He did smile when he saw the name of the store on the window--not
that he could read it for, to Ed Bronson, lettering in Russian might
as well be read from either inside or outside or upside-down or
backwards--because he had a hunch that uniformed guards trying to
explain their undesirable presence in a Russian store would be at a
loss to explain how they had got there.
* * * * *
His hand found the key marked TRANSMISSION and he saw all three guards
land on the hard cold floor, awake, and start to ask themselves what
had happened.
He left them to their wonder, though he admitted that at any less
strenuous time it would be most interesting to watch their complete
discomfort and amazement. He brought back the scene of view and
continued to pass the plane back and forth through the building. On
the floor below the guards--in the apartment next to his own place of
imprisonment--the field of view passed over a bed. A tousle of hair and
an outstretched arm caused Bronson to blink.
"Virginia!" he breathed.
They had captured her, too. Well. That meant some saving in time.
Virginia would help him. Since the mass of crystals in his own lab
had been reduced to non-operative masses and well separated, the only
other possible mass was that in Virginia's place. What they would do,
of course, was to get back on Earth One and subdivide her crystals into
ineffectual masses and then instigate a search for the parts of his
own. Once he locked the invaders out they could so remain forever.
Bronson nodded happily. He continued to sweep the plane of view through
the building until he came upon Maddox and Kingston. With a grin, he
delivered both of them to the same store in Siberia and then returned
to the contemplation of his problem.
It seemed a shame to abandon all this gear. And if he took Virginia
back with him, through this machine, someone would know instantly where
they had gone. There was no known way of fouling up the controls after
no one was left in the laboratory to do it.
And despite his amusement at the idea of several irate people trying
to explain to an irate officialdom why, how and wherefor, Bronson knew
very well that Kingston and Maddox would be able to talk their way home
in all too short a time.
Certainly far too short a time to transport the equipment he wanted.
Virginia? Bronson shrugged. He kept forgetting that she knew actually
less about this sort of thing than he did. She had said that her gear
was far less efficient than his.
Bronson sent the plane of view skimming forward across the earth again,
and then thoughtfully set it for Earth Two. Far away from New Mexico,
in the lake region of Northern Michigan, Ed Bronson found a small
cottage--untenanted but with a supercritical mass of the space-resonant
elements available.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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