Sprockets (9 page)

If his force globe hadn't been working, the fine Moon dust would have gotten into his joints and seeped right into his circuits, so that soon he would have smothered. All the same, he wondered if smothering wouldn't have been better than to lie here helpless through all eternity.

Anyway, Jim was safe, and the Moon bats were gone. He knew this because his positronic radio was still working, and he could faintly hear Jim calling him and then calling the doctor.

A lot of good it did. He couldn't reply to Jim and tell where he was, and there was no possible way Jim could find him, lost down here in a Moon dungeon in a smother of dust.

To practice passing the time—and there would be time uncounted ahead of him to pass—he tried counting a few million numbers. It didn't help a bit. He counted much too fast. For some reason, he didn't feel a bit as he usually felt when he was turned off. In fact, he felt rather giddy.

He felt so giddy he made up a jingle—just to feel it tingle—through his positronic circuits.

Moon bats, Moon bats,

Flapping everywhere;

Why do they flap

When there isn't any air?

How silly, he thought. Being nonmatter, they flap on the magnetic waves, of course.

He tried another rhyme, trying to make it better than the first, which was really rather dreadful.

Moon bats, Moon bats,

How many have I seen?

Ten, ten, double ten,

Forty-five, fifteen.

Oh, dear me, he thought. I'll never be a Shelley or a Longfellow. And anyhow, there were twice that many bats. He was trying to think of something else to tingle his circuits when he heard a little singing cry on his radio. It was so startling that it almost made him move. In fact, it
did
make him move the merest trifle, though he didn't realize it immediately.

“Oh, Sprockets, help!” came Leli's cry. “Help! Help! Ilium is hurt! I'm afraid he's dying!”

“I hear you,” he tried to answer, though he knew it was impossible to say a word. He could only hear, and faintly at that.

What could he do?

He
had
to do something.

Then he remembered that his cerebration button was still on full, and that he had moved the merest trifle when he heard Leli's call.

Maybe he could turn himself on. With his battery off, he would have to manage it with his brain alone.

He put all he had into thinking his hand around to his switch. Again he heard Leli crying for help. It gave such a desperate surge to his thoughts that his little hand began inching behind him. It stopped, and he was powerless for a moment as he almost blanked out. Then Leli cried once more and there was such fear and grief in the cry that his hand moved again and touched his switch.

CLICK
!

Sprockets had turned himself on.

It was something that no robot had ever done before. For a moment he blanked out completely from the terrible effort of it, but his battery took over and he sat up in the dust calling: “I hear you, Leli! Have courage. I am sending help immediately.”

10

He Uses His Buttons

The first thing was to call the doctor.

“Dr. Bailey! Dr. Bailey! Sprockets calling! Emergency!”

“I hear you, Sprockets,” came the doctor's voice. “Where are you? Jim said you vanished in a cloud of Moon bats. Are you all right?”

“Forget about me, sir. Ilium is badly hurt. Leli needs help immediately.”

“Heaven preserve us! Where are they?”

“I don't know, sir. I hoped you did, for you went in their direction. I've had an accident and been out of contact. I'll try to locate them. Leli,” he sang, “Leli—how can we find you?”

“Oh, Sprockets, I'm not sure,” she answered tremulously. “I was following Ilium and not watching how we got here. I think we passed two lakes after we left you, and many castles. Twelve at least.”

“Can you see the saucer from where you are?”

“No. The cave curves and hides it. Oh, Sprockets”—her voice broke—“we've got to do something fast!”

“Can you carry Ilium?”

“Not any farther. I've been carrying him, but it's impossible to go on. There are high walls in the way. And I cannot leave him. You see, his force globe is defective. It went off when he was climbing, so of course he fell. In this dreadful cold, and without air, it takes only seconds—I—I got to him as quickly as I could and fastened my force globe around the two of us, but—”

“Leli, can you call the saucer to you?”

“No. I cannot control it unless I can see it and direct it.”

“Oh.” Sprockets was silent a moment, thinking at top positronic speed while he considered every possibility.

“Leli,” he spoke again, “have courage and be patient. I promise you everything will be all right, but it will take a little time.”

It would have been very easy if she could have directed the saucer to her, for then the doctor could have followed where it led and helped the two aboard.

“Dr. Bailey,” he called, “Leli is not sure of her location. She passed two lakes and at least twelve castles. I suggest, sir, that you and Don José start in that general direction, and I will follow as soon as possible. Jim, are you near?”

Jim's voice said: “I'm outside the place where I lost you. Where are you, Sprockets?”

Sprockets told him, then asked, “Have you a rope?”

“No, and neither has Daddy. We forgot and left all our ropes aboard the saucer.”

Sprockets gave a little
tock
. He'd been counting on someone having a rope. Why hadn't he been more watchful and looked after the ropes? “Oh, dear me,” he said, “this does complicate matters. What I need is a levitation button.”

But he did have a balance button, which would help him climb where no human would ever dare set foot.

“Jim,” he said, “I'm going to attempt to climb out of the pit. I want you to stand in the doorway and think away the Moon bats when they appear. They are attracted by my atomic battery, and they drain my power.”

“I'll think 'em away,” Jim said fiercely. “I'll think 'em clear around to the other side of the Moon if I have to. Start climbing, Sprockets! We're all counting on you.”

Sprockets began floundering through the dust. It was a little like being a bug in the bottom of a flour barrel. He soon discovered he could make much better progress by trying to swim through it, which he did. Finally he touched the side of the pit, dug his strong little fingers into a crack, and began clawing his way upward.

When his head emerged above the dust, he stopped, turned on his balance button, and blinked his eye lights thoughtfully around.

What he saw was not at all reassuring. The pit stretched at least fifty feet upward, and hardly any of the stairway was left. His fall must have crumbled most of what remained. Worst of all, the pit narrowed at the top.

“I'll worry about that when I get there,” he told himself, and began climbing, thankful that he didn't have a worry button to complicate matters.

If he had been made of human stuff, with ordinary soft fingers and fingernails, he would have worn his fingers right down to little nubbins in practically no time. As it was, there were places where even his strong metal fingertips could find no grip on the wall. The wall was obviously of a different substance than the vanished stairway—probably it had been chiseled out of the hard Moon rock.

He solved this problem by taking his screwdriver from the tool kit in his pocket, and using it to dig out tiny holes just large enough to insert the tip of a finger.

Then, hanging by a finger at a time, he would reach as high as his short arms would stretch and dig another hole where he could cling with another finger. Boiled down, it was all a matter of positronic balance, positronic juggling with the screwdriver, positronic hope, and all the positronic thinking he could pour into it.

He was halfway up the wall, clinging like a fly, when the first great dark shadow swooped down upon him.

Sprockets paid no attention to it. He couldn't afford to notice it, but he could almost hear Jim thinking it away.

The shadow vanished. Other shadows came, and most of them vanished too. But finally there were so many shadows that Jim could not deal with them all.

By now, however, Sprockets had reached the curve in the wall.

“Jim,” he asked, “is my climbing stick up there on the floor?”

“Yes,” said Jim, “it's right where you dropped it when the bats first came.”

“Then hook my stick to your stick, and let it down toward me. Don't try to pull me up. Just lie down on the floor and hold tight, and I'll climb up the sticks.”

Each climbing stick had a strong hook at the end. Presently Sprockets saw the handle of one stick dangling above him.

“Ready?” he called.

“Climb away!” said Jim.

A few seconds later Sprockets hauled himself out of the pit. With him came a circling cloud of Moon bats.

They raced outside, followed by the bats.

Sprockets cried: “My battery attracts them! I'll have to turn myself off till you think them away!”

CLICK
!

He was turned off again, and thankfully so, for he had used up so much energy and positronic brain power escaping from the pit that he was almost ready to blank out, and he simply couldn't stand those vampirish bats nibbling at him.

Then, faintly, he heard Leli's frantic voice calling: “Oh, Sprockets! Please hurry! Please!”

Her voice jolted his circuits. It was suddenly terrible to have to stand there, motionless and helpless, while Jim furiously thought the bats away. But finally the bats vanished, and Jim turned him on.

Sprockets began to run.

“I'm coming, Leli!” he said. “Keep calling. It will guide me to you.” To Jim he said, “I'm going to Leli—follow me and think the Moon bats away if they return.”

His little feet flew over the dusty rock of the Moon cave. Jim followed, close at his heels. They jumped cracks, bounced over walls, and raced along the shores of the frozen lakes. With Leli calling, it was a simple matter for Sprockets to determine her direction and go directly to her. He saw no Moon bats—probably because Jim thought them away—nor did he see the doctor, though he could hear him talking worriedly somewhere with Don José.

He found Leli crouched under a crumbling wall, clinging tightly to Ilium so that her force globe would cover them both.

Sprockets stooped, caught them up together in his small arms, leaped over the wall, and raced back the way he had come. As he ran he called the doctor to return. He was surprised how little Ilium and Leli weighed, even here on the Moon. He could have carried ten times as much.

When they sighted the saucer in the distance, Leli directed it to them. They reached it at the same time as Don José and the doctor.

Within the saucer, Sprockets placed Ilium on one of the bunks. Leli sank down beside Ilium, her tiny hands clasped. The doctor and Don José hovered near, helpless and dejected.

Sprockets said, “Isn't there
anything
we can do, Leli?”

“No,” she said sadly, “it is too late. See how dim he is? Soon his inner glow will be gone.”

Suddenly Sprockets burst forth hopefully, “But wouldn't a quantic moonstone help?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “if we had one. This is what they are for. But they are so rare. We—we didn't really expect to find one. We just—hoped—” She began to cry.

Sprockets whirled away. “Jim, get a rope and follow me!” he begged. “Hurry!”

He clicked on his force globe, rushed through the purple veil of the air lock, and jumped down the stairway. His cerebration button and his balance button were already turned up high, and now a halo of color began flashing merrily around his head as he turned on his instinct and his special perceptor buttons.

In the Moon cave he paused just long enough to see if there was anything distantly teasing his circuits, then boldly he turned on his ultraviolet perceptors.

That did it.

Looking now like a doubly hot hobgoblin, he could feel something far below one of the castles glowing in return. He raced in the direction of it, Jim close behind.

With so many buttons turned on, he knew he couldn't last long. But that didn't matter—if only he could last long enough. Even the Moon bats didn't matter, and already they were beginning to come in droves, attracted by his ultraviolet perceptors—which made them practically mad with vampirish hunger.

As he reached the gaunt structure where he could feel the glow, Sprockets tied the end of Jim's rope about him and plunged inside. The passageway leading below was choked with Moon dust. He dove into it and wiggled and swam downward.

He was wiggling rather feebly by the time his hand closed over the shining purple object as large as a hen's egg. He was hardly wiggling at all when Jim finally hauled him up, even though he had turned off all his buttons.