“Tom, that small stuff by the wall! That’s my shop! I recognize my equipment!”
We went over there, and yeah, it was our property, neatly separated from the rest of the plant with a waist-high fence. I mean, there were temporal swords instead of cutting bits on all of the tools, and the saws were all just clamps that held the stock in place while letting the swords do their thing. Ian was going over each tool, making sure that nothing was missing or broken.
“I’ll bet that my old electronics shop is upstairs,” I said. “I’m going up there to find it.”
Ian nodded, but was too busy to answer.
Half of the second floor was an engineering design shop, with dozens of drawing boards complete with parallel bars instead of the old T-squares, and even one of the new drafting machines that I’d heard about. There were a dozen glassed-in offices along the walls, with one posh and much larger office in the far corner. All of the furniture in it was oversized, and done in Danish Modern teak.
You entered the big office by first going through a nice secretary’s office. The other door led to a hallway with a big restroom complete with an oversized shower, and a private elevator, so the big boss could sneak in (or out) without letting the peasants know about it.
I knew that the door at the end of the hallway had to lead to my office. It was as big as Ian’s, only my furniture was American walnut, and heavily carved with a strange mixture of electronics symbols and naked ladies. I liked it.
My office had two more heavily carved doors, one that went to a secretary’s room, and the other, at last, to my old electronics lab. The equipment was old and shabby, with dozens of cigar burns on the upper edges, but for the first time in weeks, I felt really at home.
As I walked in, I just automatically turned on my soldering iron and my battered but dependable Textronic 545 oscilloscope, the way every good tech does. I put my feet up on the solder-splattered work bench and debated with myself about brewing up a pot of Maxwell House coffee. I was home. I don’t know how long I sat there before I got up and continued my tour.
Beyond my personal area, I found a big, well-equipped electronics shop, which took up about a third of the whole second floor. There was room there for maybe thirty guys to work with plenty of workbench space and more than decent elbow room.
Except that it was empty of people, and felt almost dead. It shouldn’t be that way, I thought. It should be full of people, enjoying themselves while doing good, useful work.
I retraced my steps, and found Ian admiring his new office with his feet up on his new desk.
“You look contented, my young friend. I take it that you are pleased with the arrangements made for you.”
“Indeed I am. I presume that your facilities are equally efficacious. They’re down that hallway, I suppose?”
“Your presumption is indeed fortunate,” I said, sitting down on the Danish Modern chair in front of his desk. It was a lot less uncomfortable than it looked.
“My own lab is in proper condition, and the larger lab for my nonexistent assistants is more than adequately appointed.”
He waited a while before answering.
“Of course. Around this strange little island, how could it possibly be otherwise?”
I waited a bit as well. Ian was thinking of something, and on such occasions, it was best to give him plenty of time. I slowly realized that we were alone in his office. The girls had dropped back some time ago, although in fact I wasn’t quite sure when they’d done that. In only three weeks, I had actually become blasé about beautiful women. Remarkable!
After a few more minutes of silence, I said, “My formerly runty friend, I perceive that you are about to eventually give vent to some momentous thought, or bold decision, or otherwise profound statement.”
Several minutes later, he said, “Tom, let’s go back to work.”
“I had been thinking much the same thing. The only thing that deters me is that I don’t know how to break the news to Hasenpfeffer.”
“Yeah. It’s going to be rough, telling him that we’ve decided to do things his way after all.”
“I’ve really gotten used to his daily morning shouting solos. There is a certain harmony in the way his discordant rantings balance our beautiful surroundings, the way his ugly facial contortions offset the smiles of our lovely maidens,” I said.
“True, all too true. Maybe we could just not tell him of our decision to somewhat modify our lifestyle. Look, the girls have always done exactly what we’ve asked of them. Do you think that they’d tell a few lies for us as well?”
“You know, I believe that they would, loving creatures that they are. I mean, they’d only have to say that we were out skin diving today, and cannot be disturbed, or flying the heavens with our newly invented gossamer wings, or raping, in friendly fashion, the eager peasant girls.”
“Or developing our expertise at floral arrangements, basketry, and the proper placement of nipple clamps. Yes. You know, this could be fun, Tom.”
“Considering his arrogance, profound rudeness and insufferable presumption, he certainly has it coming. Of course it will be fun.”
“Then let’s act on it. The girls have to be waiting out in engineering. Let’s go explain our little joke to them.”
“Seconded, and carried by unanimous vote. We’re also going to have to tell them to call in a suitable work force for us.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to work out our manning requirements. Well, let’s get on it!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ve Vas Only Filling Orders
The girls had all laughed and giggled at the thought of lying to Hasenpfeffer, so much so that I figured that he’d hear about it in a few hours. Just as well. The important thing was that he should know that his nagging morning lectures had had the opposite effect of what he had desired. They had slowed down our return to work.
My original thoughts had been that I would take on one or two techs or engineers, teach them what we had learned about time travel, and get them to work. That is to say, if I had to become a manager, I wanted to sort of ease myself into it, kind of the way you ease yourself into a cold lake, hoping that once you’re over the shock, it won’t really be so bad.
The first thing that Ian wanted to do was to convert all of his spanking new machinery over from conventional cutting bits to temporal swords, which would require that my people build several hundred industrial swords for the purpose. This would mean that I had to provide several thousand electronic man hours to satisfy him. I’d need a few more techs than I’d planned.
My stomach started grumbling, so I sent four girls out for a supply of cheese and anchovy pizzas and a few cases of beer, enough for everybody. Ian immediately countermanded my order, such that his half of the crowd got cheese, ham, and green pepper pizzas. He’s a nice guy, but he’s got no taste.
The girls were back so fast that they must have passed themselves on the steps going both up and down, a frequent occurrence on this strange little island. Not that they’d ever let the two of us see how they did it.
Barb helped herself to a can of Budweiser and entered the discussion by saying that while Ian and I were touring our new offices, she had found the accounting office of our new company. There she had found purchase orders from our small Army, our smaller Navy, and our tiny Air Force. An army colonel, who said that he had met me in that reception line, wanted swords, like the ones Ian and I wore on our belts, for all of his men, and could we please develop something larger along the same line to replace the small arms his men carried? Was anything possible for the artillery? This was followed by some simple sketches of a rapidly spinning artillery shell with six swords built into it.
“What he really wants is a circuit like the one we found in the first place in the Upper Peninsula. We could put one in an artillery shell, with some sort adjustment on it to control the size of the hole. You could do that, couldn’t you, Tom?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know about building a circuit that could stand the shock of being shot out of a cannon,” I said.
“It can be done,” Ian assured me. “They make proximity fuses for antiaircraft shells, don’t they? Aren’t they a sort of tiny radar rig?”