Norby tnc-2

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by Isaac Asimov

"You mean we've moved back in time?"

  "Of course!"

  "In that case," said Fargo. "Get out of my chair, little robot, and let me take us down to this planet of yours."

  He put Oola on the control room floor, where she sat placidly, and licked herself like a cat while still looking like a beagle.

  Down they went, skimming across the Jamyn continent.

  Jeff said, "Can you find Zi's castle, Norby? You did that two times before without trouble."

  "In our time, Jeff. The castle doesn't exist at this time in the past."

  "I mean…Locate the place where the castle will some day exist?"

  "I get no feel for it," said Norby, sounding worried.

  The Hopeful skimmed low over the planetary ocean and headed back over the continent again.

  "Trees. Lots of trees," Fargo said. "Those sea creatures that looked up at us might be interesting."

  "No," said Norby sharply. 'The Mentors chose land creatures to civilize. Maybe we went back too far. Maybe there's no animal life on land at all."

  "Not likely," Fargo said, "when it's so richly forested and vegetated. See, there's a group of animals below in the grassland." He sent the Hopeful downward in a sharply banked curve for a closer view. 'They look something like bipedal dinosaurs, but I don't see any sign of wings."

  'That's odd," said Jeff. 'They don't even have them furled. I think they don't have any wings."

  The Hopeful came in for a quiet landing and rested upon the grass at some distance from the herd. Fargo moved to open the airlock.

  "Hey," said the ever cautious Jeff, "aren't you going to analyze the air outside?"

  Fargo paused. "You've been here, haven't you? And you breathed. And you're alive."

  "That was at a different time. Why don't you ask the computer?"

  "Oh, well." Fargo looked pained. "What's the air like?"

  The computer said, "Breathable. There are plant seeds and spores to which allergies might exist, but I can't test for that without more information."

  "We'll chance it," Fargo said, as he picked up Oola.

  They moved out on the grass, which was waving in the wind. It was rather cool, but Jeff remembered the glacier and decided that he could get along easily with this kind of coolness.

  Jeff said, "I'll just step over there and speak to the dragons. I can speak Jamyn, you know."

  "Look out!" yelled Norby, tugging at Jeff's pant legs.

  The dragons were approaching en masse, and at a run. They were also speaking, but not in Jamyn. Their language, if it could be called that, consisted entirely of loud roars, screeches, and hisses, punctuated by little puffs of smoke from their nostrils.

  "Jeff, old boy," said Fargo, trying to control Oola, who was snarling and barking alternately. 'These are not friends of yours. It's my opinion we had better get back into the ship at once."

  Without arguing the matter, they did so, shutting the airlock behind them.

  "I thought you told me that the dragons were smaller than human beings," Fargo said.

  These were as big as the Hopeful. In the viewscreen, they could see the dragons swarming over the ship, trying to find a place to bite. Their fangs sounded like jackhammers upon the hull.

  "Fargo," Jeff said, "I don't think their teeth are made of ivory. They look shiny, as if they were made of metal, or of diamonds."

  "You're right, Jeff, and they may damage us." He moved to the controls. "We'll have to get away."

  "They aren't speaking Jamyn," said Norby unnecessarily. "I don't think they've ever been civilized."

  Fargo moved the Hopeful slowly upward on antigrav so that the dragons clutching at the hull gradually peeled off. The huge animals were now spouting flames in their frustration. Fargo seemed fascinated.

  "From a whiff I got outside," he said, "I think they make their flames by splitting hydrogen sulfide…"

  "The computer says the hull is heating under those flames," said Norby. "We should get back into orbit."

  Again there was no attempt to argue the matter, and the ship rose precipitously. When it was safely in orbit, the three had another conclave, while Oola chased her tail round and round in the control room.

  "My feeling is," Fargo said, "that we did get back to a time before the Others, even before the Mentors created a civilization on this planet. We went backward in time too far."

  "I think that's my fault," Jeff said. "Not Norby's. He did very well. It's just that when Norby and I were linked and trying to move backward in time, I felt some kind of fear, and perhaps that threw us off."

