by Ron Goulart
He’d managed to get free of his room, down a back stairway and out into the foggy night undetected. While he was cutting across the damp grass he heard Hohl shouting behind him.
“What kind of hoptoad mount is this, you tin-whistle nerf?” the estate manager was hollering someplace off in the mist.
Tad relaxed some, his breathing coming more regularly. The big man didn’t seem to be discussing him.
“Am I supposed to go about my clandestine business on a lop-eared nork of a nag?”
“One is extremely sorry, sir.”
That was Biernat, the head butler robot. A headless, tank-shape mechanism.
“Sorry, my dangling booper! This frapping grout is one step from the burger grill! Bring me a better one or I’ll put your toke in a sling!”
“One will attempt to do better on one’s second try, sir.”
“Goodness me, Biernat. Have I been bullyragging you again? Bless me, it’s my annoying fog allergy which makes me so cussed all the time. Allow me to take some medication while you fetch a new mount.”
“One hastens to fulfill one’s mission, sir.”
Bong! Kapong!
Biernat fell over onto the walkway. The fog also affected him, making him now and then top-heavy.
“Why don’t you watch where you put your frapping feet, you knock-kneed billyweed? I ought. . . . Oops! There I went, ranting again.”
“One learns to accept such verbal abuse.”
Spang!
Hohl had apparently dealt the metal butler a goodnatured pat on the back.
“You’re a darn good sport, Biernat, putting up with my moods night after night.”
Head low, Tad continued on his way through the misty grounds. The voices of Hohl and the robot and the hooffalls of the grout all dimmed and were muffled away into silence.
The multicolored panels of Warehouse 6 loomed suddenly in front of him. Tad let himself in the same side door he’d tampered with to gain entry that afternoon. Some fog creeped in with him, went swirling around the high-stacked crates, the tumbled furniture.
Tad hurried through the cluttered silence and went down into the lab. Using the light rod he’d discovered earlier, he examined the light-strip powerbox. He’d decided he’d allow himself three hours a night down here, with as much additional time as he could snatch safely from each day. His first night all the time went to repairing the lighting system and getting the crisscross strips cleaned.
He did take a moment, before slipping away, to cross to where the giant robot lay slumped. “I’ll be getting to you soon,” he promised.
The next day he couldn’t get underground at all. Biernat seemed nearly always to have an eye on him and when the robot butler wasn’t around one of the other mechanical servants was underfoot. Tad decided to attempt to get something out of his forced closeness to the butler.
“Biernat,” he asked, when the tank-shape butler served him lunch in the octagonal glaz-walled dining nook, “you’ve been a servant here for quite awhile, haven’t you?”
“One might say that, young sir.” He placed a tray on the table.
“In the days when my cousins lived here, I mean.”
“Rest their souls,” murmured Beirnat, bringing a hand up toward the top of his tank.
Bonk!
“What happened?”
“One asks forgiveness, young sir. One was attempting to wipe away a sentimental tear from one’s eye,” explained the headless mechanism. “It was not until the fist was in motion that one realized one possesses neither a head nor eye.”
“Faulty memory chip,” suggested Tad. He picked up his soysan, didn’t bite into it. “I hear there were more servants here in those days.”
“Oh, so?”
“In particular there was a robot named. . . . Matter of fact, I don’t think I know his name. He was supposed to be a particular favorite of my Cousin Cosmo.”
“Electro,” said Biernat out of his voice grid. “Many’s the time one sat about listening to Electro’s pungent comments on the events of. . . . Ah, but one forgets one has been programmed not to discuss Electro. Forgive me, young sir, it must be that very defect of mine you were mentioning which causes me to ramble so.”
Tad frowned. “Who told you not to remember Electro?”
The butler shrugged his tank. “One doesn’t remember,” he answered.
Chapter 4
Anticipation made Tad pace his room in a rapid, bouncing fashion. “Tonight, or tomorrow at the latest,” he said aloud. “Yeah, I’ll have Electro completely repaired and then . . . then we’ll see if he’s going to function again.”
