
In minutes the scientist-inventor was gliding
toward the alien vessel |
|
THE
TOM SWIFT INVENTION ADVENTURES
TOM SWIFT IN THE RACE
TO THE MOON
BY VICTOR APPLETON II |
TOM SWIFT IN THE
RACE TO THE MOON |
|
CHAPTER
1
A
FALTERING FLIGHT
“TOM! What’s wrong with your machine?
We’re going into a dive!” Fighting the controls, pilot Bud Barclay risked a
brief sideways glance at his cockpit companion, who was also his best
friend.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” replied Tom Swift, his keen eyes tensely
focused on the instrument panel before him. “The repelatron’s still
operating at full power, but we’re losing force!” The blond-haired young
inventor stretched forward a hand and ad- justed a control dial, once, twice,
three times. “Not working — no change.”
Forcing himself to remain calm as their aircraft, a Pigeon Special,
began to nose down, Bud again flicked the ignition switch to restart the
compact but powerful motor that normally drove the plane’s xxxxxxxxxxx |
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rear-mounted propeller. The youths had deliberately
silenced the motor in order to give Tom’s invention the workout that was the
reason for their flight. Now the motor refused to come back to life! “The
instruments are still okay,” grated the young pilot in desperation, a lock
of dark hair creeping down over his forehead. “But the electronics toward
the tail are stone dead. I can’t budge the rudder.”
As the ground slowly rolled before their eyes at a steepening angle,
drawing frighteningly near, Bud suddenly yanked on Tom’s shirtsleeve.
“Squeeze over to my side, Tom, all the way to the wall — hurry!”
Tom burst free of his safety straps and scrambled across the top of
Bud’s seat-back, flattening himself against the wall just behind and to the
left of his pal. Bud also half-rose and pressed leftward as far as possible.
The tiny, lightweight Special, uniquely designed to maintain aerial
stability during sharp maneuvers and unusual conditions, responded as
sensitively as a trained palomino, slightly dipping its wings and sliding
into a corkscrew turn to port. For a moment the curve made the situation
even worse — they were diving straight xxxxxxxxxxx
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groundward! But then, terrifyingly close to
disaster, they swung through the low point of the arc and be- gan to regain altitude. The
plane had now reversed course and was heading back the way it came.
Tom made his way back to his seat as Bud continued to try to start the
prop motor. Both young men were breathing hard. “We’re through the worst,” said Bud. “We’ll be able to reach the lake.”
Tom nodded. “Plan to ditch her?”
“No choice.”
As the glittering crescent of Lake Carlopa drew close ahead, Tom
radioed the Swift Enterprises airfield. Though located in Shopton at the far
end of the lake, the Swift invention facility was nevertheless the closest
site equipped for rescue. “Roger, Special,” replied tower control. “I’m
dispatching a water crash team. We’re tracking you — won’t be long.”
Signing off, Tom groaned in frustration. “Thanks for the ace flying,
Bud. Believe it or not, I’m more worried about my repelatron going to the
bottom than I am about our scrawny necks.”
Bud managed a ragged grin. “Oh, I believe it!”
The repelatron was perhaps the young prodigy’s xxxxxxxxxxx
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most revolutionary invention, a device which generated an
invisible beam of force that could repel any material it was attuned to.
Some months before, while constructing his deep-sea hydrodome on the floor
of the mid-Atlantic, the young inventor had used the machine to push back
the ocean waters, creating a bubble-like airspace for workers to live in.
Since that peril-fraught success, Tom had labored to overcome certain
features of the repelatron that limited its practical capacity to switch
rapidly from one substance to another. His goal was to develop a
super-repelatron that could utilize its recoil-thrust for
propulsion — specifically to propel a radically new kind of spacecraft into
the stark vacuum above the earth’s atmosphere. Tom conceived this step as a
key to interplanetary exploration, and had made well-publicized plans to
make the moon his first port of call.
Having finally hit upon a version of the repelatron that promised the
sort of performance Tom required, the young inventor had anxiously had the
new test model bolted into the cargo compartment of the Pigeon Special, a
popular line of two-seat aircraft manufactured by the Swift Construction xxxxxxxxxxx
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Company, which was owned, like Swift Enterprises, by the Swift family. Soaring out over Lake
Carlopa, Tom had had Bud cut the engines, phasing in the repelatron as
substitute thrust. The boys had been thrilled as the device seemed to
function perfectly, keeping them smoothly and silently airborne as they
traversed the length of the long, narrow lake.
But trouble had cropped up almost immediately upon crossing the
shoreline and heading on out over farmland. With no warning or evident cause
the repelatron seemed to become powerless, sending the Special into its
dive.
Now they recrossed the lakeshore at a low, faltering altitude,
preparing to bail out just before the Special hit the water. Suddenly Tom
and Bud reacted with surprise as the whole plane give a vio- lent shake and
surged forward, putting on speed and altitude. The acceleration pressed the
boys back into their seats.
“What’s going on?” gasped Bud. “Tom! — the repelatron’s working again!”
“Water,” Tom muttered. “That must be it. It’s repelling the
water — nothing else.”
The boys relaxed as the plane mounted higher and higher above the lake.
Tom contacted Enterprises xxxxxxxxxxx
x |
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again and explained the situation. “Have the crash
team on standby,” he advised. “We may still have a problem getting back to
the airfield.”
“You’re right about that,” said Bud. “I still can’t start the motor or
work the flaps or the rudder. The best we can hope for is a pancake landing,
and that’ll be rough.”
“Let’s try something, flyboy. Get ready to flip the switch again. I’m
going to kill the repelatron.”
Bud gave his friend a look of wide-eyed skepticism, but poised his
hands above the controls as Tom switched off the power feed to his
invention. Instantly the Special slowed and wavered, gliding along
unpowered. Bud flicked the ignition.
The motor jerked to life! The plane shot forward under full power and
control.
“Jetz! Everything’s back on line, Skipper,” Bud declared gratefully.
“I think I know where the problem is,” com- mented Tom in a musing
voice. “When the repulsion ray doesn’t find anything to interact with,
there’s some kind of back-surge across the space-wave field with
electromagnetic induction as a side effect. All the power cables that pass
through the fuse- xxxxxxxxxxxx
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lage near the machine were affected. But if I focus the
field more narrowly, it won’t — ”
Bud interrupted his friend with a laugh. “Please, genius boy, do your
inventing on the ground — after we’ve landed!”
They proceeded on to Enterprises without incident, and Bud, an expert
pilot, brought them down in a perfect landing, taxiing into a waiting
hangar. Disembarking, Tom directed the ground crew to unbolt the test
repelatron and convey it to one of his laboratories on a handtruck as he and
Bud ambled along beside.
Reaching the lab they were surprised to find a small crowd of
unfamiliar faces gathered in the hallway next to the slowly-moving ridewalk
ramp. Tom recognized one face among them: the round, somewhat rumpled,
perpetually harried face of George Dilling, longtime head of the plant’s
Office of Communications and Public Interest. “Hi, George,” said Tom, curiosity on his brow and in his voice. “A
tour?”
“Ah, Tom! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you’re in luck! Here’s
Tom Swift himself!” An unconvincing grin firmly in place,
Dilling led the xxxxxxxxxxx |
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crowd in a wave of applause, accented by ooo-ing and ahh-ing. Dilling approached Tom and
Bud and said softly, “It’s that Brungarian student group, two days early.
Imagine my surprise.”
I can just imagine, thought Tom.
Swift Enterprises actively encouraged young people to explore their
interest in science and invention, and to consider careers in that area. To
that end Dilling’s office frequently set up special tours of the
installation, usually for high school students. He considered it good public
relations; Tom and his father valued it for its own sake and enjoyed meeting
the students and answering their questions.
This tour was unique. The students, some as young as fifteen, others in
their later twenties, were visiting the United States from Brungaria, a
newly democratic nation that in decades past had been unfriendly to the U.S.
and its allies. The students, all carefully screened and selected for native
ability, attended the Academy for Advanced Scientific Studies in Volkonis,
the Brungarian capital.
“I’m very pleased to meet you all,” said Tom with a warm smile.
“Welcome to Swift Enterprises! What have you seen so far?”
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The students looked at one another shyly, and
for a moment Tom wondered if they had understood him. Then a young girl
stepped forward and said, “Already we have seen your cowboy man.”
The students all nodded vigorously. “He was most cool!” a boy piped up. “Do you sell the shirts?”
Bud broke out laughing. “You’ll have to go to Texas if you want one of
those Chow Winkler Brand shirts! Shopton has a city ordinance against
selling loud colors like that!”
Seeing that the students didn’t know what to make of Bud’s joke, Tom
quickly explained. “The man you met is my friend Chow. He prepares our meals
and travels with us around the world. He’s from Texas, where real cowboys
live. Those colorful shirts of his are — sort of a hobby. We don’t sell them
here.”
“Not as of yet!” Dilling rushed to say. “But we do have Swift
Enterprises souvenir shirts in the Visitor Center gift shop. If you want to
impress the folks back home and show that you’re a real American
inventor, pick up one of the blue-striped white tees, like Tom himself
wears.”
