Norby tnc-2

by Isaac Asimov

  "Of course. Your kind of fun is no fun. But there is something else…" He rose on antigrav and whispered in Fargo's ear.

  Fargo nodded, but did not change his position, "En garde, sir, I mean, madam, Your Dragonship." He moved into the ready-to-attack position.

  The Grand Dragon snorted and little puffs of smoke came out of her nostrils. "There, you see! You have made me revert to the primitivism of my ancestors; you have forced me to be angry enough to breathe fire. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. "

  "It would not be fair for you to use fire," Fargo said.

  "I do not intend to. I will cow you by the superior nature of my personality and take you all to the Mentors, who will imprison you."

  The Grand Dragon and Fargo moved toward each other. They began circling, feinting, and reaching. Suddenly the Grand Dragon lunged and Fargo went head over heels. The Grand Dragon drew back in surprise. Clearly, she hadn't expected that to happen.

  Fargo picked himself up with a groan. "She's quick."

  Jeff watched the battle with sinking heart. Karate against slippery dragon scales was not working too well. Fargo managed to trip the Grand Dragon, who seemed more surprised than ever when she went down, but once she got back, she retaliated immediately, saying, "If you' are going to be aggressive, so will I."

  "The fight isn't fair, Your Highness-ship;" said Fargo gravely. "Your arms are much longer than mine. May I have a short stick?"

  "Certainly, since that will make all the more plain your uncivilized nature and force you to abase yourself to my higher culture."

  "Norby," said Fargo, "go get the skewer in the galley. You know the one that you were curious about the other day. That ought to be about the right length."

  Jeff's eyebrows shot up. The object Norby had been curious about had been an apple picker that Fargo had bought at a tool sale, a sticklike device with a collapsible grasper at one end for plucking apples too high to reach by hand. Fargo would buy anything that was a bargain, however useless. It was one of the reasons the family business had done so badly after the deaths of their parents.

  The battle began again with Fargo wielding the apple picker against the Grand Dragon's sharp foreclaws (which, however, she wielded so carefully that Fargo had not yet been scratched).

  They again circled and circled, reaching out, feinting; but the Grand Dragon was obviously getting angry over the fact that Fargo had not yet admitted her superiority and given in. She was puffing smoke in spite of herself and growing angrier still at this demonstration of her animal nature. Fargo took advantage of the manner in which her anger was disrupting her concentration. As she lunged forward, he leaped to one side, caught her arm, pulled her forward, and down she went.

  "Bravo!" said Jeff.

  "Stupid human being," muttered Norby. "Showing off, when I have told him how to conclude this ridiculous exercise in a perfectly simple way…"

  "I'm not sure I should fight a female," said Fargo, pushing back his hair, "but there are no males on this planet for me to fight."

  He stopped talking because the Grand Dragon was up, fire spurting out of her nostrils.

  "That's very animal," said Fargo, waggling his apple picker at the Grand Dragon's nose.

  She stifled the flame, but as Fargo sprang forward, she unfurled her wings and elevated, then made a feint at him from the air.

  "Unfair!" shouted Jeff.

  "It certainly is," said Fargo, reaching up with the apple picker, activating the grasper at the end and seizing the golden collar which circled her scaly neck-just as such collars circled the necks of every other dragon they had seen. One twist, a pull, and the collar was off.

  "Mine!" shouted Fargo, "spoils of war!" He put it around his own neck, where it hung loosely.

  Jeff watched what followed in amazement. The Grand Dragon, instead of soaring majestically, began to flap her wings frantically. The enormous effort broke her fall, but did not prevent it. She landed on the lawn with a loud "plop" and in a most undignified posture.

  Her guards gaped. Zi and Zargl hid their mouths with their claws. Norby tittered metallically.

  "What happened?" asked Jeff.

  "This is an antigrav device," said Fargo, touching the collar. "I've been thinking that the dragons must be too heavy to fly, especially with such comparatively small wings, and Norby confirmed that."

  "That's right, come to think of it," said Jeff. "They didn't have wings at all in their prehistoric history. Remember?"

