"Yeah," gulped Peter, weakly.
Laconically, a workman entered, cleaned up the glass on the floor, and started to replace the shattered panel.
"I see—but I don't really believe it," said Peter, flopping into his chair.
The two men laughed uproariously.
Ben sat down and Simpkins started. "You see, the time field," he said by way of explanation. "I haven't the vaguest notion of how it works or why. I admit it. But what does happen is that during the workday, the missing sections of all blindy tools are stored in the tool room. At the end of the day, their respective tools are returned to the tool room where they restore completely. About seven to eight o'clock, the midsections emerge from the tool room and go through the motions made by the entire tool, eventually following their ah ... owners ... back to the tool room where they join. At this point, those tools required for use on the following day are placed in the temporal treater, and treated for whatever period of action is required."
"If it takes four hours for work, they're treated for four hours," put in Ben.
"And once the day's work is finished, the work itself must be moved, since where the tool fits across a barrier, now the missing piece occupies that same space. If it does not find room, the man handling the tool several hours before will not be able to set his tool."
"Which was why I couldn't enter with the riveter," added Ben.
"It acts quite normally," said Simpkins, though with some doubt. "You couldn't bring the thing through a barrier if no time-difference exists. Actually, there is a temporal offset in the thing. It may pass through the same space as another time, but not at the same time."
"And you can't lick it," said Ben solemnly. "I purposely left the door open. But if I had really left the door open, I'd have had no resistance in the first place—I found no trouble in hooking it over the closet door—because when the mislink appeared, I opened the door for it. It does help, sometimes," grinned the shop foreman, "because we can tell when a piece of work is not going to be moved. Then it impedes the work."