Tom answered a few questions and shook a few hands. Then the
middle-aged man who appeared to xxxxxxxxxxx |
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be the tour leader and supervisor, a sour-faced type, said: “We
have now seen the hangars and the great airship underground. The students
were hoping to see one of the laboratories where you, as one might say, put
together the inventions. This one, perhaps?”
Tom nodded. “Why not? I’ll show you the machine I have that makes water
fly!”
“And soup, too,” Bud added.
Inside the lab Tom demonstrated a small hand-held model of his
repelatron and explained how he had used it to outwit some bad men
who had tried to take over his undersea hydrodome. The students were
wide-eyed with wonder at these American marvels.
Suddenly a sharp, splintering crash caused Tom to whirl about. One of
the young men, who had drifted somewhat away from the group, was bending
down and holding his hand, a tray of shattered microscope slides on the
floor by his feet.
“Ow!” he cried. “I am bleeding, I — I think I
— ” His face was white
and he seemed about to topple over. Tom rushed up to support him, and the
student leaned close against him.
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“I’ll call the infirmary,” Tom said reassuringly. “Dr. Simpson will
take care of your cut.”
The young man bent his head down low to his chest. His back, and Tom’s,
were turned to the rest of the group. “Tom, listen!” he whispered,
almost inaudibly. “I must speak to you. Something horrible is going to
happen! But the others can’t know that I’ve talked to you!”
His voice was desperate — and terrified!
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CHAPTER
2
THREAT FROM THE
COSMOS
“IS PETAR all right?” demanded the
tour leader worriedly. “Is he ill?”
“He’ll be fine,” said Tom, thinking furiously.
“Shall I call Doc over?” Bud asked.
“No, Bud. Listen, why don’t you go on with George and the tour
— show
them the observatory. I’ll take Petar over to the infirmary myself. We’ll
join up with you.”
“Sure, Skipper,” replied Bud. He sensed something in his pal’s voice
that warned him not to ask any questions.
Before the group could leave, Tom guided the student out into the hall
and on to the ridewalk, xxxxxxxxxxx |
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which whisked them out into the sunlight.
“Are you really hurt?” the scientist-inventor asked.
The young man, who appeared to be about 20 years old, stood up
straight. “No. I apologize for the glass things — it was necessary.”
“I thought Brungaria was over all that thought-control,
cloak-and-dagger stuff,” commented Tom wryly.
“Brungaria has changed much,” said the student; “some things
— they are
slower to change. Mr. Atkossov watches over us carefully. If he reported I
was talking to you secretly, the state police would ask me what we talked
about, and it would not go so well.”
Tom led Petar into an employee lounge, deserted for the moment. “We can
talk here.”
They sat down on a sofa and the young man fixed Tom in a serious gaze.
“My name is Petar Nevolyan. I am in — you would call it the graduate level of
instruction, in electrical technology. At the Aca- demy.”
“Is there something wrong at the Academy?” asked Tom.
“It has not to do with the school, no. It is this.” Petar paused,
gathering difficult thoughts. “My older brother, Samimel, works for COSMOSA.
You know of that?”
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Tom nodded. “Yes, the agency of your
government in charge of space and rocketry, like our NASA. I met people from
COSMOSA up on Nestria — the astronauts with Col. Mirov.”
Nestria was Earth’s tiny new moon, an asteroid that Tom had landed on
and begun exploring in the name of the United States, as recounted in Tom
Swift on The Phantom Satellite.
“Samimel works there; computer work,” continued Petar. “Sometimes he
hears things, or intercepts messages — computer messages. He does not try to,
but it happens. Late one night, just before we left for America, he called
me from a phone at a restaurant, a place in the country. He was very
upset — what do you say? — distraught. You know?”
“Yes.”
“He said, one of the messages, he thinks it came from a secret group,
scientists who work for COSMOSA but also meet in secret. There is a group in
my country, i-Szentimentalya — that is to say, the Sentimentalists.
They wish to bring back the old way, the government as it was before.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Tom said. “It’s thought they
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have sympathizers planted in the current
go- vernment.”
“Some say so, yes. The planted persons are those who think they would
benefit if the new democracy were overthrown. But the point is, Samimel told
me that this group has made radio contact with the space people, the ones
you call your space friends!”
Tom suppressed a gasp of surprise at the news. Ever since these
friendly scientists from another planet had guided a missile to Swift
Enterprises bearing a message, they had chosen to communicate only with Tom,
whom they seemed to trust, or with the young inventor’s father. Though the
world knew of the alien beings, their messages, now sent by radio in
symbolic form, had normally been directed to special receiving equipment at
Swift Enterprises or, on occasion, to Swift spacecraft. The thought that the
anti-democratic Sentimentalists faction might be in touch with the space
friends was deeply disturbing.
Petar seemed to read the expression in Tom’s eyes. “It is bad, yes. But
there is worse.”
“Tell me.”
“Samimel thinks a ship, a capsule, is being sent to us from space. Tom,
it contains sick animals, animals xxxxxxxxxxx
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dying of a disease that could pass on to the living cells of earth creatures and kill them
— all of them!
Like an epidemic!”
Tom Swift felt the horror of the idea! “If it can really cross over
from alien life-forms to our kind of life, we would have no defense against
it. But why would the space friends do such a thing?”
“I think — Samimel thinks — the secret scientists have made promises to
help them, as if they knew about such diseases and could cure it for the
space people. But Tom, listen to me, they will use it as a threat against
the government, against the whole world!”
“I understand,” said Tom quietly. “Does your brother know you were
going to tell me all this?”
“He knew I was to come here and begged me to tell you, to convince you!
And then — ”
“What else, Petar?”
Tears sprung into the young Brungarian’s eyes. “I tried to call Samimel
when I got to America, but they said he was sick, in a hospital. When I
called there, they had no record! I — I am much afraid — they have killed him.”
Tom grasped his hand in sympathy. “And now I have told you all I know. Take
me back to the others now, please. Surely the xxxxxxxxxxx
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professor, Atkossov, is already suspicious.”
They stood. Tom looked the other in the eye. “You’re very brave, Petar.
I hope your brother is all right, but whatever might have happened, I know
he’d be proud of you.”
In deep silence Tom guided Petar Nevolyan back to the tour group,
meeting up with them at the big observatory dome at the edge of the plant.
“The doctor says he’ll be fine,” Tom told the overseer of the group, who
nodded but gave Tom a suspicious look.
As the tour went on along its way, Tom motioned for Bud to stay behind.
As they began to ridewalk back to the main lab building, Bud nudged his
friend. “Okay, Tom, that fishy smell in the air isn’t from Chow’s catfish
stew. It looked to me like that guy knocked over those slides deliberately.”
“Ten points for Barclay,” Tom confirmed.
“What’s it all about?”
Tom told Bud the story, speaking carefully and calmly. “We don’t know
how much of it’s true, if any of it is,” he concluded. “But if Petar was
play-acting, he’s mighty good at it.”
“An epidemic from outer space!” Bud boggled. “What do you plan to do?”
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“The first step is pretty obvious,” said the
young inventor. “Contact our space friends!”
The two friends hurried to the space communications center that had
been established in the airfield control tower. Here the imaging
oscilloscope, which translated the signals received by the experimental
magnifying antenna into visual form, was located. The center was staffed
round the clock by specialists trained in the mathematical symbol-code used
by the friendly beings, the team supervised by Nels Gachter, a brilliant
student of the application of mathematical logic to communications theory.
“Tom! Bud!” Nels exclaimed as the boys rushed in. “You have the look of
someone expecting an im- portant message — or wanting to send one.”
“I hope she’s all warmed up, Nels,” said Tom. “We need to transmit
something immediately.”
“The transmitter awaits you,” replied Gachter with a smile. “Mars is
getting a bit low on the horizon, but you still have a fair window, perhaps
forty minutes.” The alien scientists had hinted that they operated from a
scientific base in orbit about the red planet.
Tom frowned. “It may take longer than that
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just to put the message together. But we can relay the signal through the
space outpost; they almost always have a line-of-sight to Mars.”
“I’ll contact Major Horton immediately.” Ken Horton was the commander
of the famous Swift Enterprises space station.
Tom sat down to work at a computer flatscreen, Bud at his elbow. “What
exactly are you going to say, Tom?” he asked.
Tom looked at his friend soberly. When Bud called him by his first
name, instead of a nickname like genius boy or Skipper, it was
a sign the matter at hand was grave indeed! “I need to tell them, as briefly
as possible, about the report we’ve received. And if it’s true what Nevolyan
said, I have to make them understand that what they’re doing is dan- gerous!”
“Who knows if these guys even understand concepts like danger or
good and evil,” muttered the dark-haired young pilot. “We don’t even
know what kind of bodies they have — if they have bodies at all!”
