Stocky Les Dale peeped out the door of the lab and grunted disgustedly. “Visitors!”
Murdock, his co-worker, wrinkled his freckled Roman nose and scowled intently at the report blank he was filling out. He leaned over until his head was almost level with the chest of the sample robot they had been testing, read off the serial number.
Only after he had written this down, apparently, did Dale’s remark penetrate. “Another tour?” He groaned.
Les did not smile at the cracked tenor voice. Murdock enjoyed a certain respect among the United Labs technicians.
“Looks like just one big-shot and his crowd. Irma’s guiding them.”
“Let’s go help MacNichols with his voice-boxes,” suggested Murdock immediately.
“It’ll look bad, Jim. They’ll walk in on an empty lab.”
“Then maybe we can be testing something that demands absolute silence! Open up this pot and pretend to be listening to his innards! Very grave now—it might be intestinal dandruff!”
Les shook his sleek dark head resignedly but came over. Even in his gunny-sack of a lab coat he contrived to look dapper, a decided contrast to his loose-jointed lanky friend. “It’ll take more than that to shut Irma up,” he predicted.
“Yeah, but maybe they won’t hang around asking asinine questions and watching for me to sit up and bark like a scientist—whatever they think one looks like!”
He unscrewed and opened a double door in the robot’s back, revealing an imposing array of connections and switches. As Les obediently laid his ear against the casing of the chest, Murdock began to fiddle with tiny adjustment knobs at the back of the robot’s head. The machine hummed and buzzed and its built-in headlight blinked.
The door swung open, admitting a petite blonde and a large gray-haired man whose ruddy face bore an arrogant expression. Les Dale, from the corner of his eye, estimated the ruddiness as fifty per cent artificial sunlamp and fifty per cent blood pressure. The visitor’s very posture indicated that he was used to getting his way.
Several prettily groomed young men with bright looks hovered in the hall, peering over the stout man’s broad shoulders.
“…and in this lab, Mr. Whitehead, the technicians test the robots for maneuverability and response to commands.”
“Looks like one of ours they have,” remarked the heavy-set gentleman in uninhibited tones. “That right, Bowman?”
“Yes, sir,” answered one of his henchmen, all but snapping to attention. “One of our Series-K models.”
Murdock, head cocked as if listening, raised his eyes slowly. He stared through Mr. Whitehead with a distant scowl.
“Not interrupting anything, are we?” demanded the latter jovially.
Murdock shook his head a fraction of an inch and continued to stare. He twisted a knob slightly, causing the humming to rise correspondingly in pitch. Les remained engrossed by faint internal sounds.
“As you see, Mr. Whitehead,” Irma interposed after flinging the technical pair a cold look, “United Labs checks scientifically on every detail before certifying a product publicly. The mere fact that your robots bear our seal of approval—”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Whitehead in a slightly subdued bellow. “We make a lot of that in advertising, don’t we, Larkin?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Whitehead.”
“In fact my decision to have our products certified by United Labs has resulted in a definite gain in sales.”
“That’s right, Mr. Whitehead,” agreed Larkin but Les thought he had the look of a man just denied custody of his own brain child.
“Of course, it’s just a formality. We know they’re okay and I certainly wouldn’t pay you to tell me otherwise. But it helps in advertising—right, Bowman?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Whitehead!”
Irma expressed gratification on behalf, of United Labs. Tactfully attempting to gloss over the silent reception she moved toward the door. The sightseers were soon trouping on to the next laboratory in the robot-certification chain.
Murdock turned off the robot while Les replaced the hatches. He followed his nose over to an intercom and flicked a switch. “Hey, Mac!” he called. “You finished with the voice-box from this Whitehead Mark K eggbeater?”
A discreetly lowered voice replied.
“Speak up! What’s the matter? That old stuffed shirt get to your place with his pack of performing baboons?”
He listened reflectively a moment, then turned to Les. “How do you like that? He cut me off—they must be there.”
Les grinned faintly. “The old man didn’t look exactly like a dope to me,” he objected “If he’s the boss of Whitehead Robots he probably knows what he wants and how to get it.”
Murdock shrugged and switched on the robot’s power. “Go into the next room!” he ordered, handing the machine the test data sheet, stamped and annotated by the technicians through whose hands the sample robot had already passed.
The machine pivoted to its right and strode with some dignity toward the connecting door to, the next lab. It fumbled clumsily with the knob but finally got into the next room and shut the door behind itself.
“By the way,” asked Les, “what was it made for?”
“House servant. Bargain-price butler or something like that.”
“Huh!” grunted Les. “Moves pretty well but I can see it dropping a lot of dishes.”