  "I do. The Mentors must have added them as part of their bioengineering program for esthetic reasons and perhaps to add stability in antigrav flight." Fargo elevated. "It's done mentally. One thinks 'up' and there one is. A great device. Probably Norby has one incorporated into his own works."

  "Of course, I do," said Norby shrilly. "I keep telling you all the time I'm Jamyn in origin-in part."

  "Now," said Fargo, "I think I'll pay a visit to the castle under my own steam and not as anyone's prisoner."

  The the Grand Dragon had recovered from the mixture of shame and physical confusion that had beset her, and now she struggled to her feet. Her guards rushed to her side as she screamed, "Get that stranger! Bring him down!"

  "No," said Fargo, skimming over her head. "I think not. I won the fight fairly and you cannot try to upset the result without showing yourself to be most uncivilized. You just sit there and recover, Your Majesty, while I…"

  "No you don't," said Jeff. "Not alone, you don't." He snatched up Norby under his left arm and scooped up Oola with his right. "We're all going. Up Norby-to the castle."

  10. Villains?

  As Jeff and Norby swept up and forward to follow Fargo, who was already approaching the castle door, Jeff saw that the Grand Dragon was vehemently ordering her guard back. Either she had taken seriously Fargo's stem comment about uncivilized behavior, or else she had decided it didn't matter how the strangers were brought to the castle as long as they got there.

  Inside the castle, everything seemed the same as before. The four intruders, two humans, one small robot (now on his feet again), and one All-Purpose Pet, proceeded down the dark corridor. around the sharp curve and into the auditorium, which was still lined by the silent figures of dead Mentors. Oola was restless in Jeff's arms.

  "Where's the villain?" asked Fargo. "I don't see any live robot. "

  His voice echoed in the vast room, and no one answered.

  Jeff took Norby's hand, and then Fargo's. -Let's talk telepathically. It will be safer, and perhaps private, but we have to touch each other, Jeff said to their minds.

  — What's that? That was Fargo, startled.

  — I'm sorry. I forgot you haven't experienced telepathy. Eerie, isn't it?

  — Certainly not. That was Norby. His thoughts were loudest because he was designed for telepathy. It is a perfectly natural way of speaking to one another if one has the talent for it.

  Jeff smiled to himself. -Yes, but we human beings aren't used to it. Do you sense anything, robot or otherwise, that's alive in this building, Norby?

  — I've been trying. I think there's a barrier field around this room at the moment. I can't sense beyond it. It comes from the scanning section of the computer, part of which must be on the back wall, though nothing shows there.

  Fargo let go of Jeff's hand and walked quickly toward the back wall. Jeff ran after, pulling Norby with him. He caught up to Fargo, and grabbed him.

  — Don't let go of us, Fargo, or we can't communicate privately. And don't touch that wall, or the computer may give our thoughts to the Mentor.

  — Jeff, you are fourteen and I am twenty-four. As your much older brother…

  — You can also be my stupid brother. I'm the natural leader here, age or not, because I've been here before… -and you got yourself captured. I've been working with the giant computers at Space Command so I ought to…

  While they argued (neither managing to finish a sentence), Norby withdrew his legs and arms into his body, elevated on his antigrav, and floated
slowly to the featureless computer wall. Jeff and Fargo stopped their mental conversation and watched him as he sailed up and down the wall, over and back.

  — What are you doing, Norby?

  — He can't hear you now, Fargo, when you talk telepathically. You aren't touching him.

  — I forgot. Maybe you should be leader for a while, Jeff.

  "I am leader," said Norby out loud. "I can sometimes catch the telepathic drift, even when I'm not touching you. This is my planet, after all, even if I can't remember much, so let me try."

  "Try what?" asked Jeff.

  "Try using my intuition."

  "Do you have one?"

  "Not a human one. I seem to have a built-in imagination and the ability to make guesses and take chances. Or maybe being with human beings has taught me how to take chances, even though I certainly don't enjoy it. Still…"

  Norby's feeler wire came out and entered a small crack in the surface. Minutes passed. Norby's back eyes closed. Suddenly the crack began to expand and the wall opened like sliding doors. Inside was an opening covered by a misty atmosphere and around the opening was the mechanism of something that might have been a computer, though it was certainly like no computer Jeff had ever seen.