“We know they understand danger in some sense or other,”
commented the young inventor as he adjusted the computer controls. “Don’t
forget, xxxxxxxxxxx
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they’ve warned us about it before. They attach some sort of value to
life. But there’s another big problem on top of all that.”
“What problem?”
“If the Brungarian faction is already in com- munication with the space
friends, they may be able to pick up our own outgoing signals as well. We’ve
got to figure out a way to get our message through without saying anything
that would put Petar or his brother in danger.”
“I get it,” said Bud. But he lay a hand on his pal’s wrist. “And I know
something else, Tom, and so do you. We may just have to take that risk.
Because it sounds like it could come down to those two lives versus the
lives of every living thing on Earth!”
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CHAPTER
3
MIXED
MESSAGES
TOM NOW set his formidable young mind
to the difficult task before him. Communication between earthly humans and
the other-planetary scientists was based upon complicated visible symbols
that re- presented universal concepts in mathematics and logic, concepts that
were presumed to be the same on any world, anywhere in space or time. As
inter- preted by Tom and his father, these concepts paral- leled concepts in the
natural languages of society.
Yet it seemed there were many barriers to understanding, many
unexpected difficulties. So much of human communication depended upon a
prior familiarity with ordinary human institutions, human needs, and human
emotions. The space friends had xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
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none of these, so far as was known. Their
mode of society was as unknown as the form of their bodies, their scientific technology as strange
and inexplicable as magic. Even their motives in making contact with our
planet were far from clear.
And now, somehow, Tom Swift had to construct a message of the gravest
importance, un- derstandable to those meant to receive it, but completely
opaque to mankind’s earthly enemies!
He muttered, half to himself and half to Bud, as he worked out the
various figures on the flatscreen, consulting frequently with the “space
dictionary,” a computerized record of symbols previously used which had been
compiled by Tom and his father, Damon Swift. “Let’s see, I can use the same
cluster of symbols they used to signify ‘danger’ when they transmitted that
warning to us in the Star Spear. And I can pair their symbol for
negation, or reversal, with the shapes we’ve interpreted to mean ‘friend’ or
‘friendly,’ as when they say ‘we are friends’.”
“I see,” Bud remarked, not intending to provoke an answer. “That’s
their call-sign — like a signa- ture.”
“They’ve talked about the environment for life often enough,” murmured
Tom, “and here, I think I xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
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can abstract part of this cluster to represent
bodily health… something like ‘completion’ or ‘satisfaction of the
equation’…” Perspiration broke out on the young inventor’s forehead as he
focused his concentration to the utmost. Finally he gave a sharp nod and
flashed Bud a grin of triumph.
“Done!” he exclaimed. “That wasn’t too bad. How long did it take,
flyboy? About an hour?”
Bud chuckled. “About three! So what did you come up with?”
Tom showed his pal the translated message on the screen, reminding him
that it was only an approx- imation of the intended meaning.
TOM SWIFT TO SPACE FRIENDS . DATA
RECEIVED CONCERNING ARRIVAL OF LIFE FORMS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN LIFE FUNCTIONS .
CAUSAL FACTOR MAY BE DANGER TO ALL LIFE HERE . NEW METHODS NECESSARY TO SOLVE
PROBLEM . RESTRICT COM- MUNICATION TO THIS SOURCE ! AWAIT YOUR REPLY .
“Wow! Not bad!” exclaimed Bud admiringly. “I almost understand it
myself! You’re telling them the diseased animals are a danger to us, and
they need a better plan.”
“Exactly! And I’m hoping my wording will suggest xxxxxxxxxxx
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to any ‘eavesdroppers’ that we’ve already ex- changed messages with the space friends on the subject, as if this were a follow-up.” He pointed with his
finger to the exclamation mark ending the next-to-last sentence. “I used
their ‘exponentiation’ symbol to give emphasis and urgency, as they have
done in the past.”
“I remember,” Bud said excitedly. “So let’s send it off and see what
happens!”
With the assistance of Nels Gachter Tom fed the array of symbols into
the messaging computer, which beamed it off into space via the big antenna.
In moments they received confirmation that the signal had been relayed by
the outpost in space.
Then came the most difficult phase of all — waiting. As the long
afternoon became longer, Tom and Bud grabbed sandwiches for a late lunch,
but remained close to the communications center. At four eighteen the
alert-bell rang on the translating computer, and the boys rushed up to the
screen in great excitement. A cluster of the strange hiero- glyphs appeared on
the imaging oscilloscope’s readout monitor. Beneath the symbols appeared the
computer’s tentative translation, derived from the space dictionary.
RESPONSE FORTHCOMING
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“Good night!” Bud grumbled. “All that time for a dinky message like
that?”
Tom gave his pal a friendly poke. “Patience, space cadet! Most of that
time was just transit time to their base and back again. With something this
complex, it may take hours or even days for them to put together — ” Tom was
interrupted in mid- sentence as the alert-bell rang again!
Gachter’s eyes widened. “Another message already!”
TO TOM SWIFT. WE ARE FRIENDS . A
CONDITION OF DANGER
There the translation stopped and a buzzer sounded. Tom sighed. “No
surprise — new symbols that the computer can’t even guess at! I’ll put them on
the flatscreen and see what I can come up with.”
Tom’s experience in interpreting the space beings’ mode of thought
seemed to lend skill and speed to his efforts. By supper time he had put
together what seemed a reasonable continuation of the interrupted message
from space, which he showed to Bud and to his father, who had arrived in the
meantime and had been
briefed on the develop- xxxxxxxxxxx |
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ing crisis.
A CONDITION OF DANGER HAS DEVELOPED ON
OUR PLANET OF ORIGIN . THE LIFE FUNCTIONS OF FORMS OF ALL KINDS HAVE BEEN
IMPAIRED BY COMPONENT UNITS ALTERING MASSED LIFE STRUCTURES FROM WITHIN .
ALTERNATE SOURCE ON YOUR PLANET REPLIED TO FIRST MESSAGE . IN CONSEQUENCE A
SPECIMEN CONTAINER WAS SENT BY OUR - - - - . WE ARE NOT ABLE TO ACT TO
PREVENT THE COM- PLETION OF ITS SEQUENCE. CONTAINER COURSE WILL TERMINATE AT
- - - - SEVENTEEN ROTATIONS . SOLVE FOR POSITIVE RESULTANT IF YOU ARE
ABLE . NO COMMUNICATION PENDING RESOLUTION .
“Great day!” muttered Tom’s father in grim astonishment. “A terrible
predicament.”
“What about those two squiggles in the middle of the translation?” Bud
asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Untranslatable symbol clusters,” explained Tom. “At least Dad and I
can’t make them out on our first attempts.”
“But we do have a few likely ideas, son,” Damon Swift reminded him.
“The first term suggests some- thing dominating or controlling, perhaps a word
like authorities or even masters.”
“In other words, the guys in charge back
home,” xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Bud said.
“Right,” confirmed Tom. “And it seems the local group of scientists
— the
ones based at the Martian station — won’t, or can’t, block what the others
have already set in motion. As to the second unknown term — ”
Tom exchanged glances with his father.
“What is it? Where’s the thing going to come down?” Bud demanded
nervously.
“The most likely translation,” began Mr. Swift, “is along the lines of
‘the mass in orbital period of thirty rotations’.”
“Thirty rotations,” Bud repeated. “Doesn’t ro- tation mean a
rotation of the earth — a day?”
Tom nodded. “That’s right. And the mass in orbital period of thirty
days has to be the moon — Earth’s moon!”
Bud gaped in amazement. “Then — they’re landing that animal capsule on
the moon!”
“Precisely, seventeen days from now. Which shows considerable wisdom
and foresight,” noted Mr. Swift. “The sterile, airless lunar environment is
a perfect place to land a vessel of animals bearing an unknown infectious
agent.”
“But — but — !” For a moment Bud’s excited thoughts outraced his voice.
“So we take a trip to the moon. No big deal! But how do we find the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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capsule? They didn’t give a location!”
“Which is also pretty clever of them,” Tom mused. “They understand
now — the local scientists, at least — that the gang that responded to their
first message may not be helpful contactees after all. So they’re not
broadcasting the precise location of the landing, assuming that we
will be able to get up there first and can use our own technology to find
the craft.”
“I get it now,” said Bud. “It’s the seacopter hunt all over again
— but
on the moon this time!”
Not long after the construction of the Swift space outpost, the space
friends had transported a sealed capsule of plantlife specimens to Earth for
Tom and his associates to study. As in the present situation, a rival
communicator had interfered, and the vessel had been brought down in the
Atlantic ocean. It had been up to Tom to search out the location of the lost
rocket in his diving seacopter.
The animated discussion continued as the two Swifts and Bud had supper
in Tom’s nearby electronics lab, a meal provided by Chow Winkler — who
listened in as a welcome participant.
“So them space folks have got sick animals on their hands?” Chow said
with a frown across his xxxxxxxxxxx |
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broad, billowy face. “When we had sick cattle back in Texas, we’d pull
’em out — quarantine ’em.”
“This situation sounds a lot more serious, Chow, if we’re interpreting
the message correctly,” Tom responded. “It seems this ‘disease,’ if that’s
even the right word for it, is a sort of phenomenon we’ve never seen here on
Earth — something very general that can pass from organism to organism without
re- gard for species.”
“There seems to be a suggestion that the phenomenon acts on living
cells internally,” com- mented Damon Swift thoughtfully; “perhaps on the
nucleotide chains of the cell nucleus itself. Even alien life would probably
be based upon some such structuring element.”
Bud gulped down a swallow of soda during the grim silence that
followed, breaking it with: “Then what you’re saying is — the disease could
affect life on Earth — animals and humans, too!”
“Brand my cosmic cough drops!” gasped Chow. “It could be the gol-sarned
end o’ the world!”
“Especially if this renegade Brungarian faction gets their hands on
it,” Tom declared. “Even if they intend to use it only as a threat,
who knows if they’ll be able to contain and control it?”
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“Who knows if we will!” Bud pointed out.
As Chow began to clear the plates, Mr. Swift noted that a number of
issues remained completely unresolved. “To name just one thing, where
exactly is the container-vessel coming from? The message implies that it’s
coming from the space friends’ home planet, but that’s surely in another
star system light years distant. How could it be directed across
interstellar space in the brief span of time since communication has been
established with the Brun- garians?”
Tom snorted. “Dad, you might as well ask how the Mars station
communicates with ‘home’ so quickly! All we know is the same thing we’ve
known all along — these beings have some sort of technology that allows them
to manipulate space and time, matter and energy.”
“Well,” Bud said, “us earthlings can do a little manipulating of our
own — especially earthlings named Swift! But do you really think you can get
your Gyro-Jumper up and running for a moon trip before those secret
scientists beat you to the capsule?”
Chow, tray in hand, shifted a puzzled gaze between Bud and Tom.
“Gyro-Jumper! What in xxxxxxxxxxx |
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tarnation’s that?”
Despite the grave situation Tom and his father couldn’t resist some
soft laughter. “You know Bud, Chow,” Mr. Swift said. “He has a weakness for
puns and nicknames.”
Tom crossed the room and picked up a lightweight plastic model, holding
it for Chow to see. “It’s the new spaceship, pard. I know you’ve seen photos
of it in the papers.”
The model consisted of a cube-shaped central cabin that gleamed like
whitish chrome, suspended in the middle of a set of circling ringlike
rail-beams. There were two vertical rings at right-angles to one another,
which connected at the top and bottom, and another horizontal ring of equal
size which girdled the “equator” of the strange craft. The overall
configu- ration resembled a sort of gyroscope — hence Bud’s nickname for it.
“Oh, you mean that there repelly-tron rocket you’re buildin’ out on
Fearing Island,” Chow nodded. “But ya still don’t have a real name fer it,
do you.”
“Not so far,” Tom agreed. “But we’ve sure been getting a load of
suggestions.”
To promote interest in space exploration, George xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
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Dilling had come up
with the notion of inviting the public to send in ideas for the name of the new Swift space
vehicle, under construction at the Enterprises rocket and sub-craft base on
tiny Fearing Island off the coast of Georgia. There was nothing secret about
the huge, oddly-shaped vehicle; photos of it had appeared in world
publications for weeks, and letters and emails from the public had flooded
Swift Enterprises.
“She’s officially named the XRTV-1, you know — the Experimental
Repelatron Thrust Vehicle,” noted Bud. “That’s too much of a mouthful for
me.”
“Fer me too, buddy boy,” Chow agreed.
Damon Swift picked up the thread of the conversation. “To go back to
your question, Bud, the spaceship is already virtually finished. The last
remaining problems have to do with — ”
“These!” Tom concluded, pointing at one of a number of parabolic
dish-antennas that were fastened to the circular rails. “We won’t be going
anywhere soon unless I can figure out how to get the repelatrons to change
their settings rapidly. Otherwise we’ll have the same sort of problem we ran
into this morning in the Special — the mix of compounds and substances on the
ground beneath xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
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the ship varies from place to place in such a complex way that the repelatron can’t re-tune itself with
sufficient precision.”
“And then down she goes!” Chow declared. “And down’s a might
long way!”
Mr. Swift drew the tense discussion to a close by observing that it
would be prudent to add some specialists in life-science fields to the
roster of personnel already selected for the planned moon voyage. “Tom, your
mother has often mentioned one of her old professors — Glennon’s his
name — who’s the world expert in the application of quantum physics
methodologies to molecular biochemistry. And given the gravity of the
threat, I’m sure our government would have no objection to lending us Dr.
Faber.” Tom agreed enthusiastically. Anton Faber, who had accompanied the
Swift expedition to Antarctica during the atomic earth blaster mission, was
a renowned zoologist who had become a good friend.
“It’ll be great to see him again,” said Tom. To which Bud added:
“Let’s just hope scoping out outer-space animals isn’t a little too far
out of his league!”
By the next day plans to speed the preparations xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
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for the completion of
the repelatron spaceship and the journey to the moon were proceeding apace. When Bud
returned from an early-morning test flight of a new plane under study at
Swift Construction, he was told by Munford Trent, the Swifts’ shared
secretary, that Tom was already at work in the shielded high-energy test
complex. Bud, an athletic youth, felt a need to stretch his muscles, so he
avoided the cross-facility ridewalk and walked over to the building the
old-fashioned way: by muscle power.
It was a warm but overcast morning. “Hardly seems like the sun came
up,” he murmured to himself as he approached the big, square building.
Suddenly Bud stopped short — then broke into a run. A flash of brilliant
blue-white light had burst through the row of small windows just beneath the
line of the roof. At the same moment came a cry of fear from within — the
voice of Tom Swift!
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CHAPTER
4
BALL OF
FIRE
BUD BARCLAY exploded through the
unlocked double-doors of the test complex like the footballer he had been,
not slackening his speed. His best friend was in danger! “Tom! Tom!
Answer me!”
It took only an instant to discover which room Tom occupied. Blazing
light poured through the open door. Bud skidded to a stop, a hand shielding
his eyes. The blue-white glare seemed as formidable as a solid object.
He called out Tom’s name again, and this time was rewarded. “I’m
here, Bud — next to the wall!”
Bud spied a pair of heavily tinted work goggles hanging from the
wall and hastily slipped them on. Now he could see. But what he saw was hard
to understand!
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|
Tom, clad in a bulky protective suit with a helmet, was pressed against
the far wall next to a complicated assemblage of equipment that Bud could
barely make out. Between Bud and Tom the way was blocked by a weird floating
object, a rounded mass of pure blinding light, crackling like a faulty
electrical transformer and filling the air with the pungent smell of ozone.
The object did not hang stably in the air, but bobbed and weaved in
violent, jagged motion, like a toy balloon caught in a windstorm. Its shape
seemed to be constantly changing, elongating, flattening out, twisting into
a crescent shape with no rhyme or reason. Brilliant flashes pulsed from it
each time it changed direction, bolts of electrical fire lashing any
grounded piece of metal in the area.
“Stay back!” Tom shouted desperately. “It’s unstable
— it’ll fry you!”
But Bud was not inclined to stay back, or even hesitate. He could see
that the vicious-looking electrical effects were writhing agonizingly close
to Tom. They seemed to be closing in on him! Bud’s eyes searched his
surroundings, frantic to discover something that could help him rescue his
friend. Finally he made out a broad coil of thick, un-
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insulated wire lying on a nearby
workbench. It was the matter of a moment to clip the free end of the wire to
a metal bar protruding up from the cement floor which he knew, from previous
experiments, was well-grounded.
Bud’s powerful arms sent the coil spinning through the air directly
toward the ball of lightning, the coil smoothly unreeling as it arced across
the big lab space. As the wire came within two feet of the phenomenon, there
came a deafening bang and a blast of hot wind that almost knocked Bud off
his feet.
Dazed and dazzled, he steadied himself. The sphere of light had
vanished completely, dissolved into nothingness!
Bud ran up to his friend, but the young inventor lurched back. “No!” he
warned in tones muffled by his helmet, which seemed to have turned almost
opaque. “The suit’s hot and may have picked up a residual static charge.
Give me a second — I’m all right.”
Tom staggered a few yards and grasped one of the grounding-bars firmly.
After a half-minute or so, he let go and began to shakily strip off the
protective suit. “Good night!” he panted.
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“Didn’t look like any night I’ve ever seen!”
Bud retorted. “What in space was it — some kind of weapon?”
Tom shook his head. “No, chum. Call it a sign of success.”
“Huh?”
“That’s right.” Tom gestured vaguely toward the equipment heaped next
to the lab wall. “My new radiation converter — power for the spaceship.”
“Just about powered you to a cinder!”
“It created a self-sustaining high-voltage plasma, bottled-up in its
own magnetic field, which is what prevented it from dissipating. Basically,
ball light- ning!”
“I’ve heard of that,” Bud said. “And that’s what you were aiming for in
your experiment?”
