Sprockets (2 page)

Sprockets gulped, or rather his wheels and circuits gave a loud
tock
that amounted to a gulp, and he wiped rain from his blinking eye lights. Abruptly, and a little stiffly, he lurched to his feet. With a hand that was not quite steady he turned off his cerebration button and clicked on his radar vision so he could see better in the black downpour. He began to walk.

“Nine million enemies,” he repeated. “And I must evade them all until I can find a friend. I wonder why my hand trembles and my legs feel so odd. I am not exactly afraid, for a robot isn't supposed to feel fear. Maybe it is because I am such a little robot. Or can it be the rain, and the fact that I need oiling? Maybe I'd better switch on my instinct button and see where it takes me.”

He turned on his instinct button and moved valiantly ahead.

The rain continued. The night grew darker. Sprockets walked bravely on, following his positronic instincts, but his feet moved slower and slower. His brain clock ticked off the minutes and hours. By the time his distance computer had registered thirty-five thousand six hundred and forty-two steps, or exactly ten miles from his cerebration point, he realized he could go no farther. Something was very wrong with him. He had been so busy evading millions of enemies and following his positronic instincts that he had been unable to search for a single friend. Nor had he but the haziest idea of his location except that he was in a parklike area of trees and shrubs exactly three hundred and twenty-one and a half degrees north of the robot factory, and that off in the trees was a big dark house where everyone was asleep except the dog. A dog was barking and coming toward him.

Sprockets tried his best to turn and run. He could not. He felt himself slipping, his knees folding.

He did not know that his little switch box, which was built in the middle of his back, was still exposed. Ordinarily, had he been a proper-size robot, and properly inspected, the inspector would have covered his switch box with a plate stamped with a number and all kinds of special information about voltage and oiling and the like, and what to do about dampness and short circuits and other matters that pertained to his anatomy.

But he had no plate for protection. Now, as his knees folded, a twig from a shrub behind him caught on his exposed switch and turned him off.

Instantly the row of lighted buttons on his forehead went out. His eyes dimmed to a very faint glow and it was impossible for him to twitch a finger. Only his positronic brain remained awake, but it might just as well have been asleep for all the good it did him.

The rain stopped, although it mattered little to him now in his present condition.

He sat on the wet ground in front of the shrubbery, motionless and helpless.

2

He Is Adopted Temporarily

Long minutes ticked away in Sprockets' head. The dog raced around him, barking furiously. Sprockets was dimly aware of the barking dog and, finally, of two figures approaching in the night. Although his brain was awake, it wasn't able to do much more than add long columns of large imaginary numbers, full of sevens and nines, just to keep its trillions of circuits in working order.

Now he stopped adding numbers and tried to concentrate on the approaching figures. It was very hard with the dog barking in front of him.

A light flashed. A man's voice said: “Enough of that barking, Yapper! What have we here?”

“It's a robot!” exclaimed a boy, very much excited. “A little robot! Oh, Daddy, can I keep him? Huh, Daddy, can I?”

“Why, bless me, it
is
a robot!” said the man. “And hardly as big as you.”

“Say, I'll bet he's the robot that escaped from the factory. I heard about it on the radio just before I went to bed. Can I keep him, Daddy?”

“Absolutely not,” the father said. “He doesn't belong to us. Furthermore, if he's an escaped robot, he's undoubtedly aberrated and therefore dangerous. I wouldn't dream—”

“What's ‘aberrated' mean, Daddy?”

“Cuckoo. Now hush and let me examine him. Where are you from, robot?”

When no answer came, the man said, “I declare, I believe his switch is off.” He reached behind Sprockets, found the switch, and turned it on.

Instantly Sprockets awakened as if from a bad dream. His eyes glowed brighter and his forehead buttons flickered with dull color. But when he made an effort to rise, his joints creaked and he could hardly move.

“What's your name and why did you come here?” the man asked.

Sprockets tried to say that he didn't have a real name, and that all his cogs and sprockets seemed to be stuck. But the only sound he was able to squeeze through his metal lips was the single word, “—sprockets—”

“So Sprockets is your name, eh? Well, Sprockets, you seem to be in pretty bad shape. Come, Jim, help me get him into the lab. I guess he'll be harmless enough until I dry him off and oil him. His joints are rusting from the rain, and I imagine he's full of short circuits.”

After much stumbling and trouble, Sprockets was hauled into a big shop and laboratory in the rear of the house and placed on a stool beside a workbench. While Jim and Yapper, the dog, watched, Jim's father dried him with a towel and oiled him from neck to toe.

Jim's father was a very tall, thin man with a thick mop of white hair, thick glasses, and a sort of perpetual frown that comes from trying to solve too many puzzles. Like Jim, he was wearing a blue bathrobe over striped pajamas. The workbench behind him was piled with all kinds of strange apparatus. The clock on the wall above it sang a little tune, and announced sweetly, “It is now four in the morning, and there are no flying saucers in sight.”

Jim's father scowled at the clock, then frowned at Sprockets and said: “I am Dr. Bailey. Do you understand me, Sprockets?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Sprockets answered weakly. “Are—are y-you a medical d-doctor, sir?”

“Absolutely not,” said Dr. Bailey. “You let me ask the questions. Did you escape from the robot factory?”

