Maddox shrugged. A pajama-clad man has little dignity and very little authority. To be trapped in a foreign country--one whose politics differ from your own--under highly suspicious circumstances might well result in a long period of enforced inactivity. Bronson had been in a hurry when he had performed the shipping operation. Had he taken time to think it over, Bronson would have sent them to some place where their arrival would have brought them instant apprehension. But Bronson had been in a hurry and his only desire was to ship them to some spot not fitted with instant means of escape. He would have preferred some place where no space-resonant element existed but that was impossible since the technique demanded a focal mass. "So," said Kingston, showing Maddox the silvery-metal band on his wrist, "as soon as the monitors take over and locate me, we'll--" * * * * * He disappeared in mid-sentence and Maddox followed a few seconds later. The guards vanished at regular intervals, leaving the Russian store vacant once again. Minutes later Kingston and Maddox emerged from a standard transmission building not far from the site of the laboratory. Maddox was puzzling openly. "Bronson has probably ripped the tuning circuit from my receiver," he said. "But what would that gain him?" "Only a few minutes more time," said Kingston. "Instead of our landing back home again, we must use a standard line and walk a few squares. I--look!" "Heaven!" breathed Maddox. The laboratory site was, naturally, vacant. "I didn't think it possible," said Maddox. "But where did he take it?" wondered Kingston. "Who knows?" said Maddox, spreading his hands. "We can find out but it will take time. My guess is Earth Two somewhere. He'd be a fool to stay here where he can be found easily." "It wouldn't be too easy if Bronson has hashed up the keyed tuning circuit," grunted Maddox angrily. "Confound it, that reduces the problem to one of searching two worlds for the right mass of elements." Kingston shook his head. "We're about ready," he said. "Give us another week or so and we can eliminate all opposition." His face hardened. "In fact, we can start to spread the atomic fire on Earth Two at any time." They turned back to the standard transmission building and returned to Washington. There was nothing they could do without the laboratory and there were other, well-equipped laboratories in Washington. Actually, so far as the operations in the space-resonant bands were concerned, location meant very little. It had been merely convenient to locate in Maddox's place. Once returned to Kingston's official building, the leader set his operatives to checking the supercritical masses in the vain hope of locating one of them that existed in the stolen laboratory.