"A built-in safety feature," I muttered. "It figures, now that I think of it. If Location is absolute, it is One. That means that it's either all-safe, or all-dangerous. It can't have a bit of one thing and a bit another. Which means that I'm still carrying the ball." "Correction," said Baxter, behind me, "you have fumbled." I looked back at him. He had the collapser in his hand yet, despite our space-warping materialization in the cavern. And the muzzle was pointed right at Snow's breast, at the Amnesty. "Jery!" she cried, hanging onto my arm. "Baxter!" I yelled, stepping in front of her and flattening myself against the bars. "Give us a chance! If that damned thing triggers the parabolite, you'll go with us!" "How little you know, Delvin," Baxter smiled. "There are any number of features of this other dimension which even your fantastic intellect has not guessed. Did it never occur to you to wonder just where I'd learned the construction of a teleportation machine?" "I--I'd assumed you learned it somehow from the Ancients," I said. "Before they realized you intended their destruction." "I take my hat off to you," said Baxter, with a slight nod of grudging admiration. "I didn't realize you'd thought things out quite that far." "Hell, it was the only way you could have learned," I said. "But what's it got to do with--" "With the fission-bomb?" Baxter said, smiling. "Why, only everything. You see, Delvin, teleported matter, in order to bypass distance, must travel in the place where there is no distance: the fourth dimension. And so, the brunt of the blast will be absorbed by the Ancients, not by me." I heard the Martian gasp. Apparently, they weren't aware of this fact. It was more than just displacement they faced, it was death. "Your agents," I temporized, "they'd then be using a system that transported them via radioactive chaos!" Baxter shook his head. "Since the transfer is an instantaneous one, I rather doubt that they'd absorb any roentgens to speak of." That seemed to be that. He was set to fire, and I was all out of arguments. And my stance between Snow and that ray-pistol was only a fleeting protection. She'd go about one second after I did. Then, behind me in the cage, I heard a movement, and Snow gave a little cry. I jerked my head about. Ted, with more sense than his sister, had simply taken the Amnesty from about her throat and flung it away. All of us followed its flight with dazzled eyes. Baxter swung up the barrel of the collapser and fired. And in the same instant, the spinning disc halted, and then dodged out of the trajectory of the bolt. The Martian was protecting himself in the only way he could: Changing the parabolite-bomb's location.