Norby`s Other Secret

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 becomes 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?"

"Then I fall, too, don't I?"

"Just a little. Fall slowly and let him bang against the floor, then up, then down with another bang, and so on." Jeff had trouble getting the words out, so anxious was he that Fargo understand.

The Mentor understood. He made a sound like gears grinding horribly. "I will let you go, alien monster, if you get me down to the ground. Don't do as the other monster suggests. I am nearly dead and I will be quickly destroyed it there is hard contact with the ground."

Fargo looked at Jeff. Jeff looked at Fargo.

"Let's go down," said Jeff, "Nice and easy." Unfortunately, he didn't count on Oola's reaction. Without warning, she jumped from his arms to the Mentor's shoulder and Jeff found himself in midair without antigrav.

He cried, "Help! I'm falling!"

Fargo yelled, too, as he desperately dropped with the Mentor and tried to snatch at his falling brother.

Jeff was trying to shrink back from the rapidly approaching floor when he felt two hard hands grab him. They were not Fargo's, but the Mentor's. Jeff was hanging from the Mentor's left arms, facing Fargo, who was still wearing the antigrav collar, and was still clutched by the Mentor's two right arms.

Fargo cancelled the fall with such vigor that all three-four, counting Oola-shot upward again.

"Wow!" said Fargo, shaking his head to free his left ear from Oola's enthusiastic licking. "That was close!"

He slapped Jeff's arm and grinned. "Let's all go down slowly, now, and have a reasonable conversation about this. Haven't I always told you, Jeff, that logical argument is better than derring-do?"

"Sure," said Jeff. "You've always told me. What you don't do is show me." His feet reached the floor and the Mentor let go first of Jeff and then of Fargo.

The two brothers watched while the enormous robot, with Oola resting comfortably on his shoulder, clumped slowly back into the scanning room, where Norby still sat inside his barrel. The Mentor sat down and put his head in his hands.

"Suddenly, I'm sorry for him," said Fargo in Terran Basic. "He's such an old robot."

"I think he's Mentor First," said Jeff in Jamyn.

"Yes," said the Mentor, looking up. "How did you know that?"

"We came to see you, long ago, just after you had been activated to do your work here," said Jeff, gently. The Mentor First they'd met then had been so strong, so gleamingly new.

"Surely you could not be alive for so long; we were activated thirty thousand years ago. And I do not remember you," said the Mentor. He said this in Terran Basic.

"You have learned to speak our language!" said Jeff.

"Since you left two weeks ago, the computer analyzed your language and I have learned it-enough to know that you pity me. An alien such as yourself should not take the liberty of pitying me; it is not your place to do so. And yet-and yet I find it strangely comforting. Perhaps, now, you will help me remove this terrible fear I have."

"What is the fear?" Jeff asked softly.

"When you would not help, I scanned you, hoping the computer and I could find out how you got to Jamya." The Mentor's head hung lower, and his body seemed to quiver.

"What's the matter?" asked Fargo. "Are you afraid of us?"

"No, no. I am afraid of myself. I am so seriously out of order that, at times, I am not in a position of mental stability, and the moments-of insanity-have come more frequently. When my Pet came back to me so unexpectedly, I felt myself becoming sane once more, but I don't know how long that will last. If I become insane again, you must leave me here in the scanner. The computer is adjusted to deactivate me if I become too dangerous."

Jeff was horrified. Suddenly the thought of Mentor First as a villain seemed grotesque. He was a sad and suffering machine.

Jeff protested, "But you mustn't kill yourself."

"I must, if I cannot be cured. And I do not think a cure is possible. I am too old. All the other Mentors have died, and I am too much alone. Caring for the Jamyn by myself is more than I can manage and even my Pet has been away from me for too long. We have no means of entering hyperspace to refuel ourselves, you see. The Others wanted to isolate this planet, and they must have thought they would be back long before our enormous supply of fuel would be consumed, but they have not come back."

"And you thought I came from hyperspace," said Jeff, "and could get you into hyperspace where you could refuel-and perhaps find the Others."

"Yes. It is as though you read my mind…But the disturbance in my brain has progressed too far. It is too rate. Go away."

"Then have the computer release Norby. He can help. Norby!" shouted Jeff.

"I heard," came Norby's voice, and his head popped up. He elevated on antigrav and hung in the air before the Mentor.

"I was exploring the computer, Jeff," Norby said. "I'm sorry you thought I was helpless in its grip and that you were upset by that, but I could not allow anything to interrupt me. I'm done now, though, and I'll be glad to help you, Mentor First. I will take you into hyperspace so you can refuel."

The Mentor's eye patches flared in a blue iridescence, but quickly dulled. "You? A small alien robot?"

"I am not alien. I'm yours. You made me. At least partly. Can't you tell?"

"You don't look familiar," said Mentor First. "You are lying."

"Take my hand," said Norby. "Find the data in my mind. It's available now that I've explored the data banks of your computer. I remember-and you will, too."

They touched, and while Jeff watched, his heart thumping, the Mentor's eye patches began to brighten and he reached out his two lower arms to hold Norby's barrel. "You are the Searcher," he said in Jamyn.

"Part of it," Norby said. "When you realized that the Others might not be returning and that you could not go into hyperspace to find them or to refuel, you finally worked out a device that would go into hyperspace for you." Norby spread out his arms. "Inside me is that device."

"You never returned," said Mentor First, softly, "and I thought my attempt to build a hyperpenetrator had failed."

"Your attempt did not fail, and I found the ship the Others had promised to send, but a collision with a small asteroid ruined the ship and damaged me. I lay paralyzed for a long time until a human being named McGillicuddy, a creature like these two with me, explored the asteroid on which the ship and I were wrecked, and found me. He repaired a damaged robot of his own, using some of my parts. Since I have been in this new and beautiful shape, I have been drawn back to Jamya over and over. Now I remember everything and can help you and at the same time, fulfill my original function."

"It is too late, my son, I am dying."

"No! Come with me to hyperspace and refuel."

"I do not think I can. I am too weak to refuel now."

"I'll do it-and channel the energy to you." A wire extended from Norby's hat and touched Mentor First's chest. "Now, father, join minds with me. I will think of hyperspace, and together we will go…" Norby and Mentor First vanished.