Walking beside this tall man Virginia considered the situation. In her bag was the means of replacing the people she saw in this street with a high percentage of misshapen bodies of her own world. To—eliminate this scene of physical health and mental good-will with the warped bodies and minds of her own world.
Virginia saw her own reflection in a shop window. She was shapely and well-dressed. She knew that without egotism—it was obvious fact. She was more like this world—fitted better into this scene than into the world on which she had been born.
An age-old urge rose in her. She had shied away from marriage because of fear and distaste. Too many of her friends she had seen in mental agony because of mutant offspring. Now she was presented with at least an opportunity of a life that would be normal. What had she on Earth Two but unpleasant memories for all of her life?
Perhaps it seems a sudden change. Yet a mind suddenly shown a way toward happiness will often swing as swift as a pendulum from one attitude to the opposite. Perhaps the only reason that Virginia had not followed many of Earth Two's people into the madness of fear was because she had been born to the insoluble threat of the Alamogordo Blow-up and had never been forced to change from freedom to fear.
Many another on Earth Two had seen the eternal flame and had gone mad, knowing its threat. Virginia, born after it started, had never known anything else. So now Virginia viewed a world built like her own, but one devoid of fear and populated heavily with healthy, happy people.
Why go back? Why change this? She could blend very well with this environment. Her woman's instinct told her that she could and by very little trying.
There was but one great fear. This man who walked beside her knew the facts of Earth Two. He also stood to learn about her. It presented her with a quandary. To make her future secure he must be placed in a position never to learn the truth. On the other hand she needed his aid to forestall the invasion from Earth Two if she were to enjoy the future of Earth One as she now saw it.
Virginia wondered whether she could work with Ed Bronson long enough to give him the particulars of the space-resonant techniques—and still keep him in the dark regarding her own part in it. Once the threat of invasion was gone there was no doubt in Virginia's mind that she could lose herself here on Earth One.
In fact, the proper thing to do was just that—tell him the truth and she would be forever suspect.