Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

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The Wicked Cyborg

Ron Goulart

Chapter 1

The false arm was silver plated and highly polished. It flashed and

sparkled, creaking very slightly, as the half-man raised the tinted

monocle to his real eye. "Ah, you look very much like him," he

said. His thin lips didn't move, the voice came from elsewhere.

"Yes, very much like my poor long-dead cousin. And now your

bright lovely mother is dead, too."

"Yes, sir," said Tad Rhymer. He was tall, lean, dark-haired. He had

turned eighteen the week his mother died. That was a long way

from here, on another planet. A long journey through space away.

"Did she suffer much?" asked Joshua Rhymer. When he sighed Tad

decided the speaker box was implanted in his cousin's chest—

beneath the fluffy lace of his neosilk tunic, probably.

"I suppose she did, yes." His cyborg cousin's appearance was not

particularly pleasant to him. Tad turned toward the oval windows of

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

the enormous, chill drawing room. Snow was still falling across the

blackness of the night.

Another metallic sigh. "Tragic, very unfortunate," said Joshua, who

was, the human remains of him anyway, fifty-four years old. "It

might, you'll excuse my pointing out, have been avoided. We, my

exceptional sister and I, long ago suggested to your mother that she

come here to this planet Esmeralda to live. We several times invited

the both of you to make the move, to share one of our estates. We

have three in this territory alone, you know."

"I know." His mother had told him a lot about these cousins of his.

Tad knew the reasons why she would never accept any of their

offers. "My mother preferred living on Barnum, on her home

planet."

Joshua scratched at the metal portion of his skull with the fingers of

his real hand, producing a hollow grating sound. "Rhymer

Industries, as you're surely aware, has branches on all the planets in

the Barnum System," he said through his concealed voicebox. "I

know Barnum itself well, having journeyed to each planet before

my accident. . . . Ah, but you'd no doubt prefer to hear no more

about that."

"It doesn't matter." In that same accident, six years ago here on

Esmeralda, Tad's father had been killed. "It was a long time ago,

and life has to go on."

A chuckling rattled the talkbox. "Exactly, young Tad," his cousin

said approvingly. "No matter what happens, no matter how sad

events may seem at the moment, Rhymer Industries goes on. It

must."

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

"I imagined you'd feel that way, Cousin Joshua." Tad, very sleepy,

moved closer to one of the tinted oval windows. Nothing out there

except flat fields and a few of those squat trees which were

apparently native to this territory. The snow had long ago covered

the blank fields. "I wonder if maybe I can go to bed now."

After a little more chuckling and then some creaking, Joshua, on his

flesh and bone leg and his metal and plastic leg, came tottering

toward him. "I'm afraid, Tad, you've a bit more traveling to do

before you bed down for the night."

He turned to face his approaching cousin. "I'm not staying here with

you?"

"I'm sorry, no. Did my people who met you at the spaceport give

you such an impression?"

"No, but I thought . . . the impression our attorney gave me was that

I was to come to the Aurora Territory, here on the planet Esmeralda,

to live with you and Cousin Cornelia."

Joshua's gleaming arm gave off a high-pitched squeak as he put his

false hand on Tad's shoulder. "My sister and I would surely like to

have you here with us all the time, Tad," he said. "However, ruzzle

muzzle bingle burzz muzz."

"Beg pardon?"

Joshua let go the young man, dealt himself several resounding

thumps on the chest. "For a Rhymer Industries product this talker of

mine doesn't always function as it should. There. I think that's back

in first-class shape. How's it sound to you, lad?"

"About as usual I guess," answered Tad. "Where am I going to stay,

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

then?"

"Well, quite obviously an heir to the Rhymer Industries holdings, a

young fellow who will someday, I sincerely hope, be a full partner

in the organization, such a young fellow has to live in style,"

explained his cousin. "Therefore we ruzzle wuzzle rumz bumz."

With a shake of his head, Joshua began again to pound at his chest.

"I want Phix and Maresca at our Talker Plant fired no later than

Monday next." A thin, dead-white woman was standing in the far

doorway. "This continual muzzling-wuzzling is enough to set my—"

"Phix is a competent man, Cornelia," said Joshua, his talking

mechanism back to functioning properly. "Tad, this is your Cousin

Cornelia. Are you feeling better, dear?"

"No worse," replied Tad's gaunt fifty-one-year-old cousin while

very slowly advancing in his direction. "All the noise of this young

man's tardy arrival, coupled with that squawking and bawling

coming out of your talker . . . it adds up to very little peace in my

sickbed. I won't touch you, Thadeus. I'm suffering through a terrible

bout of snerg flu."

