Robot Trouble Read online

  Suddenly, Euterpe’s notes went soaring above those of the pennywhistle in a thrilling descant. The sound was like nothing Rachel had ever heard before, some strange combination of a human voice and a flute. No—wait. Now it was like a trumpet, quavering, hovering over a note, then diving onto it and carrying it down with a series of trills into a deep bass tone that sent a shiver trembling down her spine.

  Dr. Weiskopf was sweating now, as if it was all he could do to keep up with his robot. Euterpe’s lights flashed merrily, including a pair that shone forth from the eyes in the Beethoven-like face.

  The duet (or duel—Rachel was never quite sure which it was) went on until Dr. Weiskopf finally put down his whistle and wiped his brow. Euterpe went right on playing, toying with the themes its creator had offered, trying variations, using different tones and voices.

  The music was so beautiful that Rachel hugged herself with pleasure.

  “I’m glad you like it,” said Dr. Weiskopf softly. “Of course, that’s not what I’ve really designed her for. It’s just a little trick that works off her main program.”

  “Little trick?” asked Rachel.

  “Oh, yes.” Dr. Weiskopf smiled. “Her real purpose is much greater. You might even say it’s … cosmic!”

  Roger could hardly believe his eyes. The sight of Tripton Duncan Delmar Davis standing over a burly security guard who was cradling his head in his hands and moaning softly was strange enough. But the fierce-looking robot rolling in slow circles while a bellowing Ray Gammand tried to escape from its metallic clutches was almost beyond belief.

  “Plasmagoric,” muttered Wendy, who was standing beside Roger.

  This sight would actually have been amusing, were not Ray so clearly terrified.

  What was amusing was the sight of Staff Sergeant Artemus P. Brody—head of the island’s security force and no fan of the A.I. Gang—trying to get his footing on a floor full of ball bearings.

  Roger winced as Brody’s feet went flying out from under him and he crashed to the floor with the full force of his two hundred pounds. He nudged Wendy, in an attempt to keep her from laughing out loud. There was no love lost between the Wonderchild and the head of security.

  Brody’s bellow of anger was cut off by a sharp voice from behind them. “Sergeant Brody, stop this nonsense and get to your feet at once!”

  It was Dr. Hwa.

  Brody scrambled to his feet and snapped his boss a salute. Immediately his legs flew out from under him and he hit the deck again. Fortunately for Brody, he landed on the most well-padded portion of his body.

  “Sergeant Brody!” snapped Hwa again.

  The furious tone in his voice bothered Roger; it didn’t sound right coming from the usually calm scientist.

  Like the rest of the kids, Roger was fond of the diminutive Dr. Hwa. Even if he wouldn’t take their warnings as seriously as they wished, he had done all he could to make their stay on Anza-bora Island pleasant, including providing them with access to everything from dune buggies to the main computer itself. What’s more, he was almost always willing to talk to them, despite the fiercely protective nature of his secretary, Bridget McGrory. To top it off, Dr. Hwa had a great deal of personal charm; he was the kind of man other people just naturally wanted to be with.

  Now, however, his voice sounded not only angry but bone-weary. It was clear that the strain of managing Project Alpha was getting to him. Considering the recent security violations he had had to deal with, that was hardly a surprise. Roger hoped it wouldn’t end up breaking the man.

  “Sorry, Dr. Hwa,” panted Brody, crawling from the midst of the ball bearings on his hands and knees. His face was beet red, though whether from anger or exertion was hard to tell.

  “Get me outta here!” bellowed the Gamma Ray. “Now!”

  The robot clutching him continued to roll in circles.

  Brody lumbered to his feet and pulled a black object the size of a deck of cards from his pocket. He punched a button.

  The robot started to move faster.

  “Stop this thing!” screamed Ray.

  Brody stared at the remote control and scratched his head. Finally he pushed another button. The robot stopped rolling. At the touch of a third button, it spread its mechanical arms and dumped the Gamma Ray unceremoniously to the floor.