Tad had become fairly good at dodging Biernat and the various other mechanisms who shared the Foghill mansion with him. Hohl had grown increasingly occupied with whatever business it was he conducted with Reverend Dimchurch. The result was the estate manager had not been on the premises much at all lately. This meant that over the past five weeks, since his discovery of the damaged robot, Tad was able to sneak into the workshop beneath the warehouse with fair frequency. He’d put in a good deal of work on Electro, utilizing the tools left by his late cousin.
He felt he had the robot on the brink of functioning. Tonight, with any luck, he’d bring Electro back to life. “And then I can—”
Rap-a-tap! Rap-a-tap!
As Tad turned toward the thick door of his room it swung open. Monique came rolling in. “You forgot to take your vitamins at dinner, Master Tad.”
He scowled at the intruding robot, which was built along the lines of the butler with a series of nozzles attached to its front. “I really don’t think I need—”
“We can never pay too much attention to our nutrition,” the kitchen staff robot told him. “It’s important you have, as a growing boy, your minimum daily requirement of vitamins and minerals as recommended by the Barnum Board of Ag—”
“I’m not growing, Monique. I really think I’ve ceased growing, attained my full height.”
“Ho ho, always kidding, Master Tad.” One of the robot’s several arms swung up and turned on a chest faucet.
Slurp! Slurp!
“Spoon,” advised Tad, watching the vitamin fluid spilling onto his neolin floor.
“To be sure.” Another arm brought a spoon under the flowing faucet. When the spoon was filled, the faucet was twisted shut. “Swallow this like a good boy, Master Tad.”
He hesitated before slouching forward and allowing the solicitous mechanism to thrust the spoon between his lips. “Okay, thanks,” he said swallowing, “and now if—”
“Wouldn’t you like a hearty cup of cocosub?”
“Nope, no.”
“Neareal egg nog?” Monique tapped the third faucet down on the left side.
“Nothing more, thanks.” Reaching out, he gave the robot a polite shove in the direction of the open door. He faked a yawn. “Tired, ought to hop into bed. Night.”
“Sleeping potion?”
“No need.”
“I’ll say good night, then, Master Tad.”
“Splendid, do that.”
“Good night.” Avoiding the spill of vitamin fluid, Monique wheeled out of the room.
Tad moved to shut the door. The door, however, came swinging back at him.
“Ha! So there you are, you pigeon-toed mammy-jammer!” boomed Hohl as he followed the door into the room.
“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Tad took several steps backward. “This is my room.”
“Don’t go trying any of your beady-eyed logic with me, my lad!” Hohl’s thick forefinger jabbed at the narrow corridor of air which separated him from the young man. “All is known!”
“All is known about what?”
The bulky estate manager made a grab, caught hold of Tad’s arm. “We’ll just march down to the underground lab,” he announced in a substantial voice, “and see what kind of monkeyshines you’ve been up to!”
Chapter 5
Hohl’s spell of anger did not subside. He continued to shout and s
nort while dragging Tad through the mansion, down the broad staircase and out into the night. “Treat you like a frapping prince! Then you go and stick a poniard in my metaphorical—”
“I’ve been tinkering, that’s all.” Tad finally managed to wrest free of the bigger man’s clutch. “Are you trying to tell me puttering around is some kind of—”
“Enough of your snurly backchat!” Hohl was on the verge of running. “Certain things are forbidden! Putzing around in Cosmo’s lab happens to be one of them!”
“Why? There’s no possible way I can hurt any—”
“Rule! It’s a rule!”
“You should have told me, then.”
“Anyone with an ounce of sense would know the harping rule!” They’d reached the warehouse and Hohl unlocked the main door.
“I think,” said Tad as he followed the estate manager into the darkened dome, “I better get in touch with my Cousin Joshua tomorrow. There’s really no reason I can’t be allowed to—”
“Joshua! Oh, yeah, sure, certainly. That’ll be splendid!” Hohl gave a series of barking laughs. “If he finds out what I’ve let you get away with, all our norks will be on the block!” His feet thumped loudly on the downward ramp to the lab.
