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Norby fiddled with the computer and the mist began to clear.
Fargo said, There s an old beat-up Mentor. What s it doing in the scanning room?
Jeff stared at the huge figure within the computer. I don t know. There was no Mentor there
when I was inside.
Norby put out his legs and arms and walked back to Jeff. I must go inside the scanning room.
It is necessary.
Aha, said Fargo, your alien nature is coming out, Norby. You re not planning to turn us
over to the Mentors, are you? He did not sound as though he were entirely joking.
Jeff fired up at once. Don t talk to my robot that way, Fargo. He s loyal to us.
Are you sure?
He rescued me from Mentors before, and I would trust him even if he hadn t.
Norby came closer to Jeff and touched his hand. Stay here with Fargo, Jeff. --and thank
you for trusting me, he added telepathically.
Norby inserted his wire into the computer once more. The mists began to swirl up as the
protective field formed, but before it closed in entirely, Norby hopped inside, withdrawing his wire as he
did so.
Jeff changed his mind at once, feeling oddly alone without Norby s funny barrel shape in his
reach. I shouldn t have let him go, Fargo. It was a mistake. We ve got to get him out of there before
he s destroyed.
Why should he be destroyed? That s not a very brave robot. He wouldn t go in there in a
million years if he thought there was danger.
He s plenty brave in a crisis. Besides, he may have miscalculated. Norby s part Jamyn and if
the Mentors made him, perhaps they will try to keep him, or change him or....I don t want that! I want
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Norby back, just as he is, mixed up and all!
Patience, patience, muttered Fargo, studying the computer s complex surface. He touched a
few spots. Nothing happened.
On the other hand, Jeff said, maybe we should wait and do nothing. He knew he wasn t
thinking clearly. He wanted to believe that Norby knew what he was doing, but with Norby, one could
never tell when his mixed-up nature might rise to the surface.
Fargo seemed totally absorbed in feeling the odd surface of the computer. He also put his
hand out to the mist at the computer entrance and drew it back quickly. No entry. Strong barrier field.
The question is, Can we undo it somehow? He went on trying.
Jeff finally managed to put it into words. What if Norby doesn t want to come back with us,
Fargo? What if he would rather be on his native Jamya than come back to Earth with me? What if--and
what s happened to Oola? I put her down when Norby went inside and now I don t see her.
Oola, called Fargo. Here! Come to me!
Woof! She was still beaglelike in appearance as she bounded out of the shadows, ears
flapping. She sprang into Fargo s arms, licked his nose, and wriggled in her effort to get down again.
All right, said Fargo. You can get down, but don t run away. Stay right here.
She sniffed allover the floor, as if she were looking for something. Then she followed a trail up
to the scanner entrance, was blocked by the barrier field, and sat down.
Oooo-o-o-o.
Jeff s spine tingled at the sound. Oola howled more like a primeval wolf than a beagle. She
must miss Norby, he said, hoping it was that.
I feel like howling in frustration; too. Fargo said. I ve fiddled with some things on the
surface that seemed promising, and a few that didn t, and nothing happens. I can t figure out this
computer. I just can t fit my mind into the alien mind that constructed it.
Oola stood on her hind legs and pressed her nose against one of the little panels marked
irregularly over the surface. The mist began to clear at once.
I touched that one, said Fargo indignantly.
Maybe it had to be touched by something cold and damp, said Jeff.
Norby was facing them at the opening. I m so glad to see you, he said. I couldn t seem to
open the scanner again from inside, and I was afraid that you d never manage to work the other side. I
felt very scared at the thought of having to stay in here forever, because I was having trouble getting out
through hyperspace. How did you remove the energy barrier?
His legs were telescoped out as far as they could go, so that he seemed to be walking on stilts.
Indeed, hewas walking--moving round and round the immense hulking shape of the silent Mentor, who
was sitting on the floor, with his eye patches covered.
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Oola did it, said Fargo. And what wereyou doing in there?
I was trying to wake him up, Norby said, pointing to the large robot, but I failed.
Oola bounded inside and, with one leap, landed on the Mentor s shoulder. She settled down
and yowled in his ear, her fangs growing and her body altering to look more tigerish.
She s reverting to her original shape! Jeff said.
Abruptly the Mentor stood up. She is mine! he said. His voice was harsh as if the
mechanism for producing it was seriously out of order. His body was covered with discolorations and
dents. He seemed even older than the first time Jeff had encountered him.
If she s yours, demanded Fargo, sounding angry, what was she doing inside a hassock all
these years? You didn t even know where she was. You didn t care for her one bit, and I do. I claim
her. Oola, come to me.
Oola jumped down and stood between the Mentor and Fargo, looking anxiously from one to
the other, her ears growing first longer and beaglelike, then shorter and tigerlike.
The Mentor s massive head turned to Jeff. You were here intruding before. You refused
scanning, and you would not help me. You will be scanned now, you and this other creature like you.
Fargo stepped between Jeff and the Mentor. Now just a minute, sir. Not only are you wrong
about the All-Purpose Pet, you are wrong about us. We mean no harm. We have come to find the
origins of our own robot, part of whose mechanism may have come from Jamya....Norby, where are
you?
Norby was inside his barrel completely up against the computer. Only his feeler wire was
extended and it touched the computer.
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