Rivets and Sprockets (4 page)

“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.”

“Posh and twiddle, he's going on ten, eleven, or maybe twelve,” said the doctor, who never could remember Jim's age. “Anyway, he's practically a juvenile adult.”

“I'm quite aware of it, dear, and I'd never let you go bumbling so far from home without him. But—but
Mars
!”

“Aw, Mom,” said Jim. “It's only a bit farther than the Moon, sort of.”

“Only a trifle, so to speak,” hastened the doctor. “Space is so readily relative, especially in a saucer. We'll pop over, look at a canal or two, and pop right back.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Nothing to it. You really should come along, Miranda, and see the Martian canals. They're—”

“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 five 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.”