Tom Swift and His Giant Robot (5 page)

"It has to do with the entertainment tomorrow night," Sandy explained.

Bashalli continued, "You
do
remember, to raise money for the hospital?" Tom nodded. He recalled that the girls were on the fund committee. "Well, our best act has been washed out—washed
down,
that is. We’ve got to substitute something in a hurry. It’s against the rules to engage a professional—only amateurs can be in it."

Tom gave the girls a look of mock horror. "You’re not hinting that I become a song-and-dance man, I hope!"

Sandy winced. "Please, big brother—what I’ve heard echoing from behind the shower curtain is
not
singing!"

Bash laughed. "Not you, Thomas, but your new wonderful robot," she replied.

The young inventor stared in disbelief. "What! Bash, that would be a major operation! It would take hours and hours of—"

"Tom,"
Mrs. Swift spoke up, "is what the girls are asking an impossibility?"

"No, but—"

"If you worked at it today and tomorrow after hours, with Bud and others helping, you could do it?"

"Yes, Mother. But—"

"Then I want you to do it," Mrs. Swift said softly but firmly. "So far as I know, you’ve never used your scientific talents for charitable purposes." She smiled. "Unless saving whole cities could be called working for humanity. Tom, I’d like you to do your share for the show tomorrow night."

Tom knew he had lost the argument. "All right, Mom. I suppose I can put something together. It might even be a useful test. But I’ll need Sandy’s and Bashalli’s help."

"Wonderful!"
the two girls cried. "When do we start?"

"Come down to the lab at four tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have the robot prepped by then." Tom picked up a maple-frosted doughnut and sniffed it suspiciously.

"Do you smell something?" asked Bashalli.

"Yes," Tom replied. "A set-up!"

All day and the next morning Tom, Bud, and three engineers combined Tom’s planned work on Robo Boy with the unexpected new project. Bud Barclay, plastered with special sensors that allowed the control computer to register his movements, served as the live model for a sort of crude song and dance routine. Song after song was tried and discarded before the mechanical man’s steps and gestures synchronized with the music. In truth, the problem was less the robot’s lack of ability than Bud’s lack of rhythm!

In the meantime, modelmaker Arvid Hanson had been working on a makeshift head to render Robo Boy more presentable to an audience. By the time Sandy and Bashalli arrived, the robot appeared as a deadpan, comical-faced creature whose eyes roved from side to side.

"Meet Herbert," Tom said. "That’s Robo Boy’s stage name." As the girls giggled, the robot bowed stiffly. "I’ll give you a demonstration," the young inventor went on, "then show you just how to work these dials. It’s as simple as running a CD player."

After some practice, Herbert went through his performance perfectly. "Definitely ready for prime time!" Bud pronounced.

The four young people had an early supper at the Enterprises plant and at six thirty left for the converted armory in Shopton where the entertainment was to take place.

The girls had dutifully spread the word, and by eight o’clock the auditorium was packed to overflowing, and the show began. Since the robot performance was to be the last number, Tom and Bud remained behind the scenes, carefully guarding the canvas-covered figure and the control panel until the curtain rang down on the preceding act.

Then the boys wheeled the robot to the center of the curtained stage and took off the cover. Tom quickly reviewed the instructions for operating Herbert and turned the panel over to the girls. Then he and Bud took their places in the center of the second row in the audience.

Bud hid a secret smile. He and Hank Sterling, Enterprises’ chief engineer, had covertly made a few additions to the mechanical man’s repertoire. They had rigged up a remote data-disk drive that would cut into the robot’s main circuit at a signal from a micro-transmitter in Bud’s pocket. When the girls finished their show, he planned to make the robot do a few tricks that were not on the program!

The master of ceremonies walked out. "And now," he said, "we present a surprise number in place of the one originally scheduled, by the world renowned vaudeville trio:
The Three Swifties!"

The band struck up a corny "show-biz" tune. The curtains parted and an amber spotlight revealed the inanimate Herbert standing between the two costumed girls. Bashalli bowed, then Sandy, and then the mechanical man broke out in a rash of colored light and bowed as well, delighting the audience. As the audience broke into applause, the girls hurried to the wings to take over the controls.

