“Exactly, exactly.” Tom-Tom nodded above his poised hands. “And criminals understand me, and I understand them better than you think. But,” and he sounded a little weary, “they’re no good, either.
“You see, Gaspipe, they scare too easily. They die too easily. Just now you overpowered one. They’re not fit to associate with me on the terms I dictate. If I’m going to have power, it will turn what passes for my stomach if I have only people—people of meat and bone—under me.” He made a spitting sound, such as Gascon had often faked for him in the days when the two were performing. “As I say, this is where you come in.”
“In heaven’s name, what do you mean?”
“You’re smart, Gaspipe. You made me—the one thing that has been given artificial life. Well, you’ll make other things to be animated.”
“More robots?” demanded Gascon. “You want a science factory.”
“I am the apex of science come true. Oh, it’s practical. A couple at first. Then ten. Then a hundred. Then enough, perhaps, to grab a piece of the world and rule it. Don’t bug out your eyes, Gaspipe. My followers bought up the life-making machinery and other things for me. I have lots of money—from that ransom—and I can get more.”
Gascon was finding the idea not so surprising as at first, but he shook his head over it. “I won’t.”
“Yes, you will. We’ll be partners again. Understand?”
“If I refuse?”
Tom-Tom made no audible answer. He only turned and gazed meaningly at the place where Shannon was shut up.
Gascon sighed and rose. “Show me this machinery of yours.”
“Step this way.” Monkey-nimble, Tom-Tom hopped to the floor. He had taken up the gun again, and gestured with it for Gascon to walk beside him. Together they crossed the office to a rear corner, where Tom-Tom touched what looked like a projecting nail head. As with the door to Shannon’s cell, a panel slid back. They passed into a corridor, and the panel closed behind them.
“Straight ahead,” came the voice of Tom-Tom in the darkness. “Being mechanical, I have a head for mechanics. I devised all these secret panels. Neat?”
“Dramatic,” replied Gascon, who could be ironical himself. “Now, Tom-Tom, if I do what you want, what happens to me and to Miss Cole?”
“You both stay with me.”
“You won’t let them ransom her?”
A chuckle, and: “I’ll take the ransom money, but she’s seen too much to go free. Maybe I’ll make the two of you a nice suite of rooms for housekeeping—barred in, of course. Didn’t you use to carry me around in a little case, Gaspipe? I’ll take just as good care of you, if you do what I want.”
The little monster did something or other to open a second door, and beyond showed the light of a strong electric lamp. They passed into a big windowless room, with rough wooden walls, probably a deep cellar. It held a complicated arrangement of electrical machinery.
Hopping lightly to a bench the height of Gascon’s shoulder, Tom-Tom seized a switch and closed it. There were emissions of sparks, a stir of wheels and belts, and the hum of machinery being set in motion.
“This, Gaspipe, is what brought me to life. And look!” The jointed wooden hand flourished toward a corner. “There’s the kind of thing that was tried and failed.”
It looked like a caricature of an armored knight—a tall, jointed, gleaming thing, half again as big as a big man, with a head shaped like a bucket. There were no features except two vacant eyes of quartz, staring through the blank metal as through a mask. Gascon walked around it, his doctor-mind and builder-hands immediately interested. The body was but loosely pinned together, and he drew aside a plate, peering into the works.
“The principle’s wrong,” he announced at once. “The fellow didn’t understand anatomical balance—”
“I knew it, I knew it!” cried Tom-Tom. “You can add the right touch, Gaspipe. That’s the specimen that came closest to success before me. I’ll help. After all, my brain was made by the old boy who did all these things. Through it, I know what he knew.”
“Why didn’t you save him to help you?” demanded Gascon. He picked up a pair of tapering pincers and a small wrench, and began to tinker.
“I told you about that once. I was angry. My first impulse was a killing rage. The death of my life-giver was my first pleasure and triumph. I hadn’t dreamed up the plan I’ve been describing.”
Anger was Tom-Tom’s first emotion. Not so different from human beings as the creature imagined, mused Gascon. What had the lecturer at medical school once quoted from Emmanuel Kant:
“The outcry that is heard from a child just born was not the note of lamentation, but of indignation and aroused wrath.”
Of course, a newborn baby has not the strength to visit its rage on mother or nurse or doctor, but a creature as organized and powerful in body and mind as Tom-Tom—or as huge and overwhelming as this metal giant he fiddled with—
Gascon decided to think such thoughts with the greatest stealth. If Tom-Tom could divine them, something terrible was due to happen. Stripping off his coat, he went to work on the robot with deadly earnestness.
Morning had probably come to the outside world. Gascon, wan and weary, stepped back and mopped his brow with a shirt sleeve. Tom-Tom spoke from where he sat cross-legged on the bench beside the controls.
“Is he pretty much in shape, Gaspipe?”
“As much as you ever were, Tom-Tom. If you are right, and this machine gave you life, it will give him life, too.”
“I can’t wait for my man Friday. Get him over and lay him on the slab.”
The metal man was too heavy to lift, but Gascon’s hours of work had provided his joints with beautiful balance. An arm around the tanklike waist was enough to support and guide. The weight shifted from one big shovel-foot to the other and the massive bulk actually walked to the table-like slab in the midst
