Sprockets (12 page)

Jim brought wires and tools and speedily made the connection.

“Wow!” said Sprockets, as his buttons flashed and a halo of color began spinning about his head. “This is really super!”

“Hurry up with the answer,” poor Rivets pleaded. “It may be thuper for you, but it ith
or
ful hard on me!”

“Patience,” said Sprockets. “First I must tune in on the Mongolians and find out what is happening.” Hastily he adjusted his built-in radio and listened.

“Oh!” he said finally. “This is bad. It will make the doctor very unhappy.”

“What's cooking?” Jim asked. “Has Prof. Vladimir Katz found out about the Something on Mars?”

“Not yet, but he will soon. It seems, as nearly as I can translate, that the secret on which Prof. Vladimir Katz was working for the Mongolians was not a Space Probe. It was a spaceship, and it has just been launched. The professor is now sixty-two thousand miles out in space, on his way to Mars.”

Jim looked sick. “Daddy will never get over this,” he said dolefully. “And there's not a thing we can do about it.”

“There is just
one
thing,” said Sprockets. Very carefully, so as not to strain the wires connecting him to Rivets, he reached under his cot and brought forth a small box not much bigger than his hand. When he opened it, purple light flooded the room.

Jim gaped at it in astonishment. “Is that the present the purple people gave you when you found the quantic moonstone for them?”

“Yes,” said Sprockets. “It's their signal box. They said if we ever needed them in an emergency, I was to press the button in this box, think real hard, and they would come.”

Jim looked doubtful. “Aw, suppose they are way over on the other side of the Universe—a million light years away! How can they
possibly
hear a signal from a little box?”

“Distance has nothing to do with it,” Sprockets told him. “It works by thought—and thought is quicker than light. I'm not sure that positronic thought will work, but this is an emergency of the most desperate kind, so we'll have to try it. Turn on all your buttons, Rivets, and think hard!”

“B-but how can I fink when I don't know what to fink about?”

Sprockets almost groaned. Rivets had never met Ilium and Leli, the purple people, and couldn't possibly imagine what they were like, or how they talked. “Oh, just close your eyes and think of something purple-purple marbles if you have to. I'll do the rest. Ready? Go!”

As Rivets closed his eyes, Sprockets did the same, and pressed down on the button in the purple box.
Ilium and Leli
! he thought, using the singing language he had learned from them.
Sprockets calling! We need your help. Come quickly
!”

Almost instantly from the box, very faintly, came a curious singing that only Sprockets could understand. It was so very, very faint that it must have come from an unimaginable distance, possibly some other universe.

“
We hear you, Sprockets,
” came the singing from the box. “
We are coming
!”

If there was more, Sprockets was not aware of it. Somewhere in his brain a safety relay buzzed and clicked off, to give his poor battered circuits a rest. It would be fourteen hours and eighteen seconds before it clicked on again.

3

They Begin a Journey

The truck from the robot factory, fortunately, arrived an hour late the next morning. Had it come earlier, the doctor would not have had time to drink three cups of sassafras tea with large gobs of sourwood honey in it, and Sprockets and Rivets might have been taken back to the factory. But the tea calmed the doctor, so much so that he wondered if he hadn't been a bit hasty in his judgment. After all, he thought, little Rivets had his good points in spite of the marbles; and Sprockets, well, perhaps Sprockets could rebuild the Space Probe.

But at that moment his thoughts were interrupted by the laboratory clock, which was connected with his observatory on the roof.

“It is a quarter past ten,” said the clock, very precisely as if it were proud of its ability to keep time. “The day is clear and there are no flying saucers—” Then abruptly it flashed a red light and cried: “Correction! Correction! There
is
a flying saucer!” And all at once it was screaming: “
Flying saucer! Flying saucer! Flying saucer
!”

The doctor upset his teacup, dashed madly upstairs, changed his mind, and dashed madly down again, turned around twice in his excitement, and dashed into the courtyard. He collided with the driver of the truck from the robot factory, who was staring upward, bug-eyed, at a purple flying saucer hovering overhead.

“Ug!” said the truck driver, pointing. “Flying s-s-saucer! A p-p-
purple
one!”

“Naturally it's a purple one!” snapped the doctor. “Take that truck out of the way so it can land!”

“B-but I came to pick up a pair of witless and deranged—”

“We don't have any! Some addle-pated idiot made a mistake! Return to the factory!” The doctor dashed back into the house and tore upstairs again, calling loudly: “Sprockets! Sprockets! Where are you? Come here this instant!”

He found Sprockets asleep on his cot in the robots' room. Standing beside him were Rivets, who was counting, Jim, who held a watch, and Mrs. Bailey, who had an instruction book on robots in her hand.

“What's going on here?” the doctor demanded impatiently.

“Sprockets is asleep, dear,” Mrs. Bailey told him.

“Robots
never
sleep!” snapped the doctor.

“They do when they've had jellifying jolts and their safety relay clicks off,” Mrs. Bailey informed him. “It says so right here in the instruction book.”

“But I can't have him sleeping now!” cried the doctor. “Don't you know the purple saucer has come to visit us?”

“Of course I know it, dear. Sprockets sent for it.”

“He
sent
for it? Bless me, how? Why? What for?”