Herbert began to jig across the stage, provoking uproarious laughter. With the girls working the regulating dials, the robot launched into a series of disjointed acrobatics. His lights blinked on and off, and his big eyes rolled from side to side. The response was deafening.

"Now we’ll make him sing," whispered Sandy, and turned on the tape for this part of the act.

Herbert’s voice was surprisingly like that of a notorious pop star, making the audience laugh all the louder as the robot imitated the singer’s well-known cool gestures and fancy footwork.

Amid tremendous hand clapping the curtain went down. Then, as it arose again for a second bow from Herbert, Bud clicked the button in his pocket signaler. Instead of the expected bow, the robot seemed to waver uncertainly on stage, his empty head slowly turning as if inspecting the audience. The attendees fell silent. Abruptly Herbert began to move. He walked to the front of the stage and stumped down the wooden steps toward the audience. Bud’s plan was to give people in the first row a little scare, then leap up and point Herbert back to the stage like a misbehaving puppy.

As he drew closer, the humanoid machine looked menacing. Had he gone out of control? the audience wondered. Would he harm someone?

"Oh!"
cried a girl in the front row, shrinking back in her seat.

Bud decided that the time had come to end his joke. He rose to his feet and clicked a second button that would cause Herbert to reverse and march back up the steps to the stage.

But to the boy’s consternation, Herbert continued to advance.
Something had gone wrong!

In a panic, Bud double-clicked the activator button on the signal device, which was supposed to immobilize the robot in case of an emergency. But Herbert continued to advance menacingly toward the front row.

"Tom!" Bud cried. "Let me get past! I’ve got to stop him!"

By this time, Herbert, clawed arms stretched before him like a Frankenstein monster, was stalking for the side of the hall, where town officials were seated. The robot headed directly for the mayor of Shopton!

Bud was frantic. "Tom, do something!" he pled. "I’m not strong enough to tackle him by myself!"

"Okay."

To Bud’s amazement, his friend did not seem to be the least bit upset. Abruptly Herbert stopped, took a bow, then turned back and calmly sauntered in his awkward way up the stage steps. Here he bowed again, then walked to the wings, with the audience going into raptures of thunderous applause as the curtain descended.

Tom hurried backstage with Bud at his heels. Sandy and Bashalli stood speechless. "Wh-what happened?" they babbled, their voices overlapping.

Bud was about to confess his part when Tom replied, "Didn’t you like it? Bud and I thought we’d have some fun. We programmed him for an extra-surprise finale."

"Well, I think you might have told us," said Sandy, while Bud’s jaw dropped open in amazement. He realized now that Tom had discovered the additional drive he and Hank had rigged up in the control console and had installed one of his own!

"Good grief!" said the young pilot after the girls had stepped away, giving Tom a playful punch on the arm. "Nobody ever gets the better of you, genius boy!"

Tom laughed and was about to make a joking reply when suddenly a shout rose from somewhere in the auditorium, immediately joined by others in a swelling chorus of alarm.

He and Bud ran to the curtain, where they collided with Sandy and Bashalli, who were running backstage in a panic.

"Tom! Bud!" they cried. "The auditorium’s on fire!"

TOM WHIPPED open the curtain and looked out into the auditorium. Thick smoke was pouring down from a ceiling vent. As he watched, he could begin to make out orange-yellow flames behind the vent grating.

The vent was situated above the main exit door, which led into the lobby. The overflow audience was trying to back up into the auditorium again, but the patrons were squeezed ever tighter together and mass panic was setting in.

Suddenly the shouts became a terrified roar. An entire section of the ceiling collapsed downward in a rush of sparks, and the audience surged backwards in fear of their lives.

"Everyone! Listen!"
cried a commanding voice. It was Tom’s father! "Walk up onto the stage and through the back door! Just walk
—remain calm."

This seemed to help the situation. Tom and Bud boosted the thronging audience members onto the stage at either side of the central steps, and Sandy and Bashalli herded them toward the backstage exit.

Suddenly a woman’s shrill scream ripped the air! "Linda!
Oh no!"

