Ross found that his magazine was called By Jones; it seemed to be a periodical devoted to entertaining news and gossip of sports, fashion, and culture. He stared at an article headed “Be Glad the People’s Police Are Watching YOU!”, but the words made little sense. He tried to think; but somehow he couldn’t find a point at which to grasp the flickering mass of impressions that were circling through his brain. Nothing seemed to make a great deal of sense any more; and Ross suddenly realized that he was very, very tired.
His mind an utter blank, he sat and waited.
It was twenty minutes and a bit more. Then the door flew open and half a dozen Joneses burst in. Even at first sight, Ross could tell that three of them were newcomers. For one thing, two were women; and the third, though red-haired, tall and gangling, had a nose a full centimeter shorter than any of the others, and his hair was crisply curled.
“All right, you Peepeece!” snarled the first Jones. “You found what you were looking for—now try to get out!”
Helena did the talking. It wasn’t Ross’s idea, but when her heel crunched down on his instep he was too startled to object, and from then on he didn’t get a chance to get a word in edgewise.
He had to admit that her act was getting across with the audience. Long before she had finished reporting their meeting, their flight to Azor, the escape from “Minerva,” and the flight here, most of the Joneses had put their guns away, and all were showing signs of stupefaction. “——And then,” she finished, “we saw this truck, and that very good-looking man picked us up. And so we’re here on Earth; and, honest to goodness, that’s the exact truth.”
There was silence while the Joneses looked at each other. Then the plastic-surgeon-type Jones, Sam with the white shirt front, stepped forward. “Hold still, my dear,” he ordered. Helena bravely stood rigid while the surgeon raked searchingly through the roots of her hair, peered into her eyes, expertly traced the configuration of her ribs.
He stepped back, shaken. “One thing is for sure,” he told the others, “they’re not Peepeece. Not with those bones. They’d never get in.”
Ben Jones beat his forehead and moaned. “How do I get into these things?” he demanded.
One of the female Joneses said shrilly, “We didn’t expect anything like this. We’re honest Jones-fearing Joneses and——”