A weak grin spread across Tom’s face. “Not exactly. But the power
produced by my machine was an order of magnitude higher than I’d expected.
That great pass of yours really saved my bacon, flyboy — or maybe I should
say, kept my bacon from frying!”
Bud shook his head. “What’re we gonna do with you, genius boy? But
anyway, does this mean your converter is ready for the flight?”
“It’ll need some adjustment,” replied Tom rue- xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
|
fully. “But it sure looks
like it’ll produce enough power to run the Gyro-Jumper’s big repelatrons.”
“Uh-huh. You couldn’t just stick with those solar batteries that almost
vaporized us both a few ad- ventures ago?”
“It’d take a thousand of ’em,” the young scientist-inventor explained.
“The converters — there’ll be a pair of them — will be mounted outside the hull
of the ship. What they do is capture and focus high-energy cosmic particles
in a way that separates the charges by polarity, creating a voltage gradient
that — ”
“I’ll take your word for it, Skipper!” Bud interrupted.
Later that day Tom and Bud drove to Shopton’s small, but rapidly
growing, commercial airport to pick up Drs. Faber and Glennon. It had been
arranged for the two scientists to fly in together so that they might become
acquainted.
Dr. Faber was first off the plane. The tall, keen-eyed scientist beamed
at Tom and Bud through his thick-lensed spectacles. “How delightful to see
the two of you again,” he exclaimed, shaking the boys’ hands with gentle
warmth. “Such a great deal has happened in, and to, our little world
since the polar trip! And I do thank you for seating me next xxxxxxxxxxx |
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to Evan here, who turns out to be quite as
voluble a talker as I myself.” Then he added humorously: “Though I fear one
cannot always make out what he is trying to say — eh, Evan?”
“Nonsense!” chuckled the other man good naturedly. “Sut hwyl,
Tom Swift! And you too, friend of Tom! What cheer?” The professor greeted
them heartily, seizing their hands in turn in a meaty grip. He was a short,
thick-set, jovial Welshman with a shock of gray hair still streaked with
traces of red, thatched above a pair of twinkling blue eyes.
Tom, who had looked up a few words in Welsh, grinned back at him.
“Do iawn, diotch! Very good, thanks. This is my friend, Bud Barclay.”
Bud wincingly regained ownership of his hand. “Glad to know you,
Professor.”
“Look you, lad! The name’s Evan and don’t you forget it!” On his tongue
Evan was ay-van and don’t was dawn’t.
Soon after they reached the plant, they proceeded by electric nanocar
to the conference room in the administration building where Mr. Swift and
Harlan Ames, chief of Enterprises security, were waiting. Bud politely
excused himself.
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The two had only been provided a sketchy, minimal report on the nature
of the problem at hand; though naturally a thorough report had been given
the United States government. They understood that they were being asked to
accompany the Swift expedition to the moon, and that the main goal,
unannounced to the general public, involved attempting to advise the
extraterrestrials as to the deadly plague. As the discussion began, Dr.
Faber said, “I’m willing to be very suave and blasé about going to the moon
with Tom Swift. But if we’re to help, we’ll need to know more about the
symptoms of the disease.”
Evan Glennon nodded between puffs on his huge briar pipe. “Quite right.
And for me, the most precise molecular and chemical data. We can hardly make
a diagnosis until we have the facts.”
“Unfortunately, it appears the aliens have cut off all communications
for the duration,” responded Ames. “From a security standpoint that’s a good
thing, but it certainly puts you gentlemen in the most difficult position
imaginable.”
“Quite so,” frowned Dr. Faber. “To be frank, I fear success may be well out of reach.”
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The group exchanged frustrated, baffled looks. Then Evan Glennon said,
“Ah, no sense giving up the game in the first round, Anton. We’ll make our
examinations on the spot and put our wits to the test, eh?”
“I don’t wish to be discouraging, but I’m afraid it’s hopeless without
something more to go on.” Dr. Faber said. “We might tell them about our new
synthetic drugs and antibiotics. However, the chance is slim that these
would conquer a totally unknown disease affecting a completely unearthly
biology.”
Mr. Swift drummed his fingers on the conference table. “Even if we
convinced them of the necessity of providing detailed information in
advance, trying to translate those unknown symbols might take weeks,” he
said, frowning. “If we could accomplish it at all.”
“Do we at least know what caused the out- break, Damon?” put in Glennon.
Mr. Swift shook his head. “No. That’s what puzzles me. Our space
friends are highly advanced in science, so one would expect them to have all
disease-causing germs or viruses under control — xxxxxxxxxxx
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|
unless it’s something new on their planet.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Tom said. “The infection may have been
picked up from another planet — perhaps from earth itself.”
Evan Glennon puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. Dr. Faber muttered, “I
take it we know absolutely nothing of the basic biological structure of
these life-forms. One would like to have at least some tissue samples or
germ cultures.”
Tom brightened. “That may be the solution!” He looked at his father.
“What do you think, Dad? Do you know what I’m referring to?”
Mr. Swift nodded thoughtfully. “It’s worth a try,” he agreed.
At this point Harlan Ames objected. “Tom, Damon, it’s your decision
— but
I have to point out that there are legal and security issues involved — if
you’re referring to what I assume you’re referring to.”
Glennon uttered a few terms in Welsh that were best left untranslated.
“The life and death of a planet or two hang in the balance, and you’re
concerned with such things? Preposterous!”
“I do understand the issues involved,
Professor,” xxxxxxxxxxx
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Ames responded coolly.
“Harlan is doing his job,” said Mr. Swift. “And now I’ll do mine. Tom,
go ahead and explain what we’re talking about.”
The younger Swift took a deep breath. “By telling you this I’m
breaching security regulations issued by Washington.”
“We’ll be good,” stated Faber with an ironic smile.
“The Welsh have no program for world con- quest,” added Dr. Glennon. “At
least, none that I am aware of.”
“All right then,” Tom continued. “The world knows about the
meteor-missile that landed at Enterprises, and our subsequent radio
contacts. But the world doesn’t yet know that we have already received
samples of extraterrestrial life.”
Wide-eyed, Glennon exclaimed. “But that’s marvelous! Marvelous!”
“Not quite as marvelous as you think, Doctor,” Tom observed wryly.
“These were samples of vegetation sent to Earth in a sealed transport
capsule which we recovered from the ocean. Apparently, the capsule was
engineered so that it could not be opened unless the external environment
was safe for the plants inside. But before we could even begin to xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
|
create
such an environment, the plants all died from some unknown cause. Nothing we’ve come
up with has been able to penetrate the shell, and the space friends don’t
answer our inquiries on the subject.”
“If you can’t open it up, how do you know the plants have died?”
objected Dr. Faber.
“The shell is completely transparent,” explained the
scientist-inventor. “We saw them wilt. Subse- quently they’ve become
desiccated and very fragile.”
Harlan Ames picked up the thread of the account. “After hashing out
questions of jurisdiction, the Federal government directed Enterprises to
place the capsule in their control. It is now maintained in a
low-temperature, high-security holding facility — es- sentially a large
underground vault — in Ohio, near Dayton. Access is carefully limited, though
Tom and his father are among the privileged ones.”
“Hmmph! Typical!” muttered Glennon from be- hind his pipe. “Well, it
won’t do us any good, not if we can’t get at the goods.”
“The point is, there may be a way after all!” Tom declared.
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CHAPTER
5
A
WAILED WARNING
ANTON FABER responded to Tom’s
announcement with a warm chuckle. “You see, Evan, it’s just as I told you on
the plane. No problem is beyond the ingenuity of these Swifts!”
“It’s something Dad and I have been working on for a while,” Tom said.
“It works in a lab setting, but we don’t yet know if it’ll work on the
life-capsule.”
“What is it then, lad?” inquired Evan Glennon.
“We call it a leptoscope, after the smallest quantity known to the
ancient Greeks,” was the answer. “Think of it as a combination
super-microscope and telescope. It also uses certain aspects of the
technology we developed for the
Swift Spectroscope.” Tom explained that the
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|
leptoscope picked up the penetrating spectronic radiation generated by the
atomic nucleus and computer-analyzed the holographic information contained
in the wave-fronts. “We use the data to construct an image on a monitor
screen. You can see representations almost all the way down to the level of
individual atoms!”
“In this case, its special virtue is its ability to work up to a
distance of several yards from the subject, without contact,” Damon Swift
added. “If the spectronic rays penetrate the transparent shell as easily as
photons do, the leptoscope will allow you gentlemen to examine the plantlife
remains in great detail.”
The meeting broke up with the Swifts promising to acquire clearance for
the scientists to conduct the examination in the underground chamber. “It
will pro- bably take a few days,” Harlan Ames noted. “I’ll try to get our
government contacts to rush the process.”
As it was lunchtime, Tom arranged with Chow to set a table in the
executive dining room. When they arrived the rounded ex-Texan, who had met
Anton Faber during the South Pole project, greeted the scientist with
friendly enthusiasm. “Brand my skillets, with s’many different folks comin’
and goin’ at this here invention factory, it shor is good to run into a xxxxxxxxxxx
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familiar face now’n then!”
