Norby

"There you are," said Jeff. "The girls always fall for him."

Fargo smiled. "It's to be expected. No one can resist my devil-may-care attitude and my incredible charm."

"It's the way he shows his little teeth," she said, showing her own much larger ones. Then she nipped a bit of flesh on Fargo's forearm between an opposing pair of her sharp teeth.

Fargo said, "Ouch," and frowned at the tiny droplet of blood that seeped from each of two delicate puncture marks.

"There you are," said Jeff. "The knowledge is transmitted by the blood somehow. The bite is so neatly done, it won't even bruise. In a few minutes, you'll be able to catch the Jamyn words telepathically, and not long after that you will understand them spoken aloud, and be able to speak them yourself."

Fargo waved his arm. "I wish they could teach differential equations that way."

Zi, who had been looking at the Hopeful very carefully, now pointed her right front claw at it and said, "What's that?"

"That's our small scoutship," Jeff explained. "It's ours free and clear; in fact, it was all we had left when the family business failed a few years ago…"

"Look at that"' said Fargo, with sudden energy. "Jeff, do you see what I see?"

Jeff turned to look at the Hopeful and there in the open airlock was a green creature peering up at the castle, and panting.

"Oola!" cried out Jeff in astonishment. "I'll bet she automatically joined us when we went forward in time past the point when we opened the hassock."

"She seems to know the castle," Fargo said. "Look at her reacting to it."

Zi said, "I have never seen a creature like that before. How can she know the castle if I have never seen her?"

"Oola was inside your hassock," said Jeff, "the one you let us have. She was bioengineered by a particular Mentor named First."

"First?" Zi scratched her tail. "He is an important part of our legends. The great Mentor named First organized the construction of the buildings on Jamyn, and carried out the instructions of the Others for the civilizing of the Jamyn and, as you see, did a very good job of it. All Jamyn are in awe of First and feel great respect for him."

"And where is First, now?"

"No one knows. Perhaps he is still at the castle. Perhaps he was the one that spoke to you on my computer screen."

"That can't be," said Jeff. "The Mentor who spoke to me, and who saw me in the castle, was malevolent."

A bell chimed in the dragons' house. "Excuse me," said Zi. "Zargl, come with me and begin the preparations of a meal for our guests, while I find out what the Grand Dragonship wants." In a lower-pitched version of her voice, she said to Jeff and Norby "It is a great honor for her to call upon a mere Congressperson such as myself". She seemed to breathe quickly at the thought of it.

Left to themselves for a moment, Jeff said in Terran Basic, "Fargo, things seem no different here than when we left. Zi remembers our previous visit just as we do. Doesn't that mean that our visit to the past of Jamya didn't change anything?"

"Let's hope so," Fargo said.

Norby, however, teetered nervously on his partly extended legs. "I can tell, Jeff, I can tell. I can sense that nothing important has changed. Mentor First must really have had his memories of us wiped out. And that means that the Mentors in the castle right now are still crazy and mean."

"Good," said Fargo. "Maybe that will mean a chance for us to be battling real nasties."

Zi came out of her house carrying a little table, and Zargl followed with dishes of food. "You'll have to sit on the lawn," she said. "Please accept my apologies for that, but I have no furniture in my home that will fit your peculiar bodies-no offense intended. Even my hassock, my tail rest, is gone, for you have changed it into an unknown green animal. Still, it's such a lovely day, I thought you might be willing to have a picnic before the Grand Dragonship arrives."

"A picnic would be very welcome," said Jeff. "And I'm looking forward to meeting such an exalted person."

"And she's my great-aunt, too," said Zargl, holding up her foreclaws and making them quiver. "Isn't she, Mother?"

"She certainly is, my dear child, and my own aunt."

Half an hour later, they were all, including Oola, finishing the meal. Oola kept looking up at the castle and twitching her tail when Norby suddenly shot up on antigrav, his foot catching Jeff's ear on the way.

"What are you doing?" asked Jeff, rubbing his ear hard.

"I want to hurry back to the Hopeful, " said Norby. "I suggest you two bring Oola and join me. Look what's coming."

From over the trees at the left of the castle, came a strange airborne procession. Majestically, a retinue of Jamyn flew toward Zi's home, and from their jeweled claws hung a glittering hammock that supported a dragon considerably larger than Zi.

"It's my aunt," cried Zi, clacking her teeth in excitement and respect. "Please do not leave. I so want you to meet her."

The hammock came overhead and was let down in front of them, dragons hovering about with a great swirl of wings to insure that it landed safely.

"Make way for her Grand Dragonship," shouted all the dragons in a medley of squawks that was totally unmusical.

When the hammock was flat on the lawn, the Grand Dragon stepped off it. She unfurled her wings, each leathery portion brightly painted in contrasting colors, and shook them. A diamondlike jewel adorned each point of the projections that went down her back to the tip of her gilded tail.

"So, my niece," she said, holding herself high with her wings akimbo to make the colors show dramatically, "you make friends with the enemy when I instructed you not to!"

"I'm sorry, Aunt-Your Dragonship-but I do like these humans and their little robot. And Zargl and I had already made friends with them weeks ago, so it was already too late when your instructions came. And see, they have discovered this green creature that was inside my tail rest-which they call by the interesting nonsense word, 'hassock.' "

"You don't understand," said Her Dragonship. "This green creature, as you call it, is the Mentors' Pet. They have watched the situation through monitors and they have sent me to correct the theft. Otherwise we will be punished."

"Correct the theft?" asked Fargo. "What do you mean by that? The hassock was given us by your niece freely."

"Nevertheless," said the Grand Dragon, "you two strangers and your ugly robot and this pet will be brought to the Mentors."

Norby said to Jeff in a furious whisper, " Are you just going to stand there and let her call me ugly?"

Oola whined and became more like a beagle than ever.

Fargo said, "This pet is my pet. It belongs to me now."

"No, she doesn't," screamed the Grand Dragon, stamping her foot, which was large and had wicked claws on it. "My guards will prove that by overpowering you…"

"That would not be sporting, Your Dragonship," said Fargo. He paused and bent down to Norby. "Have I got the right word? Jamyn is not an easy language to learn in a great hurry."

"Say it isn't fair.., Norby said in Jamyn. "Dragons don't play sports the way you do, but they are fair."

"Surely, Your Dragonship, you have some more civilized way of settling a dispute than brainless force?" Fargo smiled his most charming smile.

The dragon guards began to move toward him, but the Grand Dragon gestured them back. "This stranger appeals to our civilized nature," she said, "and no one can appeal to that in vain. It would be an insult to the Mentors otherwise."

She smiled, too, her pointed teeth and front fangs showing to full advantage. She adjusted her jeweled gold collar and stepped forward until she was only a few centimeters from Fargo. She was a little taller than he was, and, counting the tail, considerably bigger.