She knew that Bronson was quite capable of isolating both of them after collecting the only mass of space-resonant elements on Earth One. He would do that as a last resort to save the rest of his world, regardless of whether he received any acclaim or not. And death would be his reward. For once Earth One was safe, Two and Three would perish and both of them with it. Yet Virginia found admiration in her heart for this man. Bronson, against great odds, had succeeded in coming this far. He may have made an error in his belief that there was something fundamentally wrong with Earth Three but, none the less, he was possessed of a certain drive and purpose that made her admire him. "All right, Ed," she told him. "I know more about those amplifiers than I could possibly know had I been truly of Earth One." He turned and faced her slowly. "I am Virginia--Carlson," she said. "Carlson?" "Carlson. I am the woman you contacted with your hybrid space resonator." Then came the rest of the story from beginning to end. "Curse me if you feel like it, Ed Bronson, but what normal human being would care to spend the rest of her life on a dying world--or to open the door of a fine world to the hapless, horrible mutants who have no future beyond their own life-endings?" Bronson nodded. "I am no judge," he said solemnly. "Offhand it seems wrong to abandon one's friends for one's own safety. But if one cannot really save one's friends from their horrible fate it seems foolish to remain and die through mere loyalty. It's like that old saw about a live coward being better than a dead hero." "Then you don't condemn me for seeking safety?" "Who am I to judge?" he said. "But supposing Earth Three should be successful?" "That would prove that Earth Three was best fit to survive. Not for one moment, however, do I believe that some higher agency performed this separation-trick to establish the most successful way of running a world. "Nature--by which I mean natural phenomena--offers survival's choice to many forms of life and living in many ways, and this split in the time stream is but one of them. I swear that we shall know why it happened some day. "But, Virginia, I am not to arbitrate your life. I am inclined to think that I might have done the same thing. In fact," he said humorously, "I can find nothing really to be angry about. Even your little job of shipping me to Earth Three resulted in our stealing this laboratory." "But I sent you to Earth Two." * * * * * He shook his head. "I arrived from my bedroom on Earth Three--the same room but a nursery in Three's time trail." "I saw the same room from half-transfer," she said, "and there was that pillar of atomic fire in the sky." Bronson blinked. "So," he said with an explosive exhale of breath. "So the fission-train in the earth will work on Earth Three as well as Two." "What do you mean?" asked the girl.