A brilliant white disk turned the sky to fire!

THE TOM SWIFT INVENTION ADVENTURES

TOM SWIFT
AND THE ASTEROID
PIRATES

BY VICTOR APPLETON II

  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

TOM SWIFT AND
THE ASTEROID PIRATES

  
  
CHAPTER 1
      
  
 

EXPLOSION IN SPACE

 
    
  
  
  
“OUTPOST to Sky Queen. Looks as if the storm on Venus is getting worse!”
    The message came crackling through the predawn darkness to Tom Swift aboard his Flying Lab as it streaked through the upper stratosphere, winging south at Mach-plus speed.
    “Can you make out any details through the electronic telescope?” Tom radioed back.
    “Not too clearly, Skipper,” the radioman re- sponded from the Swift Enterprises space station 22,300 miles distant. “According to the astronomy team, the planet’s cloud cover seems to be in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

a state of terrific upheaval.”
    Bud Barclay, the Queen’s copilot and Tom’s closest friend, turned anxiously to the crewcut blond youth at the controls. “Tom, does this mean our Venus probe will be scrubbed?”
    The two fliers, both veteran astronauts despite their scant years, had been looking forward eagerly to piloting the first interplanetary space mission, an orbital probe of Earth’s mysterious near-neighbor.
    “Could be.” As he spoke, Tom’s blue eyes ranged over the bank of special recording in- struments in the cabin of the giant research plane. “If Dad’s predictions are correct, the radiation may be too intense just now.”
    “Come on, genius boy! That Inertite coating on the Challenger will stop anything!”
    “That’s not the point,” was Tom’s reply. “We worked out a long itinerary of instrumental studies of the Venusian atmosphere. The atmospheric tur- bulence and static charge effects would make them impossible.”
    Bud understood and nodded, deeply dis- appointed. Months before he had participated in an earlier mission to Venus that had failed en route. The prospect of a new voyage on Tom’s huge  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Challenger spaceship, propelled across the space void by its bank of repelatron force beams, had softened the blow. “Maybe I’m a jinx,” Bud mut- tered.
    “Never mind! Let’s concentrate on our next trip — the one that starts in fifty minutes.”
    Muscular, dark-haired Bud flashed a hopeful grin at his pal. “Right. And it’s in the right direction, too — straight up!”
    Carrying a small group of atmospheric researchers aboard, the Sky Queen was headed for the Swift space-launch facility on tiny Fearing Island off the coast of Georgia. Here Tom and Bud would mount the skies aboard a special vehicle, Tom’s newest invention. Called the Extreme Altitude Instrumental Platform, the XAIP would bear them to the very edge of space, where Tom would test out its array of sensitive instruments. The purpose of the project, which had been de- veloped by Grandyke University, was to make difficult, valuable observations of Earth’s upper atmosphere.
    Presently Tom announced over the Flying Lab’s intercom that landing was imminent. “There’s the capsule,” Bud remarked, gazing down at the thumb-shaped islet through the Queen’s down- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

sloping view window. “They’ve got it all lit up. But when do they bring out the big bag?”
    Tom chuckled. “Hey, pal, I’m going to cut out my explanations to you if you’re not gonna pay attention! We generate the balloon-bag our- selves, from the capsule.”
    “Oh yeah. Right.” Tom’s XAIP was a remarkable vehicle of radical design. There had been extreme altitude manned research balloons before, but the XAIP was to be lifted by an enormous bag that could not be seen — and contained nothing!
    The silver Sky Queen hovered above the island airfield for a moment on its bank of jet lifters, then descended like an elevator for a smooth landing. The skyship’s main hatchway was less than one hundred feet from the XAIP capsule, which was shaped like a broad, truncated cone resting upon its base. A framework tower, its tip bristling with a cluster of oddly-shaped antennas, rose above. Sophisticated detection instruments extended from its slanting sides.
    As the passengers emerged and made their way down the Flying Lab’s extensible rampway, one of the researchers, Dr. Williamton, turned to speak to Tom. “So that’s the XAIP! But I’m xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

afraid I missed part of your briefing at the University, Tom. How does it work? That is — what lifts it up?”
    The young inventor smiled. “It’s basically a kind of super-balloon. We have a mechanism that produces and extrudes a shell of filaments, each one smaller than the nucleus of an atom, made of a unique substance we discovered called Inertite.”
    “Oh yes — from the African mountain.”
    “That’s right, Mount Goaba. The filaments shape themselves into an ultrafine ‘webbing’ that doesn’t interact with light waves but blocks molecule-sized particles. The shell is very rigid, but weighs almost nothing.”
    “And that’s your balloon bag,” said Williamton. “I suppose you fill it with helium?”
    Tom shook his head. “We don’t fill it at all, Doctor. As the shell expands without admitting air, the inside remains a vacuum. To counteract the air pressure outside, we use several directional repe- latrons tuned to the composition of the atmosphere. In other words, we push it back.”
    “But look, Skipper,” interrupted Bud, who stood listening nearby at the foot of the rampway. “Why do you need that invisible bag at all, hmm?  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Couldn’t the repelatrons create a big vacuum- bubble by themselves?”
    “Sure enough,” responded his friend. “But the resultant buoyancy, which involves a pressure differential pushing against a resistant surface, would only have the surface of the capsule to press against. Up in the thin upper atmosphere that’s not enough lift-force. The Inertite-filament shell vastly increases the surface area.”
    “Well,” stated Bud, “it was a good question, anyway.”
    “Sure was, flyboy!”
    Tom and Bud accompanied the team of scientists to the nearby control blockhouse, then returned to the XAIP and climbed aboard. After a final check of the readouts, and having verified with the Fearing control tower that the local skies were clear, Tom pulled the lever actuating the device that spun out the Inertite filaments. “We’re getting lift,” he reported to Bud. “Weight drop- ping on the ground struts.”
    There was no countdown. Within a minute, the XAIP took to the air, accelerating vertically as the balloon shell expanded.
    The vault of starry sky was immobile around xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

