the problem and the machine here reasons that we are correct." "Then we need not undergo all the strife in order to survive!" "Obviously not. Once the pathways through time are no longer strained by multiple existences the strain will cease. In other words, once we--Earth Three--are the only true survivor the strain will cease and there will be no fear of our demise." "Then all we need do is to eliminate One and Two--and then," Kingston grinned, "Earth Three becomes the only one?" "Three becomes One," nodded Maddox. "Now--" "Now we figure out a means of destroying Earth One utterly." "Simple," said Maddox. "All we need do is to rotate a bit of the core of the Alamogordo Blow-up from Earth Two to Earth One." "Might be less simple than we think," said Kingston. "Remember that the fission train in the earth itself is indigenous to Earth Two. Since it did not happen on Earth One is there any reason to suppose that the earth of Earth One will support an atomic fire?" * * * * * Maddox shook his head. "When the bomb was tried--I nearly said 'went off' but it didn't here--the temporal strain broke into three paths," said Maddox. "The three important possibilities took place--obviously because there was a huge question as to which of the three possibilities would emerge as the successful outcome of the affair." "I'm no believer in the Great Destiny," said Kingston. "Nor am I," said Maddox. "Yet it is true that the most fit do survive. Obviously, Earth Two and its atomic fire is far from the most fit. Earth One has dropped into a lulled luxury-loving place where the serious facets of life are ignored. They are unprepared to enter any form of strife to survive. We--Earth Three--have developed ourselves and our science greatly and in any strife we are best fitted to survive!" "All right, it sounds logical," snapped Kingston. "But how do we prove it without arousing suspicion?" "We can rotate a bit of the core of the Earth Two atomic fire to this earth," said Maddox. "Once we establish the atomically-inflammable qualities of Earth Three, we can safely assume that Earth One will be the same. Remember," said Maddox with a grin, "on Earth Three the Alamogordo Bomb was a dud--it didn't even fire!"