"Comet tails!" said Norby.
"Where are we?" Jeff asked as he stared at the strange castle on the hill facing them. Terraced gardens spilled down the hill, and directly ahead was an elegant marble castle in miniature.
"What I did," Norby said hurriedly, "was to transfer Fargo and Albany outside the building. That would give them a head start. With their personal shields and Albany's knowledge of judo and Fargo's quick wit-you're always telling me how bright he is-they ought to rally a counterattack-"
"Yes, yes," said Jeff impatiently, "but where are we?"
"Well," said Norby, his hat swiveling as he looked about, "what I was trying to do was to get us to Space Command. I memorized the coordinates Mac gave me long ago, but maybe they weren't right."
"Yes, yes," said Jeff, still more impatiently. "Where are we?"
"Well," said Norby, "that's the one little thing I don't know."
"You don't know!" Jeff looked about, despairing. The surroundings were beautiful. The sunlight was bright and warm. There was a soothing rustle all about, but where on Earth-or off Earth-were they? "Can't you do anything right, Norby? You're a poor excuse for a robot."
"I try. It isn't always easy." Then Norby said in a small voice, "I wanted you to own me. I see now that it was a great wrong. You're all mixed up with a robot that's all mixed up. I'll try to get you home, Jeff, and I'll stay here, and you'll be rid of me. I'm sorry."
"No," Jeff said. "I don't ever want to be rid of you. It doesn't matter how mixed up you are; I'll just be mixed up along with you." He reached for Norby. "I wish you weren't so hard," he said. "It's difficult to hug you."
"I don't care," said Norby. "Hug me anyway. I'm so glad you want to keep me."
"Just the same," said Jeff, "I wish we knew where we were."
At that moment something came out of the small castle. It looked distinctly dinosaurish, except for its size
"A miniature allosaurus?" said Jeff uncertainly. He stepped back.
The creature came up to his knee; it wasn't even as tall as Norby. It was wearing what seemed to be a gold collar and, as it swished its tail, it emitted a series of variegated sounds.
"Is it talking or just making noises?" Jeff asked, feeling an extreme urge to reach out and pat its reptilian head.
"Don't you understand it?" Norby asked. "I keep forgetting that you're not a linguist. It-or rather, she-says you're cute."
"I think she's cute, too, but what's a miniature dinosaur doing anywhere on Earth? And how is it that she talks?"
"I don't think this is Earth," Norby said.
"But you understand the language. Doesn't that mean you ought to know where this is?"
"To tell the truth, Jeff, I don't know how I come to understand the language. I didn't know it was in my memory banks until I heard it. And I don't remember ever having been here before-unless-unless this is the place I dreamed about."
"But what did you do to get here?" Jeff was scarcely aware that the dinosaur was nuzzling his hand. Automatically, he began stroking her head.
"I just shifted through hyperspace. That's why it's so hard to get back. I could always get you back through normal space, but…"
"You went through hyperspace without a transmit?" asked Jeff in a half-shout.
Norby retreated a step. "Is that illegal?"
"It's impossible. No one can do it."
"I did it."
"But that's true hyperspatial travel. How did you come to know how to do that?"
"I thought everyone knew how."
"Well, then, how do you do it?"
Norby thought awhile. Then he said, "I know how to do it, but I don't know how to do it."
"That doesn't make sense." Jeff was sitting on the grass, and the creature had her forepaws in his lap and her head resting on his shoulder. She was making a sound like a soft "Gruffle, gruffle, gruffle." Jeff was running his hand down her long neck, which had pointed projections all the way to the tip of her tail.
"Do you know how to raise your arm?" Norby asked.
"Certainly."
"Do you know how to raise it? Can you explain exactly what it is you do to raise your arm? What happens inside your arm that makes it go up?"
"I just decide to have my arm go up, and it does."
"Well, I just decide to jump through hyperspace, and I just do. I can go anywhere in an instant. But I don't know how I do it."
"But, Norby, that makes you the most valuable creature in the Solar System-"
"Oh, I know that."
"I mean, you really are. No one else knows how to go through hyperspace without transmits. It would be the greatest discovery of the age if any human being could make it." Jeff began stroking the dinosaur faster and faster. "It was my ambition to make the discovery myself. That's why I wanted to go through the academy and learn all I could about hyperspatial theory. It's my dream to invent hypertravel some day. Now, with you to help me-"
"I said I only know how to do it, nothing else. Is that why you want to be with me, Jeff? Because I know how to hypertravel?"
"No. I told you I was glad I was with you before you told me about it. But now I'm twice as glad." Jeff was pulling the creature toward himself, yet he still wasn't aware of it. "Well then, if you came here, where are we?"