"A snerg is a very unpleasant little animal," amplified Joshua.

"Snerg flu is named after it."

"Seems appropriate." Tad put a hand over his mouth in time to mask

a yawn.

"Can this be a sample of your flippancy, Thadeus?" asked the white-

clad Cornelia. "We were considerably upset to come upon a rather

thick section in your dossier which detailed your career of sarcasm

and wisecracking in school and elsewhere. I trust you'll outgrow the

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

habit after you've spent some time at Foghill."

"Sounds likely," said Tad, yawning. "Is Foghill where I'm going to

live?"

"Haven't you ever explained things to the boy, Joshua?"

"I was in the process, Cornelia, I was in the process when my talker

began acting up."

"You really—if you ever paid the least attention to me at all—ought

to go into our Skyport factory for a good thorough overhaul. Have a

new talker installed, a new arm which won't make noises like a

stuck quilp every time you—"

"A quilp is a chubby little beast huntsmen on Esmeralda are fond of

hunting with spears," Cousin Joshua informed Tad. "Though the last

time I stuck one it certainly didn't—"

"I'd have them do something with your eye, too."

"My eye?"

"It's been growing increasingly unbelievable, Josh," his sister told

him, with a quick, sad shake of her head. "Now, then, Thadeus,

you'd best venture out to the air platform. They'll be wondering

about you at Foghill."

"Who'll be wondering?" asked Tad. "Will I be living with servants

at Foghill or what?"

"This is truly going to be a wonderful experience for you," Cousin

Joshua promised. "A chance to learn about many of our better-

selling Rhymer Industries products."

"You mean Foghill is staffed entirely with robots, androids and

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

servos?"

"Not entirely, lad. There is the estate manager, Mr. Hohl. He's

human."

"I wouldn't exactly classify Hohl as human," said Cousin Cornelia.

Chapter 2

Tad found the robot, the robot which would change everything, late

in the afternoon of his thirteenth day at Foghill. He knew for certain

it was the thirteenth day because he was counting off each long

bleak and lonesome day he spent at the place. He had been

promised he'd be allowed to start school again when the next

semester started at the area academy. That was still twenty-six days

up ahead.

Foghill came by its name because, simply, it sat on a low dismal hill

and was almost continually shrouded in thick prickly fog. High

black trees filled most of the ten acres inside the high stone walls

which closed in the estate grounds. A swampy lake lay at the foot of

the hill and beyond that rose more trees, mile after dreary mile, on

the rare day when you could see them at all, of stiff dark-limbed

dark-leafed trees.

The only visitor to Foghill during Tad's first thirteen days was

Reverend Dimchurch. A very old, very thin lizard man, the reverend

was in charge of the Church of Aggressive Beatitude in Fog

Hollow, some fifteen miles to the South. He wore a faded purple

three-piece priest suit, traveled in a small gunmetal robotcart.

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

On this thirteenth day the reverend came rolling through the high

gates of Foghill in mid-afternoon. He had a purple scarf wrapped

around his scaly green neck. "Bit of a chill in the air today, eh?" he

remarked when he noticed Tad wandering on a nearby path.

"Same as always." Tad was moping in the vicinity of one of the

long-abandoned experimental greenhouses.

Reverend Dimchurch rolled off the gritty path and then across the

overgrown lawn. "I hate to see you mope your youth away, Tad," he

said. "Are we not told, for instance, in St. Reptillicus' 14th Epistle

of the Milmans, 'Youth is like the bag the ice cubes come in'?"

Tad frowned. "I don't think I quite understand that one, reverend."

"Well, it's possible St. Reptillicus' well-known fondness for sending

out for liquor colored some of his later epistles," the lizard priest

admitted. "The point is, you must cheer up, enjoy yourself."

"Little tough to do that hereabouts."

Reverend Dimchurch, drumming his green fingertips on the edge of

his cart, glanced around. He saw mostly fog. "A dismal setting,

agreed. Once, though, good times were often had here. For as St.

Reptillicus tells us, 'The swizzle stick oft . . .' Well, we'll skip that.

The point is, Foghill was once a much happier place."

"Did you know the people who used to live here—my other cousins,

I mean?" Tad had been able to learn this much, that two other

members of the Rhymer family had resided at the place as recently

as six years ago. Then they'd died, in some sort of accident. Another

accident, and two more deaths, at the same time his father had died.

"Yes, I knew Cosmo and Alice quite well," replied Reverend

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

Dimchurch. "Hadn't I mentioned that before? I suppose not, since

my business calls on your Mr. Hohl tend to distract me

considerably."

