Bolts (2 page)

“I doubt if you've been conditioned enough.” The Inspector shook his head. “Your speech is absolutely terrible. So are your manners. I'm afraid you'll never be a proper robot.”

Bolts spun his rotary nose about, and decided he had a sniffer to be proud of. “What's the diff? I'm only a dawg. Plenty smart, though.”

“I'm afraid not,” the Inspector said sadly. “Your brain had to be trimmed to make it fit.”

“So what?” said Bolts, sniffing him. “Trimmed off the nonsense. Left the smart part. Let's get on with this. I don't like your smell.”

“You're not conditioned to my smell,” snapped the Inspector, getting on with his checking. He was very glad to finish it, turn Bolts off, and pack him into a box to be delivered to his new master.

The box was carted into the shipping room and placed beside another box exactly like it. The shipping clerk was in a hurry that morning, and he made a slight mistake. The names and addresses he wrote were entirely correct—but they were written on the wrong boxes.

So it happened that the box containing Bolts was loaded into a truck that drove away in the opposite direction from Battleship Lane.

Bolts had no way of knowing this. He wasn't much of a worrier, and being turned off, he couldn't have worried if he had wanted to. All he could do was wonder a bit. Having a built-in clock, he was aware that time was passing, and he wondered why so much of it had to pass. He had sort of got the idea that Battleship Lane wasn't far away.

The truck rolled on, hour after hour. Bolts couldn't move his sniffer, but smells came to him, seeping in through a crack. He didn't try to count them, for his counting was limited, but there were heavenly smells and some not so heavenly, and hundreds of middling ones in between. What with wondering about them, and the changing sounds, he passed the time quite comfortably.

Suddenly the truck stopped. There were muffled shouts, angry voices that were silenced by a quick order, then running footsteps. Abruptly the box was jerked from the truck, carried a few feet, and thrust into another vehicle that went bouncing away at top speed.

Bolts was still trying to puzzle out what had happened, when the bouncing and jolting ceased. Again he heard running footsteps, and once more the box was lifted and carried a short distance. There were grunts and whispers as the box was set down. All at once he heard a roar, and the third part of the strange journey began.

Curiously, the box rode smoothly now, and the smells and sounds didn't change. About the only sound was the roar. His basic learning tapes had told him a bit about air travel, and Bolts wondered if he could be flying to Battleship Lane. Not that it mattered, as long as he got there. Battleship Lane was home.

But there was that funny business when the first truck was stopped. Though the voices had been muffled, he could remember one word because it had been the loudest. It had sounded like “holdup.” According to his language tape, a holdup was a kind of halt. Of course it had another meaning—something to do with stealing—but that didn't make sense. Who would want to steal a robot dog named Bolts Brown? Shucks, he thought, what's there to worry about? If I just keep plugging along, I'm bound to wind up at Battleship Lane.

After three hours, and some odd minutes that he didn't feel were worth counting, the roaring stopped. The box bounced a time or two, and for a minute all was quiet. Then he heard excited voices and hurrying footsteps. The box was lifted and carried a short distance and set down in a place full of strange smells.

Bolts, in spite of being turned off, felt a tingling through all his circuits. This must be Battleship Lane. In a few seconds he would see his master. He didn't know exactly what Bingo Brown looked like, except that he was a boy, had red hair, wore glasses, had brains to spare, and without question would have the very finest of all boy smells. It didn't take any imagination to know that it would be a heavenly smell composed of ordinary boy smell mixed with a certain amount of dirt, a touch of soap—though not too much of it—plus liniment, pet frogs, old shoes and socks, jam, machine oil, tools, and chemicals.

As the lid came off the box, Bolts was aware of a tremendous number of strange smells, mainly dirt, but the boy smell was missing. Immediately a faint buzzing started in a corner of his trimmed-off brain. It was rather uncomfortable.

Must be my built-in instinct at work, Bolts thought. Yup, something's kinda wrong here.

Hands reached into the box and tore away the paper and packing around him. There were sudden exclamations of astonishment.

“Comrade Pang, you simpleton,” a rumbling voice roared accusingly, “
you've stolen the wrong thing
!”

“Im
po
ssible!” came the sharp reply. “I do not make mistakes, Major Mangler. See, it is in the right box, with the right address. It
has
to be the new Brown Super-Thought Machine.”

“Bah! Does this foolish contraption look as if it could do any super thinking?”

“Well, it does look like a stupid robot dog,” Comrade Pang admitted. “But I never judge a book by its cover. The new Brown invention is quite small, and
very
secret. The dog shape could be a disguise.”

“We'll soon find out,” rumbled Major Mangler, and Bolts was aware of a hand fumbling about the cover of his switch box. “Hold the lantern nearer, Comrade Pang. What does it say here on the plate?”

“H'mm. It says: Z-1—BOLTS—B. B. Brown. Ha! What did I tell you? B. B. Brown is certainly Commander Bridgewater Brown. The Z-1 means it's the only model of its kind—so it's bound to be the Super-Thought Machine! And they've named it Bolts just to add to the disguise. Am I right?”

“I hope you are,” growled the major.

“And by the seven plagues, you'd
better
be! Turn the thing on. Let's see what kind of super thoughts we can get out of it.”

A hand reached into his switch box. CLICK! Bolts was turned on.