  "You weren't feeling my fear," said Norby, sounding outraged. "I was certainly not afraid."

  "No, no," said Jeff. "You don't understand. You see, I was thinking of the Mentors very hard. And I felt something about them that I must have felt when I was in their scanning room, but didn't realize I'd felt because I was too full of my own fears. Do you understand what I mean?" He looked at Fargo helplessly.

  Fargo said, "Sure, but what was it you felt without knowing you felt it?"

  "It was the Mentor who was afraid. I was feeling its fear when we were trying to move in time."

  "Was the Mentor afraid of you, do you suppose?"

  "No."

  "Of the Others?" Norby asked.

  "I don't think so," said Jeff. "The Mentor was awfully afraid, though, and he needed me. I don't know what for, but it had something to do with his fear."

  "If he is afraid of something and needs your help," Fargo said, "it doesn't seem to me he can afford to do us any harm."

  Sounding doubtful, Jeff asked, "Should we go forward, then, and see if we can find the young Mentors?"

  "Can we?" said Fargo with a grin. "It's up to you two."

  "Let's try again, Jeff," Norby said. "Maybe there's nothing to fear. Maybe it was only Mentors' fear that made you afraid."

  Jeff almost said, 'You were more afraid than I was,' but he pressed his lips together and didn't say it. Instead, he held out his hand. "Sure," he said, "let's try again."

  Half an hour later they gave up.

  "No dizziness, no nothing," said Fargo. "I guess we're still in the same time."

  "Well," said Norby, "it seems to be very different to go into a time I've already existed in. It's easier to move to a time earlier or later than when I've been there. Do you know what I mean? I tried to push us all forward until we were well past where the Mentors showed up, but I couldn't seem to do it."

  "In that case," said Jeff, with a sinking feeling, "that would mean that you, or parts of you, were present on Jamya sometime after the Mentors appeared, just as you thought you might be. I guess you're really Jamyn."

  "I suppose so," said Norby. "It's exciting, isn't it?"

  Jeff didn't think so. But all he said was, "Can you slide forward only a little into the future, before the time when you were constructed?"

  "I can try."

  "I can see where it's difficult to move to a time where you've already existed," Fargo said, "because one of the big paradoxes of time-travel involves the possibility of meeting yourself. Still, why don't we go really far into the future and find out what happened to us in the Jamyn historical records of the future, so that we'll know what to do to fix everything up? That would be exciting!"

  "That sounds like another paradox to me," Jeff said, sounding unhappy. "I don't think we can do that. The future isn't all written out. Suppose we find out that we were killed when we went back to Jamya. Then we would be in despair and give up and that might be why we were killed."

  "I don't understand that," said Norby, "but I don't want to be killed."

  "Don't worry, little robot," Fargo said, "we won't let that happen, but I see Jeff's point. All right, Norby, just move us up into the nearest part of the future you can manage, shortly after the Mentors begin to work."

  Jeff and Norby tried again. This time Jeff visualized a young Mentor and tried to feel full of confidence. He was distracted because Oola suddenly began to howl like a lost hound.


  "Hush, hush, my beauty," said Fargo, stroking her long ears as she sat quivering, pressed against his leg. She stopped howling, but she whimpered instead.

  Jeff was about to say, "Let's try it again, Norby," when Fargo cried out without any trace of his usual humor. "Wait! She's gone. Oola's gone."

  8. Not Dangerous Enough?

  Jeff looked about in astonishment, and the viewscreen caught his eye. Jamya was much closer. Norby must have been clever enough to move them nearer to the planet as they moved in time, presumably to put them inside the force screen once it was set up. But what about Oola? She certainly was not in the control room.

  Jeff said, "Maybe she's in the sleeping quarters. Maybe we all blacked out."

  But Fargo was already out of the room searching. A few minutes later he was back, his face deeply troubled. "She's not inside the ship."

  "Oh, my," said Norby. "I never thought of her."

  "You mean you forgot to bring her forward with us?" Jeff asked. Then, when Norby failed to answer, Jeff shook him. "Well? Say something."