  Brody chuckled maliciously.

  Hap went over and helped the smaller boy to his feet.

  “Would somebody care to tell me just what is going on here?” asked Dr. Hwa, his voice crisp with anger. Six voices began speaking at the same time. “Stop!” cried Dr. Hwa, clutching his head. “One at a time!” Looking around, he made a quick decision. “Roger, you seem to be the spokesperson for your group. We’ll start with you.”

  Roger licked his lips nervously and began rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, a sure sign that his brain was moving into high gear. “Well, it was like this, Dr. Hwa,” he said slowly. “We were working on a little gadget—”

  “What kind of gadget?” asked Brody.

  Roger shrugged. “Just something to help us with our programming. Actually, my sister dreamed it up.” When Brody nodded in satisfaction Roger had to hide his smile. He had added the bit about Rachel because he knew Brody was so blindly convinced of male superiority he would automatically dismiss anything thought up by a female.

  “Anyway, we had almost finished making it when we realized we were missing an important part—”

  “What kind of part?” demanded Brody.

  Roger cast a long-suffering look at Dr. Hwa.

  “Sergeant, let the young man tell the story in his own way,” said the scientist, sounding for all the world like a weary judge reprimanding an overzealous lawyer.

  Brody scowled, but held his tongue.

  Dr. Hwa nodded to Roger to continue.

  “Since we needed this part before we could do anything else, Trip and Ray volunteered to go out on a scrounge. We knew there were all kinds of spare parts left in this warehouse when the Air Force pulled out, so it seemed a logical place to start.”

  “This is government property!” sputtered Brody.

  “It’s been abandoned,” said Roger coolly.

  He put out a hand to steady the Wonderchild, who seemed on the verge of exploding with exasperation. “As I was trying to explain,” he continued, casting a significant look at Brody, “the guys came here to look for the part. Next thing we knew, we had a message asking for help, so Wendy and I came on the double. When we got here, we found our friends had been attacked by one of Brody’s men and this robot goon. That’s all I know. But I sure would be interested in finding out why that robot is here.” He paused, then added, “I bet our parents would, too.”

  Dr. Hwa looked unhappy at this comment. The last thing he wanted was to antagonize any of his key researchers. “The robots were Sergeant Brody’s idea,” he said. A note of resignation colored his voice, as if he really didn’t care for the things himself. “He ordered them after last month’s security problems.”

  “Newest thing in protective services,” said Brody proudly. “Loaded with all kinds of sensors. ‘Deathmonger’ here can detect body heat from a hundred feet away. They have infrared devices to let them see in the dark, ultrasensitive sound detectors—”

  “Don’t they end up chasing rats?” asked Roger innocently.

  “Brody had better watch out if they do,” muttered Wendy. “He’ll be the first one they carry off.”

  Brody glared at the Wonderchild. He hadn’t quite made out her words, but he was sure that whatever she had said was an insult. He turned back to Roger. “No, they don’t chase rats. At least, not most of the time. The programming is pretty good at deciding which sounds are important.”

  “Why are they so fierce looking?” asked Ray angrily.

  “It’s psychological,” said Brody, puffing out his chest.

  “Jeez,” whispered Wendy. “He learned a new word.”

  Roger elbowed her to be silent. “You mean it makes you
feel better to have something that looks like that on your side?” he asked sweetly.

  Brody scowled at him. “No, it makes an intruder feel worse! You see something like Deathmonger rolling at you out of the darkness, and it’s apt to freeze you in your tracks for a minute.”

  “I can vouch for that,” said Trip. “I think the thing scared me out of a year’s growth.”

  Since Trip had already passed the six-foot mark, this complaint didn’t generate much sympathy—especially not from Wendy and Ray.

  “I don’t care much for it myself,” said Dr. Hwa. “I don’t like to see the noble science of robotics used in such a fashion. Unfortunately, after what happened last month, Sergeant Brody’s request seemed a necessary evil.”

