Rivets and Sprockets Read Online Free PDF

five. Sprockets saw him flatten his big nose against the spaceship’s viewing port, and stare pop-eyed at the saucer like a great bullfrog ready to burst. The professor was completely astounded, though hardly befuddled. But the Mongolian crew behind him was completely befuddled, for they could be seen trembling and falling over each other in the corner of the control room.
    Sprockets hardly noticed the crew, for he had turned on his cerebration button while he checked the ship’s course. In two ticks and a sudden tock he made a most unpleasant discovery.
    â€œSir,” he said to the doctor, “it is my sad duty to inform you that you are faced with a particularly paramount and perplexing problem in ethics.”
    â€œW-what’s ‘paramount and perplexing’—” Jim began.
    â€œHold it!” ordered the doctor. “Ethics, did you say? Ethics? ”
    â€œYes, sir,” Sprockets replied. “Among my learning tapes, sir, was a very difficult one on that subject. It dealt with the good and bad in matters, and one’s proper conduct in a double dilemma.”
    â€œHey, what’s ‘a double dilemma’?” Jim burst out.
    Sprockets was always surprised that Jim, who was so super-smart about most things, had so much trouble with words. But before he could answer, Rivets, whose screw was almost too tight now, exclaimed: “Oh, I know that one. A double dilemma is something with two horns, and you don’t know which horn to get stuck on.”
    â€œEnough of this posh and twiddle!” sputtered the doctor. “Sprockets, get to the point, or I’ll turn you off!”
    â€œYes, sir ! What I’m trying to tell you, sir, is that the Mongolian spaceship is a trifle off course. It is bound to miss Mars.”
    â€œEh? Off course? Are you sure?”
    â€œPositive, sir. With my positronic computers, my radar vision, and my special tapes on astronomy, I am incapable of error. The Mongolian spaceship, naturally, being only a spaceship, and very slow compared with a purple saucer, must fly to a point where Mars will be nine weeks from now, and not where Mars is now.”
    â€œNaturally,” said the doctor. “Quite elemental. Proceed.”
    â€œWell, sir, I regret to say that Mars will not be there when they get there. Mars will be five hundred and eighty-two thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three and a half miles beyond them.”
    â€œGreat jiggling jeepers!” muttered the doctor. “If they miss Mars that far, they’ll never be able to reach it before their atomic evaporators use up all their water. And if they can’t reach Mars and get more water for fuel, they’ll never see Earth again. Oh, Sprockets, why did you have to tell me this just now?”
    â€œEthics, sir.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do, Daddy?” Jim asked.
    â€œI’m tempted,” the doctor growled, “to let the rascals float forever in space. Earth would be much better off without Prof. Vladimir Katz.”
    Sprockets blinked his eye light thoughtfully. “You are absolutely right, sir. But would that be ethical?”
    â€œIt would not,” said the doctor. “And I will not have the life of Vladimir Katz on my conscience—not to mention a crew of mongrelly Mongolians. Sprockets, signal the spaceship and tell them their error.”
    â€œOne moment, sir.”
    Sprockets turned on his built-in radio, adjusted his voice button, and said in a loud commanding tone: “ Purple saucer calling spaceship! Purple saucer calling spaceship! Come in, please !”
    There was no answer, so he tried it again in Low German, Russian, two Mongolian dialects, and the Morse code in five languages for good measure.
    At last he said to the doctor: “I cannot raise them, sir. Their radio seems to be turned off.”
    The doctor was very upset. “Dear me!” he muttered. “Sprockets, there is only one thing to do.