  "Don't rattle my works," Norby said. "I'm trying to figure it out, and getting me all jarred inside doesn't help. It's not my fault. I suppose she exists in this time somewhere and it was, therefore, much more difficult for the Oola of the future, our Oola, to exist here than for us. And I didn't allow for that and she couldn't come along-I think."

  "If that were so, we could find her here, in this time," said Fargo.

  "What time is this time?" Jeff asked. "When are we?"

  "I don't know," said Norby in a querulous tone. "I get all mixed up with all these crises and with getting shaken and everything."

  Fargo and Jeff looked at each other. Jeff said, "It's my fault, Fargo. I should never have suggested time travel; at least not involving you and Oola and the Hopeful. Norby and I should have taken our chances alone."

  "Don't be foolish," Fargo said. "You couldn't leave me out of this. We'll just find Oola here and now."

  "Yes, but that will be before she was put into suspended animation and before we released her from the hassock capsule, and she won't remember us."

  "Then she'll learn about us allover again; or, rather, all over previously, for this time is long before the time we got her."

  "We don't even know how long before," muttered Jeff.

  "It's not my fault," shouted Norby.

  "It doesn't matter," Fargo said. "We have to explore the planet, Oola or no Oola. Knowledge is better than ignorance, even if it's sometimes more uncomfortable, so down we go for a landing."

  "There's the castle!" Jeff said, as the Hopeful skimmed along above the treetops after a number of passes over the continent, with Norby guiding them very uncertainly.

  Norby said, "See! Didn't I tell you I could lead you there?"

  "On the twenty-fifth pass," said Jeff.

  "The tenth," countered Norby. "Maybe the ninth. You don't know how to count."

  Jeff remembered that he wanted to be nicer to Norby. "That's true!" he said. "You did a very good job."

  But Norby just said, "Huh!"

  Jeff said, "I don't see any of the small buildings where dragons like Zi live; just the big castle."

  "That's a good sign," said Fargo. "You can see a number of huge robots there, and they're all busy doing something or other. The small buildings haven't been built yet, I suppose. Maybe the small dragons haven't even evolved."

  "Yes," said Norby. "Everything has just begun. All the Mentors are new."

  "Oh?" said Jeff. "If you know that, why did you tell us you didn't know what time it is?"

  "Because I didn't," said Norby indignantly, "but that doesn't mean I can't use my eyes. Look at those robots. Can't you see that they're shiny? They're nothing like those old wrecks you and I saw in the castle when we were there before-I mean later-I mean before in our lives but later in time."

  "I know what you mean," said Jeff and Fargo, speaking together.

  The robots were watching them as the Hopeful sank to rest just before the castle. The biggest signaled to the rest, who went inside the castle. Then the one remaining robot walked up to the ship.

  "Message from outside on my radio pickup," said the Hope.ful's computer.

  "Let's hear it," said Fargo.

  It came promptly in forceful, clearly enunciated words: "Strangers, you have entered our planetary space without permission. Speak and reveal yourselves and your purpose."

  The language was, of course, Jamyn, and Norby translated for Fargo.

  "I think it would be more polite to answer from the airlock, in person," said Fargo. "It shouldn't be too risky. The airlock door can be closed quickly if the Mentor makes a sudden move. And since you speak Jamyn, younger brother, you'll have to be the one to take the chance."

  "Maybe I should be the one to do it," said Norby, "I speak Jamyn like a native."

  "No," said Jeff, who didn't like Norby's reference to being a native. "I think it would confuse the Mentor if you appeared. He's probably never seen a robot like you, and if he can sense that you are part Jamyn, he'll wonder how you came to be on this spaceship. I don't think it's a good idea for them to find out we're from the future. In fact," Jeff frowned and shook his head, "suppose we do or say something that changes the future?"

  "Just being here and being seen may have done that, " said Fargo, "but what's the difference? Now that we are here, let's see it through. These robots may look like newer versions of the ones you met in our own time, but they don't give me the impression of being aggressive. They seem reasonable."

