Sprockets (6 page)

Sprockets said, “Sir, shall I go forward and announce myself, and request permission to enter?”

“Why, yes,” said the doctor, nodding vigorously but not stirring an inch from where he stood. “By all means, Sprockets. Go right ahead.”

Sprockets marched bravely forward until he was within ten feet of the saucer. There he paused, raised his hand by way of greeting, and said in a dignified little voice: “I am Sprockets, a small robot of this planet. I request permission to come aboard and meet you.”

For a few seconds nothing happened. Then there was a slight change in the saucer's color. A touch of silver brightened the purple. There was no sign of an opening anywhere on the saucer, but suddenly an opening appeared—underneath. A slender stairway slid down to the ground. With it came curious sounds that seemed almost like music.

Sprockets touched his cerebration button, and decided that the stairway and the musical sounds were an invitation to enter. Confidently, he marched up the stairway.

Nothing in his intense but short education had prepared Sprockets for what he found now. His eye lights blinked twice as rapidly as usual. Though the saucer had seemed without windows from the outside, so that it was impossible to see in, it was exactly the other way on the inside. The wall all around the bowl of the saucer was transparent on the inside, and Sprockets could see everything on the outside. Through the transparent walls he caught a glimpse of Jim and the doctor, waiting expectantly in the distance, and Don José working frantically with his camera. Then all his attention went to the two beings at the head of the stairway.

At first he couldn't quite make them out. Their outlines seemed a little fuzzy in the purplish light. But when he adjusted his vision button, he saw them clearly.

They were people. And they were purple. Well, not really purple, but there was a touch of color about them and their strange clothing that was like purple. They were small, hardly taller than Jim, and very, very slender and beautiful, so that they reminded Sprockets of the slender-stemmed flowers that grew in Mrs. Bailey's garden. But they were real—though quite unearthly—people.

Sprockets put on his best manners and gave them a polite little bow. “I am a small robot belonging to Dr. Bailey. My name is Sprockets.” He touched himself and repeated his name. “Thank you for allowing me to enter.”

Each of the purple beings gave him a polite bow in return. From the lips of the taller one came a quick singing sound, almost like music. It was followed by what seemed to be a name, for the speaker touched his chest and sang the word several times.

Sprockets was unable to make it out until he had adjusted his hearing button. Then he said, “Ilium?”—which was the way it sounded to him.

The speaker smiled. “Ilium,” he said again, then touched Sprockets and added, “Sssprockeetsss.”

The other being touched her chest, smiled, and said, “Leli.” Then she touched Sprockets gaily, and spoke singingly, “Sssprockeetsss.”

Sprockets gave another polite little bow and actually managed to twist his small mouth into what was almost a happy smile, which is quite remarkable for a young robot made as he was, practically from scraps.

“Ilium and Leli,” he said, “it is a great pleasure. May I invite the others aboard? They are very anxious to meet you.” And he pointed to where Dr. Bailey, Jim, and Don José were waiting.

Ilium smiled, pointed, and beckoned with his slender hand. It was an invitation, and Sprockets wasted no time in trotting down the stairway and calling to Dr. Bailey that it was safe to enter the saucer.

Dr. Bailey, Jim, and Don José came slowly, wonderingly, aboard. Jim's eyes were almost as round as Sprockets', and he gave a gasping whisper. “They
are
purple people!”

The doctor whispered, “Hush, mind your manners!” Though he couldn't help but add: “Incredibly, wonderfully purple! They must be from a purple planet!”

Don José, his mustachios trembling, said: “Such beeautiful peoples! They will make such beeautiful peectures!” And he gave them a courtly bow as Sprockets performed the introductions, and immediately began fussing with his camera.

“Ilium and Leli,” said Sprockets, “I want you to meet Don José Salazar, Dr. Barnabas Bailey, and Dr. Bailey's son, Jim Bailey.”

When they had met, the doctor turned to Sprockets, quite baffled. “Bless me, how did you learn their names? I hear nothing but a sort of rapid music when they speak.”

“I had to adjust my superaudios most carefully, sir. But we are faced with a very serious and baffling problem in linguistics.”

“Insuperable and insurmountable,” muttered the doctor, running his fingers through his hair so that it stood out in all directions.

Jim said, “What's ‘insuperable and insurmountable' linguistics?”

“We can't talk their lingo,” growled the doctor. “Now hush and let me think.”

“I'll bet Sprockets can solve it,” Jim suggested.

“This is no job for a half-educated bundle of circuits,” muttered the doctor, “even though they are positronic. What we need is a cross between a mockingbird and a Beethoven. Don't you realize they speak music? Pure music?”

“Sir,” Sprockets began, adjusting his cerebration button.

“Don't interrupt my thinking,” ordered the doctor, “or I'll be forced to turn you off.”

Sprockets closed his mouth, but he was thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life. All at once he knew he had the answer if only he were allowed to tell it.

Suddenly he touched his whisper button and swung to Jim. Into Jim's ear he hurriedly, quietly, poured his idea.

Jim's eyes widened. “Sure!” he said. “Why not? Hey, Daddy! Sprockets has a real idea!”

“Hush,” said the doctor absently, tugging at his hair as if he would somehow loosen an idea of his own. “How many times have I told you not to interrupt me when I am concerned with a deep problem?”

“Aw, Dad,” Jim persisted, “all we have to do is get it across to Ilium to fix up a language tape and run it through Sprockets' head. Then he can act as interpreter.”

“Hey?” muttered the doctor. “What's this?”

“A language tape,” said Jim. “From Ilium.”

“Why, bless me!” said the doctor. “The very thing I was almost thinking of! Let's get busy!”