  Jeff said so and Fargo added, "Well I've seen a great many more computers than you have, Jeff, but it isn't like any I've seen, either. What is that place inside?"

  "That's the scanning room, Fargo," said Jeff with distaste. "Don't go in. It doesn't feel good."

  Norby fiddled with the computer and the mist began to clear.

  Fargo said, "There's an old beat-up Mentor. What's it doing in the scanning room?"

  Jeff stared at the huge figure within the computer. "I don't know. There was no Mentor there when I was inside."

  Norby put out his legs and arms and walked back to Jeff. "I must go inside the scanning room. It is necessary."

  "Aha," said Fargo, "your alien nature is coming out, Norby. You're not planning to turn us over to the Mentors, are you?" He did not sound as though he were entirely joking.

  Jeff fired up at once. "Don't talk to my robot that way, Fargo. He's loyal to us."

  "Are you sure?"

  "He rescued me from Mentors before, and I would trust him even if he hadn't."

  Norby came closer to Jeff and touched his hand. "Stay here with Fargo, Jeff." -and thank you for trusting me, he added telepathically.

  Norby inserted his wire into the computer once more. The mists began to swirl up as the protective field formed, but before it closed in entirely, Norby hopped inside, withdrawing his wire as he did so.

  Jeff changed his mind at once, feeling oddly alone without Norby's funny barrel shape in his reach. "I shouldn't have let him go, Fargo. It was a mistake. We've got to get him out of there before he's destroyed."

  "Why should he be destroyed? That's not a very brave robot. He wouldn't go in there in a million years if he thought there was danger."

  "He's plenty brave in a crisis. Besides, he may have miscalculated. Norby's part Jamyn and if the Mentors made him, perhaps they will try to keep him, or change him or…I don't want that! I want Norby back, just as he is, mixed up and all!"

  "Patience, patience," muttered Fargo, studying the computer's complex surface. He touched a few spots. Nothing happened.

  "On the other hand," Jeff said, "maybe we should wait and do nothing." He knew he wasn't thinking clearly. He wanted to believe that Norby knew what he was doing, but with Norby, one could never tell when his mixed-up nature might rise to the surface.

  Fargo seemed totally absorbed in feeling the odd surface of the computer. He also put his hand out to the mist at the computer entrance and drew it back quickly. "No entry. Strong barrier field. The question is, Can we undo it somehow?" He went on trying.

  Jeff finally managed to put it into words. "What if Norby doesn't want to come back with us, Fargo? What if he would rather be on his native Jamya than come back to Earth with me? What if-and what's happened to Oola? I put her down when Norby went inside and now I don't see her."

  "Oola," called Fargo. "Here! Come to me!"

  "Woof!" She was still beaglelike in appearance as she bounded out of the shadows, ears flapping. She sprang into Fargo's arms, licked his nose, and wriggled in her effort to get down again.

  "All right," said Fargo. "You can get down, but don't run away. Stay right here."

  She sniffed allover the floor, as if she were looking for something. Then she followed a trail up to the scanner entrance, was blocked by the barrier field, and sat down.

  "Oooo-o-o-o."

  Jeff's spine tingled at the sound. Oola howled more like a primeval wolf than a beagle. "She must miss Norby," he said, hoping it was that.

  "I feel like howling in frustration; too." Fargo said. "I've fiddled with some things on the surface that seemed promising, and a few that didn't, and nothing happens. I can't figure out this computer. I just can't fit my mind into the alien mind that constructed it."

  Oola stood on her hind legs and pressed her nose against one of the little panels marked irregularly over the surface. The mist began to clear at once.

  "I touched that one," said Fargo indignantly.

  "Maybe it had to be touched by something cold and damp," said Jeff.

  Norby was facing them at the opening. "I'm so glad to see you," he said. "I couldn't seem to open the scanner again from inside, and I was afraid that you'd never manage to work the other side. I felt very scared at the thought of having to stay in here forever, because I was having trouble getting out through hyperspace. How did you remove the energy barrier?"

