Maddox grinned. "Also because you've got the key to Earth One. And," he said grimly, "it might be that he has been ignorant until just now when you've shown him how to fight this war." Kingston whitened in fear. He shook his fist at the flaming horror on the viewer plate and said, "I wish Bronson were in that!" * * * * * Virginia Carlson reeled back from the viewer with a cry. Bronson left his work and came to stand beside her. "What?" he asked. Slowly Virginia shook her head. "Kingston has just transmitted a bit of the atomic flame to New York," she said. Bronson made the natural error. To him, New York was New York and he considered no other city. What stopped him was the belief that Kingston could not transmit anything across the barrier without the presence of a focal mass. "How?" he asked Virginia. "With the space resonator," she said. "But there is no focal mass." "In New York?" replied Virginia in surprise. "There must be several thousand." "But--oh! It was the New York of Earth Two." "Yes." Bronson looked out of the window and shook his head. "I find it difficult to believe that this terrain is not my own world," he said. "And yet it is, in a sense." Then he turned from the window to face Virginia. "Ginger-girl," he said slowly, "I know what is wrong with Earth Three!" Virginia swung the steering control swiftly until a distant view of New York was visible. "That is what is wrong with Earth Three," she said bitterly. "Avaricious, hateful and cruel." Bronson shook his head. "You're not fair," he said. "He's done nothing that you or I would not do to protect our own worlds. And," smiled Bronson, "remember that Earth Two is already doomed." Virginia whirled on him. "Because a man is slated to die as all men are, is that an excuse to commit murder?" "No," he said. "But life is still a matter of the survival of the fittest. I deplore Kingston's act but remember that Kingston knows that it is either kill or be killed." "Then there is nothing wrong with Earth Three," snapped Virginia with deep bitterness. "Oh but there is. Virginia, on your world, where every scientific endeavour is directed along the one line of safety in the face of that pillar of fire at Alamogordo, does your government know the location of all equipment?" "Of course," she said. "Save for a very minute percentage of stuff that has been lost, strayed or stolen." He turned to the screen. "Did anybody ever think of that?" he asked, pointing to the fire that was consuming Manhattan. "Yes--but where would we put it?" she asked. "On the moon," he said simply. "But there is no focal mass of space resonant elements on the moon," she objected. "There could have been," he said, "if Earth Two had proceeded to develop the rocket! But no, since no planet is habitable."