“So can I but it just manages to meet the minimum performance requirements. That Whitehead crowd sure knows how to trim the corners!” Les yawned. “Let’s get some lunch,” he suggested. “We’ve got those Jones and Clark machinist models to check this afternoon—ten samples.
“A snap,” said Murdock airily. “They hardly have to move around at all. The built-in tools have already been checked downstairs. We can stretch it out a day or two for an easy loaf.”
* * * *
Late the following morning, however, this pleasant schedule was interrupted.
Murdock, Les Dale and MacNichols had gathered for a break. The grizzled expert on voice-boxes had finished replacing the speaking mechanisms in the ten specialized robots lined up along one wall of the room. He sat down and offered a pack of cigarettes.
Just as Les reached for one, the door banged open and a shiny new robot strode in. It seemed to be bronze with gold trim. Clinking to a smart halt it proffered its data sheet.
“Another one?” yawned Murdock. “Go to the end of the line!”
“Wait a minute!” exclaimed Les.
The robot, caught in mid-turn, got its feet crossed, staggered ungracefully.
“He’s carrying a pink data sheet,” the stocky technician pointed out.
Murdock scowled down his freckled nose. “Rush job, eh? Another one where they want the data yesterday! You’re nearest, Mac—see whose it is!”
MacNichols relieved the robot of the offensively colored data sheet and scanned the heading.
“XL-Three, Whitehead Robot Company,” he read aloud. “Personal attendant. All locomotion, vocal and manual tests—structure already certified.”
The lanky redhead scowled more deeply. “That loud-mouthed stuffed shirt that stuck his nose in here yesterday!” he exclaimed. “One of his cheap jobs! A ‘personal attendant,’ huh? Probably a bargain basement valet.”
“Doesn’t look so cheap,” demurred MacNichols, scanning the specifications. “That bronze sheath is real and so is the gold trim on the face and head. And—my gosh!”
He peered closely at the robot. “Hold up your left hand!” he ordered.
The robot complied. They stared at the ring it wore, a massive imitation of a college class-ring with a large gleaming stone. Someone had obviously gone to considerable trouble to create an expensive aura about this machine.
“You two do as you like,” said MacNichols, rising. “I’ll take the voice-box now. Far’s I know ‘rush’ means ‘rush.’”
He opened the compartment in the robot’s chest, pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, and went to work. Les and Murdock looked at each other and shrugged.
In a few minutes MacNichols had the voice-box out and tucked under his arm. “Shall I leave you the data sheet?” he asked, starting toward the door of his adjoining workshop.
“Never mind,” said Les. “We can write down our figures on another sheet and attach it later.”
“I could run the tests backward anyway!” snorted Murdock.
They scrutinized the robot indecisively after the door had closed behind MacNichols. Murdock’s stare became the more prejudiced every minute. He curled a lip disdainfully.
“I doubt that Whitehead would put out anything even accidentally good,” he declared. “Probably fall on its face if it tries to walk ten steps in a straight line for all its fancy outside!”
Les grinned and shook his head in mock reproof. “Walk along that white line on the floor!” he told the robot. He began to make out a response-to-command data sheet.
“Let’s see,” he muttered as he scribbled. “Balance, front-to-rear and lateral, standing and walking. Accuracy in direction, in obedience. Then we’ll have to run dexterity and speed of responses, maybe with obstacles—”
He was interrupted by a ringing crash that jerked him upright. His first confused impression was that something was missing from the room. Then he looked down and saw the bronze robot lying near the head of the line of machinists. It was flat on its beautiful, gold-trimmed face.
Murdock sank back into the chair from which he had half risen. His freckled Roman nose twisted in a sneer. “What did I say?” he demanded. “Not even ten steps!”
“Holy smoke!” exclaimed Les. “I hope nothing’s damaged that they can blame on us. Help me get it up!”
“Hunk of junk!” growled the redhead. “Probably won’t stand alone for more than five minutes.”
They heaved the robot to its feet. It was surprisingly heavy, which rendered doubtful Murdock’s slurs about cheap construction. It immediately took the two extra steps necessary to reach the end of the painted line, then stood still.
“Let’s have lunch!” said Murdock, glaring at the machine.
“Do you think we ought to?” asked Les doubtfully.
“I’m no robot. I gotta eat. Whitehead can wait till this afternoon.” Murdock peeled off his lab coat and put on a jacket. After a moment’s hesitation Les followed his example. Murdock perched a disreputable hat on his head and they moved toward the door.
“Wait a minute,” said Les. “I’ll give Mac a call.”
He retraced his steps and thrust his head through the connecting doorway but MacNichols declined to join them.
They walked into the corridor and shut the door. Before they had taken three steps along the hall, another crash resounded from inside the lab. They looked at each other.
“If that’s what it sounds like—” began Les.
“What a lemon!” growled Murdock. He strode back, thrust his beak through the half-opened doorway, then flung, the door wide open and beckoned to Les. The robot was flat on the floor again, this time on its back.
“Remind me to mark the balance unsatisfactory,” said Murdock. “Come on before I lose my appetite completely!”
An hour later, when they straggled back from lunch, they found the robot undisturbed. Murdock expressed surprise that it was not snoring, but Les reminded him that MacNichols had the voice-box.
“Good!” said Murdock. “Saves me the trouble of asking, ‘Why did you fall down, XL-Three?’ The darn thing’s probably stupid, too!”
They hauled the robot to its feet. Les considered it. “It only fell straight forward or backward,” he said. “Maybe the side balance is okay.”
“Or maybe those knotheads downstairs passed a structural fault in the legs,” said Murdock.
“Mac looked at the data sheet. He would have mentioned anything they found wrong.”
Murdock shrugged and let Les have his way. They had the robot stand up straight and then lean over to one side or the other. In every trial it put out a foot and recovered before falling over. They checked at least a dozen times.
“See?” asked Les. “I’ve known many a time when you couldn’t stand up that well. What do you want?”
Murdock grudgingly admitted that the machine was satisfactory in that one respect.
They proceeded to put the robot through a series of walking maneuvers, all of which it performed passably. It also lifted a desk without apparent difficulty or strain, which seemed to indicate that there was no structural weakness in the legs.
“I still don’t think much of it,” Murdock insisted sourly. “Fancy finish on the surface but from Whitehead that means something inside has been skimped.”
“What could they skimp? It makes all the standard motions.”
“Oh, I’ll find something when I open it up. I’m betting on at least two burned-out tubes or a loose connection.”
“Well, let’s run dexterity tests first,” suggested Les.
“Be lucky if it can pick up a book without dropping it,” predicted Murdock.
Les marched the machine over to his own desk. He laid out three books, flat and quite close together. “Pick up the middle book,” he ordered casually.
The robot reached out its right hand, selected the book requested, lifted it about a foot above the desk without disturbing the other volumes.
Les nodded triumphantly to Murdock. “You see?” he began. “It’s—”
The book seemed to slip through the bronze fingers. It bounced on the surface of the desk and fell open. Murdock thrust out his freckled beak like a pugnacious eagle.
“My book of tables!” he squawked. “I’ve been missing that for a week. My books you have to let him mangle!”
Les hurriedly snatched up the book and closed it properly. “Didn’t notice,” he apologized. “Must have borrowed it.”
“Huh!” grunted his friend. He turned his baleful glare upon the machine. “Pick out the fourth book in the row along the back of the other desk,” he directed.
The robot hesitated momentarily, then reached out toward Dale’s desk and chose a volume that stood approximately fourth in the row. Murdock snorted.
“Not there! I said the other desk. My desk. Over there!”
The robot dropped the book on the floor and clinked across to the other desk.
“Hey!” protested Les. “Whose books are getting mangled now? You can’t buy that one anywhere nowadays.”
Murdock watched him pick it up tenderly and grinned. “See?” he taunted. “I told you it was stupid and you can see for yourself it’s clumsy too! Wait till—hey! No! Leave those alone! They’re mine!”
He rushed across the room to rescue his own belongings from the robot’s blighting touch. “Enough of this!” he declared, scooping up a pile of his books and dumping them on the desk. “I’m going to have a look at his innards.”
They found the cut-off switch on the back of the robot’s head, turned it. Then he opened the compartment below the shoulders, cursing when he found that the Whitehead designer had chosen screws requiring use of a socket wrench instead of the screwdriver with which he was armed.
Finally, he got it open while Les scribbled down his comments on what had been done. Murdock removed all the tubes the Whitehead man seemed to have thought ought to be reached, carried them over to a Rube Goldberg to check.
“There’s one in there that’s going to stay,” he remarked. “Far’s I can see, they built the chassis around it. What a simple crew they must be at Whitehead!”
Les wandered over but he too failed to see just how the tube in question could be reached by human hands. “Maybe they have a robot or a special tool that can get in there for it,” he suggested.
“Hah!” yelled Murdock triumphantly. “Two dead ones! They have a nerve, sending around a pot like this and expecting us to certify it satisfactory. Where’s that red-ink stamp? I’m going in to Mac’s and dance all-over that data sheet with it!”
“Calm down,” urged Les. “Let’s look for a wiring diagram. Maybe they were smart enough to have spares to take over if a tube blew. Maybe that’s why it was clumsy at some things.”
