Rivets and Sprockets (5 page)

Rivets seemed upset. “D-do I have to go with you?”

“I hope not. You're to stand by for messages. Turn on your radio.”

“Didn't know I had one,” said Rivets.

“Of course you have one! The button is on the back of your head, near your learning slot.” Sprockets turned it on for him.

“Whee!” said Rivets. “It tickles.”

“Keep it tickling. This is a ticklish situation.”

Sprockets was not worried about getting aboard the spaceship, which was no problem at all. Ilium merely turned on the saucer's force field, which acted as an air lock, and opened a port. Sprockets jumped through it, and floated weightless to the side of the spaceship. As he touched, he switched on the magnets in his feet, giving them just enough power for walking. Then he moved like a fly to the viewing port where Professor Katz was standing.

The professor recognized him on the instant, and his big bullfroggy face nearly exploded with surprise, rage, and sudden frightening determination. The professor wasted not a moment in ordering the outer door of the ship's air lock to be opened.

Sprockets entered. He sealed the lock from the inside, waited for the place to be filled with air and the inner door to be opened, and walked bravely into the control room to face whatever fate awaited him.

There was very little gravity in the spaceship, and Prof. Vladimir Katz and his crew were almost floating.

“Well!” began Professor Katz in his horribly fumy, croaky voice. “Well! Well! W-e-l-l! If it isn't Barnabas Bailey's little two-bit robot that gave me such troubles in Mexico! What brings you here, foolish one?”

“Sir, I have come to save your life.”

“Bah! You come to pry into secrets that do not concern you.”

“Not at all, sir. I have come to inform you, sir, that you have made an error in navigation. You will miss Mars by five hundred and eighty-two thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three and a half miles.”

The professor stared at him. Then he hooked his thick thumbs into his bulging belt and suddenly roared so hard with laughter that he nearly floated to the ceiling. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho-o-o! Does Barnabas Bailey think he can keep me away from Mars by such a trick?”

“It is no trick, sir. I'm an honest little robot, and it is impossible for me to twiddle with the truth. I suggest you check your computers if you want to save your skin. Good-by, sir.”

Sprockets turned to go back into the air lock, but one of the Mongolian crewmen had closed the door and bolted it, and now stood guarding it.

The professor's big hand jerked Sprockets around. “You think to leave? Ha! You are my prisoner, foolish one. There is nothing wrong with my computers—but much will be wrong with you when I finish sizzling your circuits. You think I forget how you trick me in Mexico, and let Barnabas Bailey find the purple saucer? For that you will sizzle and sizzle and sizzle. I
hate
robots!”

The very thought of what Professor Katz could do to his quivering circuits was almost enough to make poor Sprockets fall to his knees and beg for his life. But he realized that Rivets as well as the others would be listening; they had all strapped on their wrist radios before he left, and could hear every word that was being spoken. He was suddenly thankful that he not only had his own radio on, but most of his important buttons as well. He would need all his wits to escape.

But how does a robot escape from such a predicament as this?

He couldn't do it alone. Rivets would have to help.

“Sir,” he said to the professor, “since you are going to sizzle my circuits, do you mind if I sing?”

“Sing?
Sing?
Who ever heard of a robot that could sing!”

“Sir, I can sing like a mockingbird. Listen!”

With a quick twitch of his fingers, Sprockets adjusted his voice button and began to sing. As the first rapid trills of the language of the purple people poured from his tongue, the professor's mouth dropped in surprise, so that he looked more than ever like a startled bullfrog. The Mongolian crewmen gaped, then started to grin and jabber to each other.

As he sang, Sprockets watched the purple saucer from the corner of his eye. He was relieved when it moved out of sight of the viewing ports. Presently, if everything went well, Rivets would have dropped unseen upon the tail of the spaceship.

Suddenly there came a strange pounding upon the spaceship's hull. The Mongolian crewmen stiffened, listening. Prof. Vladimir Katz stiffened too, and so quickly that he bounced to the ceiling.

“W-what is that noise?” the professor stammered, as the pounding moved around the ship's hull and crept ominously forward.

“Sir,” said Sprockets in an awed voice, “it sounds to me like a space ghost.”

“A
space ghost
!” gurgled the professor. “Nonsense! There is no such thing!”

“Look!” Sprockets cried excitedly, pointing to the forward viewing port. “W-what's
that?
”

Something horrible and white was moving across the thick plastic glass of the forward port. It had a large formless head, like a ball of white, and a long formless white body that seemed to drift away in space.

The thing scrabbled at the glass as if it wanted to get in. The Mongolian crew shrieked and fell tumbling over each other, trying to find corners to hide in. Only Prof. Vladimir Katz held his ground. Being a man of many ologies and onomies, he was not easily fooled, though he could be momentarily abbled.

It took Professor Katz four and a half seconds to decide that the space ghost must be something from the purple saucer, and that more than likely it was another little robot with a sheet tied around him.

The professor whirled, but he was a half second too late. It was all the time Sprockets needed to reach the unguarded door to the air lock, unbolt it, and wrench it open. He darted through into the air lock, slammed the door shut, and bolted it from the inside. Now he tugged frantically at the bolts to the outer door.

In another second, Sprockets knew, the professor would remember the lever that operated the air lock by remote control. The professor had only to press his big hand down on the lever, and Sprockets would be trapped.

As he tugged at the bolts, he could hear the professor roaring and wheezing and fuming in the control room, and speaking unspeakably in Low German, Russian, and two Mongolian dialects. It was quite awful to hear him.

