Rivets and Sprockets

by Alexander Key

  “Gracious, no! Someone in this family has to keep a firm foot on solid Earth. But I suppose you’re taking Sprockets and Rivets?”

  “Sprockets, yes. He’s needed. Rivets, no. I can’t risk being flumdiddled on the fourth planet by a piddling little robot that plays with marbles.”

  They were interrupted by Sprockets, who came hurrying to help the doctor pack.

  “Where’s Rivets?” the doctor demanded.

  “Sir, Ilium and Leli are running a language tape through his slot. They think he can learn a simplified version of their musical tongue. In which case, sir, he would be of inestimable help in communications whenever we are separated.”

  “Glurp!” gurgled the doctor. “That settles it. Sprockets, pack my ice skates and swimming trunks. We must be prepared to investigate the Martian canals, depending on their condition. But don’t bother with the space suits—Ilium has much better ones than ours.”

  By the time they were ready to leave, Mrs. Bailey had stuffed a huge lunch basket with sandwiches, fried chicken, cheese, sausage, olives, pickles, plums, ice cream and cake, and a special box of goodies for Ilium and Leli. Finally she handed Jim a big thermos bottle filled with sassafras tea with large gobs of sourwood honey in it.

  “Now mind, Jim. Whenever your daddy gets too excited, give him a cup of tea.”

  “Yes, Mom. What do you want me to bring you from Mars?”

  “Anything but that Something. I won’t have it in the house.”

  She kissed them all good-by except Rivets, who was still recovering from his language tape, and she stood waving to them while the saucer rose humming in the sunlight.

  They rose slowly at first, then Ilium switched on the under-gravity nullifiers and the saucer sped almost instantly into the darkness of space. With the nullifiers on, it seemed, even to Sprockets, that they were standing still. The only way he could tell that they were moving was to see Earth becoming smaller and smaller on one side, and space becoming blacker and blacker on the other—except for the small red dot that was Mars growing bigger and redder.

  “Whee!” said the doctor. “This is really whizzing. How does the saucer do it, Sprockets?”

  “Sir, as I’ve explained to you before, the saucer has hyper-sub-medio space inductors that are connected to a thought thingummy, so naturally we can fly as fast as thought.”

  “Naturally,” said the doctor, “I remember. Ilium has merely to think for it to go—this way or that way, and as fast as he wants—and that’s the way it goes. So of course we fly thoughtfully. Very simple indeed. How fast are we flying now?”

  Sprockets spoke to Ilium, then translated: “Only three hundred thousand miles a minute at the moment, sir. It is dreadfully slow, but he says if we go faster you might become abbled—I mean addled—even with the nullifiers on. At the present rate, sir, we will land on Mars in six hours and seven minutes. As for Professor Katz and the Mongolians, of course—”

  “Yes, yes? What about the rascals? Are we near them?”

  “Practically abeam, sir. As nearly as I can compute, sir, they are six thousand and three miles, seven hundred and forty-two feet off to starboard. Ilium wants to know if you would like to swing over and have a look at their spaceship.”

  “Indeed I would! I have the gravest suspicions about their ship,” said the doctor emphatically.

  “Daddy,” said Jim, “do you think their ship was built from the designs someone stole from you?”

  “Exactly,” snapped the doctor. “And I suspect Vladimir Katz. All he can do is filch and purloin, connive and prevaricate. He cannot create.”

  “Daddy, what does ‘filch and purloin, connive and prevaricate’ mean?”

  “It means less than I can say, and he’s a double-dyed rat to boot. Heaven preserve us! What’s that racket?”

  They turned to see Rivets sitting up, blinking his eye lights rapidly.

  “Yeedle-de-yee! Jiggle-le-je!” Rivets was singing. “Oh, Spwockets, I can twibble like a mocklingbird!”

  Sprockets had his screwdriver and oil can out in a flash. It took hardly a second to fix the screw, but it was too late to change what the doctor had heard.

  Dr. Bailey shook his head sadly. “If only I’d known in time, I could have sent him back to the factory. Now we’ll be stuck on Mars with an abbled robot.”

  4

  They Abble the Professor

  Sprockets wanted desperately to explain about poor Rivets’ loose screw, which seemed to be getting looser no matter how he tightened it. But it was a bad moment to explain anything, for suddenly everyone’s attention was taken by the Mongolian spaceship, which appeared off to starboard.

  It was a long, gleaming rocketlike shape—exactly the shape of the spaceship model in the doctor’s laboratory. Sprockets thought it looked very handsome indeed as it streaked through space, with the stars bright as diamonds beyond it and a stream of blue fire shooting from its tail.