He dragged Murdock over to the passive machine and they searched the inside of the casing for diagrams. They located the proper one quickly, began to trace it. After a few minutes they were thoroughly befuddled.
Murdock went back and checked the tubes he had already pronounced dead. He stood by his opinion.
“I don’t get it,” said Les. “Without those two how could it operate at all?”
“Couldn’t!” Murdock shrugged with simple finality. “All I know is I didn’t manhandle them in any way as I got them out. They were dead when I opened him up.”
“I’ll get some spares from the cabinet,” offered Les.
Murdock called off the number to him, but raised a hand when he returned with the replacements. “Let’s try the old ones for a minute,” he suggested.
They carefully replaced the original set of tubes. Murdock turned the robot on.
“Take three steps forward!” he ordered.
The machine remained impassive.
“It’s not working,” said Les, noting that the pilot lights in the “eyes” were dark.
Murdock threw up his hands, opened the casing again, and inserted the new tubes. This time, the machine came to life when addressed.
“Funny,” muttered the redhead. “I expected to find junk inside—I even said so, remember? But I don’t quite see how it ran at all!”
He strode over to his desk phone and called the director of the robot-certification group. “Say, Stephens, what’s this fancy Whitehead rush job?” he demanded.
Listening over his shoulder Les gathered that Mr. Whitehead was taking a personal interest in this experimental model, that he claimed the design was based upon his years of experience as an executive and —above all—that Stephens knew better than to contradict Mr. Whitehead even if some jackasses in lab coats did not.
“But it’s a heap of junk!” protested Murdock irately. “And half-witted besides!”
That, he was informed, was unlikely, considering the unusually expensive construction. Anyway it was beside the point. His job was to pass upon the fitness of the machine or else to discover exactly why it did not function. There was no getting around as simple a definition of terms as that.
Murdock flung down the phone. After ten minutes Les got him sufficiently calmed down to heed a suggestion that they re-run all their tests, with the new tubes now in place.
* * * *
The trouble was, as they soon found and as Murdock pointed out emphatically, that the robot’s performance did not change with the tubes. Worse—despite this fact the technicians were unable to check some of the mistakes. XL-Three remained inept but erratically so, as if it were a characteristic that could appear in various ways at random. Murdock’s features gradually approached the color of his hair.
The robot almost seemed to sense his mood as if human. The worse Murdock expected, the worse he found.
“For gosh sakes!” exploded Les at last. “Stop looking for more trouble! Every single time today you tried to find something wrong, it went all the way wrong!”
“Yeah,” scowled Murdock. “Wish I knew how much is the old tech instinct and how much is Whitehead sloppiness.”
“Proves the old saying anyhow—‘expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.’”
“Here comes Mac,” sighed Murdock as the connecting door was kicked open. “Let’s put it up to him.”
They joined MacNichols beside the robot, drowning him in their lamentations while he replaced the voice-box. Once or twice he opened his mouth but was unable to break in.
The well ran dry about the time MacNichols drove the last screw. He scratched his grizzled head and looked at them.
“You mean you hit practically every guess straight on the head?” he asked Murdock. “Whenever you smelled something faulty, you found it?”
“I was right every time!” declared Murdock.
“Hmmm,” murmured MacNichols.
He dropped the test data sheet on Les Dale’s desk and began to toy idly with the latter’s approval stamp.
“Queer vocal system it has,” he mused. “It can make two or three variations, but in effect it always says the same thing.”
“Hah!” exulted Murdock. “Cheap work there, too!”
“I don’t think so,” said MacNichols. “I think it was designed that way.”
He inked the rubber stamp and pressed it down on their section of the data sheet with a firm, unhurried motion. “Hey!” they protested simultaneously.
“Why not?” queried MacNichols. “It serves its purpose. Ask it something and listen to the answer!”
He turned on the vocal switch, so that the robot was now functioning fully.
“What kind of numbskull built you?” demanded Murdock with a sneer.
“Not that kind of question,” interrupted MacNichols patiently. “Something calling for a yes-or-no answer from a—uh—personal attendant.”
Murdock turned to the robot again with exaggerated politeness. “You’re a complete hunk of junk that can’t even stand up, aren’t you?” he inquired.
For the first time, the robot was equipped to answer back. “Yes, sir, Mr. Whitehead!” it agreed emphatically—and promptly fell flat on its face with a jingling crash.
Les scampered nimbly out of the way but Murdock did not quite make it. He swore and hopped about, rubbing a grazed shin.
MacNichols grinned at him. “You and Whitehead!” he chuckled. “You’re never, never wrong, are you?”
“Absolutely right, Mr. Whitehead, sir!” answered a muffled voice from the floor.…