Louis Ford and Tod Laplane grabbed Les Ackerman by the arms and hurried from the ship, into theirs. Les heard Laurie's fading voice crying through sobs for him to stay.
The door of the other ship rapped shut and cut off the cries. "A consummate actress," said Barry levelly.
Ackerman turned to him. "I presume that Tansie Lee is one of your crowd? Frankly, I really don't know who to believe."
Barry laughed shortly. "Tansie Lee? She is none of my crowd; she's a weak-minded sitter on the temporal fence, Ackerman. She believes that both worlds can be saved."
"Well, can't they?"
"Oh, now look, Ackerman, you're not the same kind of wishy-washy creature. Life is a struggle always. Kill or be killed still works—and always will."
"Just destruction for the sake of," said Ackerman harshly, "is untenable—even though you indulge in self-justification by believing that life is always kill or be killed."
"Let's face it," said Barry Ford. "Before your perilous experiment, we had a single world, with a single 'future'. You caused fission of 'time'. The twin existances are starting to converge again; the energy used in splitting 'time' is dissipating and as it is converted, the 'time-streams' converge. But they have not been the same world for hundreds of years. What will happen when suddenly the solar system contains two suns, two earths, and two of each planet? The sky will be filled with double stars where single stars once were, and quadruple stars where doubles now exist. Some, that have not moved far from one another in their contingent existances, will find one another occupying the same 'space'! See?"
Ackerman scowled uncertainly. "It looks to me as though we're scheduled for a big blast anyway."