When the lights came on Tad sucked in a deep breath, blinking.
“Who fixed these nerfing fixtures? Did you do that, you snerg-livered little tinker?”
“I did, yes.” Tad was watching the far corner of the room.
Electro was back there, back where Tad had first seen him weeks ago. Worse, he was slumped exactly as he had been then. His front hung open, his internal workings dangled. A plump spider was at work decorating his defunct-looking head with thin strands of orange webbing.
Hohl, making sounds somewhere between coughs and hoots, was roaming the workshop. He grabbed up tools, tossed them down. He kicked at tables, poked squat fingers at mechanisms. Gradually he approached the fallen Electro. Standing over the apparently ruined robot, he chuckled in a pleased way. “Looks like I got down here in time, you arrogant piece of scrap!”
Tad leaned against a workbench. Hohl was acting as though he’d not had anything to do with this current wrecking of the robot. Then who had destroyed the five weeks of hard and patient work Tad had put into reviving Electro? Could one of the servants, the one who’d informed on him, have come down here and done this?
“Sir, an urgent summons!” Biernat clattered into the workshop.
“Don’t any of you nitbrained goops realize this lab is not to be barged—”
“It’s the Reverend Dimchurch, sir,” interrupted the butler, arms flapping. “He says the troops may have been alerted about your transactions for this evening!”
“The troops? The norking troops?” Hohl stamped a foot, then went running for the ramp. “They can’t do that!”
“Be careful you don’t take cold from loitering down here, sir.” Biernat followed the estate manager out.
Tad waited a few seconds before rushing to the slumped robot. “Who the hell did this to you, Electro?”
“I did, and you’re damn lucky I’m as shrewd as I am.” Electro’s right arm came up, tucked his workings in and shut the front of him. He scooted the diligent spider away with a swipe of his metal hand. “Never did like spiders trespassing on me. You don’t have a metal exterior, but if you did, the tiny ping-pong of a spider’s tread would drive you goofy.”
Tad sat down on his heels all at once. “Who . . . who finished fixing you?”
“Obviously I did. A bright move it was, since you were on the verge of tipping the whole thing to that simp Hohl,” replied Electro. He flexed his bright fingers. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected too much from a callow youth, a mere stripling, a dreamy mooncalf who—”
“I’m eighteen, and I knew enough to nearly repair you. In fact, if you hadn’t butted in I would have completed you tonight.”
“Once I got word that dolt was about to intrude I completed myself,” explained Electro. “Next I arranged myself artistically with spider webs and similar muck to create the illusion of long dormancy. Very impressive, wasn’t it? Looked a bit like that wedding cake in the Dickens novel. Or does anybody read Dickens in this planet system anymore? Not only did I fool you with my impersonation of a wreck, I—”
“Listen, if I hadn’t found you and done most of the work, you’d still be flat on your ass with spiders going ping-pong all over you,” said Tad, voice rising. “I was told you were a pleasant sort of a machine, but you’re turning out to be as big a grouch as Hohl.”
“All right, okay, very well. I apologize, I offer my abject regrets.” Silently the robot rose up. He was seven feet tall, over a foot higher than his resurrector.
Tad got up, took a few steps away, stood studying the huge machine. “You are Electro, aren’t you?”
“Who else would I be? I’m unique, as you’ll learn. Full name is Electro-XM13J33. You can call me simply Electro.” He rubbed his chrome hands together. “Now, let’s be off?”
“Off?”
Electro said, “We have our course laid out for us, my boy. Our path is clear, the road we must follow is—”
“Did my cousin build that tendency toward redundancy into you?”
Electro’s blue eyes blinked, making a faint click sound. “I am the proud owner, the sole proprietor, the prime possessor of a vast and thorough vocabulary. In order to make myself crystal clear to any auditor who might not have a mental capacity equal to mine I often—”
“Can you just tell me once what you meant by saying we were off for someplace?”
