Robot Trouble (10 page)

The dune buggy, loaded with all six kids plus the robot, zoomed forward.

“Hey, watch it!” cried Hap as Trip came close to sideswiping a towering stack of crates. He wasn't worried about knocking the things over; he was hanging on the outside edge of the buggy, and afraid he would get scraped off himself.

Careening down an alley made of boxes, taking the corner on two wheels, Trip shot out of the warehouse and into the night.

“To your own buggies!” cried Roger. Jumping off the bumper, he scrambled behind the wheel of his own vehicle. Wendy tumbled in beside him, shoving Roger over so she could take the wheel. Rachel and Hap raced across the sand to the buggy they had driven to the warehouse.

Without waiting for the others, Trip headed for the road. He bounced the sturdy little vehicle onto the pavement, then straight across and off the other side. No sense in making himself easy to find by sticking to the main path.

“Let's split up,” said Roger as Wendy pulled their buggy up next to the one Hap was driving. “It'll make it that much harder for them to trail us.”

“Good idea,” said Hap. “See you at the cavern?”

“See you at the cavern.”

The two dune buggies sped silently in opposite directions.

Sergeant Brody arrived at Warehouse Two a few seconds later. He found the door wide open. His prize security robot Deathmonger had vanished without a trace.

Ramon Korbuscek shifted uneasily in the darkened house. Was that a sound in the room above him?

He held his breath and listened.

Nothing.

Must be my nerves
.

The idea disturbed him. He had a reputation throughout the intelligence community for being cool under the most trying circumstances. The fact that this house was occupied by his oldest, bitterest enemy was no excuse for getting jumpy.

He forced himself to take a few deep breaths, then returned to the papers he had been photographing. Perhaps his nervousness was caused not by memories of what Remov could do, but by the incredible potential of what he, Korbuscek, had stumbled into.

Good old computer-wizard Remov. When I told him I was going to get rich on what I learned from him, I had no idea it would be this way!

Korbuscek finished photographing the papers and tucked them back into the file, which he had found precisely where he had expected.

It had all been so easy he almost felt let down as he slipped out of the house.

That feeling vanished when a dark figure jumped him from behind.

Ray Gammand was convinced that the ride to the cavern was taking twice as long as it ever had before. As the dune buggy bounced along he found himself aching in at least fifteen different places—and he had a feeling there were others he wasn't even aware of yet.

To make matters worse, the stupid robot that held him in its clutches wouldn't shut up. By the time they reached the cavern, Ray was certain if he heard “Death to the intruders!” one more time he was going to lose his mind. When he thought about it further, he decided he must have lost his mind already. Otherwise he would never have gotten into this mess!

He waited impatiently as Trip maneuvered the dune buggy as close as possible to the mouth of the cavern.

They had decided to bring the robot here because they knew odds were good that the thing had some kind of tracking device attached to it—which meant if they took it back to their headquarters, Brody and his men would be knocking at their door before dawn.

It was Hap who had suggested the cavern. “Even if they manage to track us there, they probably won't be able to find the way in,” he had claimed.

That made sense; as far as the gang knew, no one else on the island was even aware of the cavern.

Trip scrambled out of the front seat and hurried around to the back of the dune buggy. “How are you doing, buddy?” he asked.

“Terrible!” growled Ray.

Just then Roger and Wendy drove up. “Let's get inside,” said Roger. “Then we can figure out how to spring Ray without worrying about Brody showing up.”

“You're going to owe me a lot of favors for this one, Roger,” said Ray.

Trip was already pulling at the pile of brush and rocks they had created to hide the entrance to the cavern. “Give me a hand, will you?” he yelled. “We haven't got all night!”

Roger and Wendy were at his side in an instant. The three worked in silence until the area was clear.

“That's it!” said Trip, as he dragged away the last of the big stones. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he headed back to the dune buggy. “It won't be long now, Ray,” he said as he slipped behind the wheel.

“Roger!” called Wendy. “Are you coming?”

“Huh? Oh sure, sure. Be right there.”

