They were assailed by shouts from
two different directions
THE TOM SWIFT INVENTION ADVENTURES
TOM SWIFT
IN THE CAVES OF
NUCLEAR FIRE
BY VICTOR
APPLETON II
CAVES OF NUCLEAR FIRE
CHAPTER 1
AN EERIE LIGHT
“WHAT’S wrong, Bud? You look worried.”
“Worried, Tom? What’s to worry? Here you are, experimenting with
something you know absolutely nothing about — something from another world!
I’m just trying to stay awake.”
Tom Swift, slender and blond, smiled at the sarcastic retort from his
powerfully built dark- haired friend, Bud Barclay. “That makes it all the
more interesting!” he replied.
The two eighteen-year-old youths were in Tom’s shielded high-energy
laboratory at Swift Enterprises, the sprawling research and development firm
headed by the young inven- tor’s father.
“Suppose the thing blows up,” said Bud, xxxxxxxxxxxxx
staring doubtfully at an opaque tube which rested on a small table near the
center of the well-equipped laboratory. The strange tube, about eight inches
in diameter and four feet long, had been extracted from a remote- controlled space capsule sent by
other-worldly beings with whom Tom had established a difficult and tentative
communication by radio. Recently Tom had used his diving seacopter to
recover the vessel’s sealed inner compartment, breaking open its outer hull
in the process. From the fragments, he had been able to salvage this one
component of the craft’s mechanism. Now he was determined to uncover its
secrets.
Above the tube was a large complicated camera and alongside of it a
black spherical device mounted in front of a cupped oval reflector.
“What’s that gadget?” Bud inquired curiously.
“Dad developed it,” Tom replied. “It’s a high-energy-wave generator he
calls a generex machine. Remember when we found the space rocket? This
Eye-Spy camera could penetrate every part of it except the opaque tubes
running the length of the hull.”
“How could I forget?” Bud chuckled. “I’m still knocking seawater out
of my ears! And xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
since we came back you’ve talked about nothing else but working on this
tube.”
Tom laughed. “Okay, chum, I plead guilty.
We’re just lucky this segment pulled loose when the shell split into
pieces — the rest of its ‘innards’ are as invulnerable as that meteor- missile
our space friends first sent us. Now I want to find out if the radiation
from the generex will affect the tube in such a way that the camera can
penetrate it.”
“Okay, you’ve got me curious,” Bud said enthusiastically. “Let’s get
started.”
The young inventor walked over to a metal locker, withdrew two
antiradiation suits, and gave one to Bud. The boys put them on, and then
each donned a helmet with a heavy lead-glass visor.
The elaborate preparations made Bud gulp. “You’re sure these suits
will keep us from being fried?”
“Well, I don’t suppose anything is absolutely certain in a scientific
experiment,” said Tom with a wink. “But seriously, the layers of Tomasite in
these suits, and in the visors, should stop just about any form of radiation
in its tracks. Remember, the basic formula for Tomasite ori- ginated with the
space people themselves.”
Bud nodded, but thought to himself: Yeah, xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
but those aliens could be made of lead and concrete for all we know!
Tom moved toward the table. “Ready?” he called.
“Fire away!”
Tom switched on the special apparatus and a buzzing sound replaced the
quiet of the laboratory. Then he set the frequency control to half power and
the two experimenters watched the tube closely.
It began to glow — first yellow, then blue, then white
— until it reached
such intensity that Tom and Bud had to turn away to keep from being blinded.
Gradually the glare faded, leaving the laboratory bathed in a cold light.
The material of the tube seemed to have turned transparent as glass,
disclosing its inner radi- ance.
“You won’t even need the Eye-Spy camera to see what’s inside!” Bud
declared in awe. “It’s lit-up like a neon tube. Is that some kind of gas in
there?” He took two steps closer to the table, extending his outstretched
hand into the eerie greenish glow.
But Tom had taken a few steps back and was looking away from Bud and
the tube. A slight motion had caught his attention. A strange, creeping
iridescence was slowly xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
spreading over
everything in the room. To Tom’s amazement, various objects in the room
began to change shape. Metal implements and glass flasks seemed to be
sagging and drooping under their own weight! The front of a large
micro- electronics console suddenly cracked and fell away like thin
pasteboard, and weird colored sparks could be seen dancing and darting
within the circuitry. “Wh-what’s happening?” Tom gasped.
Bud cried out over his rad-suit intercom. Tom whirled to face him, and
his jaw dropped in horror.
Bud was holding his hand up in front of him, the hand he had extended
toward the tube. The thick protective gauntlet was dissolving away like ice
under a blowtorch!
“Bud!” Tom cried. “Get away from the table!”
“I can’t see!” Bud yelled, fear clutching his throat. At that moment
Tom noticed that his own visor was turning black! He could no longer see the
generex control panel clearly enough to safely switch off the machine!
“We’ve got to get out of here!” he warned.
Briefly Tom assured Bud that he thought they would be all right if
they left the laboratory immediately. “But I — I feel — so drowsy,” xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bud said slowly. “Don’t give in to
it!” Tom urged, beginning to feel sleepy also. “We’re in trouble, Bud. Head
for the door! These suits aren’t giving us enough protection! Get out of
here fast!”
He grabbed Bud’s elbow and shoved him toward the lab door. Then,
groping ahead, unable to see, Tom stumbled into a workbench and crashed to
the floor. Desperately he crawled along until his hand touched the leg of
the table holding the tube and generator. Fighting to stay awake, he pulled
himself up, fumbled frantically for the power switch, and clicked it off.
Meanwhile, Bud had managed to make his way to the door.
“Here’s — the — exit, Tom!” he called. “Follow — my — voice!”
“I’m right behind you. Go on out!” Tom commanded. But the words were
for his pal’s benefit. Bud had forgotten that his voice, com-ing in via Tom’s
suit intercom, gave no hint as to where the young flier was standing!
Crawling, Tom felt his way to the door, where powerful arms pulled him
to his feet and slid the thick, radiation-resistant door panel shut behind
him.
Tom and Bud staggered into the cor-
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
ridor.Tearing off his helmet, Tom hurried over to Bud who was leaning against a
wall, visor in hand.
“Quick!” he ordered. “Come with me!” His eyes smarting, Bud followed
Tom to a smaller laboratory located near the end of the long corridor. Here
Tom had set up one of his recent inventions — a device to detect in a few
moments the amount of radiation absorbed by human tissue.
Peeling away the top of Bud’s suit, Tom quickly attached four wires to
Bud’s arms, which were connected to an intricate panel. He snapped on the
device, adjusted a dial, and watched the pointer of the radiation indicator
flicker to life.
“What’s the verdict?” Bud asked weakly, almost afraid to hear the
answer. Had he been fatally exposed to radiation?
Tom smiled in relief. “Luckily you’re okay. You’ve only absorbed 150
milliroentgens and it takes about 450 before a fellow’s in trouble.”
Tom then tested his own body. Although he showed a slightly higher
indication, it was still within the safe limit. “It’s fortunate we got out
when we did.”