  Roger felt sorry for Dr. Hwa. Clearly the man would prefer to concentrate on Project Alpha and ignore the problems with security. But as head of the project, he had no choice but to deal with these things.

  Too bad he got saddled with a beefhead like Brody to run security, thought Roger. According to what his father had told him, Brody had been part of the deal when the government agreed to turn Anza-bora Island over to Project Alpha. That wasn’t surprising; even though this was a private operation, the government was vitally interested in its outcome, and wanted the research kept secure. To get the island, poor Dr. Hwa had been forced to accept Brody along with it.

  “Sergeant Brody has also requisitioned additional human guards for the island,” said Dr. Hwa dismally.

  “Got eight more men coming in today,” said Brody proudly. Glaring at the kids, he added, “That ought to take care of things around here.”

  At the very moment that Sergeant Brody was bragging to the A.I. Gang about his new security men, the weekly delivery plane was touching down on the Anza-bora airstrip.

  The plane carried the island’s usual supplies: food, various computer components, and a mass of scientific journals and papers detailing the latest findings in any area that might be of the slightest interest to the Project Alpha scientists. They came this way, instead of over the electronic web through which most computer scientists stayed in contact, because of the communications blackout.

  After all, no hacker, no matter how brilliant, could break into a computer that had no phone lines connected to it.

  The plane taxied to a halt in front of Warehouse Four, where a pair of robo-trucks began the unloading process.

  Normally this entire operation would be accomplished mechanically; security was so tight the pilot and copilot were not even allowed to disembark.

  This time, however, the plane carried something more than the usual cargo. Even as the crates were being unloaded from the back, the passenger door opened and a ramp extended to the ground.

  Marching in single file, Sergeant Brody’s eight carefully selected security guards disembarked from the plane.

  Seventh in line was the spy named Ramon Korbuscek.

  Korbuscek seemed to fit perfectly with the seven other men as they marched to their new quarters. But then, it was one of his gifts to be able to blend in almost anywhere. The only difference between him and the others was the constant movement of his eyes back and forth as he memorized small details of his new territory.

  While it would have been hard to quantify exactly, Korbuscek knew he was probably seeing at least twice as much as any other man in the line. Not things they couldn’t see; just things they didn’t bother to see. He had learned long ago that his life depended on such details. Combined with a fierce and powerful mind and a ruthless devotion to a cause—whatever cause happened to be paying him at the moment—his talent for observing, retaining, and interpreting details was part of what made him one of the highest paid agents in international intelligence.

  The group turned right and entered a medium-sized building, where the guard on duty assigned them to their quarters. Korbuscek was pleased: only two men to a room. That meant he would have a lot of privacy.

  He would have even more once he got his roommate transferred to another room—or thrown off the island altogether.

  He threw his duffel bag at the foot of the bed and stretched out on the mattress.

  “I’m going for a cup of coffee,” said his new roommate. “Want to come along?”

  Korbuscek shook his head. “I’m going to sack out for a while,” he said, feigning a yawn. “With my luck, I’ll have night patrol—starting tonight!”

  The other man shrugged. “Suit yourself. But don’t forget we’ve got a meeting with the island bigwigs in two hours.”

  “Almost slipped my mind,” lied Korbuscek, who in reality never forgot anything. “Wake me if I’m asleep, would you?”

  The other man grinned. “Sure. No sense in getting off to a bad start.”

  He closed the door behind him as he left the room. His roommate seemed a tad strange. Even so he had a feeling he was going to like him. This was not surprising. Ramon Korbuscek could make almost anyone like him, if it suited his purposes.

  Lying on his bunk, Korbuscek mentally reviewed the layout of the island as he had seen it so far. Then he closed his eyes and repeated to himself the instructions about his mission—instructions having to do with a certain Dr. Leonard Weiskopf, and a robot named Euterpe.