Tad stepped nearer the robotcart. "What exactly is you business

with Hohl?"

The purple muffler was lifted up to wipe at the green lips. "Ah, my

boy, you have youth's knack for asking direct questions," he

mumbled. "Well, may St. Serpentine bless and forgive me, but I

must defer the explanation to a later date."

"Okay, but tell me about Mr. and Mrs. Rhymer, Cosmo and Alice."

"Very likeable people, very cordial." The lizard man's tongue

unrolled out between his teeth as he smiled. "And that all-purpose

robot servant of theirs . . . a delightful fellow, albeit somewhat

arrogant and prideful. He wasn't on the market, not a real Rhymer

Industries product, but rather a one-of-a-kind mechanism which

your Cousin Cosmo built himself right here at Foghill."

"What do you mean here? There's not a lab or a workshop here,"

said Tad, glancing around at the shrouding fog. "I know because I'd

love to have someplace to tinker and fool around in. I asked Hohl

and he told me there weren't any."

Dimchurch said, "There most certainly was a very well-equipped

workshop. Many's the afternoon I spent there watching your late

cousin at work and debating with him the dubious details of some of

St. Reptillicus' more suspect miracles."

Tad jumped forward, caught the lizard priest's arm. "Where was the

workshop?"

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

"Well, my boy, as I recollect, Cosmo had his facility underground,

beneath one of the warehouses yonder," said the reverend, eyes

narrowed in remembering. "Beneath Warehouse 6, I do believe,

though it might have—"

"Hey, Dimchurch, you doddering old pile of creepy green garbage!

Where the gung are you?"

Someone was bellowing in the fog, stomping his way. They both

knew who it was.

"I'd better roll along to my meeting with your Mr. Hohl," said the

lizard priest.

"Are you flapping your ugly green jaw with that skinny, lop-eared

guest of mine? If you are, I'll rend both of you simps into bits and

pieces."

"Has he ever struck you?" the reverend inquired quietly.

"Nope, he only yells."

From out of the fog bounded a large human-type. He was wide in

the shoulders, huge in the chest, hairy. "So! A couple of wall-eyed

ninnies I find here wasting and frittering precious time. Thadeus, go

to your room! As for you, Dimchurch, I've half a mind to crumble

that silly cart of yours into a ball and stuff it up your nork." Hohl

took three more steps, halted, swaying slightly. "Say, whatever

made me have an outburst like this? Forgive me, won't you?" From

a flap-pocket in his one-piece orange worksuit the big man

extracted a blue capsule. After swallowing it, he smiled mildly at

both of them. "Must be my allergies making me cranky once again.

Well, let's trot along to my office, shall we, dear reverend? I've got

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Ron Goulart - The Wicked Cyborg

my butler 'bot brewing a pot of peppermint tea. Your very favorite,

is it not?"

"Why, yes, Mr. Hohl."

Hohl beamed a benevolent smile at Tad before he and the lizard

priest went away into the fog.

Tad waited three long anxious minutes before running across the

fogbound estate to Warehouse 6.

He hadn't expected a robot.

Tad didn't even notice him at first. Most of the light strips

crisscrossing the high ceiling of the large underground lab-

workshop didn't work anymore. There were splotches of light amid

great patches of darkness. "They could be fixed without much

trouble," he said to himself, squinting up at the dusty lengths of

neoplaz. He could do it with a little time and a few tools. Tad was

fond of tinkering, he liked to fix things, to attempt to construct

gadgets and mechanisms of his own.

More than enough tools and equipment here in his late Cousin

Cosmo's work lab. The nearest table, for instance, held an array of

neatly compartmented lecdrills, power-drivers and automallets.

Farther along sat a scanner, festooned with spider webs of a brilliant

orange shade. "Hey, and there's a 'fuge.' "

That was something he'd never been able to afford back home. Tad

wasn't yet completely clear on how the Rhymer Industries profits

were split up. After his mother died there had been very little money

left in any of their bankcomp accounts. That was still something he

had to go into with Cousin Joshua. The lawyer, back home on

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RonGoulart-TheWickedCyborgTheWickedCyborgRonGoulartCopyright©1978,ByRonGoulart.Chapter1Thefalsearmwassilverplatedandhighlypolished.Itflashedandsparkled,creakingveryslightly,asthehalf-manraisedthetintedmonocletohisrealeye."Ah,youlookverymuchlikehim,"hesaid.Histhinlipsdidn'tmove,thevoicecamefromelsewh...

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