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"Point One: Snookums' brain contains the information that eight years of hard work have laboriously put into it. That information is more valuable than the whole cost of the William Branchell; it's worth billions. So the robot can't be disassembled, or the information would be lost. "Point Two: Snookums' mind is a strictly logical one, but it is operating in a more than logical universe.
"I'm not sure it is, myself," admitted Mike the Angel, "but I do the best I can with the tools I have to work with. I didn't know it was you, Wally. I just had some wrong-number trouble. Sorry." "Mf.... Well.... I called to tell you that the Branchell is ready for your final inspection. Or will be, that is, in a week." "My final inspection?" Mike the Angel arched his heavy golden-blond eyebrows.
But when the specifications arrived, Mike the Angel had begun to wonder what the devil was going on. The spaceship William Branchell was to be built on the surface of Earth and yet it was to be a much larger ship than any that had ever before been built on the ground.
The little humanoid, caterpillar-track mechanism that we all tend to think of as Snookums isn't really Snookums, any more than a human being is a hand or an eye. Snookums wouldn't actually be threatening his own existence unless his brain now in the hold of the William Branchell is destroyed." As Dr. Fitzhugh continued, Mike the Angel listened with about half an ear.
The mystery lay in the fact that Cargo Hold One had already been built. The Branchell was to be built around it! And that didn't exactly jibe with Mike the Angel's ideas of the proper way to build a spaceship. It was not quite the same as building a seagoing vessel around an oil tank in the middle of Texas, but it was close enough to bother Mike the Angel.
"You are, I believe, an officer in the Space Service Reserve," said Basil Wallingford in a smooth, too oily voice. "Since the Engineering Officer of the Branchell, Jack Wong, is laid up in a hospital, I'm going to call you to active duty to replace him." Mike the Angel felt that ghostly knife twist hard. "That's silly," he said. "I haven't been a ship's officer for five years."
He didn't know how long he could play this game, but it was fun. "True," said Wallingford. "You can. I admit it. But you've been wondering what the hell that ship is being built for. You'd give your left arm to find out. I know you, Golden Wings, and I know how that mind of yours works. And I tell you this: Unless you take this job, you'll never find out why the Branchell was built."
Aside from the tremendous energy required to lift such a vessel free of a planet's surface, there was also the magnetic field of the planet to consider. The drive tubes tended to wander and become erratic if they were forced to cut through the magnetic field of a planet. Therefore, Question One: Why wasn't the Branchell being built in space?
The information we have given him, plus the deductions and computations he has made from that information, is worth...." He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? How can a price be put on knowledge?" The William Branchell dubbed Brainchild fled Earth at ultralight velocity, while officers, crew, and technical advisers settled down to routine.
The discussion, after Helen had brought the papers, lasted less than five minutes. It was merely a matter of straightening out some cost estimates but since it had to do with the Branchell, and specifically with Hold Number One, Mike decided he'd ask a question. "Wally, tell me what in the hell is going on down there at Chilblains Base?"
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