digging for a new settlement on the Rimbros' Earth. Back on his own Earth, Mishnoff explains to Ching and his boss, Berg, that there must be an infinite number of societies who are also using dead Earths for living space. By sheer chance, some will occupy Earths that Mishnoff's society are using. There are probably many Earths with multiple occupants, but in most cases the settlements were too far apart to affect one another—until now. After Ching leaves, Berg asks Mishnoff about his own theory, the one he refuses to share. Mishnoff, it turns out, is concerned about the probability that life in some universe will arise somewhere other than Earth, and will find its way to his Earth through the portal on one of the dead Earths. The odds are low, of course, but there are now hundreds of billions of dead Earths occupied by a single house. Just then Ching rushes in with another customer complaint - someone is worried about the red creatures with tentacles who are peering into his glasshouse. Themes The story's name, "Living Space" is a direct translation of the German "Lebensraum", a key concept of Nazi ideology used to justify conquest and expansion of the "Aryan Race" at the expense of "Inferior Races". In the context of the story, there is a far more innocuous way, unlimited "Living Space" available with no need to fight or conquer anybody, and is utilized not only by the people of Rimbro's timeline, but also by those of the Nazi-victorious timeline. And though mass horrors must have been perpetrated in the aftermath of the Nazi victory, for the people of that timeline - in whose calendar this year is thousands of years "After Hitler" - these are events of the distant past and the ones encountered in the story seem quite civilized. Once finding that the Earth on which Rimbro lives is already claimed, they accept this prior claim and go away (why fight when there is a literally infinite number of other worlds just as good?). Also for Rimbro's people, Hitler and Nazism are a piece of quite ancient history. ("Hitler was a sort of tribal chief in ancient times. He led the German tribe in one of the wars of the twentieth century, just about the time the Atomic Age started and true history began.") The horrors of Nazi Germany seem to be forgotten -