“And the best part is,” responded Faber, “that now we can have the
great pleasure of regaling Evan Glennon here with our tales of the frozen
south.” He added with a twinkle: “And in this sort of discourse, strict
scientific accuracy is not required.”
Shaking hands with Glennon, Chow said, “I reckon he means I won’t get
inta trouble fer a Texas whopper or two.”
“No trouble from me,” chuckled the scientist. “I’m a Welshman, you see.
What’s a life for, but song and story?”
Chow beamed. “I’d say you Welcher-types have a little Texas blood in
you!”
Tom called in Bud and they all ate a delicious meal together. For a
time the talk and laughter provided a welcome vacation from the dark, deadly
situation. Then Tom took the two guests on a tour of Enterprises, by
nanocar. Finally they were shown to their well-appointed living quarters, a
duplex bungalow for company guests somewhat shielded from the constant
rumble of the Enterprises airfield.
Tom rejoined Bud and they headed for the gleaming, glass-fronted
laboratory complex. “I did xxxxxxxxxxx |
|
what you suggested,” said Bud. “Just got off the phone. Sandy and Bash
love to put together parties, you know, even at late notice.”
“Didn’t think they’d mind,” Tom grinned. “It’s a nice way to express
appreciation to our guests. Good thing Bash is between quarters at the
Institute.” Bashalli Prandit, a close friend of Bud and the Swift family,
was a part-time student at the nearby DuBrey Art Institute.
“What’s next, genius boy?” Bud asked as they reached Tom’s lab.
“Back to work on my new spaceship repelatron.”
“Brief me again on it, will you?” the broad-shouldered young flier
urged. “The problem, I mean.”
Tom grinned. “Sure — maybe you’ll come up with the answer! Well, if
you’ve ever looked at a newspaper photo closely, you’ve seen how what
appears, from a little distance away, to be an image is really made up of
rows of printed dots, dark or light, big or small.”
“Right,” Bud said. “Same thing with TV pictures.”
“So when you’re close up you see the individual dots, and when you move
back they blur together. Now the repelatron has to deal
with something simi-
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lar if it’s going to function over long distances
— as
compared to the hydrodome’s water-repeller, which is never more than a
couple hundred feet from what it’s tuned to.”
Tom gestured with his hands to illustrate the movement of the new
spaceship. “When the ship is parked on the ground, it’s not hard to focus
each of the repelatrons on one particular mixture or combi- nation of elements
and substances; we use an adaptation of our long-range spectrometers to take
a reading, and the computer makes the tuning adjustment. But as the ship
rises up, the ‘angle of vision’ gets broader, so to speak, and — ”
“And the dots — the particular stuff you’re focusing on
— start blurring
together,” Bud interjected, always proud to be a quick study.
“Yup! The wavefronts start overlapping and interfering with one
another. That’s what happened to us up in the Pigeon Special: the technique
I was using just wasn’t powerful enough to bring the repelatron into focus
when we left the lake and flew out over solid ground. The lag effect in the
Lunite antenna rod also plays into the problem.”
Bud scratched his head. “Wish I had an idea,
Tom, but all I can say is — get that machine some xxxxxxxxxxx |
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glasses!”
Tom resumed his experiments with the small prototype of the space
repelatron that Arvid Hanson, Enterprises’ chief modelmaker, had created for
him. This was the same model that the youths had taken aloft the other day — a
compact rectangular chassis sporting a parabolic dish antenna, the
repulsion-force radiator with the spectrometer sensor built in. Bud watched
eagerly as his pal tried different new approaches, speaking his thoughts
aloud in a con- tinuous narration. Most of it was beyond Bud, but he found
himself grasping a bit of it now and then, and he liked playing backstop.
Hours later, Tom was still busy at his workbench with a jumble of
electronic parts and test gear when a knock sounded on the door.
“Come in!” Tom called without looking up. He heard the door open and
close.
“Well, aren’t you two even going to say hello?” a girlish voice
complained.
Tom whirled in surprise. “Sandy and Bash!” he exclaimed.
The two girls giggled at his startled expression.
“At least you remember our names after all
this time!” Sandra Swift said accusingly. Blond and xxxxxxxxxxx |
|
blue-eyed, Sandy was a
year younger than her famous brother.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Sandra,” warned pretty, dark-haired
Bashalli. “He knows us collectively, but you must ask him which one is
which!”
“Hey, we’re not so bad,” said Bud in mock protest. “At least we
remembered about the… the… say, Tom, wasn’t somethin’ going on
tonight — somewhere?”
“Something tonight? Involving the girls?” Tom said uncertainly. He
pretended to search his me- mory.
“We should have known, Bashi!” Sandy groaned. “How in the world are these
two lame- brains ever going to find their way to the moon?”
Tom slapped his forehead and grinned apologetically. “Oh, the party!
I’m sorry. It slipped my mind completely!”
“And in case you didn’t know,” Bud said, “the moon isn’t ‘in the world’
anyway.”
They all laughed together.
“You know, Thomas, I have heard that ‘all work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy’,” Bashalli commented. “I will admit that you are
not such a xxxxxxxxxxx |
|
dull boy — yet.” She smiled. “But I give you fair warning, I
just might change my mind by the end of this evening.”
“Okay, I’m warned.” Tom grinned back at the young Pakistani. “But don’t
expect me to put aside my poor repelatron before I’ve fixed it up.”
“Ohhh, more work!” Sandy pouted. “I know it’s important, Tom, life and
death and so on, but can’t you and Bud ever think of anything but work?”
“Unlike you two, I think we girls will not be young and pretty
forever,” teased Bashalli. “We must sow our wild oats and make hay while the
sun is shining, even at night.”
Tom gave her an apologetic hug. “Okay, Bash. We’ll try to make up for
it this evening.”
“I’m already working up a line of witty banter and boyish quips,” Bud
announced with a wink.
Just then a loud, shrill drone startled the foursome. A siren!
“What is it?” asked Bashalli, wincing.
Tom’s face had suddenly become very serious.
“That’s the general alert siren. It means someone’s broken into the plant in
a big way! I’d better call… H-Harlan…” He passed an
unsteady hand across his eyes.
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“Goodness,” murmured Sandy, “I feel so…”
Her voice trailed off and Bud cried out as she began to slump down to
the floor! Bud managed to catch her in his arms — but he too was sinking down,
with Bashalli next to him.
“Enterprises is being attacked!” Tom gasped. And he himself was
starting to collapse!
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CHAPTER
6
SPACE-SUITED INVADER
BY AN ACT of sheer will Tom forced
his hands to grip the edge of a lab table and his strong, slender arms to
prop him up. Assuming that some invisible, odorless gas had been released
into the air, he held his breath as his eyes probed the lab for something
that could help him.
Tom’s blue eyes lit upon the repelatron. In a series of lurching
motions he half-dragged, half-fell toward the machine. Fumbling fingers
switched on the power, and the twist of a flat palm against a control knob
adjusted the intake spectrosensor so that it would detect the unusual
substance in the air and tune the repelatron accordingly.
It’ll take a moment, he thought, lungs
ready
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to burst. The
lag effect!
Finally the young inventor could stand it no
longer. He sucked air into his lungs convulsively. But the air was good!
Almost instantly he felt stronger, more alert, energized. The repelatron
beam was forcing the knockout gas aside.
The warning sirens were still wailing. Tom swiveled the antenna so it took in the area of the lab where Sandy,
Bashalli, and Bud lay unconscious. After a moment he hastened over and
checked their pulses. “Pulses strong,” he murmured. “They’re doing okay
— for now.” Tom then
tried to telephone Ames’s office, then the main switchboard. The phones rang
without an answer.
Tom made his way to the lab’s wall of tinted windows and stood gazing
out on a scene of eerie silence and desolation. Aircraft sat on the runways
unmoving and inert; one prop-plane, caught in the act of landing, was
leaning over on one wing, its prop still spinning. Everywhere Tom could see
motionless figures sprawled on the ground, tools and equipment scattered
about them.
A movement caught Tom’s eye. On the far side of the airfield several
figures in Swift Enterprises work garments came staggering out of the portal xxxxxxxxxxx |
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that led to the rampway
connecting the surface with the huge
underground hangar where Tom’s great Flying Lab was berthed. Of course!
thought Tom excitedly. The hangar has its own air supply and
recirculation system — those guys wouldn’t have been affected!
But Tom’s hopes were dashed. The employees managed only a few wavering
steps into the open — then they too sunk down and collapsed into
unconsciousness.
Tom wondered frantically what he could do. How far was the effect felt?
Was Shopton also affected?
Just as he resolved to telephone the municipal police, he discerned
another movement outside — and this one didn’t falter! A strangely clad,
almost unearthly figure was striding rapidly and confidently across the
airfield. His garment, covering his entire body and hiding his face,
resembled a pressurized space suit. The figure’s goal was soon made clear:
the very lab Tom was standing in!
