Peter Moray looked at John Cauldron. "Tell me," he snapped, "what kind of man could live to maturity and not know Alamogordo?" "I don't know. I can't imagine," replied John Cauldron. "But maybe--just maybe--it is the answer we've been seeking." * * * * * Ed Bronson shook his head though he knew that the girl could not see him. He had not heard Moray or Cauldron mention Alamogordo. He repeated his query. "And what happened?" Virginia Carlson told him, "Thirty years ago, at Alamogordo, the scientists first released the energy from the atom." "Oh," he replied. "I didn't know it was marked on the calendar as a holiday." "Holiday?" exploded Virginia. "Well?" "That atomic fire is still burning!" snapped Virginia. "Oh, no!" "Well, I'm within a hundred and thirty miles of it," she replied, "and I can see it out of the window." "Where the dickens are you?" he asked. "You know my address," she replied. "Yes," he agreed. "And I went there and got pushed in the face for my trouble." "And the people who live at your address are named Carrington, not Bronson." "How old are you?" asked Bronson. "Twenty-five--why?" "Look," he said, "if that atomic fire is running out there, then how did the World War Two end?" "They brought high officials over to see the awful pillar of fire. They didn't tell them that the atomic flame would eventually eat the earth--so surrender was a matter of expediency. Once the shooting was over all the earth turned at once to the job of putting it out. You know that." "Nope," he replied. "It worked--as did the others at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and two at Bikini Atoll." "Hiro--and what was at Bikini Atoll?" demanded the girl. "Tests--Operation Crossroads." "_Tests!_" exploded Virginia. "And none of them started atomic fires in the earth itself?" "Nope." "Then you tell me what happened?" "I don't know." "You're not psycho?" asked Virginia. "Not that I know of," he replied with a chuckle. "Though--as Pontius Pilate is credited with having said--'What is truth?'" "Hmmm. I cannot deny your right to state truth as you see it, Bronson, but be it remembered that practically every human born since the atomic fire is a mutation of some sort or another." "So what does that make me?" "You might be some sort of brain mutation--don't ask what kind--one who does not recognize the truth." "All I know is what I read in the papers, what I see in the moving pictures, and how I feel at the moment. Also, I am no mutation. I was exactly one year old when Alamogordo took place, even supposing that it did take off with radiations that might have mutated the germ plasm." "Well, it did." "According to you it did," replied Bronson. "May I repeat your own statement to yourself?" she told him. "All I know--et cetera." "Okay," he said. "And granting that our separate tales are true, then what?"