Chapter X: Counterfeit

Bronson found that the streets of the city were teeming with people which was not what he had expected from his brief talk with Miss Carlson of Earth Two. Bronson was absolutely certain that this was not Earth Two at all, for it seemed unlike a world teetering on the brink of death--even ignoring the main clincher of the pillar of atomic fire mentioned by La Carlson, there was that vast and more-than-obvious difference.

Bronson shook his head in wonder. This was not unlike his own world, yet there were subtle differences--subtle differences observable at first glance, but becoming bold and glaring differences as Bronson became more familiar with the street down which he walked.

A bus went past--and did not leave a wake of evil-smelling pale blue exhaust. A store on the corner advertised cigarette lighters which bore the name _Irhinium_. Bronson knew of most of the cigarette lighter companies by name and none of them bore such a name. He looked more carefully and noted that certain vague references to _Irhinium_ indicated that it was a trade name based upon the motive power of the things.

In this strange world to which he had been hurled, did they--by the Great Harry--use atomic power to light their cigarettes?

Bronson's mind, of course, was overwhelmed by the suddenness of events and its natural inability to accept such a vast conglomeration of new concepts at the same time. It merely watched, saw, cataloged. Anything outrageous would be given the same consideration as something quite normal in Bronson's nervous state of complete wonder. His mental state bordered on shock.

Noiselessly the traffic moved, noiselessly and without odor. Dress and appointment were brilliant and entirely new. The overhead wires of Ed Bronson's world were gone, as were the poles that bore them. Nor were there street lights. Streetcars plied their routes with a minimum of thundering racket but there was neither trolley above nor slot in the street below.

Bronson paused before a large toy shop and watched a man manipulating an electric train. The miniature train had all the maneuverability of a real train because of the multiplicity of controls under the fingers of the man in the window. Beside the train was a large box containing cubic bits of metal and non-metal.

The explanation on the box said that the contents would build a miniature fission-reacting pile that worked but which employed Kenium metal instead of uranium since the use of the latter was dangerous, requiring ton upon ton of fissionable material as well as a moderator.

That was the clincher.

Bronson's mind cleared once the facts were driven home. He was not on Earth Two. He was most certainly not on Earth One.

But Ed Bronson's mind leaped to the foregone conclusion with simple reasoning. Earth One, Earth Two--and Earth Three, where the third possibility had taken place at Alamogordo, on July sixteenth, 1945. This was where the bomb had fizzled--and where, because of that, all forms of atomic research went on without regulation.

Not one world, not two worlds, _but three_!

Well, there was a perfect way to check this. Bronson knew where the library was, had used it often. It might still be there, for the one in Earth One had been erected in--ah--he did not recall the date but it was something like MDCCCLXXXVI.

He turned the corner and walked down the proper street and, after turning the second corner, Bronson saw it--in the same address and in the same building. He wasted no time in finding the newspaper files.

* * * * *

July sixteenth, 1945, was uninformative. Bronson wondered what the same paper printed in his own world said on that date but guessed that this paper, a morning daily, might have been composed and on the press at the time of the affair--if it had not been already printed.

Of security angles for the era he studied, Bronson knew only the mention made in history and tales spun by his father and cronies, who had lived and worked at that time. So Bronson accepted the fact that security might well have suppressed in both worlds--or even all three--any traces of the Alamogordo Experiment for some time to come.

He turned to the following day, July seventeen, 1945, and found nothing. On the eighteenth, Bronson saw nothing truly informative but there was an item printed as recorded from Radio Tokyo in which it was claimed that the United States had asked for representatives of the Japanese Government to come to America under a flag of truce. This was construed to mean that the United States was considering surrender.

Nothing was visible for several issues after that. Then a vast headline--PEACE--shouted across the page and on page two of the paper, was a brief explanation that the representatives had returned to Japan. A columnist was demanding an answer to what and why the mystery.

Another account from Radio Tokyo mentioned that, in a spirit of humanity, Japan had surrendered rather than loose upon the entire world a weapon so terrible as the representatives had been shown.

Bronson nodded vaguely. The trail was getting intelligible. He at least knew nothing of this latter fact. He thumbed his way through the paper to the date of the Hiroshima Bomb and found nothing worthy of mention. Nagasaki was not mentioned a week or so later and Bronson, none too clear of his dates, covered days before and after his approximation just to be certain.