  “Very handsome,” said the doctor, thinking the same thing. “Very handsome, indeed. As naturally it would be, since I designed it.” Then all at once his mop of white hair began to bristle. “Sprockets, tell Ilium to take us closer. It will ease my ire to see Vladimir Katz befuddled—and he is bound to be befuddled when he sees who has overtaken him in a purple saucer.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sprockets. “But I regret to remind you, sir, that although we will be able to see Professor Katz through our viewing ports, he will be unable to see us through ours. The saucer’s windows are of a special material that is transparent only from the inside.”

  Even so, it did seem to ease the doctor’s mind slightly when he saw the look on the professor’s face as the saucer swung close. Prof. Vladimir Katz was a fuming, wheezing, waddling barrel of a man with no hair on his head, no neck under it, and a great many chins, possibly four or five. Sprockets saw him flatten his big nose against the spaceship’s viewing port, and stare pop-eyed at the saucer like a great bullfrog ready to burst. The professor was completely astounded, though hardly befuddled. But the Mongolian crew behind him was completely befuddled, for they could be seen trembling and falling over each other in the corner of the control room.

  Sprockets hardly noticed the crew, for he had turned on his cerebration button while he checked the ship’s course. In two ticks and a sudden tock he made a most unpleasant discovery.

  “Sir,” he said to the doctor, “it is my sad duty to inform you that you are faced with a particularly paramount and perplexing problem in ethics.”

  “W-what’s ‘paramount and perplexing’—” Jim began.

  “Hold it!” ordered the doctor. “Ethics, did you say? Ethics?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sprockets replied. “Among my learning tapes, sir, was a very difficult one on that subject. It dealt with the good and bad in matters, and one’s proper conduct in a double dilemma.”

  “Hey, what’s ‘a double dilemma’?” Jim burst out.

  Sprockets was always surprised that Jim, who was so super-smart about most things, had so much trouble with words. But before he could answer, Rivets, whose screw was almost too tight now, exclaimed: “Oh, I know that one. A double dilemma is something with two horns, and you don’t know which horn to get stuck on.”

  “Enough of this posh and twiddle!” sputtered the doctor. “Sprockets, get to the point, or I’ll turn you off!”

  “Yes, sir! What I’m trying to tell you, sir, is that the Mongolian spaceship is a trifle off course. It is bound to miss Mars.”

  “Eh? Off course? Are you sure?”

  “Positive, sir. With my positronic computers, my radar vision, and my special tapes on astronomy, I am incapable of error. The Mongolian spaceship, naturally, being only a spaceship, and very slow compared with a purple saucer, must fly to a point where Mars will be nine weeks from now, and not where Mars is now.”

  “Naturally,” said the doctor. “Quite elemental. Proceed.”

  “Well, sir, I regret to say that Mars will not be there when they get there. Mars will be fiv
e hundred and eighty-two thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three and a half miles beyond them.”

  “Great jiggling jeepers!” muttered the doctor. “If they miss Mars that far, they’ll never be able to reach it before their atomic evaporators use up all their water. And if they can’t reach Mars and get more water for fuel, they’ll never see Earth again. Oh, Sprockets, why did you have to tell me this just now?”

  “Ethics, sir.”

  “What are you going to do, Daddy?” Jim asked.

  “I’m tempted,” the doctor growled, “to let the rascals float forever in space. Earth would be much better off without Prof. Vladimir Katz.”

  Sprockets blinked his eye light thoughtfully. “You are absolutely right, sir. But would that be ethical?”

  “It would not,” said the doctor. “And I will not have the life of Vladimir Katz on my conscience—not to mention a crew of mongrelly Mongolians. Sprockets, signal the spaceship and tell them their error.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  Sprockets turned on his built-in radio, adjusted his voice button, and said in a loud commanding tone: “Purple saucer calling spaceship! Purple saucer calling spaceship! Come in, please!”

  There was no answer, so he tried it again in Low German, Russian, two Mongolian dialects, and the Morse code in five languages for good measure.

  At last he said to the doctor: “I cannot raise them, sir. Their radio seems to be turned off.”

  The doctor was very upset. “Dear me!” he muttered. “Sprockets, there is only one thing to do. Ethics demands that one of us must somehow manage to board the spaceship and tell them in person. Er, ah, I expect it will have to be you.”

  Sprockets tried to say, “Yes, sir,” but all he could manage was a loud tock.

  Dr. Bailey stared at him. “Bless me, are you afraid, Sprockets?”

  “N-not exactly, sir. It—it’s only because I am so valuable, sir. If I were worthless, it would not matter. But I am worth double my weight in gold, and if anything happened to me your loss would be extreme.”

  “Then let’s get this uncertainty over with. The quicker the better.”

  “Y-yes, sir. But I may need some help from Rivets.”

  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 th
e 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?”