Manly Wade Wellman

“ The creature heard him. Its head swiveled doorward. It stared with one gleaming eye and one empty black socket. Gascon brandished the socket lever over his head, as though in challenge, then turned and sprang over the bench into the dark corridor.
A jangling din as the thing rushed after him. Hands shot out to clutch. Its shins struck the bench violently, the feet lost their grip of the floor, and the clumsy structure plunged forward and down, with a noise like an automobile striking a stone wall. For a moment the huge head was just at Gascon's knee. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It was almost dawn before old Bratton stitched up the slit in the back of Tom-Tom's little checked shirt, and laid the completed creation upon the bedlike slab that was midmost of his great fabric of machinery in the rear room. To Tom-Tom's wrists, ankles, and throat he clamped the leads of powerful terminals. With a gingerly care like that of a surgeon at a delicate operation, he advanced a switch so as to throw the right amount of current into play. ”

“ They're for men, not dummies. What else, Gaspipe?"
"Why—why—" This time Gascon fell silent.
"Love, you were going to say?" The chuckle was louder, and the glowing yellow eyes flickered aside toward the place behind the wall where Shannon was penned up. "You're being stupid, Gaspipe. Because you know what love is, you think others do. Gaspipe, I'll never know what love is. I'm not made for it."
"I see you aren't," Gascon nodded solemnly. "All right, Tom-Tom. You can find life worth living if you try for supremacy in some line—leadership—"
"That," said Tom-Tom, "is where killing comes in. ”

“ Of course, a new-born 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. ”

“ Digs Dilson had been killed with a knife. So had old Bratton.
He, Ben Gascon, had given old Bratton the dummy that people called Tom-Tom. And old Bratton was forthwith murdered. Gascon had meant to go to the funeral, but something had turned up to interfere. What else concerned the janitor? What, for instance, had the younger electricians and engineers teased him about so often? "Electricity is life," that was old Bratton's constant claim. And he was said to have whole clutters of strange machinery at his shabby rooms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And old Bratton stole from his hiding, to where lay the dummy. Lifting it, he realized that here was what he wanted. Again he spoke aloud—he never held with the belief that talking to oneself is the second or third stage of insanity:
"Clever one, that Gascon. This thing's anatomically perfect, even to the jointed fingers." Thrusting his arm through the slit in the back, he explored the hollow body and head. "Space for organs—yes, every movement and reaction provided for—and a personality." ”

“ The wooden head writhed around toward Gascon. "Get away, Gaspipe! Don't you see that I'm in conference with a very lovely lady? Can't you learn when you're not wanted?"
Shannon Cole leaned back in her own chair, sighing because she had not enough breath to laugh any more. "I never get enough of Tom-Tom," she vowed between gasps. "We've been broadcasting together for two years now, and he's still number one in my heart. Ben, how do you ever manage—"
"Shanny," drawled the voice that was Tom-Tom's, "this idiot Ben Gascon has something to say. ”

“ I think I'd have hunted you up, anyway. You see, we make a fine team, Gaspipe. There are things we can still do for each other, but you must be reasonable."
"I'm not here to let you make fun of me," said Gascon. "You're just a little freak, brought to life by the chance power evolved by a cracked old intelligence. Once I puzzled it out, I knew that I needn't be afraid. You can't do anything to me."
"No?" said Tom-Tom, with what seemed a chuckle. "Let me show you something, Gaspipe."
His wooden hand moved across the desk-top and touched a button. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First he filled the emptiness of Tom-Tom's head and body with the best items culled from his unsuccessful robots—a cunning brain-device, all intricate wiring and radiating tubes set in a mass of synthetic plasm; a complex system of wheels, switches and tubes, in the biggest hollow where a heart, lungs and stomach should be; special wires, of his own alloy, connecting to the ingenious muscles of rubberette that Ben Gascon had devised for Tom-Tom's arms, legs and fingers ”

“ His hard head struck Gascon's stomach, doubling him up, and then Tom-Tom's arms whipped around Gascon's ankles, dragging them sidewise. Down fell the ventriloquist, heavily and clumsily. The gun flew from his hand, bouncing on the floor like a ball. Tom-Tom caught it in mid-bounce, and lifted it with both hands.
"I won't kill you, Gaspipe," he announced, "but I'll most emphatically shoot off your kneecap, if you try anything sudden again. Sit up. Put your back against that wall. And listen."
"Do what he says, Ben! He means business!" Shannon Cole urged tremulously from behind her bars. ”

“ The blade of the knife, had anyone troubled to compare wounds, could have been demonstrated to be the exact size and shape as the one that had killed old Bratton. His landlord might have been able to testify that it came from old Bratton's little store of kitchen utensils. But nobody at police headquarters bothered to connect the murders of a friendless janitor and a grand duke of gangdom. After considerable discussion and publicity, the investigators called the case one of suicide. How else could Digs Dilson have received a knife in his body? ”

“ Shannon said one thing: "Ben, how much can we tell the police?"
"It isn't how much we can tell them," replied Gascon weightily. "It's how little."
When Autumn returned, Ben Gascon was on the air again after all. His sponsors feared that his marriage to Shannon Cole might damage their popularity as co-stars, but radio fans showed quite the opposite reaction. Gascon introduced a fresh note in the form of a new dummy, which he named Jack Duffy, a green-horn character with a husky voice instead of a shrill one and rural humor instead of cocktail-hour repartee. ”

“ The mobster who had been placed on guard at the back door showed too much of himself and was picked off. A contingent of officers made a quick, planned rush. More fighting inside, with three more Salters dying in hot blood in the parlor and kitchen. What seemed to be the sole survivor fled to the cellar and locked himself in a rear compartment. The walls were of concrete, the one door of massive planking. The chief of the attacking force stood in front of this door and raised his voice:
"Hello, in there! You're Juney Saltz, aren't you?" ”

“ He laid down the gun and put the tips of his jointed fingers together, in a pose grotesquely like that of a mild lecturer. "I've given my case a lot of time and thought, you see. I realize that I don't fit in—humanity hasn't ever considered making a place for me. I don't have needs or reactions or wishes to fit those of humanity." ”

“ He admitted a part in the kidnapping and ransom collection. He described the cellar hideout as being located in a shabby suburb. He implicated several of his comrades by name, including Juney Saltz. But he shut up with a snap when his interrogators touched on the subject of the Salters' real chief. No, it wasn't Juney Saltz—Juney was only a front. No, nobody on the police records but, he insisted pallidly, he wouldn't say any more. Let them kill him if they wanted to, he was through talking.
"I'd rather die in the chair this minute than get my turn with the boss," he vowed hysterically. ”

“ Squeaky-Voice was at that stovepipe hole, and plugged him from there as he tried to let us in. Then Juney tried to lock up again, just as we pushed the door open."
Upstairs they went, and investigated further. The hole had joined a narrow chimney, with no way out except the upper end, a rectangle eight inches by ten. Even with six corpses to show, the agents returned to their headquarters with a feeling of failure. "In the morning," they promised one another, "we'll give that one Salter we're holding another little question bee." ”