— Courage. We dragons will help the Mentors heal themselves. It is time for you Terrans to leave.
— But when we are back home, Norby will come here again and stay here. He will leave me.
— After all, that is his choice, is it not?
Norby's legs extended and he bobbed up and down. His arms came out and rested on his barrel. Apparently he had come to a decision.
"All right," he said as his head popped up, "I'll just take these Terrans home, and then return."
Already, thought Jeff, we are nothing but a bunch of Terrans to him and he doesn't care about being my partner. Aloud he said, "What about Fargo?"
"He must stay as hostage," said Mentor First. "I am sorry, but I cannot trust you, Admiral.".
"Nor can I trust you," said Yobo, starting for the Hopeful, "On our way, Cadet. On the double!"
Jeff ran. Norby stumbled after, complaining loudly until he evidently remembered that he had antigrav, for he withdrew his legs and sailed past Jeff into the Hopeful just after Yobo.
He didn't even look at me as he passed, thought Jeff. He doesn't like me anymore.
"Good-bye, Jeff," said Zargl.
"Take care of yourselves," said Zi. " And take this as my gift."
She spread her wings, caught up with Jeff, and tossed him a gold collar.
"Don't try to keep Norby," said Mentor First, his four arms folded against his heavy body.
Jeff stopped at the airlock of the Hopeful and glared back at the Mentor. "Just you remember to tell the Grand Dragon that Fargo is my brother-and my best friend."
The airlock door closed behind Jeff, and he heard a small metallic voice say, "I used to be that."
Jeff gulped. Past tense. Could he change it?
13. Useful Time Trouble
"I'm sorry, Cadet," said Yobo as Jeff sat down in Fargo's chair in the control room. "I was perhaps a bit undiplomatic in the matter of Norby, and I've alienated Mentor First needlessly."
"I would like to trust you, Admiral," said Jeff.
"I would rather you understood me, Cadet. My first duty is to the Terran solar system. I want the secret of hyperdrive and I must have it before anyone else gets it; in particular, before the Inventors Union does. The Union was founded for praiseworthy purposes, I suppose, but it has been increasingly taken over by militant radicals, who want to use their inventions for the establishment of power."
"Do you suppose they plan a revolution and to take over the Federation?"
"It's my job as head of Space Command to see to it that they don't. And if I'm to do that properly, Norby's talents can't be viewed as amusing toys anymore. They have become vital. We must have his secrets."
"You'll be killing the goose that lays the golden egg, sir. Norby, intact, would be far more useful to the Federation than any of his parts would be."
They both looked at Norby, who was plugged into the Hopeful's computer.
"Ready to go back to the Terran solar system, Admiral?" asked Norby.
"Yes. Take me to Space Command Spome."
"Do you need my help in visualizing it?" asked Jeff.
"No," said Norby.
"Admiral," Jeff said, "please watch the monitor viewscreen closely so that you can tell us exactly where to go to drop you off."
Once the admiral was occupied in that fashion, Jeff leaned forward and touched Norby.
— You haven't taught me long-distance telepathy, so I've had to distract the admiral to keep him from watching us touch. I'm sorry that we can't trust him any more than we can trust Mentor First.
— My father is trustworthy!
— They both are, under ordinary conditions, Norby, but they both want something desperately, and that's you. They want to use your talents, find out your secrets, because for each of them, a world is at stake.
— That's true, Jeff. Mentor First wants hyperdrive before Terrans have it, because he is afraid of Terrans. I made the mistake of giving him a short telepathic course in human history. He was particularly appalled at my personal experience with the lions in the Roman Coliseum. I tried to explain that human beings have improved in behavior since then, but the fight with the pirates convinced him that you are all dangerous.
— That was thoughtless of you, Norby. What you told him of us made him suspicious and defensive, which encouraged Yobo to grow suspicious and defensive, and I just wonder if anyone will ever be friendly again.
— You won't have to be mad at me for long, Jeff. I'll take you home and then bring Fargo back, and then I'll go to Jamya where I'll be safe.
Jeff let go of Norby and put his hand over his eyes. I've messed things up even worse, he thought.
He was suddenly aware of something on his forearm. He looked down at it and discovered that the gold collar Zi had thrown to him circled it. He had put it on absently and promptly forgotten it.
"Admiral!" he said, awed. "See here. You won't have to use Norby! This collar is a powerful antigrav device. Take it to your scientists and let them use it to work out the mechanism for mini-antigrav. And from that they might get hyperdrive without trouble."
Yobo grunted and took the collar. "How does it work?"
Jeff said, "Imagine yourself moving up."
Yobo did, and his head hit the ceiling with an audible thump. He yelled and must have visualized dropping again, for he hit the floor with a considerably louder thump. He sat there, looking pained. "I accept the mini-antigrav part, but what makes you think that will lead us to hyperspatial travel?"
"Fargo thinks it will."
"Fargo is not a theoretical physicist, but an overgrown adolescent. I still must have Norby. My duty to the Federation…"
"Ready?" asked Norby. "I can't keep my mind properly adjusted forever. "
"Just a minute," said Jeff, thinking furiously. "I know you said you could hyperjump back to any solar system yourself, but I don't want you to. If you have to be taken over by the scientists of the Fleet or leave Earth for good, I must, either way, learn the technique of hyperspatial travel to the point where I can do it without you in a ship like this, adjusted for it."
Quickly, before Yobo or Norby could say anything, Jeff tuned into the controls of the computer and reached out to touch minds with Norby.
— You're up to something, Jeff.
— You bet I am, Norby. Take us into hyperspace, and then out of it to Earth, like this. Jeff visualized it for Norby, who chuckled.
As the Hopeful leaped out of the space-time of Jamya, Jeff felt the usual odd sensation inside himself. It was much worse than usual, almost as though something had turned over in his abdomen, but that might only have been because he was nervous about what he was doing.
The admiral said, "Very good, we're in the solar system. but where's Space Command? I don't see any spomes anywhere."
"Perhaps," said Jeff, "we missed the solar system. We may be in the planetary system of another star."
"Nonsense," said Yobo, "that's the moon over there. It's quite as usual. And directly ahead is Earth. Those are Terran cloud formations. I've studied them for decades. And if there's any question…Can this visiscreen be adjusted for microwave emission and reception? Yes, I see it can."
He made the necessary adjustments. "We can look through the cloud cover and see the continents. Although clouds can be mistaken, continents cannot be."
Even as he spoke, the swirls of white clouds that hid the blueness of Earth's atmosphere thinned and disappeared, and the Earth's globe turned into a circle of ruddy artificial color in which red continents showed up against a black ocean.
Yobo's breath came out in a large whoosh, as though he had been bashed in the abdomen. It was a minute or so before he could say in a strangled way, "There's no Atlantic Ocean. There's one big continent. If that's Earth-and it must be because the moon is still unmistakable-we're 250 million years ago."
Jeff stared at the viewscreen. "Interesting."