  His legs were telescoped out as far as they could go, so that he seemed to be walking on stilts. Indeed, he was walking-moving round and round the immense hulking shape of the silent Mentor, who was sitting on the floor, with his eye patches covered.

  "Oola did it," said Fargo. "And what were you doing in there?"

  "I was trying to wake him up," Norby said, pointing to the large robot, "but I failed."

  Oola bounded inside and, with one leap, landed on the Mentor's shoulder. She settled down and yowled in his ear, her fangs growing and her body altering to look more tigerish.

  "She's reverting to her original shape!" Jeff said.

  Abruptly the Mentor stood up. "She is mine!" he said. His voice was harsh as if the mechanism for producing it was seriously out of order. His body was covered with discolorations and dents. He seemed even older than the first time Jeff had encountered him.

  "If she's yours," demanded Fargo, sounding angry, "what was she doing inside a hassock all these years? You didn't even know where she was. You didn't care for her one bit, and I do. I claim her. Oola, come to me."

  Oola jumped down and stood between the Mentor and Fargo, looking anxiously from one to the other, her ears growing first longer and beaglelike, then shorter and tigerlike.

  The Mentor's massive head turned to Jeff. "You were here intruding before. You refused scanning, and you would not help me. You will be scanned now, you and this other creature like you."

  Fargo stepped between Jeff and the Mentor. "Now just a minute, sir. Not only are you wrong about the All-Purpose Pet, you are wrong about us. We mean no harm. We have come to find the origins of our own robot, part of whose mechanism may have come from Jamya…Norby, where are you?"

  Norby was inside his barrel completely up against the computer. Only his feeler wire was extended and it touched the computer.

  Jeff ran to him, "Norby? Are you all right? Answer me!" He bent to touch him and got an electric shock. "Fargo, something's wrong! Norby's tied in to the computer and I can't get him loose!"

  "Release our robot, Mentor," said Fargo threateningly.

  With that, the Mentor's eyes flashed red. His two right arms seized Fargo about the waist and held him up in the air.

  "Monster!" shouted the Mentor. "You interrupted me at important work and I may never…I will not endure this! You will be scanned until everything you know and are become
s part of the computer and your body will be left an empty shell incapable of harming or disturbing me."

  Fargo stopped struggling because nothing could break the Mentor's grip. Instead, he laughed, and at that Jeff shook his head. It was Fargo's up-and-at-'em laugh, and it never failed to create trouble.

  Jeff stepped up close to the Mentor to try to reason with him, as Fargo had so carefully taught him to do all his life-and as Fargo so infrequently did himself.

  It was too late. Still wearing the antigrav collar taken from the Grand Dragon, Fargo rose in the air, carrying the Mentor with him. They swung out into the main auditorium, zooming up into the thick darkness of the high-ceilinged room.

  "Fargo, don't!" Jeff called, but Fargo was out of sight in the gloom and did not answer.

  "Norby, come out of it. Help me! I can't antigrav without you."

  "Meow?" Oola pressed against Jeff's leg and he patted her, absently. As he did so, he became aware of the thin, expandable collar around her neck.

  "Oola, can you antigrav?"

  "Rowrr?" Oola's fangs disappeared and she looked very much like a Terran housecat, purring against Jeff's leg.

  There were terrible noises coming from the darkness overhead, and Jeff, feeling frantic about Fargo, picked up Oola. Holding her close to his chest, he bent his head to hers and thought, very hard, picturing a small cat going up in the air.

  Oola meowed once more, and Jeff began to rise. Linking himself telepathically with a not-to-bright All-Purpose Pet that had saber-tooth ancestors was an interesting experience, but difficult to manage. They went up and down, and finally sailed upward-a bit too quickly-toward the Mentor.

  The darkness began to separate into distinct shapes, and Jeff could see that the Mentor was still holding Fargo.

  Fargo's eyes were shut, his jaw grimly set.

  Jeff somehow guided Oola that way. "Don't hurt my brother, Mentor! If you want me to help you…"

  Fargo opened one eye, "Shut up, kid. I'm under a strain, trying to do battle with this antiquated hulk, and I have no room to take care of you."

  "Why don't you just threaten to let go of your antigrav?"