Tom looked about for a weapon and finally grabbed a metal support strut
used in experimental setups. Hearing the sound of footsteps in the main
hallway, Tom lay down on the floor, the strut hidden beneath him.
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The lab door whisked open. Through slitted eyes Tom saw a pair of black
boots of some shiny material step cautiously across the floor, pausing now
and then. A fluttering sound told the young inventor that the invader was
leafing through the pages of notes on his workbench.
The figure approached Tom, a slight hesitation showing that he wanted
to be certain that Tom was as unconscious as he appeared. Tom could sense
the intruder bending close, then straightening again, satisfied. As the
black boots stepped over the young inventor’s body, Tom struck like a cobra,
reaching up and grabbing the trailing ankle. With a sudden jerk, he sent the
raider sprawling!
The raider fought back viciously, trying to use his thickly-gauntleted
forearm as a club. But Tom managed to roll out of the way and launch himself
into action, butting his opponent squarely in the stomach! The figure went
down again, landing heavily on his back.
Before he could get to his feet, Tom was on top of him, hammering away
with rights and lefts that made the intruder’s opaque helmet whip left and
right, producing the satisfying sound of a fleshly head bouncing off a hard
inner surface. The raider, de- xxxxxxxxxxx
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spite the fact that he was at a disadvantage in
his cumbersome space suit, squirmed and fought like a cornered wildcat. But
Tom had a weapon as well as his fists. In a few seconds, Tom overpowered
him. Then he bound his limply quivering, semi-conscious prisoner hand and
foot with insulated duct-tape.
“Whew!” Panting from the struggle, Tom paused to catch his
breath. Everything had happened so fast there had been no time to take stock
of the situation. He stared at the invader in the strange suit and helmet,
and a staggering possibility leapt to mind.
Was his prisoner a space being of some kind?
“I’ll soon find out,” Tom muttered. He ripped off the clothlike,
flexible covering that shrouded the raider’s helmet and found a
sullen-looking man staring back at him through the plastic faceplate.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d say you’re just an earth dweller after
all. Okay. Start talking!” Not a sound left the prisoner’s lips, which were
bruised and swollen from combat. He merely shrugged, jerked his head as if
he did not understand English, and glared at Tom like a captured beast.
Suddenly Tom heard the distant whine of a
jet gathering power for take-off. The noise roused the young inventor from
his puzzled reflections. xxxxxxxxxxx
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Dashing to the window, he was just in time to see a
Swift jetcraft taxi to the end of a runway and power-down again. Enterprises
employees were beginning to stir and struggle to their feet, and suddenly
the warning sirens faded away.
“Good night! What’s happened to everybody?” came a husky voice. Bud was
awake! As Tom turned, he was relieved to see that Sandy and Bashalli were
also moving, their eyelids fluttering.
Sitting up, Sandy stared dully at Tom’s prisoner. “If that’s a Martian
invader, Tomonomo, I don’t think much of the species,” she murmured
groggily.
“He’s as human as we are,” Tom said. “Except this human doesn’t
mind using sleep gas against innocent people.”
“Maybe we should rip off that helmet and give him a dose!” Bud grated.
The prisoner did not react.
Making a series of frantic calls, Tom was able to ascertain that the
attack had caused no serious injury, though it had affected almost the
entire plant — every lab, building, and workshop that did not have its own separate air supply.
To Tom’s surprised pleasure the installation’s
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talented young medic,
Doc Simpson, had already diagnosed the cause of the sleeping plague. “It’s
not a gas, but a mist,” he explained over the phone, “tiny droplets
suspended in the air. I’m familiar with the formula, Tom; it was used in
Europe for a time as a surgical anesthetic, but now its use is largely
abandoned — the effect wears off too quickly.” Simpson described how the
substance, entering the bloodstream by way of the lung tissues, acted as a
powerful depressant of central nervous system functions. “It’s related to
the formulation still used by security forces in Russia, as when they took
down those hostage-takers in that Moscow theater.”
“Eastern Europe,” Tom repeated. “As in Brungaria! Thanks, Doc. I think
you’re going to have a pretty busy afternoon.”
“Don’t I know it!”
After speaking to his father and to Harlan Ames, Tom switched on the
plant’s public-address system and boomed out some reassuring words over the
mike. Gradually, reports began to filter in to the supervisory offices in
the administration building. Everyone had blacked out for about twenty-five xxxxxxxxxxx |
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minutes.
A security squad armed with Swift electric i-guns came to Tom’s lab on
the run and took the silent prisoner into custody. One of the men said to
Tom, “It was a fleet of micro-missiles, about a dozen, that set off the
alarms when radar showed them entering our airspace. They overflew the
joint, but Ames thinks they must’ve been spraying the sleep-stuff all the
way along. This guy climbed the north fence — no sign of any other invaders,
though. What do you think he was after?”
Tom shrugged. “He came directly here, and this is where I’ve been
working on my repelatron. I’m guessing that’s the connection.”
“Then someone working at Enterprises must’ve told him!”
“Not necessarily,” said the young inventor. “I’ve found that the
repelatron field sometimes generates an electromagnetic effect. Someone
might have doped that out and used some kind of instrument to detect it from
a distance.”
Tom drove Bud and the girls to the Enterprises infirmary, where an
anxious crowd had already begun to line up. Doc Simpson confirmed that they,
like everyone else, had all recovered without ill xxxxxxxxxxx
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effects from the sprayed drug.
“Who do you suppose pulled the raid?” Bud asked, when he heard what had
happened. “The Brungarian faction?”
Tom shrugged despairingly. “Makes sense. Your guess is as good as
mine, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Let’s hope we can learn something
from that man I captured.”
Leaving Bud with the girls, Tom hurried to the room used by Enterprises
security to temporarily restrain and isolate violators. The prisoner’s
pressure suit had now been removed, and he was dressed in loose, comfortable
clothes.
Harlan Ames and his assistant, Phil Radnor, had been questioning the
man. But he only looked at them, silent and insolent. Tom felt like taking
another swing at him as he realized the medical danger to which the
Enterprises workforce had been exposed by the attack. But he unclenched his
fists and managed to swallow his anger. “Find anything on him?” he asked the
security men. “Any clues?”
“Not a thing,” replied Radnor. “Our pal’s pockets proved to be empty.
Neither his space suit nor his inner clothing bore any clues to his
nationality.”
Ames gave a snort. “No label in the suit — not xxxxxxxxxxx
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even laundering
instructions.”
Forcing himself to speak mildly, Tom tried to engage the man in
conversation. But the prisoner merely shook his head to all questions and
maintained a stubborn silence.
“Maybe we ought to work him over a bit, and then see if he’ll talk!”
growled one of the watching security crew, who had suffered a nasty blow on
the temple when he was felled by the sleep-drug.
“Nothing doing,” Tom said firmly. “The Brungarians may mistreat
prisoners in their own country, but we won’t use their tactics.”
Ames nodded. “We can’t keep him. Jack here, and Paul Hann, will drive
him into Shopton and hand him over to the police as soon as we’ve made the
arrangements. He can wait for the Feds in jail.”
Tom nodded. “It’s about all we can do, I guess.”
Ridewalking back to the infirmary, Tom noted that the sun was low and
red. Now that he had time to turn his attention to Sandy and Bash, he
realized that their event for the evening was ruined. “I’m sorry,” he told
them soberly. “I suppose it’s too late for the party now.”
Sandy nodded. “I’ve already called Mother; she xxxxxxxxxxx |
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told everyone we’d have
to give them a raincheck. Don’t worry, Tom. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe we should apologize for bringing you such bad luck,”
Bashalli added sympathetically. “Lately we have been nothing but albatrosses
hanging themselves from your neck.”
“Cut it out!” Tom grinned. “Nobody got hurt, nothing was wrecked or
stolen, and now we have a prisoner!”
“Yes,” said Bashalli sourly, “how wonderful it is. We must get together
soon for another sleepover!”
Bud offered to take the girls to dinner in town. After they had left,
Tom contacted Evan Glennon and Anton Faber in the guest bungalow to make
certain the scientists, older men, had suffered no ill effects from the
attack.
“Ach, we two are fine and spry, m’lad!” Glennon exclaimed heartily. “In
truth and fact, we both slept right through it!”
After meeting for a time with his father, Ames, and Radnor, Tom
followed his father home for a late supper admidst drooping,
bedraggled party stream- ers and sad, listless balloons.
Tom was clearing the table when the telephone xxxxxxxxxxx |
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rang. “Tom? This is
Captain Rock!” came the familiar voice of the head of Shopton PD, grimly
excited.
“What’s wrong, Captain? Has something happened?”
“Absolutely. It’s enough to make me swear off my dissolute lifestyle
for a year. Tom, your prisoner has escaped!”
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CHAPTER
7
RIDE
’EM, COWBOY!
“OH NO,” Tom groaned. “Please
tell me you didn’t say that, Captain.”
“Feel bad? Think how I feel!” retorted Captain Rock. “This
outfit hasn’t lost a Brungarian spy in years! Seriously, Tom, we’re
all just sick about it.”