Bud, heaving a thankful sigh, brushed back xxxxxxxxxxxxx
a lock of black hair and turned to his friend with
a grin. “You mean we won’t glow in the dark after all? So what was that all
about, anyway?”
“I have no idea,” replied Tom, shaken and awestruck. “I never saw
anything like it before. Obviously when the generex machine made the
containing tube transparent to light, it also became transparent to some
other kind of radiation emited by that gas. The way it ate right through our
Tomasite sheathing… unbe- lievable!”
“Well, it sure made a believer out of me!” Bud quipped. “What’s next?”
“I’m going back to that lab, Bud.”
“No chance!” his friend exploded. “Have you lost your senses?”
“The radiation’s down by now,” replied Tom. “I must make certain the
room isn’t dangerously contaminated, though.”
Bud groaned. “Well, genius boy, you’re the boss. But you’re not going
alone. Lead on!’”
Tom extracted two fresh antiradiation suits from an equipment locker.
The boys donned them and Bud picked up a hand-held radimeter to test for
ambient radiation.
“We’d better take along some flashlamps with lead-glass light tubes,”
Tom said. “You can bet that radiation has burned out the xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
filaments in the regular bulbs. Probably ruined the overheads, too.”
Looking like spacemen in the protective suits, the boys walked down
the corridor and entered the laboratory. They shone the flashlamp beams
around and checked the radi- meter.
“Hey!” Bud cried. “This place is still mighty ‘hot’! Look at this
reading! Don’t you think we should get out?”
“We’ll be safe in these suits for a while,” Tom assured him. “The tube
is opaque again and the destructive rays have stopped. But later we must
wash this room down with a cadmium salts solution.”
Tom picked up a few samples of the metal objects and glass pieces
which had changed shape under the radiation. “Let’s take a look at this
stuff in the lab next door,” he said. “And, Bud, bring the opaque tube, will
you?” The radimeter showed that the space device was not radioactive at all,
strangely enough.
Switching off the lights, Bud followed his friend from the room. In
the laboratory Tom made a careful examination of the misshapen samples and
discovered that they had become extremely hard, as if compacted. “This whole
thing is baffling,” he said. “I’m going to call in xxxxxxxxxxxxx
the radiation boys.”
As it was late on a Sunday afternoon, Swift Enterprises did not have a
full technical staff at work. Nevertheless, after making several calls Tom
had assembled enough technicians with the relevant expertise to help him
determine the atomic structure of the opaque tube. After briefly making the
tube transparent and radiant — this time by remote control in a sealed
chamber — they were able, for the first time, to take photospectrometer
readings of both the exterior and interior of the tube. They found that the
luminous inner gas was unreadable, but the outer material contained a new
isotope of silicon.
“This is wild stuff!” exclaimed one of the workers. “This isotope is
unheard of here on earth!”
“Naturally. The tube wasn’t made on this earth,” Bud observed.
“Silicon again,” mused Tom.
Bud raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, genius boy?”
Tom rubbed his chin, as he often did when his mind was fully engaged.
“Don’t you re- xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
member? The transparent glaze on the meteor- missile contained
an unusual silicon compound that we couldn’t duplicate. And the propulsion field around the transport
capsule affected glass — silicon — when it passed over Shopton. And now this.”
He chuckled, recognizing the blank look on his friend’s face. “It’s
fantastic,” he insisted. “Silicon has an atomic weight of 28 and has three
known isotopes; the first with a weight of 28, the others 29 and 30. The
isotope in this tube has a weight of 33!”
“Is it worth almost getting turned into a couple of human neon signs?”
Bud asked, grinning.
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know yet. It’ll take a lot more research to
find out the details.”
At that moment the phone rang and the young inventor reached for the
receiver. Tom glanced at the phone’s ID panel. “Munford Trent,” he informed
Bud. “He’s working in the office today.” Munford Trent was private secretary
to Tom and his father, “What do you suppose he wants?”
Tom answered the phone. Then Bud saw his pal’s face sag in sheer
disbelief. Tom hung
xxxxxxxxxxx
up the receiver and turned to Bud wide-eyed.
“Tom! What is it?”
“Trent just got a phone call…” replied Tom slowly.
“From who?”
The young inventor looked his friend square in the face. “From the
dead!”
CHAPTER 2
JUNGLE PHENOMENON
“OKAY, pal. Don’t tell
me!”
Tom shook his head. “I’m not kidding you, Bud. Trent swears he just
took a phone call from Craig Benson!”
“Craig Benson!” Bud Barclay repeated goggle-eyed. “But he’s
— like you
said.”
A longtime Swift employee and friend, Craig was a pilot who had left
Enterprises for outside work as a private pilot-for-hire. More than two
years previous, while working for a United Nations agency, he had crashed in
central Africa. Though the wrecked plane had never been recovered despite an
extensive search xxxxxxxxxxxxx
through the wild jungles and nearby
mountains, he was presumed dead. Tom and Bud had attended his funeral
service in New York City.
Tom’s astonishment was now replaced by cautious joy. “He’s alive!”
“Guess so,” Bud commented doubtfully. “Or at least he’s making phone
calls. Man, what a story he must have!”
“Trent couldn’t locate me, and Craig offered to call back in fifteen
minutes, which is about now,” said Tom. The boys continued to put away the
experimental apparatus, and locked down the tube from space in a secure
cubicle.
The phone rang again. A deep, pleasant voice said, “Hello, Tom?
Surprised to hear from me?”
“Surprised?” Tom shouted. “Craig, I can hardly
—”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the usual reaction. Listen, Sci-Fi, I’m calling
from your home. Just got here. I want to talk to you and your father.”
“Craig! It’s really you!” Tom exclaimed. “Bud and I will be there in
less than half an hour. This is wonderful news.” Hanging up, he turned to
Bud. “It’s Craig, all right. He always called me ‘Sci-Fi’.”
Bud gave a shout of laughter. “This is turning into one of those ‘what
a day’ days!”
The sun was setting as the
two friends set off for the Swift home in Bud’s convertible. A few minutes
later they parked the car in the garage and strode across the lawn and
through the magnetic alarm field which surrounded the house. Special coils
built into their wristwatches allowed Tom and Bud to pass through without
setting off the alarm system.
Inside the large, comfortable home, the boys were met by Tom’s father.
The tall, dis- tinguished-looking man, with twinkling blue eyes, was an older
edition of the young inventor. Mr. Swift led the way into the library where
Craig Benson was waiting. Craig, a tall, husky man of twenty-four, had
light-brown hair and blue eyes which were accented by his deep tan.
“I’m really here in the flesh,” he said, grinning, as Tom and Bud
greeted him with warm enthusiasm. Then he added soberly, “I came to see you
as soon as I got to this country because I have a story that I think will
astound you. I thought it best not to make contact by telephone from Africa,
because… ” Here he paused. “Well, let me tell it right. I found
something in the jungle I can’t understand, xxxxxxxxxxxxx
something you’ll certainly want
to investigate.”
Before Tom could reply, his mother entered the library and announced
that dinner was ready. She was a slim, attractive woman with sparkling eyes
and a charming smile. “I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she added, “but would
you mind continuing your discussion at dinner? — Oh, Craig, it’s so good to
have you back with us!”
She led them to the dining room where Tom’s pretty seventeen-year-old
sister, Sandy, who was a great favorite of Bud’s, was waiting. Like everyone
else, she was overjoyed at the flier’s reappearance.
As soon as everyone had been seated and grace had been said, Damon
Swift asked eagerly, “Now let’s hear your story, Craig!”
The pilot smiled. “Well, it concerns the greatest and strangest
disappearing act in the history of the world!” Then he added with a broad
grin, “And I don’t mean me!”
“Did your plane crash, as everybody thought?” asked Sandy.
“Yes and no, Lo-Fi,” he answered. “As you know, I was on assignment
for the UN’s
Special Commission on the Repatriation of xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Refugees. What you didn’t know
— I agreed to
keep it confidential — was that I had been asked to take an unusual course to
scope out any signs of guerrilla encampments in Boru- kundi.”
“Borukundi!” gasped Mrs. Swift.
“You mean where that awful general is in charge?” Sandy inquired.
“It’s in the news all the time.”
“Yes, and it has been for years now,” said Benson.
Bud asked, “What awful general are we talking about? I get my news
from TV.”
“He calls himself Supreme Commander Osa Kotto Boondah,” Craig
explained. “He’s pretty much a typical tin-pot tyrant, out to settle old
tribal scores and make a name for himself — and money for his cronies.”
“Same old story,” said Tom.
“Yes. He gets away with it because Bo- rukundi isn’t exactly a
country — it’s a region of about 3000 square miles tucked away where three
countries come together. Naturally, they all claim it, and now and then they
fight over it. So General Boondah is left to fill the vacuum, so to speak.”
Sandy grimaced. “I read that he eats his enemies!”
“He’s bad enough in reality without those rumors, which are spread by
the very guys he’s supposed to have eaten,” Craig observed with a smile.
“Anyway, Borukundi is mostly dense tropical jungle and marshland, with a few
scattered mountains. I was flying low when something — probably a missile from
a shoulder-mount launcher — tore right through my plane. Took out my radio,
too. I was too low to eject, so I managed a ‘treetop landing’ as best I
could, which wasn’t much.”
“Your plane was never found,” Mr. Swift put in.
“I’m not surprised,” said Craig. “Not much of it reached the ground in
one piece, and I was quite a ways from my registered flightplan. But somehow
I survived.”
“How’d you manage that?” Bud asked. “Tom and I get into wrecks all the
time, and I could use some pointers.”
Benson laughed. “Get yourself rescued by some friendly natives. The
local Maba tribe cared for me in one of their villages. But they were pretty
much under siege by Boondah’s boys — no phone lines, no roads or airstrips,
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
and a jungle full of guerilla mercenaries to keep the world from paying a visit.
They had been forced to return to the impoverished lifestyle of their
ancestors. Still, they had some medical supplies and nursed me very
effectively.
“When I recovered,” Craig went on, “the Mabas wouldn’t let me leave.”
“I understand,” interrupted Sandy with enthusiasm. “Since you were
still alive after falling from the sky, they considered you to be some sort
of minor god!”
The Swifts and their guests smiled and Tom said, “Somehow I can’t see
anybody wor-shipping old Craig here.”
“It wasn’t like that, Sandy,” Craig corrected her. “The Maba are poor,
not primitive. The village used to have electricity a few wars ago. What
they really had on their minds was the possibility that I might be a spy
working for the General, who is of a rival tribe. So at first they kept a
strict eye on me. But they tried to be good hosts and told me many tribal
secrets. One concerned a nearby mountain that was taboo.”
The pilot described a religious ceremony he had been allowed to attend
one night near a small, craggy mountain several miles from the village.
Noticing that all the natives were xxxxxxxxxxxxx
bowing toward it in awe, Craig had looked up just in time to see a strange
sight. “Some sort of gas was issuing from a crevice in the slope,” he said.
“It glowed — literally glowed — with a weird greenish light!”
Tom was leaning forward, intrigued by the story. Everyone had stopped
eating.
“It’s hard to describe what it looked like, or the way it made the
whole mountainside shim- mer with phosphorescence. The natives could tell me
nothing about the gas,” said Craig, “except that it was the sign of the
ancestral spirits who lived under the mountain. I had been in the village
for a year and had recovered from my injuries, so I decided to try finding
out what the phenomenon was. They had gradually stopped watching me so
closely, so one night I managed to slip away and explore the moun- tain.”
“Did you find out what the gas was?” Tom asked.
“No. That’s the job I thought you’d take over. But it will be the most
difficult thing you’ve ever attempted.”
“Why?”
Craig said he had salvaged an oxygen container from his wrecked plane
to capture xxxxxxxxxxxxx
some of the gas for analysis. “And since it was a long hike, I took my water
flask and an earthen jar containing some food.”
Craig told how he had waited hours for the gas to erupt, then had left
all the containers at the crevice and gone off to a sheltered spot to sleep.
“In the morning I returned, but there was no sign of the containers,
and no footprints near them but my own,” the pilot said. “I figured that
they must have been disintegrated by the gas.”
“African black magic!” Sandy said ex-citedly.
Craig chuckled. “Seemed that way, Lo-Fi, I’ll admit. To make sure, I
got other containers and tried the experiment again. This time I watched
until the glowing gas did appear. Sure enough, the containers vanished — in an
intense burst of white light. They just sort of melted away, from the
outside in!”
“Sounds fantastic,” commented Mr. Swift.
Tom and Bud exchanged glances. Both were thinking of their experience
in the laboratory. The objects there had begun to change shape. Would they
have disappeared completely if the experiment had continued? And, Tom
wondered, was an incredible phe- xxxxxxxxxxxxx
nomenon taking place under the mountain
in Africa which produced a substance like the isotope-gas
inside the tube he had received from another planet?
At this point in the story, the whole group adjourned to the library
where Craig recount- ed the story of his forced leave-taking from the native
village — because he had ignored the taboo — and the long, terrible ordeal of
his trek back to civilization. Many months passed before he had been able to
return to America.
“An amazing story,” Mr. Swift remarked, and Bud asked, “What does the
mountain look like?”
“I have some pictures of it,” Craig replied, explaining that he had
managed to save his camera from the plane wreck. Eagerly the others glanced through the pictures he pro- duced. Tom and
his father noticed that the area around the mountain was totally without
plant life and that all the closer shots were badly fogged. The two
exchanged meaningful and worried glances.
“The gas you describe must be caused by some type of nuclear
reaction,” Damon Swift said slowly. “Everything points to that — the
vanishing containers, lack of plant life, and the xxxxxxxxxxxxx
fogged pictures.”
“Yes,” said Tom. His face grim, he turned to Craig and asked, “How
long did you stay in the area of the glowing gas?”
The pilot seemed startled by the question. He frowned for a moment,
then answered, “I must have been around there for a total of ten hours.
Why?”
“We don’t want to alarm you,” Mr. Swift said, putting a hand on
Craig’s shoulder, “but Tom and I have reason to think that you may have been
exposed to some powerful radiation from that gas.”
He suggested that the young man go with Tom to the laboratory and
submit to a test with the radiation detector. Craig readily agreed.
While he and Tom rushed to Enterprises, Mr. Swift phoned the home of
the newly hired company physician, Dr. Simpson, and asked him to meet the
two there. The youthful doctor ar-rived just as Tom finished attaching the
wires of the detector to Craig’s arms.
Tom introduced the two men, then adjusted a control dial. The
indicator flickered to life and the three stared at the pointer as it
climbed to over 200 milliroentgens.
“You seem to have absorbed more than a xxxxxxxxxxxxx
moderate amount of radiation,” Dr. Simpson
declared.
Craig paled and turned questioning eyes to the physician. “A fatal
amount?” he asked.
“Not that, Craig,” the doctor said, smiling. “It’s not as serious as I
may have made it sound. A few days’ rest, together with some medicinal
treatments, should put you back in healthy shape.”
“Whew!” Craig swallowed hard. “You had me scared for a minute!”
After Dr. Simpson had administered a treatment of chlorides to Craig
in the com- pany’s infirmary, he instructed Tom to see that his friend had
plenty of rest and fresh air for at least a week.
Tom telephoned his mother to inquire if Craig might use the guest room
at their home. “Of course,” she said warmly, “and how won-derful that he’s
going to be all right!”
When Tom and Craig returned to the Swift home, the young pilot
announced that there was more to his story.
“I must admit that I’m intrigued by it,” said Mr. Swift, as Tom and
Craig sank deep into comfortable chairs.
“You were going to explain why you felt you couldn’t contact anyone by
phone,” Bud xxxxxxxxxxxxx
reminded Craig.
“Ever since I reached civilization in Africa, I’ve had a feeling that
I’m being followed,” the pilot began. “I lived in Bangui for a few months,
mostly in a hospital recovering from an infection I’d picked up in my trek
through the jungle; then I moved on to Libreville on the coast. There was
nothing very significant I can put my finger on, but a few unexplained
incidents.”
“Like what?” Tom prompted.
“In the hospital I was told that a man had inquired repeatedly as to
when I would be released. From his description, I think he might have been
another patient who shared a room with me for a few days when I first
arrived, an English-speaking Nigerian named Leopold Mkeesa, who said he was
a registered dealer in small arms.”
“Perhaps he was just showing a friendly interest, since he had become
acquainted with you,” Tom’s mother commented.
“Oh, Mother, no one shows a ‘friendly interest’ over and over like
that,” Sandy put in excitedly. “The man was probably a smug- gler!”
“Were there other incidents?” asked Tom.
“Well, just as I was about to board the jetliner to return to the
States, I was detained xxxxxxxxxxxxx
by the local police. Something about an ano- nymous phone call warning them that
I was carrying ‘war diamonds’ out of the country. Luckily I managed to prove
my innocence before departure time.
“Then on my flight two men seemed to go out of their way to make
friends with me. They introduced themselves as Karl Taylor and Eric Cameron.
They kept pumping me about my business in Africa — subtly, of course, but they
were persistent enough to make me uneasy. Then, during the sleep period, I
woke up to find Taylor tampering with the latch on my suitcase in the
overhead bin!”
“What happened?” Tom asked.
“Naturally I asked Taylor what he wanted,” Craig replied. “Tom, he’s a
smooth operator! He gave me such a convincing line about mistaking my
suitcase for his in the dimmed light that I dropped the subject.”
“Did you see much of the men after that?” Tom queried.
“No. They kept to their seats. Then, after we landed, I didn’t see
them again until yesterday when I arrived at Shopton. I’m positive I spotted
Cameron in the bus station, but he vanished before I could hail him.”
Tom picked up a Shopton directory. Neither man was listed. “Of course,
Cameron’s being here may not mean a thing, but just the same we’d better be
on guard. I’ll alert our security chief, Harlan Ames. He’ll want you to
describe these men.
“Taylor is about five feet nine, black hair
—” The pilot reached for a
pencil and paper. “Maybe I can sketch a picture of him.”
“I didn’t know that you were an artist,” Tom commented.
“I’m not really,” Craig answered modestly. “But it’s fun for a hobby.”
After Craig had filled in a few further details, Tom described the
strange experience he and Bud had had that afternoon and their suspicions
that there might be a similarity between the mountain phenomenon and the
contents of the opaque tube.
“This is amazing, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “If Enterprises could
locate the source of a silicon isotope not yet discovered on this earth, it
would be a great boon to mankind.”
“And to the manufacture of rockets for interplanetary travel,” Tom
added. He looked straight at his father. “If it wouldn’t interfere with our
experiments here, I’d like to go to xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Africa at once, Dad.”
“I knew this would be coming.” Mr. Swift chuckled. “Go ahead, Tom!”
“Great!” Craig exclaimed. “I was hoping you would go there with me.
Now that I’m officially alive again, I’m anxious to go back.”
“But what about the natives?” Mrs. Swift asked, concern in her voice.
“They banished you, Craig.”
The pilot smiled. “I’m sure that we won’t have any trouble with the
Maba — my rescuers. They’ll be impressed that I survived the taboo. But we
might have a little opposition from a neighboring tribe known as the Onari.
The General is one of them, and I wouldn’t want any of them for playmates!”
“Well, we’ll lick that problem when we get to Africa,” Tom commented.
“The first step is to plan the expedition.”
Next morning the two young men ate a hearty breakfast, then walked to
Swift Enterprises. Tom ushered Craig into the office he shared with his
father. The pilot wandered around the spacious room, admiring the models of
inventions by Tom and Mr. Swift that he had not seen before. He asked about
the Sky Queen, Tom’s giant plane which could ascend xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
vertically by jet lifters.
“It’s really a Flying Lab,” said Tom. “It’s what we’ll use for the
trip to Africa. We won’t have in-flight movies, but the meals are
top-notch!”
“And what kind of a submarine is this?” asked Craig. “It has an open
part in the center with rotor blades in it.”
Tom smiled. “While in it I found the rocket from another planet, but
nearly lost my life doing it. You know, Craig, every time I start a new
project, I can’t help wondering what adventures I’ll run into. Now take this
African expedition —”
Craig interrupted. “Say, speaking of food
— how did that cowboy fellow
work out, the one you and your Dad had just hired as a chef? Quite a
colorful character, as I recall.”
“Chow? He’s everybody’s favorite around here.” Tom glanced at the wall
clock. “Matter of fact, it’s about time for his mid-morning snack run.”
Sure enough, in a matter of minutes there came a loud and lazy knock
on the door.
“Come in!” Tom called.
A balding roly-poly man, bronzed and wrinkled from the sun, strode
into the office. xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Polished western boots flashed beneath the cuffs of his bluejeans and a
garish plaid shirt in the southwestern style completed his outfit.
Texas-born, formerly a chuck-wagon cook in New Mexico, Chow Winkler was now
in charge of food on Tom’s expeditions.
“Howdy!” he shouted. “Oops! Didn’t know you had company
— No, oh no!
Cain’t be! But it sure is! Well, brand my lil lost palomino! Where’n
creation did you come from, Craig Benson? You remember me?”
“Chow, it’s good to see you again. I finally escaped from that jungle
cooking — crocodile stew with a few humans mixed in —”
“You mean you been livin’ with cannibals?” the cook cried out. But
Craig could not keep his face straight and Chow said, “At your ole jokin’
again, eh? Well, I sure am glad you’re back — but I had a Texas hunch you
wuzzen as dead as they made out. But don’t fly over none of them jungles any
more.”
Tom laughed. “Why, Chow, that wouldn’t worry you, would it?” he asked.
“Craig and I are planning a trip to the African jungle and thought you’d
like to come along.”
Chow scratched his broad, barren head. “Are you kiddin’, too, Tom?”
“Nope. Serious as Sunday.”
The cook sighed. “Where you go gallivantin’,
I go too. But it sounds
mighty risky. By the way, I jest rambled in to see if you wanted some o’
these — ” Chow’s eyes suddenly fell on one of the sketches Craig had made the
night before. “Well, I’ll be hog-tied!” he blurted out. “Who drew these?”
“Craig,” Tom said.
“Mighty nice. Say, either of these hombres from Texas?”
“Why do you ask?” Tom queried.
“Jest thought I’d seen one of ’em before. This one here.”
“That’s Taylor,” Craig said. “Karl Taylor.”
“Don’t recollect the name.” The cook ran a ham-like hand through his
sparse hair. “Not real sure where I saw him,” he murmured. “Mighta been
Abilene, years back. Let me ponder it a bit. If I saw him, you kin bet I’ll
remember.”
The remainder of the day was spent in preliminary preparations for the
coming expedition. Tom and Craig studied charts of Central Africa provided
by Enterprises’ geo- graphical department and made a few tentative lists of
equipment and supplies.
It was almost dark when they started on xxxxxxxxxxxxx
foot
for the Swift home, glad of a walk in the fresh air.
“Since it’s so late,” Tom said, “let’s take the short cut I use
through the lane in the woods.”
The two were striding briskly along the deserted dirt road when they
heard the roar of a motor directly behind them. Tom and Craig whirled to see
a car, without lights, approaching at terrific speed. The driver evidently
did not see them.
“Look out!” Tom cried out.
Suddenly the car’s xenon-bright headlights blazed on, blinding Tom and
Craig. The young men stared in frozen horror as the vehicle careened madly
toward them on the narrow road!
CHAPTER 3
TERRASPHERE TUMBLE
THE APPROACHING lights seemed to have a hypnotic effect. It was only with
difficulty that Tom was able to rouse himself to action. He pushed Craig
into the roadside ditch and jumped for it himself. The car sped by, grazing
Tom and spinning him painfully to the ground. Dirt and stones thrown up by
the car’s wheels showered down on the two.
Dazed, Tom arose, brushed off the debris, and hobbled onto the road.
“Craig!” he called. “You okay?”
“I — I guess so,” responded the pilot shakily. He stumbled from the
ditch, muttering, “This is a great reception you folks have worked out.” He
stood and looked off down the road. The car’s taillights had already
disappeared. xxxxxxxxxxxxx
“Whoever was driving that car meant to kill us!”
Tom nodded grimly. “You’re right. I think there were two men in it.
Did you spot the
license number?”
Craig shook his head regretfully. “All I know is, it was a black
Montserratti.” He added in a somber tone, “Tom, I feel that it’s because of
me that you became a target.”
“Not necessarily, Craig. This sort of thing has happened to me before.
Since you’ve been away, Bud and I have survived all sorts of dangerous
situations.”
Craig snorted, with a wry smile. “And they say you scientists lead a
quiet, academic life!”
Safely home, Tom contacted Harlan Ames and described the incident.
“Looks like there’s more to this African business than we thought,” Ames
observed. “As usual!”
The following morning it was decided that Craig should remain at the
Swift home for a day of complete rest. Tom went off alone to one of his
private laboratories, where he was soon joined by Bud, who had returned to
Shopton late the night before from a purchasing trip, by jet to Atlanta.
“Good trip?” Tom asked.
“Got everything I went for.” Bud grinned. “Even those white pith
helmets you wanted, xxxxxxxxxxxxx
jungle boy — just like they wear in the movies. But after you’ve made the
discovery of the
ages,
yours probably won’t fit,” he gibed.
Tom pretended to throw a glass flask at him, then continued his work.
Bud watched his friend sort an array of soupcan-sized, capsule-shaped
objects which had just been delivered from Enterprises’ metallurgical
department.
“They’re containers I had made up to get samples of that African gas,”
Tom explained. “According to Craig, it disintegrated his crockery and metal
bottles, but I’m hoping one of these more refractory capsules will hold the
gas.”
He picked up a sheaf of papers from the workbench and handed them to
Bud. “These are the specs on each of the containers — what material was used
to make them and how. Read them off to me, please, and I’ll stamp the
symbols on each one.”
“Right.” Bud began reading: “Heavy glass, lead, asbestalon
— that
plastic asbestos substitute of yours ought to do it.” He went on reading,
“Tomasite — giving it another chance, huh?”
“I’m trying a different composite for-mulation,” Tom said. “Besides,
it’s just a guess that the taboo mountain gas is similar to what we found in
the tube from the rocket.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Just then a buzzer sounded. “Somebody’s at
the door,” Bud said. “I’ll get it.”
Reaching under the workbench, he pushed a switch that operated the
locking device on the laboratory door. Hank Sterling, head of en- gineering at
the plant, and Arvid Hanson, chief modelmaker and prototype fabricator,
entered together.
“Hi, Tom, Bud! Sorry to disturb you,” said Hanson. The tall, big-boned
man had a genial smile. “Hank and I have a few questions to ask about
Terry.”
Bud smiled at Tom quizzically. “New employee? Or personal friend?”
Tom chuckled. “You haven’t met Terry, flyboy? I’ll introduce you right
now.” From behind his workbench he lifted a plastic model into view.
“I had fun making that one,” Hanson commented.
Sterling said in an admiring tone, “I’d like one of those for
Christmas!”
The model consisted of an elongated, flat, triangular platform, the
wide part of the triangle at the front. At each of the three corners of the
platform was an assemblage of rings intricately mounted one inside another
and set at different angles to one another. About a third of the way xxxxxxxxxxxxx
back, a round turret rose up from the platform. A metal beam extended
forward from this, resembling the arm of a crane and composed of a number of
segments that telescoped together. Behind the turret base was a round-roofed
pas-senger cabin.
The most arresting feature of Tom’s invention was its exploration
cabin, which nestled snugly on the narrow aft end of the platform, in a
cup-shaped framework cradle. Spherical, with two wide windows curving around
its middle, the cabin was removable. When the crane was in operation, cables
hang- ing from it would lift the cabin away from the chassis, swing it around
to the front as the turret rotated, and raise or lower it as the cables
unwound from a spool-drum.
“The terrasphere,” said Tom proudly. “Or if you’re on a first-name
basis, Terry.”
“Pleased t’meet you,” said Bud. “When did you come up with this, Tom?”
“It’s the cave-explorer vehicle I’ve men- tioned to you,” the young
inventor replied.
“Tom said you called it the spelunker- clunker,” Hank said to
Bud with mock sever- ity.
“Yeah, well, that was before we were properly introduced. But I
thought it was going xxxxxxxxxxxxx
to be more like a tank, genius boy.”
Tom nodded. “I got a few ideas along the way. For example, instead of
tank treads, Terry has these tread-rings, as I call them. As you see,
they’re like circular tread tracks, with each track being able to be
swiveled to a different axis-angle independently of the others. That’s to
give us extra traction and stability inside caves, where there’s usually a
lot more wall than floor.”
“And this metal ball must be the ter- rasphere proper.”
“Right,” Tom confirmed. “The main vehicle can’t handle a sheer
cliffside or steep drop. In such a case we’ll park her and lower the
explorers in the sphere, which has its own air supply and power system.”
Occupants of the cabin could safely explore and study deep chasms or caves
which other vehicles could not penetrate, communicating with the tank
section by means of intercom wires within the suspension cables.
“When Swift Construction said the terrasphere was finished, I decided
to take it along to Africa,” Tom explained to Bud.
“Really? Don’t tell me those wheel-deals allow it to drive on top of
the ocean!” boggled xxxxxxxxxxxxx
the young pilot.
“Believe it or not, Terry will fit in the aerial hold of the Queen
when she’s all folded-down,” Arv said. “We’ll just have to leave the Kub
behind.” The Kangaroo Kub was a midget jet plane that was normally
carried along in the flying hangar of the giant skyship.
Turning to the men, Tom asked, “What seems to be the trouble, guys?”
“Arv’s miniature working model ran as perfectly as the computer
simulations,” said square-jawed Hank Sterling. “But something must not have
scaled-up quite properly. We’re not satisfied with the full-sized model. I’m
worried that the locking device on the cables isn’t adequate.”
“You know how Hank worries,” gibed Arv.
“I’ll go down to the big hangar and take a look at it,” Tom said at
once. “Come on, Bud. I’ll need your help.”
Taking Enterprises’ moving-rampway sys- tem, called the ridewalk, the
boys accompanied the two men to the cavernous underground hangar beneath the
main airfield. In addition to housing the Flying Lab, this hangar was the
usual testing ground for large-sized inventions and housed an elaborate
array
of test xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
equipment.
Next to the Sky Queen, in the center of the high-ceilinged main
room, stood the polished gunmetal-gray terrasphere tank, firmly anchored to
the concrete floor with giant expansion bolts. After Tom had thoroughly
inspected the locking mechanism at the end of each cable, he announced that
every part seemed to be in perfect working order.
“I want to give Terry a test, Bud,” he said. “I’ll climb into the
sphere. You get into the control cabin and swing me back and forth. I want
to put maximum stress on these cables and watch the signaling system.”
Bud climbed into the control compartment on the mobile platform, which
was located at the top of the crane turret under a small view-dome. Tom
entered the sphere through a round hatch. Then, after some practice at the
controls under Hank’s supervision, Bud moved a joystick lever which lifted
the crane from its horizontal position. He swiveled the boom and began to
extend it, and in a moment the descent cabin was dangling at the end of its
reinforced cables several feet off the concrete floor. “Ready for your
ride?” he called to Tom over the intercom.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tom gave Bud some instructions and then
said jauntily, “Swing away!”
Tom watched the gauges on the panel in front of him, which indicated
the amount of strain on each cable. As Bud swung the crane from side to side
with increasing vigor, the young inventor felt as if he were being rocked.
“This is smooth and working in perfect rhythm,” he said to himself.
Elated, the young inventor grinned and waved to Hanson and Sterling.
“How do you like it, skipper?” Bud inter- commed.
“Like a carnival ride,” was Tom’s reply. But as he turned back to look
at the gauges, the grin faded. One of the dials was flashing a red signal.
There was too much stress on cable number three!
“Bud, hoist me back onto the cradle!” Tom yelled into the intercom.
At the same instant every light on the panel blinked red. This was
followed by a loud twang as the cables parted just above the locking device.
The cabin broke loose and was hurled into the air like an underhand pitch,
then somersaulted to a crash landing against one wall of the hangar!
Bud dashed from the control cabin, fear xxxxxxxxxxxxx
gripping him.
Sterling and Hanson had already reached the sphere. Through a window
they could see Tom lying unconscious against the panel board. Blood streamed
from a gash in his head.
Working quickly, the men opened the hatch and carefully lifted Tom out
and laid him on the floor. Bud leaned over him. When he was certain that his
friend was still alive, he raced to an adjoining room for a first-aid kit
and administered a restorative. A minute later the young inventor opened his
eyes.
“Take it easy,” Sterling cautioned him. “You had a nasty crack-up.”
Tom lay still for a minute. Then, as his memory returned, he smiled
ruefully. “It was my fault,” he confessed. “Swinging so violently must have
crystallized the cables at the connection, and they gave way.” Starting to
rise, he said, “I’ve got to get busy and make cables which will be less
subject to metal fatigue.”
“Not today,” Bud told him firmly. “You’re going home to relax — Sci-Fi.”
He drove Tom to the Swift residence where Sandy and her mother took
charge. Both gave sighs of relief when they learned he had xxxxxxxxxxxxx
escaped serious injury.
Craig, looking on, finally broke the tense atmosphere by remarking,
“Welcome to the club, Tom! There’s no feeling on earth like being able to
walk away from a major smack-down!”
Late that afternoon a telephone call came to Tom from Harlan Ames. Tom
took it on the extension in his bedroom. After the security chief had made
sure Tom was recovering nicely from his shock, he said, “The local police
have just recovered a stolen car — a black Montserratti. It could be the one
that almost ran you and Craig down.”
“Any clue to the thief?”
“None,” Ames replied. “They forced open the door of the car and
disabled the security system. No fingerprints except the owner’s.”
“Have you done any checking on those men Craig described
— Taylor and
Cameron?” Tom asked.
“I sent copies of the sketches to the FBI in Washington,” Ames
reported. “I’ll let you know the minute I get a report.”
After the security chief had hung up, Tom sat on his bed for a moment
in deep thought. If Taylor and Cameron had been the attackers in the car,
what was their motive? And why would xxxxxxxxxxxxx
they be shadowing Craig?
Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs and Chow rushed into Tom’s room
excitedly. “Brand my cowhide boots!” he cried out. “I got it!”
Tom gazed at the cook in astonishment. “Steady there, cowpoke. Tell me
slowly what you’ve got.”
“Remember the picture you showed me o’ that feller Taylor? He’s from
my own ranch country in Texas!”
“Are you sure?” Tom demanded.
“Sure as I am o’ tamin’ a mustang!” Chow insisted. “I recollect the
very newspaper back home showin’ his picture. Seems he got in bad with the
folks ’round there. Shady doings o’ some kind.”
“Is his name really Taylor?” Tom asked.
Chow shook his head. “I don’t reckon ’tis, but I cain’t remember what
he was called.”
“What newspaper was his picture in?”
“The Comanche Daily.”
“Perfect!” said Tom. “We can check with their office.’’
“Don’t think you kin,” the Texan murmured. “The Daily’s whole
place burnt down ’bout a week later! They say it was set!”
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
“This is not news I can use,” Tom sighed.
“Any idea where Taylor might have gone?”
“Well, some folks said they knew where he lit out to.”
“Where was that?”
“Africa!”
CHAPTER 4
THE ANTIPROTON FILE
AT CHOW’S startling announcement Tom whistled in surprise and reached
broadly to thump the Texan on the back. “Good work, Chow! This ties in with
Craig’s suspicion that Taylor and Cameron had more than a passing interest
in his African adventures.”
“I’m sure glad I remembered ’bout that hombre,” said the cook proudly.
Then Chow hesitated, as if he had something more to bring up. “I did good,
di’n’t I, boss?”
“Sure you did.”
“Wa-al, then I have sumpin’ to ask you.”
Tom nodded. “Anything, pardner.”
“You may wish’t ya hadn’t said that when you hear what’s caught in my
craw,” the Texan said wryly. “It’s like this. You know how ya let
folks name some o’ them inventions
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
o’ your’n?”
The young inventor regarded his friend in
puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
Chow shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “Aw, not much. Jest that you let
Hanson name that Spacelane Brain, and buddy boy came up with Eye-Spy
camera — other stuff, too.”
Tom nodded. “Yes, but — those are just nicknames we use.”
“I know, Tom, but… I’d like t’name one of ’em myself!”
So as not to injure Chow’s feelings, Tom suppressed the laugh he felt
rising within. “I see. Well, which invention do you want to name?”
“Oh, I’m not too partic’lar. You can jest tag it on the next one that
fits!”
“Y-you mean… you’ve made up a name in advance?”
“Sure have, boss. Got it writ down right here.” He fished around in
his shirt pocket. “See, I know how you go about it, makin’ up them names.
You take a buncha scientific soundin’ words from Greek er Latin an’ break
’em apart, then glue ’em back tergether, so t’speak. I allus figgered you
did it that way to get inspiration. Am I right?”
“Well, I —”
“Sure ’nough, thet’s the secret all right. So I come up with a couple
names — but I’ll be satistated if you use jest one.”
Tom sat down on his bed. “Okay, Chow. What do you have?”
Chow held two pieces of paper between his thick fingers. He read off
the first one. “How d’ya like ‘thermo-emetic quasartron’?”
Tom’s brow furrowed. How do I get out of this? he wondered.
“I’m not… sure I can do too much with that one.”
“Then it’s the other fer sure!” He handed Tom the other slip of paper.
“I kinda thought it’d be this one.”
Tom read it and nodded. “I’ll pin it up near my workbench. And I
guarantee you, next time I invent something that could conceivably be called
a, er, ‘spectralmarine selector,’ that’s what it’ll be.”
Chow beamed a broad Texas-sized grin. “That’s what I wanna
hear! Ya promise?”
Tom laughed, finally. “Promise!”
Chow began to leave, then glanced back over his shoulder. “Oh, an’
boss? It’s spectro- marine. Spectral-marine sounds a mite
fool-ish!”
Later, when Tom and Craig were lounging in the Swifts’ guest room, Tom
told the pilot of Chow’s verdict on the man Craig knew as Taylor. “Then I was right about Taylor all the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
time!”
Craig exclaimed.
“Can you think of some reason he may be trying to keep us from going
to Africa?” Tom injected.
“No. But I believe you’re right. It may have to do with that Nigerian,
Leopold Mkeesa. Why don’t we have Taylor picked up?”
“On what charge?” Tom pointed out. “We haven’t a shred of proof that
he was in that auto- mobile. In fact, we can’t even say for sure he’s here in
Shopton.”
“But I’m certain that I saw Cameron in Shopton, so it’s likely
Taylor’s here too,” the pilot protested. “Anyway, if Taylor was involved in
something shady and skipped the country, he must be wanted by the
authorities.”
“Yes, but the name Taylor is probably an alias,” observed Tom. “If it
weren’t for your sketches, we wouldn’t know whom to look for. We’ll have to
be patient. If Taylor and Cameron are trying to cause us trouble, they’ll
show their hands sooner or later.’’
The next few days passed without any indication that their suspected
enemies still were in the vicinity. Tom pushed the outfitting of the
terrasphere for its use in the Africa project. He personally supervised the
fabrication of new xxxxxxxxxxxxx
cables of great tensile strength. As a further precaution, these were
X-rayed for flaws before being installed.
Early one morning Tom said to Craig, “We’ll be ready to take off in
the Sky Queen pretty soon. Want to help me inspect her?”
“Sure thing, if there’s no charge for admission,” he replied jokingly.
The two went to the underground hangar where the Flying Lab was
berthed. Craig gazed in admiration at the three-decker plane. “It’s
beautiful, Tom. Almost overwhelming!”
Tom led the way on the tour of inspection, which began with the
laboratory section. This was on the second deck. Partitions divided the
spacious enclosure into separate compartments. Each was a laboratory
completely equipped for some branch of research.
“This is a world all its own,” Craig re- marked.
“The Sky Queen,” commented the young inventor as they walked
along, “is like an old and loyal friend. She’s carried Bud and me safely
through many a tough adventure.”
Craig congratulated Tom on the sleek Kangaroo Kub, a small
delta-winged craft, powered by a single jet engine, which was xxxxxxxxxxxxx
berthed in the Flying Lab’s aerial hangar on the lowest deck. “We’ll be
leaving the Kub behind to make room for the terrasphere tank,” Tom
explained.
“There’s sure plenty of room in the flying hangar, even with
the mini-jet!”
“We used to carry another small craft as well, the Skeeter. But
it was wrecked.” Tom added: “I have another one on the drawing boards,
though.”
As the inspection ended and the three young men were about to leave
the building, they were met by Mr. Swift. After greeting them, he said,
“Tom, I’d like to discuss with you that series of experiments we conducted
together in New Mexico, Project XA-107. We’ll get out the file and go over
it.”
Tom looked at his father curiously. “Do you mean the one on antiproton
phenomena, Dad?”
“That’s right. I’d like to review our find- ings.”
“Any particular reason?” asked the young scientist.
“Just a hunch, son. From what Craig has told us about that glowing gas
in Africa, I was wondering —”
“If it might have something to do with the xxxxxxxxxxxxx
existence of antiproton matter under the mountain?” Tom finished the
sentence. “I was thinking about that possibility myself.”
“If such a thing exists there, our locating it would be one of the
greatest discoveries of all time.”
Craig, who had been listening quietly to the discussion, displayed a
puzzled expression. “Is this a family secret?” he asked, smiling, “Or may I
join in with a question?”
“Sorry,” Tom apologized. “Ask away.”
“First of all,” said Craig, “what’s antiproton matter?”
“To explain that,” said Mr. Swift, “you’d need a basic idea of how
atoms are con-structed.”
“I didn’t flunk all my high-school science,” Craig replied in
joking protest. “I know that the popular concept of an atom is that it looks
like a miniature solar system. In the center is a nucleus. Moving around it
are particles called electrons. The whole thing is similar to our own
planets moving around the sun.”
“That’s basically it.” Mr. Swift nodded. “An electron has a negative
charge. A proton is the positive charge of the nucleus. Then we have the
neutron, which is the uncharged remainder of the nucleus.”
“That much I understand,” said Craig.
“Now in antiproton matter,” Tom took up the story, “the atoms have the
same ‘solar system’ setup you mentioned, but there’s one difference. The
charges on the particles are reversed. What was the negative electron is now
a positive positron — an anti-electron, that is — and what was the proton is now
an antiproton, which has a negative charge.”
“Oh, you’re talking about antimatter,” Craig said. “Bring matter and
antimatter together and Blam!”
“Definitely!” Mr. Swift broke in. “If enough antiproton matter reacted
with substances here on earth, the heat produced could start a chain
reaction. The world would blow itself into oblivion!”
“Wow!” exclaimed Craig. “That stuff wouldn’t be anything to play
with!”
“No,” Tom agreed, “but actually it could be put to good use. In fact,
some radioactive isotopes emit positrons naturally, and PET scan- ners — the
letters stand for Positron Emission Tomography — have become a standard part
of medical technology.”
“Antiproton matter is another story, though,” declared Mr. Swift.
“There’s an enormous dif- ference in mass, and
thus an enormous diffe-xxxxxxxxxxxxx
rence in explosive energy when
proton meets antiproton. I can’t conceive, scientifically, how stable
antiproton matter could manage to exist on earth.”
“Want my guess, Dad? I think Craig’s gas isn’t antiproton matter as
such, but some weird substance that emits free antiprotons at high
velocity,” speculated Tom. “If the gas itself were true antimatter, it would
react explosively to air.”
The animated discussion continued as the three walked along toward the
main administration building. Tom declared, “I think we may be on the verge
of a whole new twenty-first century physics, Dad. We seem to be running into
more and more inexplicable things — veranium ore, for example, or that
micro-sized black hole Bud and I encountered in space.”
“Yes, son; and also those signs of higher-element fusion going on
beneath the crust of the earth, which you discovered with your ato- mic earth
blaster.”
“I guess it’s kind of a whole new world out there,” said Craig
thoughtfully. “And that crack in the taboo mountain may be the front door!”
When the group reached the office building, xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Craig said goodbye and Tom followed his father inside. They went directly to their private office where
the young inventor slid open a wooden panel in the wall. Behind it was a
small but sturdy safe. He pressed his knuckle against a scanning device
which read his recorded DNA code, and the formidable lock clicked open.
Tom reached inside and withdrew a stack of leather-bound manuscripts.
After going com- pletely through the pile, he stared at the stack curiously.
Mr. Swift sensed that something was wrong. “What’s the matter, son?”
“It’s gone!” Tom cried out. “The file on antiprotons is gone!”
“Great Scott!” exclaimed the elder inventor, stunned. “This is
terribly serious. The weapons potential of antiproton applications is
cataclys- mic!”
“I can’t imagine how it disappeared,” Tom mused. “The only other
person who has access to this safe is Alvy Tompkin.”
“Tompkin wouldn’t be interested in our treatise,” said Mr. Swift.
“He’s as trustworthy as you or I, Tom. He’s been with us Swifts since the
day Enterprises was formed!” Tompkin had been
transferred from the Swift xxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Construction
Company and made special
guar- dian of the office a few months before.
“Just the same,” said Tom, “it won’t do any harm to ask him if he
knows anything about the manuscript.”
Tom summoned Alvy Tompkin to the office over the intercommunication
system. A few minutes later a thin, elderly man came in. His strong face and
direct gaze reflected his integrity.
“Tom and I are hunting for something we can’t find,” Mr. Swift said.
“We thought we left an important file, Project XA-107, in the safe. Do you
remember seeing it there?”
“Yes, of course I do,” replied Tompkin, but with a puzzled look. “It
was only yesterday, Tom, that I took it from the safe. I was only following
your orders.”
“Orders!” Tom exclaimed. “What orders?”
“Your note, from the office digi-fax.” From a pocket Tompkin produced
a typed note bear- ing Tom’s signature.
PLEASE REMOVE THE BOUND FILE FOR PROJECT XA-107 FROM THE OFFICE SAFE AND PERSONALLY HAND IT TO JOHN MUELLER, WHO WILL BE AT THE NORTH
GATE AT 6:30
XXXXXXXXXxxxXXXX
PM THIS EVENING. AS YOU DO NOT KNOW HIM BY SIGHT, HE WILL SHOW
YOU HIS SWIFT ENTERPRISES I.D. CARD. I WILL RETURN THE FILE TO THE SAFE MYSELF.
THANKS AS ALWAYS.
“You say you received this over the office digi-fax?” Tom asked. “I
never wrote it.”
Tompkin turned ash white. “But Tom — Mr. Swift
— I recognized your
signature!”
“I’m not blaming you, Mr. Tompkin,” said Tom in a comforting tone.
“You had no reason to suspect that the signature might have been forged.”
“I — I suppose I should have telephoned you for confirmation,” moaned
Tompkin in despair.
Tom asked for a description of the man who received the file.
Tompkin thought for a moment, then said, “He was about six feet tall,
had black hair, a thin face, and very dark eyes. He was driving a light-blue
sports car. I’m afraid I didn’t pay at- tention to the make.”
Tom showed the elderly employee copies of the two sketches Craig
Benson had made. “Was he either of these two men?” he asked.
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Tompkin studied the drawings, then pointed. “Yes,” he muttered, “it
was this man. He wore dark glasses, but I’m quite sure of it.”
Tom glanced at his father.
“Cameron!” Mr. Swift cried out.
CHAPTER 5
HUNTING THE ENEMY
DISMISSING the remorseful Tompkin, Tom and his father contacted Harlan Ames
at once and the security chief came to the office immediately. He sat down
and Tom briefed him on what had happened, then showed Ames the fake note.
After the former Secret Service agent had scrutinized the signature closely,
he commented, “The forgery of the signature has the earmarks of a real pro.”
Ames pointed out several ways in which the forger had avoided common errors.
“At least we know a little more about Taylor and Cameron. Probably one of
them is an expert forger.”
“It didn’t take any fancy electronics to get under our skin this time,”
Tom said angrily, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx