The Love of Frank Nineteen Read online

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  _What will happen to love in that far off Day after Tomorrow? David C. Knight, editor with a New York trade publisher, agrees with the many impressed by "the range of possible subjects and situations" in science fiction. The result is a unique love story from that same Tomorrow._

  the love of frank nineteen

  _by DAVID C. KNIGHT_

  Minor Planets was the one solid account they had. At first they naturally wanted to hold on to it.

  I didn't worry much about the robot's leg at the time. In those days Ididn't worry much about anything except the receipts of the spotel Minand I were operating out in the spacelanes.

  Actually, the spotel business isn't much different from running a plain,ordinary motel back on Highway 101 in California. Competition getsstiffer every year and you got to make your improvements. Take the Iofor instance, that's our place. We can handle any type rocket up to andincluding the new Marvin 990s. Every cabin in the wheel's got TV andhot-and-cold running water _plus_ guaranteed Terran _g_. One look at ourrefuel prices would give even a Martian a sense of humor. And meals?Listen, when a man's been spacing it for a few days on those syntheticfoods he really laces into Min's Earth cooking.

  Min and I were just getting settled in the spotel game when the legturned up. That was back in the days when the Orbit Commission wouldhand out a license to anybody crazy enough to sink his savings intoconstruction and pay the tows and assembly fees out into space.

  A good orbit can make you or break you in the spotel business. That'swhere we were lucky. The one we applied for was a nice low-eccentricellipse with the perihelion and aphelion figured just right to intersectthe Mars-Venus-Earth spacelanes, most of the holiday traffic to theJovian Moons, and once in a while we'd get some of the Saturnian trade.

  But I was telling you about the leg.

  It was during the non-tourist season and Min--that's the littlewoman--was doing the spring cleaning. When she found the leg she broughtit right to me in the Renting Office. Naturally I thought it belonged toone of the servos.

  "Look at that leg, Bill," she said. "It was in one of those lockers in22A."

  That was the cabin our robot guests used. The majority of them wereservo-pilots working for the Minor Planets Co.

  "Honey," I said, hardly looking at the leg, "you know how mechs are.Blow their whole paychecks on parts sometimes. They figure the morespares they have the longer they'll stay activated."

  "Maybe so," said Min. "But since when does a male robot buy himself a_female_ leg?"

  I looked again. The leg was long and graceful and it had an ankle asgood as Miss Universe's. Not only that, the white Mylar plasti-skin wasa lot smoother than the servos' heavy neoprene.

  "Beats me," I said. "Maybe they're building practical-joke circuits intorobots these days. Let's give 22A a good going-over, Min. If those robesare up to something I want to know about it."

  We did--and found the rest of the girl mech. All of her, that is, exceptthe head. The working parts were lightly oiled and wrapped in cottonwaste while the other members and sections of the trunk were neatlypacked in cardboard boxes with labels like Solenoids FB978 orTransistors Lot X45--the kind of boxes robots bought their parts in. Weeven found a blue dress in one of them.

  "Check her class and series numbers," Min suggested.

  I could have saved myself the trouble. They'd been filed off.

  "Something's funny here," I said. "We'd better keep an eye on everyservo guest until we find out what's going on. If one of them isbringing this stuff out here he's sure to show up with the head next."

  "You know how strict Minor Planets is with its robot personnel," Minreminded me. "We can't risk losing that stopover contract on account ofsome mech joke."

  Minor Planets was the one solid account we had and naturally we wantedto hold on to it. The company was a blue-chip mining operation workingthe beryllium-rich asteroid belt out of San Francisco. It was one of thefirst outfits to use servo-pilots on its freight runs and we'd beenawarded the refuel rights for two years because of our orbital position.The servos themselves were beautiful pieces of machinery and just aboutas close as science had come so far to producing the pure android. Everyone of them was plastic hand-molded and of course they were equippedwith rationaloid circuits. They had to be to ferry those big cargoesback and forth from the rock belt to Frisco. As rationaloids, MinorPlanets had to pay them wages under California law, but I'll bet itwasn't half what the company would have to pay human pilots for doingthe same thing.

  In a couple of weeks' time maybe five servos made stopovers. We kept aclose watch on them from the minute they signed the register to the timethey took off again, but they all behaved themselves. Operating on around-robot basis the way they did, it would take us a while to checkall of them because Minor Planets employed about forty all told.

  Well, about a month before the Jovian Moons rush started we got someaction. I'd slipped into a spacesuit and was doing some work on theCO{2} pipes outside the Io when I spotted a ship reversing rocketsagainst the sun. I could tell it was a Minor Planets job by the stubbyfins.

  She jockeyed up to the boom, secured, and then her hatch opened and ahusky servo hopped out into the gangplank tube. I caught the gleam ofhis Minor Planets shoulder patch as he reached back into the ship forsomething. When he headed for the airlock I spotted the square packageclamped tight under his plastic arm.

  "Did you see that?" I asked Min when I got back to the Renting Office."I'll bet it's the girl mech's head. How'd he sign the register?"

  "Calls himself Frank Nineteen," said Min, pointing to the smooth PalmerMethod signature. "He looks like a fairly late model but he wascomplaining about a bad power build-up coming through the ionosphere.He's repairing himself right now in 22A."

  "I'll bet," I snorted. "Let's have a look."

  Like all spotel operators, we get a lot of No Privacy complaints fromguests about the SHA return-air vents. Spatial Housing Authorityrequires them every 12 feet but sometimes they come in handy, especiallywith certain guests. They're about waist-high and we had to kneel downto see what the mech was up to inside 22A.

  The big servo was too intent on what he was doing for us to register onhis photons. He wasn't repairing himself, either. He was bending overthe parts of the girl mech and working fast, like he was pressed fortime. The set of tools were kept handy for the servos to adjustthemselves during stopovers was spread all over the floor along withlots of colored wire, cams, pawls, relays and all the otherparaphernalia robots have inside them. We watched him work hard foranother fifteen minutes, tapping and splicing wire connections andtightening screws. Then he opened the square box. Sure enough, it was afemale mech's head and it had a big mop of blonde hair on top. The servoattached it carefully to the neck, made a few quick connections and thensaid a few words in his flat vibrahum voice:

  "It won't take much longer, darling. You wouldn't like it if I didn'tdress you first." He fished into one of the boxes, pulled out the bluedress and zipped the girl mech into it. Then he leaned over her gentlyand touched something at the back of her neck.

  She began to move, slowly at first like a human who's been asleep a longtime. After a minute or two she sat up straight, stretched, flutteredher Mylar eyelids and then her small photons began to glow like weakflashlights.

  She stared at Frank Nineteen and the big servo stared at her and weheard a kind of trembling _whirr_ from both of them.

  "Frank! Frank, darling! Is it really you?"

  "Yes, Elizabeth! Are you all right, darling? Did I forget anything? Ihad to work quickly, we have so little time."

  "I'm f
ine, darling. My DX voltage is lovely--except--oh, Frank--mymemory tape--the last it records is--"

  "Deactivation. Yes, Elizabeth. You've been deactivated nearly a year. Ihad to bring you out here piece by piece, don't you remember? They'llnever think to look for you in space, we can be together every tripwhile the ship refuels. Just think, darling, no prying human eyes, nocommands, no rules--only us for an hour or two. I know it isn't verylong--" He stared at the floor a minute. "There's only one trouble.Elizabeth, you'll have to stay dismantled when I'm not here, it'll meanweeks of deactivation--"

  The girl mech put a small plastic hand on the servo's shoulder.

  "I