The Robot King (4 page)

SPACE DICTIONARY

Acid Rain:
Poisonous rain caused by pollution. Acid rain is burning hot, kills leaves and plants and can damage buildings.

WARNING:
Can be fatal to humans and animals.

It all fits!
Kip thought. Arboria may have once been covered in leafy trees. But now the leaves were all dead because of the acid rain.

Arboria's terrible pollution must have caused
the acid rain
, figured Kip.

But right then, pollution wasn't Kip's main worry. Finding Finbar was. Kip couldn't imagine a Space Scout mission without Finbar. But more importantly than that, they were friends.

Kip soon spotted the Acid Lake. It was huge with fluorescent waves lapping a dusty shore. Beside it, Kip saw a ramshackle old hut.

Kip jumped off the walkway. In the dust among some robot footprints, Kip spotted a trail of pawprints!

They've got to be Finbar's
, Kip thought.

A chill crept over Kip. The pawprints led straight towards the Acid Lake.

Heart pumping, Kip followed the pawprints. Soon, he was standing right on the edge of the toxic lake. The pawprints stopped.

Kip tried to yell Finbar's name, but no words came out.

His mind flooded with memories of Finbar. His wise, gentle face. How he calmed MoNa down when she got angry.

The way he chased his tail to make Kip laugh.

Kip wanted to howl, but it didn't feel right. Space Scouts were meant to be grown-ups. And grown-ups didn't burst into tears whenever they felt like it.

Kip sat on the shore with his head in his hands. His eyes were close to the dusty ground.

Is that…another pawprint?
Kip thought slowly. He leapt up, blinking his eyes to clear the dust away.

How could he have missed it before? A little way off, the trail of pawprints kept going. It led from the lake to the ramshackle hut.

With gritted teeth, Kip marched to the hut. He hammered on the door.

‘Finbar?' Kip yelled.

Slowly, the door of the hut creaked open. Inside, it was totally dark.

‘I knew you'd come,' said a familiar voice. Then a glowing white shape loomed out of the darkness. It was Pappy!

Kip gasped. What was Pappy doing way out here?

Pappy's strong robotic arms gripped Kip's wrists. He dragged Kip inside the hut and slammed the door.

‘Where's Finbar?' Kip demanded.

‘I'll show you,' Pappy said, crouching down. He pulled open a trapdoor in the floor. Through the trapdoor, Kip could see a staircase leading to a dark basement.

Pappy flicked a switch and white light flooded the basement. Then he pushed Kip down the stairs.

It was a lab, full of high-tech machinery! No-one would ever guess such a place could be hidden inside a wonky old hut.

The biggest machine had two chairs joined by a thick silver cable. Above each chair was a metal cap about the size of a human head. Sticking out of each cap was a strange globe-shaped object.

‘Where's Finbar?' asked Kip again.

‘This is where I invented Digitisation,' said Pappy, ignoring him. ‘I thought I'd solved my people's problems. I had such high hopes.'

Kip glanced around. The lab was creepy, and Pappy wasn't making sense. Worst of all, there was no sign of Finbar.

BANG!

Pappy slammed the trapdoor shut and turned to Kip with a threatening smile on his face.

‘No-one leaves Arboria,' Pappy said coldly.

CHAPTER 8

‘
What
?' Kip exclaimed. ‘Is this to do with that robot dying?'

‘I
know
you had nothing to do with that,' said Pappy softly.

For a moment, Kip stared at Pappy. Then a terrible thought occurred to him.

‘Finbar's fur!' Kip yelled. ‘It wasn't a museum piece. You planted it on that maintenance robot so everyone would think the death was Finbar's fault.'

Pappy pulled Kip over to one of the chairs with the metal cap and thick silver cables.

‘But
why
?' said Kip.

Pappy pressed Kip's shoulders so he sat down in the chair. Buzzing shackles closed over Kip's wrists, trapping him.

‘I had to find a way to make you stay,' said Pappy. ‘I could see you hated Arboria as much as I do. You wanted to get away.' Pappy sat down in the chair next to Kip.

‘You hate Arboria?' said Kip. ‘But you're the king. You
made
Arboria this way.'

For a moment, Pappy looked sad. ‘Our planet was once covered in green leafy trees, but the pollution got so bad that everything died.'

Pappy pulled down the metal cap above his chair. He fitted the cap onto his own head. ‘I thought turning everyone into robots would save us from dying off too,' he continued. ‘I didn't realise how horrible it would be to never change or grow old.'

