Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X (15 page)

Tom directed Exman to lift his arms and rotate his spherical "hands" into position. He then switched on the optical receivers in the sensarray globes. He asked Bud to walk slowly toward Ole Think Box in view of the lenses set into the facets.

Exman immediately scooted backwards as if in alarm! "Must think I’m dangerous," Bud commented. "Guess he can see my muscles!"

Tom typed in:
Why did you activate your motors and move?

UNCLASSIFIABLE PHENOMENON DETECTED. MEASURED PARAMETERS CHANGING OVER TIME INTERVAL. POSSIBLE DANGER TO MATRIX RECEPTACLE.

Your conclusion is not correct, Tom typed. The phenomenon is a sense representation in the visual mode. Phenomenon detected represents human lifeform in motion and is a friend.

UNDERSTOOD.
LIFEFORM IS HIGHMOST FRIEND, TOM SWIFT HABITAT.
I GREET YOU
B-U-D.
I AM ALSO A FRIEND.
I AM EXMAN.

"Incredible!" Tom breathed. "And we know he can see—or at least have some sort of experience corresponding to what we call ‘seeing’."

Now the young inventor activated the several sound receptors in the sensarray globes. "Exman, this is called sound," Tom said aloud in a clear voice, not expecting the visitor to grasp the meaning of his words without tutoring. "If the instruments are functioning properly, what you are experiencing now is the—"

He broke off in amazement. Exman was already answering him!

I CAN HEAR YOU. I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS THE AUDITORY SENSE.
I UNDERSTAND THE MEANINGS OF THESE FORMS OF REPRESENTATION.
I CAN NOT CLASSIFY WHAT IS HAPPENING YET I RECEIVE AND UNDERSTAND.
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE, TOM?

"He called you
Tom!"
Bud exclaimed happily.

"Yes—and he’s not only experiencing something like sounds, but grasping their meaning directly, without translation." Tom typed a reply to Exman’s question:
I do not understand how this outcome is possible. There is evidence that those who created you have given you the capability to replicate within your matrix pattern the organic processes within our bodies that produce meaning for us, which we call ‘thought.’

IT IS WELL THEY DID SO.
T-H-O-U-G-H-T.
MATHEMATICAL REPRESENTATION OF THIS PHENOMENON IS
AN INCOMPLETABLE TASK AND
NOT ADEQUATE.
I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS.

As Tom began to respond, movement outside the window caught his eye. The short, stout figure of perpetually-harried George Dilling was rushing past. Noting that he had caught Tom’s eye, he motioned for the young inventor to join him outside.

"Looks like you have news for me, George," Tom said as he came walking up.

"Yes, oh yes! You had us start monitoring the news in those two locations where you expected more of those inscriptions to show up," he began excitedly. "Well, Tom, it’s already paid off. A set of the symbols has just been reported in a field in Canada—just as you said!"

TOM WAS gratified but slightly surprised that his educated guess had so quickly born fruit. "That’s wonderful! How much do we know about it?"

"Enough to be useful," Dilling replied. "The symbols appeared overnight in a big cleared lot next to a construction site. The security guards didn’t see a thing! But the description sure sounds like more of your space symbols." He added that he had persuaded the local news station to send him detailed photos of the site via email attachment. "I’ll forward it to your office just as soon as it comes in," promised the communications chief.

"Make it the lab here, please," Tom requested. "I’ll be working on Exman for the rest of the afternoon."

Tom was so focused on Ole Think Box that, amazingly, he forgot all about checking his computer for George’s relayed pictures. As Bud looked on with fascination and vague dread, the young inventor tested out Exman’s other artificial senses, activating the specialized receptors one by one and querying the space-brain as to the result. He laid out several saucers on a table containing small samples of edibles and other substances. As instructed, the mobile canister approached the table, surveying the scene with his artificial eyes. Exman then extended his left arm-rod and rotated one of the "taste" facets of the sensarray into close proximity to the first dish. The youths watched as the visitor’s tiny pipette-like metal tongue darted out and probed the substance.

"What can you tell me about the phenomenon you are now experiencing?" asked Tom.

TERMINOLOGY FOR ANALYSIS UNKNOWN.
IT IS ENTIRELY DISTINCT FROM
SIGHT, HEARING, AND TOUCH.
I WILL TASTE THE OTHER SAMPLES.

As Ole Think Box moved slowly along the table, the boys watched in half-amused fascination. "Tom, this is just like what they do in brain surgery," Bud remarked. "The patient stays conscious and reports on the effect of one thing or another."

