Ben Jones guffawed till his eyes ran. “First taste of Jones’s Juice, hey? Kind of gets right down inside, doesn’t it?” He wiped his eyes, then sobered. “I guess you people are all right,” he admitted. “What I’m going to do with you I don’t know. I can’t take you to Earth, and I can’t keep you here, and I can’t throw you out on the street—the Peepeece would have you hi the stockade hi ten minutes.”
Ross, startled, said, “Aren’t we on Earth?”
“Naw,” Ben Jones said disgustedly. “Didn’t you hear me? You’re on Jones, halfway between Jones’s Forks and Jonesgrad. But you came pretty close, at that. Earth’s about fifty miles out the Jones Pike past Jonesgrad, turn right at Jonesboro Minor.”
Ross said bewilderedly, “The planet Earth is fifty miles along the Pike?”
“Not a planet,” Ben Jones said. “It’s an old city, kind of. Nobody lives there any more; the Peepeece don’t permit it. I’ve never been there, but they say it’s kind of, you know, different. Some of the buildings——” he seemed actually to be blushing—— “are as much as fifteen, twenty stories high; and the walls aren’t even all green. Excuse me,” he added, looking at Helena.
Sam Jones returned and said to Ben, “It’s all right. All finished. Trivial alterations. Maybe they could have gone along for the rest of their lives on wigs and pads—but we don’t tell them that, do we? And anyway now they won’t worry. Healy Jones, the older man, for instance. Very bright fellow, but it seems he was working as a snathe-handler’s apprentice. Afraid to take the master’s test, afraid to change his line of work—might be noticed and questioned.” He heaved a tremendous sigh and poured himself a tremendous slug of the green fluid. Ben Jones gave Ross a cynical wink and shrug.
“Look at my hand!” the surgeon exploded. It was shaking. He gulped the Jones Juice and poured himself another. “Nothing physical,” he said. “Neurosis. The subconscious coldly counting up my crimes and coldly imposing and executing sentence. I’m a surgeon, so my hand trembles.” He drank. “Jones is not mocked,” he said broodingly. “Jones is not mocked. Think those three are going to be happy? Think they’re going to be folded in Jones’s bosom just because they’re Joneses externally now? No. Watch them five years, ten years. Maybe they’ll sentence themselves to be hateful, vitriol-tempered lice and wonder why nobody loves them. Maybe they’ll sentence themselves to penal servitude and wonder why everybody pushes them around, why they haven’t the guts to bit back—Jones is
not mocked,” he told the jug of green liquid, ignoring the others, and drank again.
Ben Jones said softly to them, “Come on,” and led them into an adjoining room furnished with sleeping pads. He said apologetically, “The doctor’s nerves are shot tonight. Trouble is, he’s too Jonesfearing. Me, I can take it or leave it alone.” His laugh had a little too much bravado in it. “There’s a little bit of nonJones in the best of us, I always say—but not to the doctor. And not when he’s hitting the Jones juice.” He shrugged cynically and said, “What the hell? L-sub-T equals L-sub-zero e to the minus T-over-two-N.”
Ross had him by his shirt frill. “Say that again!”
Ben Jones shoved him away. “What’s the matter with you, boy?”
“I’m sorry. Would you please repeat that formula? What you said?” he hastily amended when the word “formula” obviously failed to register.
Ben Jones repeated the formula wonderingly.
“What does it mean?” Ross demanded. “I’ve been chasing the damned thing across the Galaxy.” He hastily rilled Ben Jones in on its previous appearances.
“Well,” Ben Jones said, “it means what it says, of course. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” He studied their faces and added uncertainly, “Isn’t it?”
“What does it mean to you, Ben?” Ross asked softly.
“Why, what it means to anybody, pal. Right’s right, wrong’s wrong, Jones is in his Heaven, conform or else—it means morality, man. What else could it mean?”
Ross then proceeded to make an unmannerly nuisance of himself. He grilled their involuntary host mercilessly, shrugging aside all attempted diversions of the talk into what they were going to do with the three visitors. He ignored protestations that Ben was no Jonesologist, Jones knew, and drilled in. By the time Ben Jones exploded, stamped out, and locked them in for the night, he had elicited the following: