The Brungarian rebels had become enraged by their failure to extract Exman’s secrets, and had decided to disintegrate the robot creature and its brain energy. But the youthful Brungarian loyalist group had kept them so busy with resistance outbreaks that they had delayed too long.
“Lucky thing!” Tom put in with an affectionate grin at Exman. “If they had started to destroy him half an hour sooner, it might have been pretty sad for Ole Think Box!”
Tom was intrigued by his father’s design for an artificial speech mechanism.
After talking it over, they decided that Tom would go to work on a central computer device to integrate all the senses. He would also provide Exman with “ears,”
180 THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X
which would be sound-reception equipment. Mr. Swift, meanwhile, would continue work on the speech mechanism and also perfect the seeing equipment he had started earlier.
The day sped by as the two Swifts worked with feverish intensity. Lunch was eaten from their workbenches, but the inventors reluctantly halted at dinnertime.
After a tasty meal of fried chicken at home with Mrs. Swift and Sandy, both Toms returned to the plant. Father and son labored until well past midnight on their experiments. Then they snatched a few hours of sleep and resumed their tasks early the next morning.
By early afternoon an atmosphere of excitement pervaded Enterprises. The visitor from Planet X would soon be able to communicate directly with his earth friends! Bud, Chow, Hank Sterling, Arv Hanson, and Art Wiltessa gathered in the laboratory, along with several other Swift key men. Mrs. Swift, Sandy, and Phyl also arrived to watch.