Tom Swift and His Giant Robot (15 page)

"Naw, there ain’t no wires—it’s a cellphone. They must have knocked out the relay transmitters for a mile around!"

"You should try
our
long-distance service," Tom commented sarcastically. "We use satellites!" He clambered to his feet. "They have a machine that short-circuits electrical equipment. We can forget about calling in the cavalry for now."

"All right, look, Tom," exclaimed Nicky Ammo. "I believe you now. You’ve got to help me find Lush and Jarret! If some of my old gang is behind it—man, they get a little
over-enthused
at times, you know?"

"We’ll try following them in the van," Tom agreed. "We can’t let the trail get cold."

They ran down the stairs, Nicky Ammo pausing with wide eyes next to Ator, who stood motionlessly at the end of a trail of random destruction. Tom activated the robot and marched him downstairs and into the van. In moments they were speeding up the main highway.

Tom put in a call to Sam Valdrosa from the satellite-linked phone in the van. "Holy Toledo, what you’re telling me explains a lot," cried the agent. "My two men, Hal and Burt, haven’t checked in for half an hour—they must be knocked out, or worse!"

"Right, along with Nicky’s employee," said Tom. "Do you have any clue as to where whoever it is might have taken Mrs. Ammo—I mean, Mrs. Stennard—and their son?"

"Perhaps I do," Valdrosa replied. "We monitored some radio ‘traffic’ in the area a few nights back that attracted our attention because it mentioned the word
ammo
. The phrase was,
RT wants the ammo at the villa rey.
That’s what it sounded like, at least; pretty hard to make out."

Tom gasped with excitement. "RT—Raymond Turnbull! That’s the name of the man Slick Steck was working with in Shopton!"

"And isn’t
Villa Rey
a Spanish name for a rancho or something?" asked Bud.

"Naw, Buddy Boy," Chow interjected. "It’s not pernounced that way. Sounds to me more like initials—V. L. A."

Tom glanced back at Chow, a startled expression on his face.

"So what does
that
mean?" demanded Ammo. "A person?"

"No!" Tom exclaimed. "Not a person—a place!" He slammed on the brakes and made a hairpin u-turn in the van. "The Very Large Array at the National Radio-Astronomy Observatory out near Datil. Just the sort of place an electronics engineer would feel at home!"

Sam Valdrosa promised to alert the authorities in nearby Socorro, and to contact security at the Observatory facility itself. But with Nicky Ammo urging him on, Tom refused to turn back.

"I want to be there when this Turnbull guy is taken into custody," said the young inventor. "Besides, the anti-short-circuit antenna in Ator may come in useful."

"Suit yourself," said Sam Valdrosa.

At top speed the van hurtled down the highway toward whatever strange danger awaited them!

"NOW WHAT, Skipper?" asked Bud Barclay.

The van from the Citadel sat in the desert a mile off the highway. Ahead, several miles distant across the dry, flat San Agustin Plain, the Very Large Array awaited them in the fading red of sunset. Tom knew that the kidnap victims, and his mysterious enemy, were ensconced somewhere within the row upon row of dish-shaped radio-telescope antennas that listened expectantly to the silence of deep space.

"I hope you amateurs have enough of the
servoire flaire
to not go in by the front door," declared Nicky Ammo.

"We won’t," Tom confirmed. "What I’d
like
to do is follow the route taken by the other vehicle."

Chow scratched his ample head. "Nice idea, Boss. But it’d take a good ole Indian tracker to figger where they went across.
I
shore don’t see anything."

Tom smiled. "How about giving a mechanical Indian a chance?"

Tom brought Ator to life and had him slide out of the back of the van and stand next to it, facing the desert. He then positioned himself before the screen on the controller console and signaled the robot to swivel his head, slowly panning the plain. Despite the dusky gloom outside, the screen revealed a bright and astonishingly detailed view of the desert floor.

"Robo-vision!" Bud whispered to Ammo.

Tom carefully adjusted the various mixes of contrast and brightness as the robot scanned back and forth. Suddenly he stabbed a button and pointed in triumph. "Look!" he cried.

Two parallel streaks had appeared on the screen, standing out darkly against the blank of the desert.

"How ’bout that!" breathed Chow appreciatively. "Them the tracks from t’other van?"