But the redhead continued to stand at the mouth of the cave, staring back in the direction they had come. He was searching for a pair of headlights—or anything to indicate the approach of another vehicle. Search as he might, he saw nothing.

 

Rachel and Hap

Ramon Korbuscek and Dr. Stanley Remov rolled over and over in the dirt, pummeling each other with their fists.

The fight was strangely silent. Neither man cried out for help, neither cried out in anger. The only sounds were the ones they made scrabbling against the soil and the occasional thud of a well-aimed punch.

For several minutes the battle was nearly even. Then Korbuscek landed a solid blow on Dr. Remov's jaw. The older man fell back, his head striking the ground heavily.

Pressing his advantage, Korbuscek hit him again, and yet again.

Dr. Remov's struggles grew weaker.

Then a strange thing happened. Korbuscek drew back his fist to deliver what would surely have been the final blow. Yet at a whispered word from Dr. Remov, he let his fist drop. Crying out in terror, he scrambled from his fallen opponent and ran into the darkness as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.

Dr. Remov lay very still for several minutes.

Then he began to chuckle.

When he tried to move, however, his chuckles turned to groans. Slowly, each move an agony, he began dragging himself toward his house.

He collapsed before he was halfway there.

If Rachel and Hap's dune buggy had been making any noise at all, they would never have found Dr. Remov. Only the silence of the electric motor (and the fact that they were moving at little better than a crawl) made it possible for the scientist's low moans to reach their ears.

Rachel was the first to hear him—largely because Hap was focusing so thoroughly on the road. The reason for his intensity was simple: He was driving without lights, to avoid attracting attention. But he was so fixed on what he was doing that when Rachel grabbed his arm and hissed, “What was that?” he nearly spun them off the road.

“Don't do that!” he yelled. Then, remembering that they were trying to be silent, he lowered his voice. “What was
what?
I didn't hear anything.”

“Shhh!” said Rachel. “Be quiet and listen.”

Hap obeyed, slowing the buggy even further to do so.

“There. Didn't you hear it? Stop the buggy!”

“I still don't hear anything,” grumbled Hap as he applied the brake again. “I hope you know what you're doing!”

They sat in silence for a moment, both straining their ears. This time Hap heard the moan, too. “It came from over there!” he whispered.

“Right!” agreed Rachel. “It sounds like someone in trouble. Let's go!”

Hap grabbed her arm as she started to scramble out of the dune buggy. “Take it easy. We don't want to get caught out here at this time of night. Let's make sure this is really an emergency before we go getting ourselves in trouble.”

Rachel hesitated, then nodded. The movement was barely visible in the starlight. Moving quietly, the two youngsters worked their way toward the source of the sound. After their second tumble, they clasped hands to keep each other from falling.

“There it is again,” whispered Rachel, trying to concentrate on the business at hand and not the nearness of Hap. “It
is
someone in trouble!”

Hap switched on the flashlight he had pulled from the buggy and pointed it in the direction of the sound. Rachel clutched his arm and cried out in horror.

“Roger, will you get in here?” cried Trip impatiently. “I need your help!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Roger. “Be right there.” He took one last look in the direction where Wendy had just disappeared in her dune buggy to search for Rachel and Hap, then turned and hurried into the cavern. Ray was still trapped in Deathmonger's clutches.

“Careful!” said Trip as Roger began to tug at one of the metal tentacles. “We don't want to damage it.”

“I don't care if you
destroy
it!” said Ray. “JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

“Will you both be quiet!” snapped Roger as he struggled to disengage Ray from the robot's tenacious grip.

Everyone fell silent—except for the robot, which continued to chant, “Death to the intruders!” in its crude, rasping voice. Trip didn't mind the reprimand, since he knew what had caused it. In the time he had known Roger, he had rarely seen him get angry, no matter how difficult the task they faced. But right now they were all on edge with worry about Rachel and Hap, and none more so than Rachel's twin.

In a way Trip envied Wendy, who had gone out to look for the strays. Action was always better than waiting, even if you
were
busy with another important task.