"But that's the other thing, Jeff. I know how to do it, but I guess I don't know how to aim right. I intended to go to Space Command, and I miscalculated. I don't know where we are-and yet I know that creature's language."
Jeff looked down at the dinosaur and suddenly realized that she was softly licking his left ear with her warm, dry tongue. He went over backward, and she tumbled out of his lap. She got to her feet and unfurled the leathery ridges on each side of her back spines.
"Wings!" Jeff choked. "She's got wings! She's a pterodactyl or something."
"Nonsense," said Norby. "Any fool can see that she's a dragon."
"Dragons are mythical beasts."
"Not here."
"What makes you so sure? You don't even know where 'here' is."
"I think part of me knows, but I can't tune in to it. I'm sorry, Jeff. I'm so mixed up, I think I ought to be destroyed."
"Not before you get us back. And even then, I won't let anyone destroy you. But get us back, Norby. It's important."
"Don't get mad, Jeff, but I'm having a little trouble figuring out how. I may have moved far out of the Terran Solar System. If only I could remember where this was! Part of me seems to have been here before, or why would I dream of it?"
"You know…I'll bet it's the alien mechanisms McGillicuddy used in you. The alien thing, whatever it was, was once here, whenever that was, and you just snapped back to that place without really thinking."
"In that case-Hey!" Norby went over sideways as the little dragon broke into a sudden run and pushed past him. She ran into the small castle.
Jeff helped Norby up.
"Baby dragons never have manners," Norby said. "I remember when-" He paused. Then in a discouraged voice he said, "No, I don't remember. For a minute, I was sure I had remembered remembering dragons, but I don't."
"You're getting me confused again."
"I can't help it. Maybe we'll be stuck here too long to be able to help Fargo and Albany defeat Ing."
"I'm hungry, Norby. Maybe we can find some forms of life to eat. But what about you? You'll never be able to plug into an electric socket here. You'll starve. Maybe that will inspire you to remember how to get back. "
"Actually, I can't starve. Electric sockets give me between-meal snacks. For the real thing I dip into hyperspace, and I can do that anywhere, anytime. There's unlimited energy in hyperspace. You ought to try it."
"I would, if I were able to," Jeff said. "What's hyperspace like?"
"It's nothing."
"That's very helpful."
"I mean it. Hyperspace is nothingness. It isn't space or time, so it has no up or down or when or where. When I'm in it, I can sense a…well, sort of…I guess it's a pattern that isn't really there but is potentially there because that's what the actual universe is, the pattern that's sort of potentially there in hyperspace…"
"Norby!"
"Well, I didn't say I could explain it. I can't. All I know is that hyperspace is definitely potential-I mean, it's potentially something, as if it's got reserve energy that comes into use for creating a universe, that of course is actually part of itself…"
"You're losing me again. How is a universe created?"
"I think that a spot in hyperspace suddenly gains a where and a when. How it's done or happens is beyond even me, so of course it's beyond everyone in the Solar System, and even if I could explain it to you, you wouldn't know how to understand it."
"Thanks for your high estimate of my intelligence. All I really want to know is if you can figure out how to get back to our Solar System."
"Certainly. I just have to tune into the pattern in hyperspace and find out where to go."
"Then you'd better do it soon. There's a bigger dragon corning."
"Perhaps," Norby said, as he backed closer to Jeff, "the little dragon's mother wants to thank us for being nice to her baby."
"Don't count on it," Jeff said, snatching up Norby. There was no use running. The dragon had long, strong legs, and wings as well. She was only as high as Jeff's chin, but she had gleaming, pointed teeth in double rows, top and bottom.
She made the same kind of sounds the little dragon had made, only much louder.
"What's she saying?" whispered Jeff.
"She says we are aliens and we might have to be taken to the Grand Dragonship unless she can teach us to talk."
"Well, what are you waiting for, Norby? Tell her you can talk."
Norby delivered a rapid patter of sounds, and the dragon responded with similar sounds.
"Jeff," Norby squawked, "let's leave right now. That foul reptile insulted me."
"What did she say?"
"She said I was simply a barrel and that I smelled of nails."
"I suppose she's right. The barrel did once-"
"Don't finish that sentence. We're going."
"No, we're not. If we dash off somewhere, we'll be lost twice as bad. Let's listen to what she has to say."
But she said nothing more. Instead she plunged toward them, plucked Norby out of Jeff's arms, and then bit Jeff on the neck. She licked her chops and wrinkled her snout as if she had tasted something bad. Then she placed Norby carefully on the ground and went back to the castle.
"Help, Norby! I've been bitten by the dragon. She's probably rabid! I've been bitten by a rabid dragon vampire!"
"Not very deeply," Norby said, examining Jeff's neck. "It's just a scratch. Barely enough to draw blood. I have a feeling there's a reason for it."
"I have a feeling I hurt. And her reason is that she wanted to taste me. Next time she'll make a meal of me. Do you want me to be eaten up by a dragon? Think, you dumb barrel! Get us back home. Get us anywhere! I don't care how lost we get."
My dear sir! There is no need to agitate yourself. Whoever you are, there must be communication in order for there to be a meeting of minds.
Jeff's mouth fell open. He swallowed noisily. "Norby, I just heard a voice-in my mind!"
In order to communicate with you, I had to taste your pattern since you do not understand vocal speech.
"I tell you someone's talking, Norby!"
"It's that abominably rude dragon-mother, Jeff. Do not condescend to answer her."
Just wait until I disinfect myself and my child, for we touched you, and since you are an alien you are probably full of germs.
"I am not full of germs," yelled Jeff. "You are. I'm sure I'll get tetanus from your bite. With all those teeth, you probably never use toothpaste."
No gentleman would say such a thing! I use toothpaste and mouthwash, and so does my dear little daughter, Zargl. I think you had better leave. No respectable Jamyn would want you on this world. I will place the hyperspatial coordinates of this world in the memory bank of your storage barrel
"Storage barrel!" cried Norby.
And I will thank you to leave.
"Do you have the coordinates, Norby?"
"Yes, but I won't use them. Not if they come from her. Not-"
"Norby, use them, or I will take you apart with my bare hands and mix you up so that you never get unmixed!"
The mother dragon appeared in the doorway of the castle, holding the baby in her arms. She made shooing gestures with her wings.
Away! Away! You crude monster!
"Come on, Norby!"
"All right, I'm trying. But I think you are a crude monster to make such vicious threats against me when it was only half an hour ago you were saying you loved me."
"I do love you, but that's beside the point. Get going!"
"Give me a chance. If you start shouting and hurrying, I'll just get mixed up."
"Must I tell you that you're always mixed up?"
"All right. I have the coordinates, and I know Earth's coordinates, and I'll concentrate on your brother. And now… one…two-I hope it works-three…"
They were skimming over Manhattan Island, and Central Park was a patch of green far below.
Jeff held Norby firmly under his arm and shouted, "You're too high up, Norby. Farther down and not too fast."
"You've got your hand over two of my eyes. All I can see are clouds and blue sky. Okay, that's better. Down we go!"
"There's a crowd in the park," Jeff said, "and they're surrounding the Central Park Precinct house. Get down so we can see what's happening."
"What if we get within blaster range?" Norby asked.
"Try not to."
"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who's flying."
"Come on, Norby. Lower!"
The crowd was milling about as if it didn't know its own mind. They had spilled over into the traverse, along which there was no traffic.
A group of Ing's men were outside the precinct house, blasters ready. Their leader was crying out, "Disperse, you rebels, disperse, or we'll fill the park with your dead bodies."
"Do you suppose he'll really do that?" Norby asked. "I don't know," Jeff said. "If Ing wins the day with too much bloodshed, he'll create hatred for himself, and he must know that, so I think he'd like to take over painlessly. Still, if his men get desperate-"
"Well, they're liable to, Jeff, because there's your brother and that woman policeman friend of his, and they've got personal shields on."
They could hear Fargo's voice shouting, "Forward, citizens, save our beloved island from Ing's Ignominies. Follow me!"
They didn't follow. They remained irresolute. One man shouted, "It's easy for you to say, 'Follow me'; you've got a personal shield. We don't."
"All right, then," shouted Fargo. "Watch us, and then join in. Come on, Albany. Get their blasters!"
The leading Ingman shouted, "Take them alive. Ing will pay a heavy reward for those two!"
They spread out. Fargo charged in, blocking an arm that was bringing down a blaster butt-first, and then landed a heavy blow in his assailant's solar plexus. The Ingman doubled up and lost interest in the fight for a while.
Albany Jones circled another Ingman, making little "come on" gestures with her hands. He charged, and she turned and bent, blocking the charge with her hip, seizing his wrist, and tumbling him over into another henchman. Both Ingmen went sprawling.
Norby cheered loudly. "That's it," he shouted. "Knock them all out."
"There are too many of them," said Jeff. "Fargo and Albany will be smothered after a while if the crowd doesn't help them. Norby, take me over the park. Maybe the bird-watchers are still around. "
"What good will they do?"