Trying not to sound upset, not succeeding very well, Tom asked the
police captain what had occurred. “Your two men, Jack Dellingmoor and Paul
Hann, came barreling in to our parking lot, in one of those Enterprises SUVs
you folks use, just a while ago. We were already starting to wonder where
they were.
“They said the prisoner had somehow worked his way out of his
restraints in the back seat and had xxxxxxxxxxx |
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looped a strap around Hann’s
neck, as if he were gonna strangle him. Your men gathered
that he was demanding to be set loose — not much need for deduction on that
point. The guy had them pull on to one of those unpaved side roads that
cross through the Freyner Woods — what’s left of it; they’re putting in a
Guess-What-Mart, you know — anyway, they let him out in the woods and he
hightailed it out of there, as we police-types say. He’s gonna have some
trouble if he’s still got cuffs on him.”
“I get the picture, Captain,” Tom said. But his voice was heavy with
thought. “Mind doing something for me before we hang up?”
“Sure, Tom.”
“Can you see our vehicle from your office window?
— I know it fronts the
parking lot.”
There was a pause, and then Rock said, “Sure can.”
“Can you see the door handle on the backseat door, driver’s side?”
“Well — yes.” Captain Rock sounded puzzled.
“How’s it look?”
“The handle? Matter of fact, it looks sprung, hanging on by one end.”
Tom nodded to himself. “And are our two em- ployees still there, at the
station?”
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“They’re filling out reports. Why? Want to speak to them?”
“No,” said Tom; “I’d just like you to take a look at their knuckles,
closely — especially the one named Jack. Would you mind?”
The voice at the other end gave a verbal shrug. “S’pose not. Playing
detective, are you?”
Tom chuckled but did not answer, and Rock set down the phone. After a
minute he had returned. “They acted a little funny about it, Tom,” he
reported. “Jack Dellingmoor’s knuckles are a little scraped up. I didn’t
ask, but he volunteered that he scraped ’em on a tree trunk when he tried to
chase after the prisoner. That’s the first time he’s mentioned that.”
“What do you think, Captain?” Tom asked. “Did it look to you like a
tree trunk ‘dunnit’?”
“Not really,” the man responded. “I would’ve expected parallel
scratches — striations. This looks more like the guy got into a fistfight.”
“And I think that’s exactly what happened,” said the young inventor
with smoldering anger. “Del- lingmoor was plenty angry and wanted to take it
out on the prisoner. My guess is that he decided to pull the car off the
road on his own, so it’d be out of sight. Then he forced the prisoner out of
the car — to give him room to swing his arm — re-shackled the guy to the side
handle by his handcuffs, then went xxxxxxxxxxx
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off on him with his fists. But the
prisoner was able to pull the handle half-off and work the cuffs free.
That’s when he started running.”
“Good gravy,” muttered Captain Rock, half in awe of Tom’s logic, half
in disgust at the actions of the men. “You’ve given us reason to charge them
both. But what about the escapee?”
“Nothing much to do,” was Tom’s rueful reply. “The FBI will probably
take over the search. It seems pretty likely that the prisoner was in the
employ of a foreign power. National security is involved.”
“Usually is, where Swift Enterprises is concerned,” noted Rock. “I’ll
keep you, and Ames, posted.”
After hanging up, Tom told his father of the new developments
— and
headed for bed. I didn’t get to sleep in the middle of the day like
everyone else did, he thought wryly.
Tom spent the following day hard at work in the Barn, as it was called,
the big assembly building on the Swift Enterprises grounds. With the
assistance of Hank Sterling, Enterprises’ young chief engineer, Tom was
preparing a special small test vehicle for the latest version of his
super-repelatron. Later that
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afternoon, after Sterling and the other workers had left, Chow Winkler came into the
building, bringing a cup of hot chocolate. “Somethin’ to perk you up,
pardner,” he announced.
“Thanks.” Tom grinned. He took a few sips. “Really hits the spot,
Chow!” He gave the cook a quizzical smile. “What brought this about?” he
needled.
“Oh, jest got t’ thinkin’ — about the moon and them sick space critters
and suchlike. You know, up there a person wouldn’t be moonstruck — he’d be
earthstruck! Makes ya stop an’ think.” The old cowpoke did not change
expression. He waited until he felt his young boss was in the proper mood,
then he announced the purpose of his visit. “Real reason I came around, Tom,
is to ask you a favor.”
“Probably granted,” said Tom. “But let’s hear it.”
“Wa-aal, boss, all this time you’ve been talkin’ about that Gyro-Jumper
o’ yours goin’ up to the moon, and you never once mentioned my name. You
figger you’ve got enough cooks an’ friends, or what?”
Tom looked at the stout, balding cook. The westerner was no longer a
young man — yet he was years younger than Dr. Faber and Dr. Glennon. In
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spite of his paunch and bow-legs, Chow had proven tough and
useful on previous expeditions — not only in outer space, but also in the
frozen Antarctic, tropic jungles, and the depths of the ocean. The young
inventor liked having Chow along. Yet he was concerned about the stress and
strain of this voyage, and the two-world crisis looming in the background.
“Pard, there’s nobody I’d rather have at my side than you and Bud.
But — ”
“Aw, now, you hadta go an’ say that there ‘but,’ dintcha.”
Chow’s broad face fell like a curtain. “Guess you don’t expect I kin keep up
no more.”
Tom stood and rested a reassuring hand on his friend’s arm. “It’s not
that. It’s just that this is a dangerous mission with a lot of unknown
factors. I guess I’ve been feeling uncertain — that’s my honest answer.”
The big ex-Texan nodded sadly. “Okay, then. I shor don’t mean to bother
you none.”
“I’m not saying no, Chow, I’m just — ”
“Aaa, let’s jest talk about somethin’ else,” interrupted the cook. Chow
paused as his eye fell on the new device Tom had spent the day assembling.
“Say, what’s this do-jigger yuh’re xxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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workin on now? Somethin’ new? Brand my
sweet p’taters, you don’t have to allus tell Bud about your inventions afore
anybody else, Tom. Mebbe I’d have somethin’ to say now and then.”
The young inventor nodded with an affectionate smile on his face. “Good
point. Well, this is a test-vehicle to see if my new repelatron circuitry is
up to snuff. If it works, we’ll use things like this on the moon to get
around as we search for the animal capsule. I’ve decided to call it a
‘flying carpet’ — or maybe a ‘repelatron donkey’.”
Chow squinted at Tom suspiciously. “Brand my buffalo stew, if I didn’t
know the things you cook up sometimes, I’d think you was pullin’ my leg. How
can you ride on this contraption? Don’t have no wheels that I kin see.”
The “donkey” consisted of a flat, disk-shaped platform about five feet
across, standing upon four curving struts, or legs, each one tipped with a
small circular pad. The parabolic antenna dish of Tom’s new repelatron was
attached to the underside of the platform, pointing straight downward toward
the ground. A thin conventional antenna wire extended up from a small metal
housing bolted to the platform.
Tom smiled at the skeptical look on Chow’s face. xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx |
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“I wouldn’t kid you,
old-timer. That’s really what it is — a sort of flying carpet. As I said, it’s for use on the
moon, to transport persons or supplies. You see, in some places the
terrain’s pretty rugged up there, with lots of clefts and craters, so ground
travel may be difficult. We don’t know exactly where we’ll find the capsule.
Flying platforms like this will allow our searchers to spread out.”
“How’s this thing work?”
“The body of the platform contains the repelatron circuitry and a
solar-battery power source. Here underneath is a force-radiator to direct
the repulsion beam downward so as to hold the disk suspended above the
ground. It’s swivel-mounted; by tilting the antenna slightly you can steer
the platform in any direction while staying aloft.”
“How about that li’1 ole box on the end of the wire?”
“That’s the remote-control ‘brain-box’ for testing the platform here on
Earth,” Tom explained. “I’ll be running it from the ground like one of those
remote-control model planes.” He added that a metal column with steering
controls on top would be installed in the lunar models, replacing the box.
Chow scratched his bald head. “Sounds
pretty xxxxxxxxxxx |
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neat, boss. Only ain’t that metal kind o’ thin for haulin’ heavy
loads?”
“Not on the moon, Chow. Up there, the pull of gravity is six times
weaker than on earth. So objects will only weigh one-sixth as much.”
“Hot ziggety!” The cook snapped his fingers. “Why, up there I’ll be a
reg’lar gazelle. Even with this bay window I tote around with me, I’ll run
like a ole deer. That is — ” he suddenly added, interrupting himself, “if’n
you jest happen to decide to — you know.” Chow forced himself to
recover his spirits. “When you goin’ to try ‘er out, boss?’
“Hank and I already did some testing in here. As soon as he comes back,
we plan to really put her through her paces — you can watch if you like. As a
matter of fact,” Tom added, “I’ll take it outside right now, to get it
ready.”
Tom switched on the power and picked up the handheld controller, which
had a joystick and miniature steering wheel. Chow’s eyes widen |