He pored through the paper and found many references to the Manhattan Project, including one full newspaper, on the general lines of what he recalled of the Smyth Report.

A month later a Washington columnist printed a scoop. There had been a test of an atom bomb at Alamogordo, he claimed, and the bomb had failed to function.

"Ah," said Bronson aloud.

What came next? How the two worlds had become so socially and technically different was something to be studied at a later date. For the present Bronson felt that it was the time to start thinking about action.

He left the library and walked down the street thoughtfully. Here the bomb had failed, here--and automatically Ed Bronson cataloged the place as Earth Three--science was unfettered.

So, he reasoned along two lines simultaneously, the transmission of things from one plane to the other required the use of the radioisotopic phosphor--Bronson did not know the conglomeration of transuranic elements comprised an entire rare element group known as the space-resonant series and so called them by the name he had known them--and since this was so, he would be forced to investigate.

Also, since Earth Three had no apparent regulation on scientific research, it would probably be easy to obtain enough to go to work. The unfortunate part of it was that his rather extensive bank account was deposited in the First National Bank. Though it was situated within three blocks of this very spot, its officers would view his very solid checks as so much illegal paper.

He smiled wryly.

So here he was, isolated on an obviously alien world, with the weight of his own earth on his shoulders, quite incapable of more than scratching the surface.

Lost--completely lost--in the troubled thought, Ed Bronson's trained hands, by sheer reflex, dipped into his pocket for a cigarette. The hands, finding none, notified the locomotor areas of his brain, which, operating on sheer habit and reflex, sent a message to the eyes.

The eyes looked around, though what they scanned made no impression on the more conscious sections of Bronson's mind. They caught what was wanted and the automatic process went on--the information went back to the habit-section, directions went to the muscles and Bronson walked towards the drug-store in absolutely the same state of coma as the proverbial absent-minded professor.

Too deeply engrossed in his thoughts to pay attention to the automatic items, Ed Bronson's brain caused his voice to murmur a cigarette-brand name. The cigarette came, and Bronson's right hand dipped into his pocket and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the counter.

The clerk looked at it and mumbled, "Have to get change, mister."

* * * * *

Again unconsciously, Bronson's head nodded.

Had anything evolved that was out of the normal routine, Bronson would have been forced to take notice. But this was like driving an automobile or riding a bicycle. It required no conscious effort so long as nothing demanded decision.

Nothing demanded decision. The decision was made for him. He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and felt it turn him so that he faced--His mind came back to his surroundings like a snapped rubber band. A policeman!

"What's the idea?" demanded the latter.

"What idea?" asked Bronson.

"Counterfeit money."

"That isn't it--"

The policeman laughed nastily. "Looks perfect," he admitted. "But I might point out that E. Thomas Froman is not the secretary of the United States Treasury."

"Huh?" grunted Bronson.

"A perfect counterfeit excepting that the wrong fellow signed it," snapped the policeman. "What's the idea, fellow? I take it you don't mind counterfeiting but dislike being jailed for forgery?"

"I don't get it."

"You will," smiled the policeman with great self-satisfaction. "Come along. Counterfeit money is a bad thing to have in your possession."

Bronson cursed himself. He had even more.

Anticipating distastefully his second visit to the police station in as many days, Ed Bronson emerged from the squad car behind the policeman. This was one of the basic differences. This was not by far the same place he had been in before and the seriousness of his position made Ed Bronson smile whimsically.

If not the only one ever to do it, he believed himself at least the first man ever to be jailed in two jails on two worlds--or on one world separated by only time. It was "doing time" with a vengeance!

With the policeman following him, Bronson went into the building, upstairs and into a room filled with scientific equipment. His quick mind decided that, on this world, advances had also been made in criminology. But he was forced to wait and see, for none of the equipment made sense to Bronson. What the police did with it, how it separated criminal from citizen, Bronson had no idea.

"--passed a twenty dollar bill signed by E. Thomas Froman as Secretary of the United States Treasury," said the policeman.

"Clever of you, officer."

"Thank you. The shopkeeper merely assumed it to be counterfeit. I knew better."

"This, officer, is Ed Bronson--of Earth One," said Kingston.