Tom nodded. "Right. The doctors apply weak electric currents to tiny parts of the cortex, and the patient sometimes feels he’s seeing unknown scenes or hearing—oh!" Tom broke off as Exman communicated a message.

THERE IS NO NEED TO TEST THE OLFACTORY SENSE, TOM. I HAVE JUST DONE SO. MY SENSE OF SMELL CAN DISTINGUISH ONE SAMPLE FROM ANOTHER. I HAVE ALSO DETECTED AMBIENT ODORS IN THE AIR OF THE CHAMBER.

"Hmmph! Getting a little
personal
there, pal," Bud grumbled wryly.

Tom observed, "But what’s really significant is that Exman is now taking the initiative in exploring the environment and using his sense receptors."

STATEMENT CONFIRMED. THESE MANY EXPERIENCES PRODUCE A SECONDARY SENSATION THAT MAY BE WHAT YOU HAVE CALLED PLEASURE. EACH MODE OF EXPERIENCE IS VERY DISTINCT. DOES YOUR LIFEFORM UNDERSTAND THE TOTAL HABITAT ACCORDING TO SENSE PHENOMENA OF THIS VARIETY?

After a pause to think, Tom attempted a response. "Yes, what you say is correct. But we do not regard such understanding as complete. We modify our understanding in many other ways. We use the methods of logical and mathematical reasoning to develop a more detailed understanding of this world and other regions of space."

"Now
you’re
gettin’ a little long-winded, genius boy," Bud teased. Exman replied:

DO NOT CEASE LONG WINDEDNESS
AS THE STATEMENT WAS UNDERSTOOD.
I THINK.
I NOW CAN EXPERIENCE THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN FACT
AND WHAT YOU CALL OPINION
OR BELIEF OR FAITH.
IT IS BOTH A SENSATION
AND A CONCLUSION IN LOGIC.
THE TWO EXPERIENCES COINCIDE.
I AM GROWING.
I AM EXMAN.

Exman was growing indeed! Where would it stop, Tom wondered.

Bud said wryly, "Speaking of
growing,
which to me means a good meal—how about us phoning Chow an order for some dinner?"

He did so, and a short time later Chow wheeled a food cart into the laboratory. As he dished out man-sized helpings of barbecued ham and baked beans, the cook kept a wary eye on Exman. Tom was putting the robot through a few more lively maneuvers.

"A good meal’d calm down Ole Think Box," Chow observed grumpily. "But what do you feed that there kind o’ contraption?"

"Well, not gum, that’s for sure!" Bud teased. After tasting his first forkful of food, he gasped, "And none of this ham!"

Jumping up from his lab stool, Bud began whirling, dancing around, and flapping his arms as if he were burning up. "Help! Help!" he yelled. "Chow’s poisoned me—just like he did Exman!"

Chow’s leathery old face twisted into a disapproving frown. "Aw, knock it off, buddy boy. I feel bad enough about that there gum business, even if Tom says it did some good."

After supper Tom’s father, who had also worked late, visited the lab to see Exman put through his paces. As Bud went on an errand at Tom’s request, Tom began showing his father the accomplishments of the space-brain robot.

"We’ve even given Exman a formal christening," Tom commented as he sat down at the communications computer.

"Yes," responded Damon Swift with a smile, "so I hear—from Chow Winkler."

By means of the electronic brain, Tom made the visitor do a number of maneuvers in response to orders. "Wonderful!" Mr. Swift exclaimed, greatly impressed. "But how far does his ability to use the flexi-treads extend? Here’s today’s challenge, son. Let’s see if he can use them to perform a more complicated feat—climbing stairs, for instance."

Tom wheeled over a small flight of portable aluminum stairs which he used for reaching up to high shelves in the high-ceilinged lab. Assuming that the words of a vocal command would not be grasped by the brain energy, as the task was an unfamiliar one, Tom was uncertain how to develop the instruction as a mathematical symbol. The Space Dictionary had no symbol for anything like the very human act of climbing steps. Nevertheless, Exman had shown himself able to intuit Tom’s meaning in many instances.

Finally Tom moved Exman to the bottom of the steps and said simply: "Go up!"

Exman paused for a moment, then attempted the ascent. His disk-shaped bottom section demurely tilted up like a hoopskirt and the caterpillar tracks beneath clawed their way up the first step. Then, gingerly, he essayed the next. The robot body tilted as the trailing edge of the disk left the floor completely, but its gyro and gravitex units kept it from toppling over.

