Sprockets Read online

  “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.

  When he had the night salesman of the robot factory on the line he said: “I’m Dr. Barnabas Bailey, and I’ve found your robot that escaped. How much do you want for him?”

  He listened a moment. “What?” he cried. “That much? For a little half-grown pintsized bundle of rusty scraps? Why, bless me, he’s not even gold-plated! Huh? His brain? Yes, I realize a positronic brain is positively super, but I had no idea—H’m—Yes, I’ll think about it. Trial period, eh? Very well, I’ll try him out and let you know.”

  The doctor slammed down the receiver and glared at Sprockets.

  “You’re on probation,” he growled. “One month. I may buy you, and I may not.” Suddenly he shook his finger under Sprockets’ nose. “Now mind! For the next thirty days you’d better be on your toes and keep all your positronic circuits really clicking. Otherwise you’re going right back to the factory!”

  At that moment a red light flashed from the clock over the workbench. An alarm bell rang and the clock’s voice fairly shrieked: “Flying saucer! Flying saucer! Flying saucer!”

  The doctor raced out of the shop and went pounding through the house, with Jim and Yapper at his heels.

  3

  He Becomes Partially Educated

  Sprockets blinked his eye lights at the curious clock that had caused such a commotion. Briefly he touched his cerebration button. After a moment he turned to Mrs. Bailey.

  “Flying saucers,” he said pensively. “Can you tell me, ma’am, whether the subject comes under the heading of aircraft or crockery? There’s nothing in my memory banks that serves as a clue.”

  Mrs. Bailey chuckled. “Probably space craft. They are strictly out of this world, my dear, and no one knows beans about them. Not even Barnabas.”

  “But it is obvious, ma’am, that he has a consuming interest in them. I would deduce that he has an automatic observatory connected with the clock somewhere nearby. Is that right?”

  Mrs. Bailey patted him on the head. “Your education may be limited, but your positronic circuits are clicking beautifully. Yes, Barnabas is absolutely dotty on saucers, and so is Jim. The subject comes next to his Moon research. They have an observatory in the attic, but it doesn’t work too well. It has probably spotted another shooting star.”

  She stooped, examining him with a motherly eye. “You’ll need clothes so you can have pockets. But first I’d better fix a cover for your switch box so you won’t get turned off accidentally. Barnabas should do it, but he’ll forget. His mind is on so many things. Let me see—a bit of tin and a screw should do it.”

  A switch-box cover was speedily made and fastened in place. Next came a pair of blue overalls that had been ordered for Jim, but were a size too small. They fitted Sprockets perfectly. Mrs. Bailey found a tiny wrench and a screwdriver, which she placed in one of the pockets. Into the other pockets went a small can of oil, a polishing rag, and one of Jim’s handkerchiefs.

  “Now remember,” she cautioned, “if you want the doctor to like you, you’ll have to keep your fastenings tight, and your joints oiled so they won’t squeak.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you must stay brightly polished at all times. Don’t ever let me catch you with even one speck of dust or a spot of rust on you.”

  “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am.”

  “It isn’t that the doctor doesn’t really like robots, but he hasn’t got used to the idea of you yet. He’s only an overgrown boy.”

  Sprockets said plaintively, “I wish I could be a real boy instead of a robot.”

  “Pooh and nonsense! Boys are always hungry or dirty or aching somewhere; they have to sleep nine hours every night, and it takes years and years to beat an education into their craniums—because their craniums are made of solid ivory instead of positronic circuits. See? You’ll never have their worries. You can learn anything in the world in practically no time by running a tape through your head.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Sprockets. “But it isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. An educational tape sends a hot buzzing through all my circuits. Just imagine how it is when twenty trillion circuits get buzzingly hot all at the same time.”

  “Does it make you a little feverish?”

  “Oh, ma’am, it makes me feel positively fried.”

  “Then I’d better get some ice packs ready for your head, because you’re going to start frying as soon as I can have some educational tapes delivered. You don’t want to be sent back to the factory. So if you live with Barnabas, you’ll have to be educated practically to a brown crisp and know nearly all.”

  She went to the phone and began checking off the tapes she felt were necessary.

  “First, languages. Latin, of course, and French, Spanish, German, and Greek. Barnabas will insist on Greek. Then the ologies, including extras like meteorology, craniology, minerology, cosmology—and I do think a little numerology and astrology would help us wonderfully. Then there are the onomies. Now let me see. Agronomy, astronomy, Deuteronomy—Oh, dear, I’m getting a little mixed—”

  She was still busy on the telephone, ordering enough tapes to sizzle an army of robots, when Jim and Dr. Bailey
rushed back into the laboratory.

  “It was a real flying saucer!” Jim cried excitedly. “Only it was all purple—going like a purple streak—”

  “—right overhead,” gasped the doctor. “Bright purple! Most remarkable—”

  “—and the camera jammed and we didn’t get a picture of it. Going like a purple streak. Straight for Mexico—”

  “Straight for Mexico! Quick, Miranda,” the doctor begged. “Let me have the phone! I’ve got to call Salazar!”

  The doctor almost snatched the receiver from Mrs. Bailey’s hand. He dialed for the operator. “Long distance!” he shouted. “Hurry! This is a matter of momentous magnitude! I want to talk to Don José Salazar at the Rancho Diablo, Monteverde, Mexico.”

  Sprockets stood respectfully to one side, his little hands clasped patiently while he watched and listened. He tried to remain silent until he was needed, as a proper robot should. But finally his curiosity got the better of him.

  He turned on his whisper button and asked Jim, “Who is Don José Salazar?”

  “He’s Dad’s friend in Mexico,” Jim whispered back. “He watches for saucers too, and takes wonderful pictures in color. We’re hoping he can get a picture of this one. No one’s ever seen a purple saucer before. Imagine, bright purple! And it shimmered. It was terrific.”

  Sprockets couldn’t quite imagine it, even with his imagination button turned on, but it was evident that it must have been simply terrific, from the effect it had on everyone. When, presently, the doctor was shouting Spanish into the telephone, and Don José Salazar, far away in Mexico, was shouting Spanish back at him, even the telephone crackled with the excitement of it. A purple flying saucer!

  Long after daylight came and Sprockets had helped Mrs. Bailey serve breakfast, the feeling of excitement lingered. The doctor paced the floor, waiting for Don José to call him back and say that he had seen the saucer and managed to take pictures of it.

  The doctor was still pacing, and scowling momentarily at the telephone, when the box of educational tapes arrived from the factory. Sprockets opened the box. At the sight of so many tapes, dozens and dozens of them, he gave a loud tock and almost stopped ticking.

  Mrs. Bailey said: “There’s no use wasting time sorting them out. We’ll begin with the one on top and educate you right down to the bottom of the box.”

  “B—but, ma’am—”

  “No buts,” she said firmly, reaching for the first roll in the box. “I know it’s natural for boys and robots to balk at being educated, but that’s only because you’re ignorant. This won’t hurt a bit, and I don’t want Barnabas to send you back to the factory.”

  She inserted the end of the tape into the little slot at the back of his head, gave his learning button a deft twitch, and said: “Now there. Sit quietly, and soon you’ll be the most educated little robot on earth.”

  Sprockets did not hear her. The instant the tape began to unwind, he was oblivious to everything but the hot sizzling buzz of knowledge being crammed through his circuits. His eye lights blinked so fast that they changed color nine times a second, and a spectrum of color raced around his forehead, so that he seemed to be wearing a red, blue, and yellow halo. All his trillions of circuits clicked and snapped at once, so that the sizzling in his head was like twenty trillion fish being fried in twenty trillion skillets. When it seemed impossible for his memory banks to gulp any more knowledge, Mrs. Bailey removed the tape and slipped another on in its place.

  There was a moment of blessed blankness, then his circuits started sizzling again. He was powerless to protest or even to move a finger. Knowledge, all kinds of curious knowledge that only a human could have dreamed about, whirled through him—with every little particle of it looking for a memory cell and cramming itself into it as fast as it could. Knowledge completely over-whelmed him, and minute by minute his head seemed to grow bigger and bigger and hotter and hotter.

  And still Mrs. Bailey fed new tapes into his little slot.

  It is probably a good thing that the telephone rang when it did, for Mrs. Bailey had forgotten the ice pack. If she had fed him any more tapes when his circuits were so overheated, it is possible that poor Sprockets would have burned out all his fuses and been only a little dummy for the rest of his life.

  But Don José Salazar phoned, and the education of Sprockets was temporarily interrupted.

  When Mrs. Bailey finally turned back to Sprockets, she was amazed to see him stretched limply on the floor with his mouth wide open and his toes turned up. The glow was almost gone from his eyes, and his ticking was so faint she could hardly hear it.

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!” she wailed. “I hope I haven’t killed him. Barnabas, what shall I do?”

  The doctor paid not the slightest attention to her. He was shouting to Don José on the telephone, and he was so tremendously excited that his glasses were hanging by one hook and his mop of white hair was sticking out in all directions. He had even forgotten his Spanish and was shouting in English.

  “Great guns!” he cried. “It’s down, you say? High in the mountains? Then hold everything! I’m flying out. ¡Sí! Sí! Pronto!”

  He dropped the receiver. “Miranda, quick! Pack my bag. I’m on my way to Mexico. The purple saucer had an accident. It’s down in the mountains!”

  In the confusion it was Jim who remembered to get the ice pack from the refrigerator and bring it to his mother. She placed it on Sprockets’ head, which was practically blistering.

  “Poor little darling,” she said. “You’ll cool off in a minute and feel just ducky. Would you like a hot shot to bring up your battery?”

  “No—no!” Sprockets managed to say, stirring faintly. “Nothing hot—please! O-o-oh, my sizzling circuits! I didn’t know I could know so much!”

  “Miranda!” the doctor called. “Did you hear me? I’m going to Mexico!”

  “Yes, dear, I heard you. Now you calm down, Barnabas. That purple saucer will stay where it is until you and Jim get there—”

  “It won’t stay there long—and who said Jim is going with me?”

  “You’re taking the ’copter, aren’t you, dear?”

  “Of course I’m taking the ’copter! How else would I get there in a hurry?”

  “Then naturally Jim goes with you to do your piloting. The Aeronautical Board says he’s a much better pilot than you, and they’ve given him a special license in spite of his age. I want you to get there safely. And I think it would be a good thing if you took Sprockets along to look after you both.”

  “Absolutely not!” snapped the doctor. “If you think I’m taking that half-baked little bundle of circuits—”

  “Now, Barnabas, he’s not half-baked. He’s merely half educated, and a bit overheated, but I’m sure he’s absorbed enough education to be a great help. And you really do need someone who can remember absolutely everything he sees and hears. Think how it would be if you ever got inside that purple saucer. Have you got super-super vision with a radar attachment, and positronic photographic memory?”

  “Well,” he grumbled, “since you put it that way—”

  “Then it’s settled,” she said sweetly. “Jim, you warm up the helicopter while Sprockets and I pack the bags and fry some chicken for your lunch.”

  4

  He Has Trouble in Mexico

  Sprockets hadn’t quite recovered from his education when he carried the bags out to the helicopter. In spite of several ice packs, his circuits felt blistering, and a lot of his new knowledge was still buzzing back and forth as if it would strain the seams of his memory banks. Although it was wonderful to know so much, he almost wished someone would turn him off. Then he could sit down peacefully and merely add large numbers, full of sevens and nines, again. But no one thought to turn him off, nor did he dare suggest it.

  Finally they were ready to go.

  Mrs. Bailey kissed them all good-by, shedding a tear for each of them and cautioning them to beware of Mexican bandits. Jim gunned the motor, and the helicopte
r rose high above the Bailey courtyard.

  “It isn’t the thought of bandits that worries me,” Dr. Bailey grumbled. “It’s old Professor Katz.”

  “Daddy,” said Jim, “do you suppose Professor Katz saw that saucer?”

  “Jim, if we saw a purple saucer, you can bet all your uncut wisdom teeth that Prof. Vladimir Katz saw a purple saucer too. He never misses anything, except a trip to jail.”

  Sprockets was beginning to feel better in the cool upper air. “May I be permitted to ask, sir, who is Prof. Vladimir Katz?”

  “He is a thorn in my side,” growled the doctor. “He is an offense in the eyes of science. He steals inventions. He steals ideas. He steals credit for other men’s work. If he can get to Mexico first, you can bet your last cog and sprocket he’ll steal that purple saucer—and sell it to the Russians.”

  “Then I regret to inform you, sir, that matters are very bad indeed. We should not be traveling at this time. The stars are against us, sir.”

  “Eh?” said the doctor. “What’s this? Stars, did you say?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sprockets replied solemnly. “They are definitely incompatibly inauspicious.”

  Jim said, “What’s ‘incompatibly inauspicious’ mean?”

  “Blessed if I’m sure,” muttered the doctor, “but we’ll both find out if you hit that thundercloud. Watch your piloting! Sprockets, how do you know that the stars are inauspicious?”

  “Sir, my last learning tape, before my circuits became overheated, dealt with astrology. It was most enlightening, even though my circuits are still buzzing from it. You see, sir, Mars and Saturn are in conjunction, Taurus is in the ascendancy, and the Moon—”

  “Drivel,” muttered the doctor. “Pure incompatible, inauspicious drivel. I hope and pray you learned something really useful, like Spanish.”

  Sprockets swallowed—or rather he gave a little tock that amounted to a swallow. He was trying so hard to please Dr. Bailey, but the doctor was evidently a very difficult man to please.