  "I don't know what you base that on, Fargo," said Jeff, "but if you really think so…Hey, look at that! There's Oola!"

  Oola, or a creature exactly like the one who had originally emerged from the hassock, bounded out of the castle and stopped beside the Mentor who had spoken. She wagged her tail.

  Jeff said, "She must have realized we're here."

  "No," said Norby. "Don't be ridiculous. You two haven't been born yet. She can't possibly…"

  "And it might not be our own Oola," said Fargo, sounding a bit depressed at the thought. "There are probably lots of All-purpose Pets on this world, just as there are lots of big robots. Presumably, they've only just begun to unpack the little gardening robots and those police robots you saw running around the castle."

  The computer said, "The message from outside has just been repeated a bit more forcibly."

  "We'd better get going," said Jeff with a sigh. He opened the airlock and stood just inside the outer door. He smiled in what he hoped would seem like a friendly fashion, then he remembered that on Earth some animals thought baring the teeth was a sign of hostility. He looked serious at once and said, in Jamyn, "I greet you."

  "Ah," said the Mentor in a deep voice. "You know our language."

  "Yes:' said Jeff. "We are friendly people who are interested in this world which we have come upon in our travels. We hope you will help us by explaining what your world is like, who you are, and what you are doing here." He spoke very slowly, trying not to make any unfortunate mistake in his Jamyn, and trying also not to give away too much about themselves. Behind him, he could hear Norby translating for Fargo.

  The Mentor stared at Jeff as though it were uncertain what to say in response to the boy's bold statement. And while the silence held, the All-Purpose Pet suddenly changed her shape.

  "What's she doing?" asked Fargo in a whisper from behind him.

  Jeff whispered. "I was trying to concentrate on her because looking at the Mentor makes me a little nervous, and it just occurred to me that our Oola had never gotten round to looking like a bear and this one changed immediately."

  The Mentor looked down at the All-Purpose Pet who might or might not have been Oola. The little bear was sitting on its haunches and waving its forepaws at Jeff.

  "Interesting:' said the Mentor. "According to data left in our main computer by those who made us, there were creatures in the form of this little one, but much larger, on an icy planet they visite
d. There were also creatures rather like you in appearance whom they took to another planet for a suitable civilizing procedure. Are you those specimens?"

  "No," said Jeff. "We travel on our own. Did your makers take a cave bear, too-the creature that, in form, was like the one beside you, now?"

  "They did indeed bring specimens of various animals for us. We-I-bioengineered some creatures into this All-Purpose Pet. Some resembled the shape she had when she came out of the castle. The originals had large and undesirable fangs. I constructed something smaller and more affectionate; altogether more suitable as a pet."

  "Fargo!" said Jeff, turning back to him. "I think Oola may have been bioengineered from a saber-toothed tiger-a smilodon-but there may have been some cave bear thrown in, along with other Ice Age…"

  The Mentor interrupted him. "It is impolite to talk in another language that we do not know," he said in reproving tones.

  "I'm sorry," said Jeff, and he tried to explain about Oola, but succeeded only in getting muddled in his attempt to avoid mention of time travel. That proved useless under the penetrating stare of the large robot.

  "I think I understand," said the Mentor. "I doubt, though, that these animals you speak of, smilodons and cave bears, are your contemporaries. You do not speak of them as though that were true, and you are sufficiently different in behavior from the specimens taken by our makers to make it reasonable to suppose you are from the future of that planet. If you are, do not tell us anything about the future, because we do not want to know."

  "Smart robot," muttered Fargo, when he heard the translation.

  "We are in trouble," said Jeff, carefully refraining from comment on what the robot had said about the future. "We need to know who you are and what you are doing on Jamya."

  "We Mentors," said the robot, "were activated by the main computer in the castle. It is our task to bioengineer the most promising species on this planet and to train them to become civilized and self-sufficient. You have met the Jamyn?"

  "We've seen them. Large animals."

  "Too large. And too stupid. We'll change that, though, for they have definite possibilities. For that, we need a simple planet like this with one landmass and one intelligent species. We are here to keep-to keep-a home going."

 

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