"I want their leader, Miss Higgins. She struck me as a stalwart woman without fear, and that's the combination we want. Come on, Norby. If we can't find her, we'll have to join Fargo ourselves, and we won't be enough, either."
They were flying over Central Park in zigzags, looking for the small group with a tweed-clad woman in the lead. "What's one crazy woman going to do, Jeff?"
"I'm not sure, but I have a feeling she can help. And she's not crazy. She's enthusiastic."
"Is that they?"
"Maybe. Get down lower, and let's land on the other side of those trees. I don't want to panic them."
Jeff and Norby moved cautiously through the trees. "That's the woman," said Jeff. "Miss Higgins! Miss Higgins!"
Miss Higgins stopped and looked about. "Yes, what is it? Has anyone seen the grackle?"
"It's I, Miss Higgins."
Miss Higgins stared at Jeff for a moment. "Oh, yes," she said. "It's the young man and his little brother. We saw you at dawn, and here you are wanting to join our afternoon expedition. How enthusiastic of you."
"Not quite, Miss Higgins," said Jeff. "It's Ing and his Ingrates. They are trying to take over the park."
"Our park? Is that the noise we've been hearing? It scared the birds and just about ruined the afternoon watching."
"That's the noise, I'm afraid."
"Well, how dare they?"
"Perhaps you can stop them, Miss Higgins. There's a crowd of angry patriots, but they need a leader."
"Where are they?" cried Miss Higgins, waving her umbrella. "Lead me to them. Bird-watchers, wait here, and make note of any cardinals and blue jays you might see. Remember that cardinals are red and blue jays are blue!"
"We're in a hurry, Miss Higgins," said Jeff. "Would you just hold my hand?"
Miss Higgins blushed. "I suppose it would be all right. You're quite young."
Jeff seized it, pulled her closer, put his arm about her waist, and said, " All right, Norby, full power upward. You're carrying two."
Miss Higgins let out a muffled scream. "Really, young man." And then she just gasped as she rose into the air.
"Back to the precinct," shouted Jeff. "There's still fighting going on."
"It's a beautiful view," said Miss Higgins. "This is really the way to do bird-watching. We can follow them as they fly."
Jeff and Albany were hemmed in, and the Ingmen were very wary in their approach, but it seemed just a matter of time. A few of the Ingmen faced the crowd, holding them off with blasters.
"Get down, Norby," said Jeff. "And you, Miss Higgins, lead the crowd against those Ingmen."
"Indeed I will," said Miss Higgins. "Barbarians!"
"We're coming, Fargo," shouted Jeff.
They landed. Miss Higgins broke away quickly, and Norby rolled toward the nearest Ingman who promptly fell over him. One of Norby's arms shot outward and seized the Ingman's blaster. He flipped it to Jeff, who seized it.
Meanwhile Miss Higgins marched up to the crowd, brandishing her umbrella and shouting in a surprisingly loud voice, "Come on, you cowards. Are you going to stand there and let those villains seize your park? Central Park was made for birdwatchers and for good people, and not for villains. Save your park if you have an ounce of manhood and womanhood in you! Are you going to let me do it all alone? I'm one weak, nearly middle-aged woman, and here I go. Who'll follow me? Onward, Higgins's soldiers, marching for the right!"
She charged forward, umbrella high, and Norby suddenly shouted. "Hurrah for Miss Higgins!"
The crowd took it up, and soon there was a confused roar "Hurrah for Miss Higgins! Hurrah for Miss Higgins!"
The mass of people moved forward, and the Ingmen instantly turned and made for the relative safety of the precinct house itself. The crowd, wild with fury, followed.
Jeff held back Norby and kept him from following. "No, no. Things are all right without us now. What we've got to do is get to Space Command. Can you do that if I give you the correct space coordinates?"
"Sure. Right through hyperspace."
"Do you have the energy?"
"You bet. I filled up on hyperspatial charge when we came through it from dragon-land."
"Good. And I must say that going through hyperspace is very pleasant. I didn't feel a thing. It was like blinking, or like a hiccup allover your insides."
"That's because I have a built-in hyperspatial shield," said Norby. "Didn't I tell you old Mac was a genius? I guess that's why I don't need a transmit. I am a transmit myself, and if you hold me tight, you come with me."
"How did you know I'd come with you?"
"I just guessed you would."
"What would have happened if you had guessed wrong?"
"It would have been pretty horrible for you, Jeff, but you know I'm never wrong."
"I know no such thing."
"Well, there's no use talking to you when you're that unreasonable. Give me the coordinates of Space Command. Okay, here we go!"