7

He Goes Space Traveling

It really took some doing. And the doing was practically miraculous, everything considered.

If Ilium and Leli hadn't been such exceptional people—far, far ahead of plain ordinary Earth people—it would have been impossible. But they were so bright they positively shone when they thought. And when they thought hard, they pulsed and glowed so beautifully in a variety of colors it was almost as if they had lamps inside them. In fact, they changed so fast from purple to pink to violet, and then to mauve and back to pink, that their outlines grew fuzzy and it was actually difficult to see them.

Just getting the idea over to them was the least of it. All Dr. Bailey had to do was show them the learning slot in the back of Sprockets' head, then make signs of feeding an educational tape into the slot while Don José Salazar—who had a fine baritone voice—hummed a little tune. Ilium and Leli understood instantly. They needed only to give Sprockets a tape of their musical language, and the problem would be solved.

Naturally, being from a distant planet where everything was entirely different, they had no tapes aboard that would fit a small robot on Earth. But that didn't stop them. They darted all about the saucer, singing so rapidly to each other that ordinary ears couldn't possibly have made out the sounds. Their slender little hands moved so swiftly from one curious machine to another that even Sprockets, with his faster than human vision, had difficulty seeing what they were doing.

In almost no time (though to be exact it was six hundred and thirty-nine and seven tenths seconds by Sprockets' counting) they had a special musical tape all ready for him.

In three more seconds he was sitting glassy-eyed in the middle of the saucer with his learning button turned on, and a whole galaxy of strange music was flooding his positronic circuits.

It was wonderful. It was beautiful. It was, of course, quite out of this world. It was not like anything Sprockets could have imagined, even with his imagination button turned on high. But it was so curious, so intricate, and it came so fast and there was so much of it, that Sprockets could feel his circuits getting dangerously hot again.

Long before he was through his circuits were sizzling, and he had lost all accounting of time. Then came a blank interval when he was quite overcome with music.

When he awoke he was lying flat on the saucer's floor.

Don José was holding his head and saying: “Ah, the poor leetle mechanical one! Pray that he lives!”

Dr. Bailey was fanning him and saying: “Bless me, I believe he's coming out of it.”

Jim was bathing his hot forehead with a wet handkerchief and saying: “Come on, Sprockets! We can't do a thing without you!”

And both Ilium and Leli were singing sweetly to him—and he could understand them.

Ilium was saying: “You were never in any danger, Sprockets. We knew exactly how much your circuits could take.”

And Leli was saying, “Do you like the language of the Purple Planet, Sprockets?”

Sprockets sat up, blinking his eye lights. In a tinny little voice he sang in reply: “It is a fascinating language, Leli. I wish I could teach it to Jim and the doctor, but I fear it is impossible. The Earth tongue is too slow, and they haven't got positronic circuits.”

Jim said, in English, “Why, Sprockets, you're twittering like a bird!”

“Really?” said Sprockets. “I feel like a bird—maybe a firebird or a phoenix. Oh, my hot head!”

“Sprockets,” ordered the doctor, “ask them where they are from, and why they are here.”

“Yes, sir, but first allow me to oil my tongue, sir. Theirs is a
very
difficult language, and quite hard on my tongue bearings.”

Sprockets oiled his tongue, asked the doctor's question, then gave the translation.

“Sir, they are from the Purple Planet, which orbits around the Purple Star on the other side of our galaxy. There are three planets that orbit this unusual star. The first is the Purple Planet, where only children live. The second is the Blue Planet, where grownups live. The third—”

“Great jiggling jeepers!” interrupted the doctor. “Do you mean to tell me that Ilium and Leli are just
children
?”

“Yes, sir. They are barely a hundred years old, and are classed as young children. When they reach five hundred, and have completed their education, their inner glow will change slightly. Then they will be adults, with adult thoughts, and move to the Blue Planet. On the third planet, which is green—”

“Incredible!” muttered the doctor. “Inconceivably, incommensurately incredible!”

“What's ‘inconceivably, incommensurately incredible' mean?” asked Jim.

“Super, super,” said the doctor. “You can't believe it, but you do.”

Don José said eagerly: “Proceed, leetle one. What of the Green Planet?”

“Oh, sir, that is the most interesting one of all. It is inhabited only by the robots who make everything for the Purple and Blue People. They are terrifically smart robots who make all the flying saucers and the atomic transmuters—”

“Atomic transmuters?” said the doctor, his hair suddenly standing straight up with surprise. “How do they work?”

“Leli will show you,” said Sprockets. “They are simple little gadgets. Suppose you are hungry. All you have to do is put a pebble or something, to furnish the atoms, into the slot. Then you give it a taste of what you want, and press the button.”

“Say,” said Jim, “I'm starved, and all I've got left from Mom's lunch is a piece of chocolate cake I've been saving. Do you think—”

“Of course,” Sprockets told him.

He took the slice of cake from Jim's knapsack and gave it to Leli. She slipped it into one side of the atomic transmuter, dropped a pebble into the other side, and touched a button.

Almost instantly, six pieces of chocolate cake covered with luscious icing popped out upon the transmuter's tray.

“Wow!” Jim pounced upon the cake. He stuffed one piece into his mouth and passed the other pieces around. “I wish I had saved some of Mom's fried chicken!”

“Why, bless me,” said the doctor, “I saved a drumstick.”

In less time than it takes to tell it, the transmuter had produced more chicken drumsticks than they could eat, but of course they ate them all because Jim was six times as hungry as the others.

“Now,” said the doctor, when they had finished, “all this has been delightfully enlightening, but tantalizingly inconclusive.”

“What's tanta—” Jim began.