The door opened and the voice of their driver said, again from behind a flashlight’s dazzling circle: “Out. Walk ahead of me.”
They did, into a fair-sized, well-lighted room with eight people in it whom they studied in amazement. Every one of the eight was exactly the same height—six feet. Every one had straight red hair of exactly the same shade, sprouting from an identical hairline. Every one had precisely the same build—gangling but broad-shouldered. Their sixteen eyes were the identical blue under sixteen identical eyebrows. Head to toe, they were duplicates. One of them spoke—in exactly the same voice as the truckdriver’s.
“So you want to be Joneses, do you?” he said.
“Absolutely impossible.”
“But we took their money.”
“Give it back. Reasonable changes, yes, but look at them!”
“We can’t give it back. Look what we spent already. Anyway, Sam,——” It sounded like “Sam” to Ross. “——anyway, Sam, look at some of the work you’ve done already. You can do it. I doubt if anybody else coujd, but you can.”
Ross felt his eyes crossing, and gave up the effort of trying to tell which Jones was speaking to which. Even the clothing was nearly identical—purple pantaloons, scarlet jacket, black cummerbund sash, black shoes. Then he noticed that Third-from-the-left Jones—the one who seemed to be named Sam—wore a frilly shirt of white under the scarlet jacket. Only a lacy edge showed at the open collar; but where his was white, the others were all muted pastels of pink and green.
Sam said coldly, “I know nobody else can do it. Anybody else! Who else is there?”
A Jones with a frill of chartreuse pursed his lips. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “there’s Northside Tun Jones———”
“Northside Tim Jones,” Sam mimicked. “Eight of his jobs are in the stockade right now! Paraffin, for Jones’s sake—he still uses paraffin to mold a face!”
“I know, Sam, but after all, these people need help. If you won’t do it for them, what’s left?”
Sam shrugged morosely. “Well——” he said. Then he shook his head, sighed, and came forward to look at the three travelers. With an expression of revulsion he said, “Strip.”
Ross hesitated. “Hold it!” he said sharply to Helena, already half out of her coveralls. “Sir, there may have been some mistake. Would you mind explaining just what you propose to do?”
“The usual thing,” Sam said irritably. “Fix your hair, build up your frames, level you off at standard Jones height. The works. Though I must say,” he added bitterly, “I never saw such unpromising specimens in my life. How the Jones have you managed to stay out of trouble this long? Whose garrets have you been hiding in?”
Ross licked his lips. “You mean,” he said, “you want to make us look more like you gentlemen, is that it?”
“I want!” Sam repeated in bafflement. Over his shoulder he roared, “Ben, what kind of creeps are you saddling me with?”
Ben, looking worried, said, “Holy Jones, Sam, I don’t get it either. It was a perfectly normal deal. This guy came up to me in Jones’s Joint and made a pitch. He knew the setup all right, and he had the money with him. Six hundred Joneses, cold cash; and it wasn’t funny money, either.” His face clouded. “I did think, though,” he mentioned, “that he said two women and one man. But Paul Jones picked them up right at the rendezvous, so it must’ve been the right ones.”
He glowered suspiciously at Ross and the others. “Come to think of it,” he said, “maybe not. Tell you what, Sam, you just sit tight here for twenty minutes or so.” And he hurried out of the room.
One of the other Joneses said curtly, “Sit down.” Ross, Bernie, and Helena found chairs lined up against a wall; they sat. A different Jones rummaged in a stack of papers on a table; he handed something to each of them. “Relax,” he advised. Obediently the three spacefarers opened the magazines he gave them. When they were settled, most of the Joneses, after a whispered conference, went out. The one that was left said, “No talking. If we made a mistake, we’re sorry. Meanwhile, you do what you’re told.”