Nine Men in Time Part 3

"Okay," I said, "you win. Guys like you make a business of going around the country breaking print-shops and printing-office managers."

High-Pockets' booming voice came from the ceiling. "You are mistaken. I did not try to break you."

"Well, you broke me, anyway." I blurted out the whole thing to him, how the receivers were about to close us up, how the Legal Printing Company job was weeks behind and was supposed to be delivered today. Then I apologized. "It isn't your fault," I told him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I just--well, I wanted to make good on this job."

High-Pockets was very thoughtful. "I feel kind of sorry for you," he said.

"Oh, you don't need to. I earned it; I've got it coming. I was just a little too ambitious, that's all. I didn't know a man could be _too_ ambitious."

High-Pockets looked at me. His deep eyes were thoughtful. I could almost see the neurons buzzing around in his head.

"If I could get this job out for you on time, would that save the day?"

"Probably." I laughed--or tried to. "But it is now a physical impossibility. There isn't enough time."

High-Pockets said sharply, "Call a truck," and wheeled out of the office.

I called the delivery truck before I realized what I had done. Well, it didn't make any difference. They could start hauling out the machinery.

I finished cleaning out my desk and took a wastebasket full of papers to the back shop.

And there, I give you my word, three High-Pocketses were busy carrying galleys from the type-dump to the proof-press. And as fast as they could carry a galley of type from the dump, another galley would just materialize there. I stood and stared. Galleys of type were coming out of thin air at the rate of about four galleys a minute.

I went over to where High-Pockets--the original High-Pockets, I suppose--was sitting at his machine. "Would you please tell me what is going on?" I asked.

"Well," said High-Pockets, "it isn't so complicated. I just sent the other five back in time to set this job, that's all. They've gone back about twelve weeks; and of course there isn't much time, so I had to make them double up. I've got them split up into s.h.i.+fts, along with a double of the chairman there, to cover the six machines. It's a little hard to explain, whether they are split up in time, or the time-split ones are split up in place, or just what."

"It's insane," I said weakly.

"Well, at any rate, you see you have the equivalent of twelve night s.h.i.+fts running at once, plus twelve graveyard s.h.i.+fts. That's twenty-four times six--you have six machines--times twelve--that's the number of galleys a day for each machine. I think it comes out to seventeen hundred for a day's work."

I grabbed hold of the vise-locking screw to keep my knees from doubling under me. It was incredible--and yet it was true.

High-Pockets also had organized the proofreaders and copyholders, and they were reading in the past also, and sending us proofs in the present. If anybody ever tells you they can't get seventeen hundred galleys of type a day out of six linecasting machines--well, they just don't know High-Pockets Jones.

"Of course," he said apologetically, "they'll want to be paid."

I was practically hysterical by that time. "I'll see that they get overtime for every hour they put in."

High-Pockets looked at me with his deep eyes. "Me, too," he said. I laughed when I thought how there were nine of him working in twelve places at once--or was it twenty-four--or maybe forty-eight. I was too dizzy by that time to figure out anything. I only knew the job was going to be delivered. The truckers were going in a steady stream through the back door.

Maybe the receivers would close up the place; maybe they wouldn't. At least the job was being delivered.

About four-thirty, the galleys suddenly quit coming; the job was finished. Half an hour later it was out of the shop, and I had entered it on the books.

I had hardly laid down the pen when the three receivers came in. They smoked a little and talked and I held my breath while they looked at the books. I couldn't figure out what they were going to do.

One of them whistled when he saw the Legal Printing Company figures.

"Well," he said, "business _has_ been good."

"Fair," I said modestly.

The door to the shop opened and High-Pockets Jones walked in. I gulped; eight High-Pockets Joneses walked in behind him.

The three receivers stared. Their eyes stuck out until it was ludicrous.

But it wasn't funny; I knew something was going to happen now.

By the time the last High-Pockets got in, the first receiver had seen what was going on and was trying to get out, but nine High-Pocketses in one room are a lot. For a minute it looked like a basketball game.

The elder lawyer looked at me suspiciously. "Please explain this."

I was too weak. "See for yourself," I said.

One High-Pockets spoke to me. "Sorry, Mr. Shane. Just came in to say good-bye. Never realized--"

"That's okay," I said. "You've done your part; I can't squawk."

The attorney spoke up. "Mr. Shane," he said, "I think the affairs of the Imperial Printing Company are in perilous circ.u.mstances. I do not know what is the meaning of this, but certainly there is something here without precedent." And if you know lawyers, you know that anything without precedent is very unholy.

I told what we had done, but he was interested in only one thing. "Think what a combined suit by these nine-er-twins here would do."

"Nontuplets," suggested one High-Pockets.

"Why"--the lawyer seemed to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the damages he was visualizing--"that could amount to millions."

I was desperate for an idea, but it wasn't any use. They were taking it out of my hands. I saw the righteous light in the eyes of those men, and I knew it was all over.

But High-Pockets--or one of him--spoke up. "Is it your intention," he asked me, "to keep the time-machine and the extender?"

"No," I said. "I rather thought I'd get rid of the whole business; it's much too complicated. Anyway, you boys out there came through with superhuman efforts this afternoon. I don't think I'd ask you to be in two places at once again."

High-Pockets turned to the lawyer. "If the receivers agree to let the plant operate as long as it shows a profit," he said, "we'll all go back together and then you can break up the extender and there won't be any more trouble. If you don't agree to that"--he paused--"we'll stay in nine bodies and sue you every time we get a chance."

The lawyer winced. The receivers went into conference. Finally they said, a little anxiously, "If the Messiers High-Pockets will be good enough to go back together, and if Mr. Shane will destroy the machine, we are agreeable to the plant's continuance as a printing office."

"Hooray!" I said, and nine High-Pocketses yelled hooray.

I was exultant. I shook hands with each one of the High-Pocketses as they filed into the extender. When there was only one left; he shook hands with me.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing at all," said High-Pockets Jones. "Just got a call this morning from a print-shop where they're trying to make the men wear roller-skates so they can move faster. Guess they need me down there. So long, boss."

"So long," I said. I was sorry to see him go. I locked up the shop--but first I cut off all the power and got a pig and smashed up Dr. Hudson's coils and transformers. I wanted to come down in the morning without seeing double.