The main problem was to effect an exit and take a look around--cooped up here he could do nothing at all. His mind, having been geared to fast action for days, was now craving more action. It was like a drug. And a portion of his mind told him that if all this could happen in a short time, there was reason to believe that more concentrated action might solve the puzzle. So Bronson arose and inspected the door. The place had not been designed as a prison. The door was a normal door and the lock was a flimsy affair intended to serve merely as a warning to the uninvited that the room was forbidden. It would give no trouble at all to someone determined to enter--or to get out. Bronson smiled in the dim moonlight. Undoubtedly, Kingston felt that, with no place to go, Bronson's freedom was unimportant. He went to the closet and found a couple of wire coat-hangers. One of these he twisted into a small hook to probe the lock. It was a simple single-tumbler bolt lock and Bronson lifted the tumbler easily and slid the bolt back. The door opened on oiled hinges and he was in the clear. His first move was to the street door. That was heavily locked and barred and, engineer that Ed Bronson was, picking a lock of that calibre was beyond his ability. He checked the windows but every window was equipped with a slender, ornamental grille-work that was as effective a barrier as the plain bars of the average jail. Bronson shrugged. Whatever the score, whatever the outcome, he had to make some move. Not the kind of idiotic physical strife against Kingston and his minions which would get him only a broken head with nothing gained, but some move based upon the thing that Bronson knew best. He knew little of the space-resonant communicator but there was a bare chance of his finding out. Virginia--what had happened to her in the melee? Had she escaped and, if so, could he communicate with her from Kingston's gear upstairs. Or was Virginia also a prisoner in this scientific mausoleum? Questions all--and no answers. Bronson felt complete futility once more. He raced upstairs. If the space resonator would cross the temporal rift to Earth One, it would also cross to Earth Two. Perhaps, he reasoned, with greater difficulty because Earth One was the focal point and the more stable. And, if what little he knew about Earth Two were correct, Earth Two might well never learn of Earth Three despite the presence on all hands of the focal elements. Delving into the lesser facets of a science was not permitted on Earth Two. Some high brass on Earth Two must have viewed the transmission possibilities of the space-resonant elements and decided that they were to be used for transportation and communication and nothing more. Some brass with fear, pardonably ignorant of the fact that just beyond his fingertips in the depths of an unknown science lay hidden the secret that would give them hope. So much for regulated science! * * * * *