Tom nodded. "Pretty sure they are. Looks like they run straight from the road onto the station. Let’s see where they go." Magnifying the screen image, the viewers could see that the tracks passed through a ragged break in the facility’s security fence and led on to one of the antenna blockhouses.

Chow squinted at the screen image. "Brand my rusty gateposts, sure ain’t no Swift Enterprises—run down as a blame ghost town!"

"It
is
a ghost town," commented Tom thoughtfully. "According to the map, this is the old, disused portion of the facility. The newer section, which is currently in use, is several miles to the west. I’d guess security is pretty minimal here—Turnbull would almost have the place to himself, if he were careful."

"I think I see the van parked there!" Bud said.

"Right," Tom responded. Making a mental note of the layout of the scene, Tom had Ator climb back aboard and shut him down. Then they began a slow trek across the plain, lights off.

They rumbled through the gap in the perimeter fence and found themselves in the forest of antennas.

"There it is," Tom muttered. The other van was parked around the side of the antenna immediately ahead, partly out of sight. Tom pulled to a stop at the base of an adjacent structure about 200 feet away and cut the engine. The four climbed out quietly, speaking in whispers.

But they had been detected despite their caution.
"We’ve been expecting you, Tom Swift!"
boomed a shrill voice from a dozen public-address loudspeakers all around them.

Nicky Ammo started to charge forward like an ox, but Tom held out a hand to restrain him. "Not yet!" he said quietly.

"No, not yet!"
echoed the disembodied voice.
"First, the game!"

On cue, a large section of ground in front of the other antenna began to swing upward like a camouflaged trap door, its flat underside glistening like glass. Upon becoming vertical the rectangular section, almost twenty feet high by eight feet wide, began to turn slowly on a pivot until the crystalline side squarely faced the party.

"Some kinda TV screen?" speculated Chow, puzzled.

Now the rectangular plate began to glow—dark blue, purple, red, orange, and finally a silver-tinted yellow which grew in intensity.

Tom startled the group by abruptly hissing, "Back! Quick!" He led them around behind the cinderblock shed that adjoined the base of the nearer antenna structure.

"What is that thing?" demanded Ammo.

"It’s a weapon—one banned by international law," said Tom. "A thermic concentrator!"

"A heat ray!"
Bud cried. Under the deadly glare, the small weeds in the patch of ground between the two telescopes were beginning to smoke!

Heedless of the danger, Tom darted out from behind the shed, heading toward the van.
Got to get Ator and the controller!
he muttered to himself, a fiercely hot wind hitting his face. He staggered slightly, and a pair of muscular arms held him up.

"Race you, genius boy!" grinned Bud.

They clambered into the van, already sizzling hot. Tom turned the key that activated the robot, and then used the auxiliary handheld unit, relayed through the main control console, to direct Ator to safety behind the cinderblock wall. But the main controller itself was large and bulky, and Tom was grateful for Bud’s muscles.

The trip back, lugging the console between the two of them, was nightmarish for the boys. Sweat drizzled off their foreheads, and the ground itself seemed to have been turned into a hot griddle.

But they made it, panting. In the next instant, the windshield of the van shattered, and the paint began to blacken and curl. Then, with a shout of thunder and a flash of flame, the vehicle exploded!

Peering cautiously around the corner of the shed, the foursome observed an awe-inspiring and terrible scene. The ground was dotted with small flames. A haze of smoke rose into the air, the vista dominated by the fire-bright glow of the thermic device, which looked like the open door of a foundry furnace.

Suddenly there was movement at the shed under the further antenna. A door was flung open, through which lumbered a massive, crouching figure. It took a few steps and then stood erect to its height of ten feet.

"Sermek!"
cried Tom.

The giant robot now stepped forward into the inferno, casting an eerie black shadow as he stood, unharmed, in front of the thermic concentrator, a dark silhouette with fiendishly glowing eyes.

The metal man began to stride forward. Tom worked feverishly at the control console, trying to block the enemy signals that had turned his creation into a foe. But Sermek did not pause.

"Boss! He’s gettin’ mighty close!" Chow warned.

In desperation Tom abandoned his struggle to control Sermek, realizing there was only one remaining chance: Ator!