"Bravo!" Mr. Swift applauded encouragingly. But the next instant Exman gave up! He made a staccato slide back to the floor again with a heavy bump. Then he began whirling and darting about madly.

"Good night! Exman’s gone berserk again!" Tom cried. He addressed himself to Ole Think Box directly. "Exman,
stop! Stop moving!"

Exman’s answer appeared instantly on the monitor.

UNABLE TO COMPLY.
MOVEMENTS UNCONTROLLED.
SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED TO ME.
HELP ME, TOM!

GRAY WAFTS of smoke could be seen issuing from beneath the lip of the robot’s flexi-tread undersection. Ole Think Box was banging wildly about the laboratory, leaving a trail of havoc!

Bud, who had returned, opened the door to come in. Instantly Exman lunged toward him, overheated circuits inside the facets of his sensarray globes sparking fiercely in front of a trailing plume of smoke. With a wide-eyed gulp Bud hastily slammed the door!

The Swifts, too, found it wiser to take cover. They crouched behind a lab workbench until the frenzy was over. Presently Exman subsided and rolled to a complete standstill. If he had been a human, he would have looked out of breath.

"Good grief!" Tom stood up cautiously and eyed the creature. It made no further move. Bud poked his head through the doorway for a wary look, then re-entered the laboratory.

"Wh-What made him blow his top this time?" Bud asked. "He can’t be all
that
excited to see me!"

Tom shrugged, alarmed and bewildered. But then he heard a quiet chuckle from his father. "Actually, boys," the elder scientist said, "I think we should be encouraged."

"Encouraged?"
Tom stared at his father.

Mr. Swift nodded. "Yes, the whole thing was rather a noteworthy reaction. I believe Exman was displaying a fear complex about navigating up those stairs."

Tom gasped softly, eyebrows raised at the odd notion—then broke out laughing. "Dad, you’re right! I’ll bet when its body tilted over, the brain wasn’t sure whether the gyro would keep it from being wrecked. It just shows Ole Think Box is getting more human all the time!"

"Precisely," declared Damon Swift. "And like our sort of brain, its fears and phobias can lurk in its ‘subconscious’—which it apparently has—and erupt overpoweringly in the face of unexpected stress."

Bud ventured to pat Exman on his curving back. "Relax, kid," he said with a wan chuckle. "You’re among friends and we wouldn’t dream of letting you get hurt. You’re too valuable!"

Tom pointed to the monitor screen.

THANK YOU, BUD.
YOU ARE VALUABLE TO ME AS WELL.
YOU AND TOM ARE MY FRIENDS
ON EARTH.
I WILL LEARN TO OVERRIDE MY
FALSE MOTOR IMPULSES.
I AM EXMAN.

"Yeah. You don’t have to convince
me,"
was Bud’s retort.

BUT I HAVE TO CONVINCE MYSELF.

The young pilot snorted. "Next he’ll be telling jokes!"

Mr. Swift stroked his jaw thoughtfully. "But he won’t be ‘telling’ anything until we give our guest a means to express himself spontaneously—to use the power of speech. Tom, I believe the next project we should work on is a way to make Exman talk."

"Dad, the toughest part won’t be the speech mechanism itself," Tom pointed out. "After all, we
could
just hook up the monitor link to one of those computer-speak programs."

"Yes, son. But if we are to give our guest a more complete experience of the sort of beings we humans are, we must somehow convey the feeling of what it’s like to express one’s thoughts as we do, by something like muscles and physical effort."

"That’s what I think too," Tom continued. "There are several ways we could handle that—by modulating a column of air, for instance, or by some sort of resonant diaphragm providing feedback through his ‘touch’ channel."

"You sure won’t have to teach him our spoken language," Bud observed. "Somehow or other, he’s already picking it up. And fast!"

"Maybe we should have named
him
‘genius boy’!" joked Tom Swift.

Mr. Swift nodded. "It’s something we never could have anticipated. Why do you suppose the X-ians didn’t choose to mention the brain-energy’s extrasensory capability, if that’s what it is?"

"They may not know of it," Tom suggested thoughtfully. "If they’re used to a completely different mode of communication and sensation, what Exman is doing might not seem noteworthy to them. Look, they’ve never acknowledged being able to grasp the audio or visual data we’ve tried to transmit to them. If the inhabitants of Planet X communicate telepathically, or by some sort of wave transfer, they may have long since forgotten any concept of a spoken language."

Bud objected. "Then how can they use the space-symbol language in the first place? Remember, they scratched the first symbols onto that meteor-missile, and they were meant to be
seen."