"When their energy levels approach one another it will be unnecessary
to employ a depth of penetration correction!" snapped Kingston. "For
they'll all be on the same level."
"And when they do--we'll all go skyward."
The communicator clicked and Kingston read the tape. Then with a nasty
chuckle, Kingston spun the dials and looked in upon Ed Bronson. "Darn
few live pieces of element left on Two," sneered Kingston. "Made
picking him out so much easier!"
"Yes," said Maddox dubiously, "but what in the devil is he doing?"
"He's--heavens!" screamed Kingston. His hand stabbed for the button
like a striking snake.
And down upon Ed Bronson's stolen laboratory there descended a torrent
of raw energy. In through the space resonator it came and it should
have boiled out in the terrible holocaust that produced sunlike pillars
of roaring atomic destruction.
Instead, the sheer energy came roaring in through the supercritical
mass of space-resonant elements in Ed Bronson's stolen laboratory and
entered the transmitter circuits, which were wide open to accept--nay,
draw--all available energy from whatever source was available.
Into the circuits went the torrent of energy. It drove the focal
volume out and out and out even beyond Ed Bronson's faintest hope. It
expanded the volume and then energized the transmission circuits.
And Earth Two--atomic holocaust and all--disappeared from the
time-plane it had occupied for so many years. There was a
shrinking--but no one was there to record this collapse of the special
plane--and at once, a joining, and though it seemed as though Earth
One had come into full visibility, this impression was due to the
time-fields joining with the original plane.
* * * * *
Virginia Carlson, alone and wondering on Earth One, alternately watched
her wrist watch and smoked furiously.
She watched the second hand creep to its appointed meeting with the top
of the dial, and she scooped the space-resonant elements into the palms
of her hands. This must be done quickly, so very swiftly lest Kingston
manage to get through with more than could be handled safely.
Zero!
Virginia clapped her hands together, creating an instantaneous
supercritical mass.
[Illustration: Virginia clapped her hands together and there was a
flash of flame.]
Intolerable heat burned her hands. There was a flash of flame that
blinded her and there was the rush and clatter of debris showering the
laboratory, shattering windows, and pelting her mercilessly. A heavy
something crashed against her skull and drove her to the floor.
Her eyes opened and the space-resonant crystals, crushed by the
impact, sifted through her inert fingers and mingled with the powdery
untouchably-hot debris that was inch-deep on the floor....
Leader Kingston's hand was stopped in mid-strike. He and his laboratory
flamed into instant incandescence as matter was rent to mix with the
raving splitting atoms of intolerable explosion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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