Clambering up on the stage, Tom saw the cause instantly. The falling ceiling had set an entire section of seats aflame. Next to the wall, beyond the blazing seats, a little girl huddled paralyzed with fear. She was trapped between the fire and the unyeilding wall!

Too terrified to cry out, the little girl, Linda, pushed herself closer to the auditorium wall, shrinking back from the heat. The flames were leaping halfway to the roof, and there was no place to run.

Suddenly, as if a new nightmare had commenced, a huge eerie shadow seemed to pass through the hedge of flame! The monstrous shadow, ten feet tall, staggered forward and stretched out a pair of tremendous arms—arms which terminated in great vicelike claws. But the claws were safely closed, and the arms scooped the little girl up off the floor and held her high, carrying her over the hungry flames and setting her down gently on the stage next to her tearful mother.

Tom Swift stepped away from Robo Boy’s control console. "Is she all right?" he asked.

Too overcome to speak, the mother could only nod gratefully.

Sandy hugged her brother with tears in her eyes, and Bashalli kissed his cheek and whispered, "You see, you
are
a hero!"

"Not me," returned Tom. "Robo Boy!"

Predictably, the
Shopton Courier
was ablaze with news of the event the morning following. The story included the Mayor’s words of thanks, and photos of Tom, the Robot, and little Linda. It was also disclosed that the Fire Department had attributed the fire to a short-circuit in the air conditioning system.

"And not a ghost in sight!" remarked Tom, showing the front page to Bud as they sat in Tom’s laboratory at Swift Enterprises.

"Yeah," Bud retorted, "but remember, Skipper, you can’t always
see
a
ghost!"

Robo Boy stood against the wall, his exterior newly cleaned of soot and his charred "head" discarded. Tom had swung open the hinged plates covering the robot’s thick arms and legs, revealing a complicated assemblage of cylinders that slid into one another telescope-fashion.

Bud eyed Robo Boy’s insides with curiosity. "His insides look as complicated as a real person’s! So what are you working on, Tom?"

"His muscles, basically," the young inventor responded. "I want to see if I can give him smoother, stronger, quicker movements."

"You’ll make a ballet star of him yet!" Bud chuckled. "How do his muscles work, anyway? Those tubes look more like hydraulics than electric motors."

"Let me show you," said Tom, motioning for Bud to stand still. Tom walked across the lab to a counter, the top of which was partially blocked from view. His hands now out of sight, Tom called: "Okay, pal—
shake!"

With a quizzical look Bud extended a hand—and then took a startled step backward. A white, tubular "stalk" snaked forth from the hidden top of the workbench, stretching like an elastic arm. The featureless, rounded column was about eight inches in diameter, somewhat broader at its base and tapering toward the fore-end approaching the youth’s outstretched hand. It curved through the air in an arch-shape, and as the nearer end slowly drew close to Bud he could see four stubby fingers and a thumb. This "hand" paused inches from Bud’s, as if waiting.

"Well?" teased Tom.

Bud hesitantly grasped the pseudo-hand and shook it. The whole stalk rippled up and down.

"Feels—strange," he commented. "A little warm, and smooth—but not sticky. What is it, some kind of plastic?"

"Yep," Tom replied. The eerie arm now slowly retracted the way it came until it was out of sight. "It’s another variation of Tomasite, compounded with some of the so-called ‘rare earth’ elements that are used in semiconductors. Our materials-science engineers have been working on it for some time now."

Bud looked at his empty hand. Seeing it was perfectly clean, he scratched his head. "What do you do, pressurize it to make it expand like that?"

Tom shook his head. "No, it’s an entirely different principle. As you know, a basic hydraulic system works because water is almost incompressible; if you push it down
here,
it bulges up
there.
That means you can use it to multiply force, just as a lever does."

"Sure."

"Now tell me this, flyboy. Why can’t a person pump sand, or other powders, in the same manner as you pump water?"

Bud’s forehead crinkled. "I suppose it’s obvious… but I don’t know the answer!"

Tom laughed. "Well, basically because of two factors. First, the grains don’t adhere to one another very well, whereas water molecules meld together,
almost
forming one big continuous molecule. The second reason is that the shape of the individual grains keeps them from fitting tightly together, so that a pile of sand, for example, is extremely porous."