Bronson jumped visibly. They knew him! Then he realized that they must certainly know him because they had kidnaped him through the barrier in time. This, of course, was erroneous, for it had been Virginia's machinations that had brought him here. On the other hand, the error made little difference so far as its end-result went, for it was true that they knew him and also that they were quite glad to have him under their thumbs.

"So you're the birds who grabbed me?" he said brashly.

* * * * *

Kingston grinned wolfishly. He saw little reason for letting Bronson know that another had accomplished what he himself had wanted.

"We're glad to see you," said Kingston.

"No doubt," snapped Bronson. "The pleasure is all yours."

"Don't be petty," laughed Kingston.

Bronson turned around to see what the other man--Maddox, of course--was doing. Maddox had stopped using the space-resonant viewer, but the screen depicted a street on Earth Two, which was obvious since there were twin shadows cast, one by the sun and one by the atomic flame.

Bronson knew it by reputation if in no other way. So he nodded at it and said, scathingly, "Convenient way to spy on your neighbors, isn't it?"

Kingston nodded and smiled. And Bronson knew that the real menace to Earth One was not the fear-filled, already-dying Earth Two with its growing cancer of atomic flame, but this free, lusty Earth Three where science had been unrestricted in scope and field and direction.

Superior in the knowledge that they controlled the entire situation because of their higher degree of varied sciences, men of Earth Three were quite capable of biding their time and aiding in any scheme planned by Earth Two--or perhaps Earth One--that would enhance the future of Earth Three.

Bronson saw them as conquistadores, watching savages fight over a lush island and waiting for the least difficult moment to release all the terrors of modern civilization to defeat both sides.

"So what happens to me?" he snapped.

"Unwittingly you have served us," said Kingston. "We could not get through to you so long as you possessed no critical mass of the space-resonant elements--"

"What--"

"Among the chemical compounds you were playing with, there are several of the transuranic elements created by the atomic pile," explained Kingston, falling back into his superior attitude. "These form a rare-element group known as the space-resonant series and they respond to one another in many ways.

"Some of them are bizarre compared to the theories held by your so-called modern physics. We use them as matter transmitters and it is a rare home that has none for the delivery of merchandise."

"So?"

"So," laughed Kingston, "when you finally collected your critical mass you enabled us to enter your Earth One, as we call it."

"And?"

"Your engineer's mind can reason out the rest," replied Kingston quietly.

"You mean that sooner or later one of the three must cease?"

"Yes. To prove it, I shall pose a question. Have you ever considered whether the entire universe was following triple time-paths or whether it is only this section of the universe?"

"Not vitally," replied Bronson.

"Then think about it," said Kingston. "You'll have time."

"I--?"

"You'll have time. We have the power and the science and the will and the ability to effect those necessary factors that will cause Earth Three alone to survive."

Bronson was forced to admit that Kingston was quite correct. Though he said nothing nor gave any sign that he agreed, Bronson was forced to agree that Earth Three was deep in its plans while Earth One lay complacently in ignorance of its danger. The only man who had any inkling of their danger was himself--and he had tried to warn them only to be greeted as a lunatic.

He wanted desperately to know about Virginia but was afraid to ask--or even to show that he had hope. If she were back there and safe--

Kingston smiled tolerantly. "You might as well relax," he said. "There will be no return to Earth One for anybody until we are ready." He explained about the division of the space resonant elements into four subcritical masses. "It even prevents those from the doomed Earth Two from entering."

Bronson remained silent.

"And the stuff in your laboratory is the only critical mass existent on Earth One," added Kingston.

Bronson's heart leaped and it was with all of his effort that he kept that gleam of hope from showing. They did not know nor had they detected the mass used by Virginia in her laboratory--could it be because her set-up was inefficient as she admitted? Bronson breathed a prayer that they would never find out.

But it gave him hope--a hope that permitted him to relax for the moment instead of breaking into action, however futile. Bronson's feelings had been one of frustration, an almost overwhelming desire to beat his fists against something even though it was futile--the insane desire to strike a blow, however minute.

"Until later," said Kingston, "you will occupy a room upstairs. Whether or not you survive with us will depend upon how you behave. I assure you that dying for a principle is futility personified and that a live traitor surpasses a dead fanatic."