It was so wonderful to feel the power from his little atomic battery going through him again that Bolts could hardly restrain himself from jumping out of the box. But just in time he realized the trouble he was in. He decided to play it as smart as an ignorant dog could and look carefully before he leaped.

Slowly, while he gathered his feet under him, he raised his head and blinked his eye lights at the two men peering down at him. The big rumbly one called Major Mangler seemed to be all jaw and bristling whiskers. Comrade Pang, who held the lantern, was a thin little yellow man with a face like a hatchet.

The sight of this curious pair rather shook Bolts's confidence. A dog just couldn't put any faith in such characters—and it didn't help at all to remember that he was green off the assembly line, with no experience at all in the world's wickedness.

The major bent over, poked a thick finger at him, and demanded, “Speak up and explain yourself! What are you?”

“Dawg,” said Bolts, blinking innocently while he tried to get some idea of the sort of place he was in.

“Answer my questions! I know what you look like. I want to know what you really are. Why were you made? What is your purpose?”

“Aw, how would I know?” said Bolts. “Why don't you ask the robot factory? and don't stand so close—I don't like your smell!” There was a door, he saw, about three jumps away. It seemed to be latched, but maybe he could open it with his flexible paws if he was fast enough.

Comrade Pang laughed. “Watch him, Comrade Major! He's a foxy one.”

“Turn him off!” Major Mangler ordered angrily. “I'll find out how foxy he is, if I have to tear him apart and sizzle all his circuits!”

Bolts waited no longer. He snapped out his frightening trick teeth, raised the steel hackles on his neck—which quite changed his innocent appearance—and gave a hair-raising “Gr-r-r-r-r!” as he sprang from the box.

Being top-heavy, and not yet practiced in jumping, he turned a complete somersault before he landed. But Comrade Pang and the major were too startled by the teeth and the growl to notice this awkwardness, and Bolts reached the door untouched.

The door was latched. He leaped for the latch and managed to raise it with his flexible paws.

Major Mangler bellowed, “Don't let him get away! Stop him! Stop him!”

The heavy door creaked open an inch, but there wasn't time to swing it wider. Comrade Pang was rushing upon him, the lantern in one hand, a long stick in the other.

Bolts whirled, dodged the stick, and opened his mouth a bit wider to set off his Number Two growl. His ordinary growl sounded dangerous enough, but here in the closed room his Number Two was a frightful thing. It came out in a snarling roar that froze Comrade Pang in his tracks and even stopped the major—and the major was a man who was seldom stopped by anything.

Just to put a proper finish to it, Bolts snapped his teeth on Comrade Pang's trousers, ripped off a sizable bit of cloth, then sprang to the door. This time he thrust it open and dashed out into the night.

Behind him he heard the major shouting in a fury. “After him! Everybody after him! Tell Lopez to call his guards! We've got to catch that little monster if it's the last thing we do!”

2

He Turns Up Missing

Several hours after the box containing Bolts was carried away in one direction, the other box that should have had Bolts inside was brought to Battleship Lane.

It was nearly dark by the time the truck rolled into the lane. Big Butch, the huge clumpy robot who took care of Commander Brown, had been watching for it all afternoon. Butch, wearing a kitchen apron and a chef's cap, should have been doing a hundred other things—but how can you keep your mind on your cooking when a new member as special as Bolts is due to arrive at any moment? A real robot dog! Nothing had delighted Big Butch more in all the time he had lived on Battleship Lane.

As the truck rolled up to the door, Big Butch took one look at it and went thumping through the house, crying out, “Hey Bingo! Come quick! Bolts is here!”

It was electrifying news. It woke up Pirate, the commander's old green parrot, who immediately started squawking, “All hands on deck! Look alive! Butch says Bolts is here!” It made Claws, the commander's black cat, forget about mouse-hunting, and it brought red-headed Bingo and the bald-headed commander on the run—Commander Brown puffing and wheezing, and Bingo crying excitedly, “Hot diggity!” while he dashed for the door as fast as his skinny legs could carry him.

They all poured eagerly outside, Bingo in the lead, with Pirate squawking on his shoulder, followed by big clumpy Butch, curious Claws, the cat, and the puffing commander, who was waddling proof that Butch was entirely too clever in the kitchen.

In the lane they stopped, surprised to see the truck driver unloading a box. Somehow no one had realized that Bolts would come crated. Even Bingo had had the idea that Bolts would arrive with his switch turned on, and would hop yapping off the truck, with his tail wagging.

“Bad business!” squawked Pirate as the truck driver put the box on the ground and Bingo signed for it. “Very bad business! Something's wrong! Something's wrong!”

“Pipe down!” ordered the commander. “There's nothing wrong about Bolts's being crated. Butch, take him into the shop. We can't unpack him out here.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the big robot said uneasily, for Pirate had a perfectly awful instinct that was nearly always right. As he picked up the box and carried it into the workshop, he hoped that Bolts would be everything that Bingo wanted him to be. No one needed a dog more than Bingo Brown—but it had to be a very special robot dog, and not a real one. A real one simply wouldn't do, especially for space traveling.

“I hope his growl is just right,” Bingo said anxiously, hurrying to bring tools. His mass of red hair seemed to be aflame with excitement, but his eyes behind his huge horn-rimmed glasses were suddenly worried.

“Aw, he'll have a howling horror of a growl—and teeth to go with it,” Big Butch assured him. “Don't pay any attention to that crazy bird.”