“There's got to be a service panel here somewhere,” said Roger in exasperation. “Trip, move that light to the right.”

Trip picked up the lantern. Stalactites and stalagmites glimmered in its stray beams, great rocky fangs that thrust from the floor and ceiling of the cavern. As Trip moved the light in the direction Roger had indicated, the patches of shadow it cast flowed across the stone walls like giant fingers groping for a lost dream. Trip smiled. For as long as he could remember, he had loved caves. He found them enthralling, always felt they might somehow lead you to some deep and ancient secret in the heart of the earth. Next to the ones about flying, his favorite dreams were always about caves.

“Found it!” crowed Roger, prying up a flap of metal on the side of the robot's head. “Now we should get somewhere!”

He began poking around in the robot's skull.

“Death to the intruders!” it roared. “Death to the death to the deathtothe tothe to ghliiikn…”

“Well, that takes care of that,” said Trip.

“A lucky guess,” said Roger.

“See if you can make another one, will you?” moaned Ray. “If you don't get me out of here soon I'll still have black and blue marks by the time I'm old enough to vote!”

Roger squinted into the control box. The tip of his tongue was sticking out from between his lips, as it always did when he needed to concentrate and couldn't rub his fingers together. “Here goes nothing,” he said, poking at a button with his screwdriver.

Immediately the robot began to tighten the tentacle it had wrapped around Ray's waist.

“Turn it off!” screamed the captive. “It's killing me!”

Roger worked desperately at the button. It wouldn't come back out.

“It's breaking my ribs!” cried Ray.

“Oh, cripes!” said Roger. Throwing away the screwdriver, he thrust his hand into the control box and ripped out the entire panel.

“So much for keeping the circuits intact,” said Trip dryly as the robot froze into inactivity.

Wendy came strolling into the cave just in time to see Trip and Roger finish cutting through Deathmonger's tentacle with a hacksaw. All three boys were streaked with sweat and dirt. Ray sagged between his friends like a survivor just pulled from a major accident.

Though Roger turned eagerly at the sound of Wendy's entrance, his shoulders drooped with despair when he saw that she was alone.

“Hey, don't be so glum,” said the Wonderchild. “I found them, I just couldn't get at them. They've got the top brass in an uproar. Seems someone attacked Dr. Remov, and Hap and Rachel were the ones who found him.” Wendy grimaced. “The doc was pretty bloodied up, from what I can make out. Anyway, Hap and Rachel dragged him to the infirmary, then roused Dr. Clark to take care of him. They've got half the island there now, trying to figure out what's going on. It's downright plasmagacious. The best thing is Brody. He's fit to be tied because he can't figure out how the missing robot connects with the attack on Remov—which makes sense, because it doesn't. But he's got it into his thick skull that it does, which is good for us, since the only thing harder than getting an idea into that mass of bone is getting an idea out of it. Hwa and McGrory are hovering like a pair of ducks, and Dr. Mercury—”

“Wait a minute!” yelled Roger. “You're going too fast. Let's get one thing clear. Are Hap and Rachel okay?”

“As near as I can tell. I picked up most of my information from the security band on the radio. I didn't want to get anywhere near that mess.”

“And Dr. Remov?” asked Trip, who was quite fond of the tall, freckle-faced scientist.

“He's in pretty rough shape. They're not worried about him buying the farm. But he's not going to be doing any mountain climbing for a while, either.”

“I didn't know Dr. Remov was a mountain climber,” said Ray.

Wendy rolled her eyes.

“How did Hap and Rachel explain being out at this time of night?” asked Trip.

“They told Brody they were out on a date!” said Wendy, grinning wickedly. Turning to Roger, she added, “Boy, I'm glad I'm not going to be at your house tomorrow morning!”

The look on Anthony Phillips's face when he came to breakfast the next morning was enough to curdle the milk on his children's cereal.

“I received a very disturbing call from Dr. Hwa a little while ago,” said Dr. Phillips as he took his seat at the table.
“Very
disturbing.”