"Heck!" snapped Kingston. "He can't have gone very far. Of course she sent him to her chums. Find them!"
Maddox nodded and located Virginia's laboratory with ease. Moray and Cauldron were there, working on the gear, but obviously getting nowhere. Kingston shrugged. "Cover every place they might conceal Bronson," he directed.
To Virginia, he added, "It is most convenient that Earth Three lies on the other side of Earth One from Earth Two. Were this not so, the fumbling of your friends to penetrate the barrier between the streams of time might cause them to stumble on us."
"Why can't they get through to One?" asked the girl.
Kingston smiled. "Within the hour," he said, "four keys will unlock four safety deposit boxes in four different banks in Albuquerque. Each box contains one subcritical mass of space-resonant elements. My men are finishing the job you started, but this time the key to invasion lies in my hands!" He turned to Maddox, who was fumbling with the controls. "Find him yet?" he demanded.
"No," grumbled Maddox.
Kingston turned to Virginia. "You want to live," he told her in a very matter-of-fact voice, "and therefore it is to your interest to see that we do not permit Bronson to harm our plans. Where is he?"
"I don't know," said the girl. "I merely sent him through."
"You are a brazen little traitor," snapped Kingston. "I believe you! You merely sent him through, you cared not where."
Maddox spoke up. "That equipment she flanged up isn't the most accurate," he said. "But I've covered the entire neighborhood. You know, the closest mass of focal elements lies across the street, in Earth Two, in the laboratory of Virginia Carlson. Therefore, lacking direction and precision, she'd have sent him through to the focal zone of her own gear."