Sprockets got the bolts almost unfastened, but they snapped shut again as the professor threw his weight on the lever. Sprockets despaired.

All at once he remembered there was very little gravity in the spaceship. The professor, though big as a barrel, weighed practically nothing and bounced easily. But a robot with magnets on his feet could not bounce—so long as the magnets held.

In less time than it takes to think about it, Sprockets had turned on his magnets to full power, thrust his feet on the air lock door, and was jerking on the bolts with all his strength.

The bolts slid back. The door flew open with a rush of escaping air, and Sprockets, in spite of his magnets, was blown out into space.

5

They Are Lost in Space

Had Sprockets remembered it in time, and known more about spaceships before opening the door, he would have found the air valve and emptied the air lock first. It would have made everything much easier. But with all the air escaping at once, it was like being shot from a gun. In a twinkling Sprockets was blown nearly a mile.

His first thought was for Rivets. “Jump!” he called over his radio. “The saucer will pick us up.”

He couldn't hear his voice except for a tinny ringing inside his head, for there was no air to carry sound. How would it affect his radio?

He was greatly relieved when he heard Rivets answer: “I've alweddy jumped—but I can't thee a fing. I'm tangled in the theet and tumbling in thpace.”

“Oh, dear, you must be over on the other side of the spaceship. I can't see you on this side. Are you all right?”

“I'm all wight 'thept for my looth thkwew. Can I turn off my wadio? It tickles.”

“Oh, no! Don't you dare turn it off, or Ilium won't be able to find you. Don't you realize that we are flying away from each other, and that soon we'll be miles and miles and miles apart?”

“Weally? Then I'll keep it tickling. Why are we flying away from each other?”

“Because we jumped in opposite directions, and there's nothing to stop us. In space, you keep going and going and going.”

“I'm worrit, Spwockets. Where'th the thauther?”

Sprockets had been searching for the purple saucer, but there was no sign of it in the blackness around him. There was only the distant spaceship, so small now that it was a streak of blue against the stars. Away to the left of it was a tiny white dot that must be Rivets. Without using his radar vision or his special perceptors, Sprockets realized the only reason he could still see Rivets was because of the white sheet he wore. It reflected the sunlight, as did Earth and the Moon far below him. The sun was a fiery ball on his right, but it cast no glow in the empty airless blackness that was space.

What could have happened to the purple saucer?

“I can't locate the saucer,” he told Rivets. “But I'm sure it's around somewhere. There's nothing to be worried about. Are you untangled?”

“Yeth, but I can't thee you.”

“It's because I'm not wearing a white sheet to reflect the sun. Save your sheet. It will make it easier for the saucer to find you.”

“B-but, Spwockets, where
ith
the thauther?”

“I can't imagine, but it's got to be
somewhere
around. I'll see if I can raise Ilium.”

Sprockets adjusted his voice button, and sang out—or rather he went through the motions of singing out, for it made only a small sound inside his head—“
Ilium! Ilium! Sprockets calling. Where are you, Ilium?
”

There was no answer.

Strange, for everyone in the saucer had a wrist radio, and surely by this time he should have heard from one of them. Something must be terribly wrong.

Sprockets turned on his imagination button—but after three frightful
tocks
he turned it off quickly. It was definitely not the button to touch at a time like this. It must be awful to be a human, he thought, and have an imagination you couldn't turn off.

“I don't know what's happened,” he called to Rivets. “We'll have to wait.”

“But wait how
long
, Spwockets?”

“Who knows? What does it matter? After all, we're just robots—and that's something to be thankful for.”

“Mebbe tho, but I wisht I had my mobbles to play with.”

“Aw, Rivets, you couldn't play with mobbles—I mean marbles—out here.”

“Well, I got to do
sumfing
and I don't feel like counting. I fink I'll make up poetwy.”

“Poetry! Oh, no!”

“Yeth. How'th thith?” And Rivets recited in his plaintive voice:

“Two liddle wobots, lost in thpathe,

Flying away at an orful pathe,

If no wun findth the poor liddle dears,

Where will they be in a hundert ears?”

“Rivets!” Sprockets said in alarm. “Have you lost your screw entirely?”

“Well, it
wymes
, even if it'th abbled. And who'd care after a hundert ears—”

Rivets' voice had stopped suddenly. Sprockets waited a moment, then called in alarm: “Rivets! What's happened?”

There was no reply.

Sprockets called again and again. He searched the black distance, but even with his special perceptors to help, there was no sign of Rivets.

“Oh, dear,” he told himself. “Maybe a space gobbler got him.” But immediately he added: “How silly! There's no such thing as a space gobbler. I shouldn't have turned on my imagination button when I did. It's made me space wabbled—I mean abbled—I mean addled. Suppose I really did have to float for a hundert ears! I'd be just plain cuckoo.”

It occurred to Sprockets that it might be a good thing if he turned himself off. Not right away, of course, but in time. Then he could float and add and subtract—not ordinary numbers full of sevens and nines, but great positronic numbers full of fractured fractions.

It seemed that he had been drifting in space for weeks and weeks, but when he checked his built-in clock he was surprised to find that only thirty-three minutes and seven seconds had passed since he had been blown from the air lock. The doctor is right, he thought. Time and space are so readily relative.

At that moment he turned his head and saw the purple saucer.

In seven more seconds it had paused directly over him, and Rivets had hauled him aboard through the force field.

Sprockets blinked his eye lights at the doctor and Jim, who were sprawled on a bunk holding their heads. They looked, well, quite abbled.

“What happened?” he asked Rivets.