Tuning to the robot’s control frequency, Tom sliced down a series of knife switches, spun the dials, and Ator strode into action, bearing down upon the other giant robot.

Sermek—or his unseen operator—seemed to sense the impending danger. The mechanical giant clanked to a halt, snapping his head twenty degrees to the right, his photon-rods pointing at the challenger emerging into view.

Turning slightly, Sermek advanced to meet Ator. The manlike automatons circled each other warily. Sermek’s right hand contracted into the equivalent of a fist and his arm stiffened into a lance. He charged as Ator braced his feet against the fiery earth.

The giants collided with a deafening crash that resounded across the grounds. Tom fully realized the gravity of the situation. The hidden hand manipulating Sermek seemed bent on an all-out battle without regard for the possible destruction of both robots. Somehow he must deactivate Sermek’s controls, without permanent damage to either robot, if possible. But if not possible, it was essential that Ator triumph as the survivor of the combat!

Sermek backed off and began to stalk his opponent, looking for an opening. Then, pivoting quickly, he lunged forward. Ator side-stepped, but not far enough to avoid a smash in the face that damaged his control circuits, stiffening the joints in one leg. The robot jockeyed awkwardly for position. Two more blows shook his receptor-eyes.

Tom worked frantically to compensate for the distortion that resulted. If Ator were to win now, Tom knew, the battle would have to end rapidly.

Eyes glued to the relotrol output, he switched to wrestling techniques. The robots came together again, and a clanging din filled the air as each giant fought for a hold on the other’s vulnerable head mechanism. A contest of strategy, not strength, was exactly what Tom wanted. Now he could use scientific tactics based on his knowledge of the robot’s structural operations.

For a moment Sermek had the advantage. He broke a full nelson with a thrust that sent Ator reeling back against the cinderblock wall. But Ator recovered quickly and sprang forward again. Leaping into the air, he lunged at Sermek, and with one hand tore the stubby antenna from atop the giant’s head. His emergency override circuits activated, Sermek froze in mid-stride—and majestically toppled backward to the ground like a felled tree.

Ator had won!

Tom now turned the robot in the direction of the thermic weapon. He had to disable the device if he and his companions were to be able to charge the opposing antenna shed. But before Ator had taken three steps, the thermic concentrator began to dull its fire and pivot away.

"A good game, Tom Swift!"
came the amplified voice.
"I can learn from you."

The device, cooling rapidly, now folded back down into the ground.

"Come forward, all of you. I welcome you!"

"My robot comes with me," said Tom evenly, motioning for the others to follow him as he picked up the handheld controller, leaving the console active. He headed across the still-smoldering ground toward the doorway from which Sermek had appeared, Bud to his right, Ator to his left, and Chow and Nicky Ammo close behind.

THEY ENTERED into a cramped room in the cinderblock shed, Ator poised just outside the open doorway. The room was filled with electronic equipment of various kinds. Tom immediately recognized the missing controller unit, its gauges flashing red. There was also a rifle-sized device of coils and rings which Tom guessed was the portable short-circuit projector.

In the middle of the room stood a lanky, balding man in overalls, looking more like a farmer than a scientist. He had an odd, sheepish grin on his face that contrasted with the revolver in his hand, which was pointed at Tom.

"You pull that trigger," Ammo warned gruffly, "and that robot’s gonna
dissemble
you."

"Oh, I doubt that," said the man pleasantly. "But at any rate, I don’t think I’ll need to shoot today. No, not today."

Tom stepped closer, his thumb poised on the controller’s activator switch. "Raymond Turnbull?" he asked.

"Robert
Turnbull," replied the man. "Raymond is my brother, my identical twin brother. Identical physically, yes—but with an oddly distinct world-view, I’m afraid. He had reservations about my recent work, and so I have had to… to keep him in a controlled environment." He nodded toward a door at the other side of the room. "Mental illness—such a tragedy, you know. But until he recovers, I’ve taken his place in the world."

"You got my wife and son in there?" demanded Ammo.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, Mr. Ammo," Turnbull answered. "Restrained but unharmed, along with your grounds employee Albert, and two men I came across in a car near your property, who are named Hal and Burt. Everyone well and in surprisingly good spirits."