"I think that's my fault," Jeff said. "Not Norby's. He did very well. It's just that when Norby and I were linked and trying to move backward in time, I felt some kind of fear, and perhaps that threw us off."

"You weren't feeling my fear," said Norby, sounding outraged. "I was certainly not afraid."

"No, no," said Jeff. "You don't understand. You see, I was thinking of the Mentors very hard. And I felt something about them that I must have felt when I was in their scanning room, but didn't realize I'd felt because I was too full of my own fears. Do you understand what I mean?" He looked at Fargo helplessly.

Fargo said, "Sure, but what was it you felt without knowing you felt it?"

"It was the Mentor who was afraid. I was feeling its fear when we were trying to move in time."

"Was the Mentor afraid of you, do you suppose?"

"No."

"Of the Others?" Norby asked.

"I don't think so," said Jeff. "The Mentor was awfully afraid, though, and he needed me. I don't know what for, but it had something to do with his fear."

"If he is afraid of something and needs your help," Fargo said, "it doesn't seem to me he can afford to do us any harm."

Sounding doubtful, Jeff asked, "Should we go forward, then, and see if we can find the young Mentors?"

"Can we?" said Fargo with a grin. "It's up to you two."

"Let's try again, Jeff," Norby said. "Maybe there's nothing to fear. Maybe it was only Mentors' fear that made you afraid."

Jeff almost said, 'You were more afraid than I was,' but he pressed his lips together and didn't say it. Instead, he held out his hand. "Sure," he said, "let's try again."

Half an hour later they gave up.

"No dizziness, no nothing," said Fargo. "I guess we're still in the same time."

"Well," said Norby, "it seems to be very different to go into a time I've already existed in. It's easier to move to a time earlier or later than when I've been there. Do you know what I mean? I tried to push us all forward until we were well past where the Mentors showed up, but I couldn't seem to do it."

"In that case," said Jeff, with a sinking feeling, "that would mean that you, or parts of you, were present on Jamya sometime after the Mentors appeared, just as you thought you might be. I guess you're really Jamyn."

"I suppose so," said Norby. "It's exciting, isn't it?"

Jeff didn't think so. But all he said was, "Can you slide forward only a little into the future, before the time when you were constructed?"

"I can try."

"I can see where it's difficult to move to a time where you've already existed," Fargo said, "because one of the big paradoxes of time-travel involves the possibility of meeting yourself. Still, why don't we go really far into the future and find out what happened to us in the Jamyn historical records of the future, so that we'll know what to do to fix everything up? That would be exciting!"

"That sounds like another paradox to me," Jeff said, sounding unhappy. "I don't think we can do that. The future isn't all written out. Suppose we find out that we were killed when we went back to Jamya. Then we would be in despair and give up and that might be why we were killed."

"I don't understand that," said Norby, "but I don't want to be killed."

"Don't worry, little robot," Fargo said, "we won't let that happen, but I see Jeff's point. All right, Norby, just move us up into the nearest part of the future you can manage, shortly after the Mentors begin to work."

Jeff and Norby tried again. This time Jeff visualized a young Mentor and tried to feel full of confidence. He was distracted because Oola suddenly began to howl like a lost hound.

"Hush, hush, my beauty," said Fargo, stroking her long ears as she sat quivering, pressed against his leg. She stopped howling, but she whimpered instead.

Jeff was about to say, "Let's try it again, Norby," when Fargo cried out without any trace of his usual humor. "Wait! She's gone. Oola's gone."

8. Not Dangerous Enough?

Jeff looked about in astonishment, and the viewscreen caught his eye. Jamya was much closer. Norby must have been clever enough to move them nearer to the planet as they moved in time, presumably to put them inside the force screen once it was set up. But what about Oola? She certainly was not in the control room.

Jeff said, "Maybe she's in the sleeping quarters. Maybe we all blacked out."

But Fargo was already out of the room searching. A few minutes later he was back, his face deeply troubled. "She's not inside the ship."

"Oh, my," said Norby. "I never thought of her."

"You mean you forgot to bring her forward with us?" Jeff asked. Then, when Norby failed to answer, Jeff shook him. "Well? Say something."

"Don't rattle my works," Norby said. "I'm trying to figure it out, and getting me all jarred inside doesn't help. It's not my fault. I suppose she exists in this time somewhere and it was, therefore, much more difficult for the Oola of the future, our Oola, to exist here than for us. And I didn't allow for that and she couldn't come along-I think."

"If that were so, we could find her here, in this time," said Fargo.

"What time is this time?" Jeff asked. "When are we?"

"I don't know," said Norby in a querulous tone. "I get all mixed up with all these crises and with getting shaken and everything."

Fargo and Jeff looked at each other. Jeff said, "It's my fault, Fargo. I should never have suggested time travel; at least not involving you and Oola and the Hopeful. Norby and I should have taken our chances alone."

"Don't be foolish," Fargo said. "You couldn't leave me out of this. We'll just find Oola here and now."

"Yes, but that will be before she was put into suspended animation and before we released her from the hassock capsule, and she won't remember us."

"Then she'll learn about us allover again; or, rather, all over previously, for this time is long before the time we got her."

"We don't even know how long before," muttered Jeff.

"It's not my fault," shouted Norby.

"It doesn't matter," Fargo said. "We have to explore the planet, Oola or no Oola. Knowledge is better than ignorance, even if it's sometimes more uncomfortable, so down we go for a landing."

"There's the castle!" Jeff said, as the Hopeful skimmed along above the treetops after a number of passes over the continent, with Norby guiding them very uncertainly.

Norby said, "See! Didn't I tell you I could lead you there?"

"On the twenty-fifth pass," said Jeff.

"The tenth," countered Norby. "Maybe the ninth. You don't know how to count."

Jeff remembered that he wanted to be nicer to Norby. "That's true!" he said. "You did a very good job."

But Norby just said, "Huh!"

Jeff said, "I don't see any of the small buildings where dragons like Zi live; just the big castle."

"That's a good sign," said Fargo. "You can see a number of huge robots there, and they're all busy doing something or other. The small buildings haven't been built yet, I suppose. Maybe the small dragons haven't even evolved."

"Yes," said Norby. "Everything has just begun. All the Mentors are new."

"Oh?" said Jeff. "If you know that, why did you tell us you didn't know what time it is?"

"Because I didn't," said Norby indignantly, "but that doesn't mean I can't use my eyes. Look at those robots. Can't you see that they're shiny? They're nothing like those old wrecks you and I saw in the castle when we were there before-I mean later-I mean before in our lives but later in time."

"I know what you mean," said Jeff and Fargo, speaking together.

The robots were watching them as the Hopeful sank to rest just before the castle. The biggest signaled to the rest, who went inside the castle. Then the one remaining robot walked up to the ship.