“To help solve the Mongolian question, dear.”

“Then wake him up! Hurry!”

“Daddy,” said Jim, “Sprockets can't wake up till his safety relay clicks on again. It's almost time.”

“Fifty-wun,” Rivets was counting. “Fifty-two. Fifty-fwee …”

At the count of “sixty” Sprockets opened his eyes, blinked, and suddenly bounced to his feet. For the first time since the accident he felt really wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, and in full possession of his circuits.

“Sir,” he said to the doctor, “I hope you will accept my apologies for the trouble I have caused you. Has the purple flying saucer arrived yet?”

“Of course it's arrived!” cried the doctor. “Why do you think I'm standing here tearing my hair? Get down there and greet them! You know I can't sing and twitter their language!”

“Yes,
sir
!” said Sprockets, and was gone like a flash, oiling his tongue as he ran. The musical language of the purple people was the most difficult one he had ever learned, and very hard on the tongue bearings.

Outside, he gave a joyous little
tock
at the sight of the purple saucer shimmering in the courtyard, and raced up the narrow stairway that had been lowered for him.

“Ilium! Leli!” he sang to his friends, as they ran to him with outstretched hands.

They were small, hardly taller than Jim, but very, very slender and beautiful, so that they reminded Sprockets of the slender-stemmed flowers in Mrs. Bailey's garden. Everything about them, even their curious clothing, had a lovely purplelike glow that seemed one color one moment and another color the next.

“It is purplishly, glowingly wonderful to see you again,” Leli sang, in the gay manner of the purple people, and she kissed him fondly on the end of the nose.

“We came as quickly as we could,” Ilium told him. “But we were way over in the Globular Cluster beyond the Edge, twelve thought-laps away.” He smiled and added, “What can we do to help you?”

“It's about our fourth planet,” said Sprockets. “The red one we call Mars. It's put us in an unpurplish pickle. Did you know there's a Something on it?”

“We didn't even suspect it.” Ilium was suddenly interested, so much so that his eyes changed color and shone like opals. “It's such a curiously worn-down place, and it seems lifeless except for the lichens. How did you learn about it?”

Sprockets told him what had happened.

“Then we must go to Mars and search for the Something. It is
very
important, most galactically so. All Somethings on all planets must be investigated. Tell the doctor we will be most spectrumly pleased if he will come with us.”

“He will be most purplishly delighted to hear it,” Sprockets sang in reply. He turned as Jim, the doctor, and Rivets came up to the saucer's slender stairway. “This is my new brother, Rivets,” he explained. “He's only semi-positronic, but he's the best brother a robot ever had. He helped me signal you when my circuits were jammed.”

“I
thought
so!” Leli laughed. “When your signal came, we also received a distinct impression of marbles—purple marbles. We knew it wasn't you. Anyway, we thought they might be needed, so we brought some along.”

“He'll love you for it,” Sprockets sang. “But I'm not so sure about the doctor.”

Rivets was blinking at him in amazement. “Spwockets, how did you learn to twibble like that? You thound like a mocklingbird!”

“S-h-h!” Sprockets whispered warningly. “Your screw—”

But the doctor was far too excited over seeing his saucer friends again to notice anything else. His only difficulty was the matter of the musical language, which was far too fast and full of trills for an Earthman, even the doctor, to learn.

“Bless me!” he sputtered. “Ig, ow, oh—what, how—”

“Sir,” said Sprockets, “it's all been arranged.”

“Eh? Bless me again, what's been arranged?”

“The solution to the Mongolian question, sir. You've been told, no doubt, about what that unspeakable, unmentionable person—”

Jim said: “He doesn't know yet, Sprockets. You don't think
I
'd tell him what Professor Katz has done, do you?”

“Eh? What's this about Vladimir Katz?” The doctor's mop of white hair began to bristle. “Speak plainly, Sprockets. Mince no names.”

“Yes, sir. No, sir. I regret to inform you, sir, that Prof. Vladimir Katz is on his way to monopolize Mars in a spaceship built by the Mongolian Planetary Monopoly. If he monopolizes Mars, he may learn about the Something and monopolize it.”

The doctor was thunderstruck. But before he could bristle further, Sprockets added hastily: “However, sir, I am happy to inform you that I have just concluded arrangements for us to fly to Mars and search for the Something with Ilium and Leli. As you know, the saucer's speed is such that we can easily fly circles around the professor and reach our destination many weeks ahead of him.”

“Bless me!” said the doctor, quite overcome. “Bless me!” Then he exclaimed, “Mars!” and his voice fairly vibrated with rising excitement. “This is absolutely triply terrific! Now I can solve the secret of the Something—and do it face to face. I must tell Miranda and get my things.”

Dr. Bailey turned and rushed down the stairway, with Jim panting eagerly at his heels.

They found Mrs. Bailey in the kitchen, packing a lunch basket. “You don't have to tell me,” she said. “You're going to Mars—and meet that horrible Something face to face.”

“Of course,” said the doctor. “Naturally. How else would we meet it?”

“I don't know, unless you use mirrors.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “I hope you don't meet it in the dark.”

“Never fear. We'll carry flashlights. Now, if you'll fix us a spot of lunch—”

“I'm already fixing it, Barnabas. But all the way to
Mars
—and Jim is so young.”