Kip remembered the kid robot's desperation for new jokes. The repeated game shows. The sad robots he saw on the moving walkways.

‘I've waited so long for someone like you,' said Pappy. ‘No-one has visited in such a long time. Everyone in our galaxy knows Arboria is too toxic.'

There was a whirring sound. The metal cap above Kip was being lowered automatically. It dropped onto Kip's head with a clang.

‘Ow,' Kip said crossly.

‘I'm going to download myself into your body,' said Pappy. ‘And when my butler James finishes locking up my house, he will take over Finbar's body. Then we're taking your starship and leaving Arboria forever.'

‘You can't!' said Kip, horrified.

‘I can,' said Pappy. ‘It's a reversal of the Digitisation process. I simply press the Download button.'

For the first time, Kip noticed a silver remote control in Pappy's pincer. The control had a big red button on it.

Desperately, Kip tried to rip his hands out of the shackles. But it was no use. He couldn't move.

With a soft click, Pappy pressed the red button. There was a hum from Pappy's chair.

Pappy wriggled in his chair with excitement.

‘A real body again,' he babbled. ‘Pity it is a child's, but I'll get used to tha–'

Suddenly, Pappy fell silent.

The globe on top of Pappy's metal cap was flashing on and off. The way it flashed reminded Kip of something being saved onto a memory stick.

The machine's sucking Pappy's mind out
of his head and storing it in the globe,
Kip thought.

Strangely, Kip's own mind felt totally normal.
The machine must download Pappy's
mind before it uploads on mine!

If Kip was right, it meant Pappy would be just a body without a mind for a least a few seconds. Pappy must have been too excited to think things through properly.

If I can get out of these shackles, I've got
a chance to save myself and Finbar,
Kip told himself.

He looked again at the shackles. They were bright pink, buzzing bands of electricity across his wrist.

These are electric
, thought Kip.
Maybe I
can short-circuit them!

A plan popped into his head. He'd recently installed a Handshake Buzzer program on his SpaceCuff. When it was switched on, the buzzer gave a mild electric shock to anyone he shook hands with.

Space Scouts were forbidden to have prank software.
But sometimes it pays to bend
the rules
, Kip laughed to himself.

With an awkward twist of his wrist, he switched on his SpaceCuff and engaged Handshake Buzzer mode.

The electric current was mild, but it was enough to cause a power surge in the shackles.

With a shower of sparks, the shackles switched off. Kip was free! Leaping up from the chair, he ripped off his metal cap.

Pappy didn't move. He couldn't. His mind was stored in the globe!

Kip raced for the stairs. He was about to escape when he remembered something Pappy said.

James will take over Finbar's body…

Pappy was planning to download James's mind into Finbar! And that meant Finbar had to be nearby.

CHAPTER 9

Got to search the lab
, Kip said to himself.

But something worried him. James could be on his way here to take Finbar's body. It would be dangerous to leave Pappy's mind stored in the metal cap.

Safer to download Pappy into something
I can then hide,
Kip decided.

Kip scanned Pappy's lab for ideas. Behind Pappy's chair was a desk with a model robot on it. It looked like Pappy and the other robots on Arboria, except mini. Its screen displayed an emoticon instead of a proper face.

A prototype from when Pappy invented
Digitisation? Perfect!

Kip grabbed the small, flimsy robot. He put it on his chair. Then he balanced the metal cap on the robot's head. It was much too big. Kip crossed his fingers that the technology would work anyway.

He raced over to Pappy. His screen head was blank, like a sleeping computer. Kip prised the remote control out of Pappy's hand. Kip knew Pappy couldn't suddenly come to life. All the same, he held his breath.

If I press the button again, Pappy's mind
should end up in the toy robot,
Kip figured.

He screwed his eyes shut and pressed the button. He heard the same low hum as before. He opened his eyes.

The mini-robot was waving its tiny hands in the air. The emoticon on its screen was
not
a smiley face.

‘I will not stand for this!' the little robot chirped.

Grinning, Kip scooped the mini-robot up. The robot kicked its legs and waved its arms even more.

‘You're strong for something so small,' Kip said. ‘I better put you away before you hurt someone.'

Pappy squeaked. He sounded like a furious rubber duck!

There was a door at one end of the lab. Kip flung it open, thinking it was a storage cupboard.

But instead, the door led to a small room full of cages. And in the nearest one, Kip spotted Finbar.