In the big laboratory on Earth Two Virginia coldly and viciously clubbed Kingston's hired hand over the back of the head with a heavy end-wrench as the fellow was still staggering forward from the effort against Bronson. Bronson blinked and recovered from his stagger. He lashed out at the nearest, just as Virginia grabbed another to give him the same treatment. One of the two remaining jerked a gun from his pocket and fired wildly. Bronson ducked under the gun hand and shouldered the thug cruelly in the pit of the stomach. The gun dropped to the floor and there was a three-way dive for it. Bronson cracked his head against the nearer man's jaw, drove a fist into the other's face, and grabbed the wrist of the first one again. A gun appeared in the second man's hand. Bronson jerked the wrist and the man staggered forward in front of Bronson just as the other thug fired. Ed felt the man's body twitch and he coldly lifted a foot, set it in the small of the stricken man's back and hurled him forward against the gun wielder. Behind him went Bronson but the gun wielder disappeared. Virginia's quick end-wrench came down hard and then she had three of them lined up on the floor, taped helplessly with adhesive tape. She scribbled a quick note and sent it through--and an instant later Bronson had the mass of crystals separated into their four parts. He breathed deeply as he read the note. It did present a problem. He had one corpse on his hands and three other undesirables collected in the laboratory on Earth Two. Also, here he was safe on Earth One again with the crystals separated. He held the key to security! But there was Earth Three, still whole and alive. How simple it would have been to ignore Three--Bronson admitted that Virginia might have had to suffer the fortunes of war if the fate of an entire world rested upon the decision. But Bronson knew that, unless two of the three worlds were exterminated, all would die in a cosmic explosion when they began to reappear on the same time-plane. Furthermore, he knew that Kingston was quite prepared to maintain a viewer on each of Ed Bronson's sections of crystal until they were reassembled again. For the very key that opened the portal was as deadly as the Alamogordo Flame.... A hard knock came at the door. Ed turned, puzzled, and went through his house to open it. Captain Norris of the police strode into the room with a sour expression. "What are you running here?" he demanded. "Where are the four birds that came in here a few minutes ago. Where have you been?" Norris strode through the house until he came to the laboratory. He looked down at the body of Kingston's henchman and his eyebrows beetled. "This smacks of murder," he said flatly. "It--" "Self-defense," said Norris sourly. "Tell it to the judge." He looked around. "Where are the other three?"