“Y-y-yes, sir. I-I-I—”

Dr. Bailey shook his head. “That's too bad. It is evident by your voice and your actions that you are very, very aberrated. I'd better phone the robot factory immediately to send someone for you.”

“Oh, n-no, sir!
Please
don't!” Sprockets fell on his knees. With hands that trembled because of his damp circuits he clutched the doctor's robe. “P-p-
please
don't order me back to the factory! They'll take me apart and I-I-I-I'll cease to be!”

They were interrupted by a short, plump little woman, also wearing a blue robe, who came through the shop door. She had a turned-up nose and quick birdlike blue eyes like Jim's. When she spoke she tried to sound very fierce, but somehow she didn't quite manage it.

“Barnabas Bailey!” she snapped. “What on earth are you and Jim doing up at this hour? There are no flying saucers gadding about.” Then she saw Sprockets. “My goodness gracious—what is that?”

“It's the escaped robot, Mom,” said Jim.

“Oh! the poor little lost frightened thing! Here, let me—”

“Careful!” cautioned the doctor. “He's undoubtedly aberrated. He may be dangerous.”

“Pooh and nonsense! You've got him scared half to death. He's been out in the rain all night and he's famished for something hot in his tummy.”

“My dear Miranda,” the doctor said patiently. “Robots do
not
eat.”

“Oh, but they do, Barnabas. Robots and boys, they're just alike. You get either of them cold and wet, and they must have something hot. For boys, it's hot soup. For robots, it's a hot shot.” While she spoke she was swiftly doing things with the extension cord on the workbench. She plugged the end of it into the socket in Sprockets' switch box, touched a control on the bench, and gave a little chuckle.

A wonderful, wonderful, warmth spread suddenly all through Sprockets, and he tingled deliciously from the tips of his toes to the ends of his positronic circuits. His eyes began to shine brightly and all his buttons flashed with brilliant colors.

“You see, Barnabas,” said Mrs. Bailey. “You may be a towering genius in all kinds of ologies, but you don't know about boys and robots. It takes a mother's touch. The little dear's atomic battery was all run down, and it hadn't had time to recharge itself.”

She stooped in front of Sprockets, smiling. “Now, young fellow,” she began, “tell me all about yourself.”

Sprockets told her, gratefully. “So you see, ma'am,” he finished, “I'm not the least bit aberrated, as you can easily tell, and I escaped only because I had to.” He paused and gave her his most earnest and entreating look. “Please, ma'am, would you consider adopting me? You'll find me a willing little fellow. I'm highly intelligent and full of capabilities.”

“Well—”

“Oh, Mom, please!” Jim begged. “Can't we keep him, Mom?”

“That's up to your father, Jim.”

“Absolutely not,” said the doctor. “In the first place, he doesn't belong to us. In the second place—”

“But, Dad, can't we
buy
him?”

“Certainly not. You know how I feel about robots.”

“Now, Barnabas,” said Mrs. Bailey, “for a famous scientist you're terribly old-fashioned. We could all use a smart young robot, and I'm sure Sprockets is as intelligent as he says he is. A robot cannot tell a lie.”

“A robot,” said Dr. Bailey, frowning darkly, “is a mechanical contraption. No mechanical contraption is truly intelligent.”

Sprockets stood up suddenly, blinking his eye lights. “But I
am
intelligent, sir, if you will permit me to explain. I have a genuine Asimov Positronic Brain!”

“Eh?” The doctor stared at him. “Say that again.”

“Yes, sir. I have a genuine Asimov Positronic Brain with twenty trillion printed circuits.” Sprockets lifted his head proudly. “I am capable of the most intense cerebration known to robotics. I never forget anything. I can learn all.”

“All?” said Dr. Bailey, lifting his eyebrows.

“All, sir,” answered Sprockets. “And I can draw logical conclusions.”

“H'mp,” grunted the doctor, scowling.

“Please, Daddy,” Jim pleaded, “won't you buy him for Mom and me? Then he can help me with my chores, run errands for Mom, and maybe do special calculations for you. Can you calculate, Sprockets?”

“With my brain,” Sprockets answered with dignity, “my propensity for calculation is boundless. Although I have been given only a cursory education in mathematics, I need only to be fed the proper educational tapes to become adept in advanced calculus.”

“H'mp,” muttered the doctor, still frowning. “You have a high opinion of yourself.”

“Oh, Daddy, please,” Jim began again. “Can't we—”

“Barnabas,” Mrs. Bailey said, “I have the greatest respect for you as a scientist, but you know how addled you get when you have to add and subtract fractions. You're always having Jim do your fractions, and that isn't right. Sprockets could handle them easily, and probably help you on your Moon research as well. Now you go right to the telephone and call the robot factory.”

“But, Miranda, I don't
want
a robot!” the doctor cried, running his fingers through his mop of thick white hair so that it stood straight up. It gave him a very wild appearance. “And why shouldn't Jim do all my fractions? He's nearly eight—”

“I'm practically
eleven
!” Jim interrupted. “Can't you
ever
remember my age?”

“Well, h'mp, six, eight, ten, twelve—bless me, what's the difference so long as you have a superior mentality like, h'mp, your daddy. But about the robot factory. There's no one there I could talk to at this hour.”

“Sir,” said Sprockets, “the sales department is always open.”

The doctor frowned at him, then turned reluctantly to the telephone on the workbench.