  The Music of the Spheres

  “We’ve gotta do something about Brody’s robots,” said Roger, pacing back and forth across the living room of the gang’s headquarters. “Those things could really slow down our work!”

  “You’re not kidding,” said Hap fervently. “I almost fell over when Brody told you he had ordered another twenty-five of those monstrosities. The man is sick!”

  “He reads too much cheap science fiction!” yelled Wendy from the kitchen, where she was cooking a burger. “It’s warped his mind!”

  Wendy was the reason the gang even had a functioning kitchen. Once they realized how cranky she got if she had to endure what she referred to as “the endless time from one meal to another” without gorging on something in between, they had restored the stove and sink to working order for their own protection.

  Ray, who was sitting on his basketball, was about to make a point when Rachel burst through the door. “Have I got news for you guys!” she shouted.

  “Will it keep?” asked Roger. “We’ve got trouble.”

  Rachel knew her twin well enough to tell that he was serious. She glanced around at the group of worried faces and noticed one missing. “Wendy!” she cried. “Something’s happened to Wendy!”

  As the more cautious of the gang’s two females, Rachel was constantly worried that the Wonderchild’s impetuosity would land her in serious trouble.

  “Nah, I’m fine,” said Wendy, emerging from the kitchen with a huge multilayered something in her hand.

  “What is that?” asked Trip.

  “Megaburger,” she replied, taking an enormous bite. “’Sgood!”

  The Gamma Ray shook his head. He was dying to ask what was in it, but Wendy’s appetite—remarkable even at its best—had taken a turn for the bizarre lately. If he had to watch her eat, he decided he’d just as soon not know what it was she was shoving into her mouth.

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “I should have known better than to worry about you. So what is the big problem?”

  Roger gave his twin a quick rundown of what had happened in the warehouse. His story was punctuated by frequent interruptions from Trip and Ray, especially when he described Brody’s new robot.

  “I felt like I was trapped in one of my father’s games,” said Ray mournfully. (In addition to his more serious scientific efforts, Dr. Gammand had been a key designer on some of the most popular electronic games of the last ten years.)

  When the explanations were complete, Rachel said, “Obviously we have to design a remote-control device that will override their command system.”

  “We’d have to be able to examine one of them to do that,” objected Hap. “Study its circuits and so on.”

  “So we borrow one for a while,” said Rachel with
a shrug.

  “You don’t understand, Rach,” said Trip. “That’s the whole problem with these things: they’re going to keep us from borrowing stuff.”

  “Not to mention that they’re about as friendly as a werewolf at full moon,” added Ray with a grimace.

  Rachel was unconvinced. “Look, those metallic monsters came on you when you were totally unprepared, so they had you at a disadvantage. Now we know they’re here. Not only that, we have a good sense of what their capabilities are. So if we’re as bright as we think we are, we ought to be able to use that information to bait a little trap for one of Brody’s new toys.”

  “She’s right!” said Ray after a second. “Half the reason I got so scared is that I wasn’t expecting the thing. We’ve been acting like it’s going to be a surprise every time we see one. But it’s not. I think we can do it.”

  “All right,” said Roger. “I’m sold. Our next job is to capture a robot!”

  “No,” said Rachel. “Our next job is to visit one. I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  With the gang gathered in a knot behind her, Rachel pressed the doorbell of Dr. Weiskopf’s house.

  No answer.

  She pressed again.

  No answer.

  Finally she looked back at the others and shrugged. “It’s all right. Dr. Weiskopf said we should feel free to go on in if he’s not here. Come on, I’ll get the emergency key.”

  Leading the others to the back of the house, Rachel knelt beside the back steps and picked up a decorative plastic toad that turned out to have a key compartment in its underside.

  “Cute, but not very effective,” said Wendy as Rachel extracted the key. “Doesn’t this guy know there’s a spy on the island?”

  “Probably not,” said Ray. “Outside of Dr. Remov, no one seems to believe us. Why should Dr. Weiskopf be any different? The adults all want to believe the place is one big happy family.”