“Ah, I realize you aren’t aware of what’s gone before, of the events of the past.”
“That’s one of the reasons I repaired you. So I might find out about my cousins and what happened to them.”
“Allow me to fill you in.” Electro placed a palm on his chest, started pacing back and forth across a distance of about ten feet.
“Why are you strutting like that?”
“This is a well-known declaiming posture.”
“I don’t want a speech exactly.”
The robot was silent and thoughtful for several seconds. “We’ll assume another approach.” He moved to a stool, sat on it, crossed his legs and rested an elbow on a knee. “An informal posture, suited to man-to-man talk among friends. Better?”
Tad nodded. “What happened here? Why were you ripped open, dumped in the corner?”
“You’ve touched on one of the saddest experiences of my life,” said the robot. “My only excuse is that I was distracted and allowed that lout Hohl to sneak up behind me with a fairly efficient disabler. An RI brand disabler, by the way. He put me on the fritz, had me carted down here and proceeded to use some of these very tools to incapacitate a goodly share of my inner workings. Being a dunce and somewhat preoccupied at the time, he concentrated on my power centers and left my mental facilities alone.”
“Was this after Cousin Cosmo was dead?”
Electro said, “Cousin Cosmo isn’t dead.”
“Huh?” A deep frown touched Tad’s face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean quite simply that Cosmo Rhymer is not dead. I’ve double-checked the fact since I returned to life,” said the robot. “Cosmo Rhymer isn’t dead, my boy, and neither is your father.”
Chapter 6
Tad very slowly reached out to tap the robot’s broad chrome chest. “Your brain system is still a little flooey.”
“My thinking equipment has never been in a state remotely resembling flooey, my boy,” replied Electro. “I assure you, both your father and your Cousin Cosmo are alive at this moment. I hesitate to commit myself to alive and well, since six years at Blackwatch have taken a certain toll. However, once we rescue them the—”
“He’s alive? My father is really alive?”
“That’s the news I’m trying to convey. I’d heard you were a relatively bright youth but this—”
“But he’s supposed to be dead. They told us that, gave
us a little box of ashes.”
“Most ashes look alike. You and your mother were flummoxed, flimflammed and hoaxed.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“If you’ll cease interrupting my discourse you’ll eventually understand the true circumstances.”
“Okay, all right, tell me. And what’s Blackwatch?”
“Blackwatch doesn’t come into the narrative until later, my boy. Allow me to observe the dramatic unities, which were first set down in the Solar System by a moderately gifted fellow name of Arist—”
“My father, it’s him I want to hear about.”
Electro tilted his head slightly to the left. “You’ll need some background details. To begin with, your Cousin Joshua is a crook and scoundrel.”
“I figured as much. Did he put my father in Blackwatch, whatever that is?”
“As I was saying, your Cousin Joshua and your Cousin Cornelia had been up to no good, fleecing Rhymer Industries in a variety of ways for nearly a year before Cosmo, alerted by a rather gross and slow-witted computer, got wise. Had he relied on me, the schemes and machinations of Joshua would have come to light much earlier. That is, alas, neither here nor there,” said Electro. “Before Cosmo could act or confront his criminous cousin, Joshua found out the jig was well nigh up. He descended on Foghill with a large band of goons and, I ruefully admit, defeated us. The bombastic Hohl was among that initial set of goons and it was he, as I’ve mentioned, who disabled me and mutilated my person.” The big robot’s head dropped, metal chin clicking against metal chest.
“And my father?”
“Cosmo had, very cautiously, summoned your father here to Esmeralda to inform him of what he’d unearthed about Joshua,” explained the robot. “Before your father even reached Foghill he was intercepted by yet another batch of goons. Then your father and Cosmo were conveyed across the planet to the Blackwatch Plantation. It’s a wretched place, more penal colony than agricultural facility, secretly owned and operated by Joshua. To think that man is over one-half machine. Well, blood will tell.”