them. The only sign of motion was the Atlantic horizon as it slowly changed from straight line to curve. The XAIP capsule didn’t even rock, stabilized by an invention of Tom’s called the gravitex.
    The youths knew that their ascent would take nearly an hour. They chatted and bantered, and Tom began to describe a project he had been planning. Bud threw a hopeful look at his friend. “A space cruise?”
    “No — and yes,” Tom said. “I’m planning to set up a solar observatory on Nestria to try unraveling the mysteries of the sun’s radiation and its effects on other bodies in the solar system.”
    The phantom satellite Nestria, sometimes called Little Luna, was Earth’s second moon, a small asteroid which had been moved into orbit around the earth at an altitude of about fifty thousand miles. Tom had led a space expedition to claim the asteroid for the United States, and the Swifts had established a permanent base there with personnel to staff it. At the invitation of the U.S., other nations had also joined the scientific colony. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Bud, excited over the new project, began peppering Tom with questions. But suddenly the copilot stiffened in his seat and pointed off to starboard! “Jetz! What’s that over there? A rainbow at night?”
    A weird, filmy band of red, yellow, and green light was sweeping across the jet-black sky.
    Tom’s eyes, too, widened at the amazing spectacle. Then suddenly he chuckled! “Relax, pal. It’s a natural phenomenon called airglow, caused by the reactions of oxygen and sodium in the upper atmosphere. This is the first time we’ve had a grandstand seat to the show.”
    “Whew!” Bud settled back in relief. “For a minute I thought I was going loopy from breakoff!”
    Though neither Tom nor Bud had ever succumbed to “breakoff,” both boys knew about the giddy feeling of detachment from the earth sometimes experienced by jet pilots when flying at high altitudes. “Fat chance of that ever happening to an old spacehopper like you,” Tom reassured his friend.
    “Boy, I hope not! But getting back to busi- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ness,” Bud went on, “what’s causing all this fuss on Venus?”
    “Same thing that caused that airglow — a flareup on the sun,” Tom replied. “As you know, there’s a constant solar wind of charged particles blowing outward from the sun into interplanetary space.”
    “Right. You used it in your solartron and the Space Kite. See, I do remember your lectures!”
    Tom grinned. “Then you remember what happened when we were testing the Space Kite, the cosmic storm that fouled us up. Every so often the sun shoots out an especially hot gust of those particles — or plasma, as the stuff is called. Dad’s been making a spectroscopic study of Venus’s atmosphere. He figured that periodic conditions in the cloud cap were so unstable right now that the next gust of plasma might trigger a violent re- action.”
    “And he called the shot just right, hmm? Tough luck for us.”
    Tom nodded. “It’s beginning to look that way.” He fully shared his chum’s disappointment at the likely postponement of the scientific adventure.
    Presently Tom announced that the ascent of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the XAIP had reached its highest point in the uppermost reaches of the ionosphere. Bud watched as Tom pressed a master control button to start recording the instrument readings. The capsule’s equipment for the flight included a rubidium vapor magnetometer, radiation counters, stacks of nuclear emulsions, automatically ope- rated cloud chambers, and various specialized sensor devices provided by the Grandyke Uni- versity team.
    “That solar tantrum must be having a real effect on the earth’s ionosphere,” Bud commented, scanning several of the instrument dials.
    “Sure is,” Tom agreed. “That’s one of the things we’re studying. In fact, it throws the planetary magnetic field, which extends out further than the moon’s orbit, way out of kilter. Right now the earth is getting showered with all sorts of — ”
    The young inventor broke off abruptly, a startled expression on his face.
    “What’s wrong?” Bud asked, alarmed. He knew it took a lot to startle his adventurous comrade!
    “Up there at eleven o’clock!” Tom gasped, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

pointing out the domelike cabin window. “That burst of light!”
    Bud’s jaw dropped open in astonishment as he twisted around to see the phenomenon to which Tom was referring. A small starburst in the darkness at first, strange in color, the patch of light was growing larger by the moment. It looked like it was slowly spreading out into a sizable glowing fireball.
    “Good grief! What is it?” Bud murmured in awe. “A meteor?”
    Tom shook his head. “If it were falling into the earth’s atmosphere, it would show up as a streak of light from this height.”
    “Then what — a supernova?”
    “Couldn’t be.” The young inventor hesitated. “You know, Bud, if it didn’t sound crazy, I’d say that’s a thermonuclear explosion out in space!”
    “A nuclear explosion!” Bud stared at his friend. “You mean, like a hydrogen bomb?”
    “I don’t know,” Tom said with a baffled look. “But notice how the patch of light is spreading. That’s exactly what would happen to an atomic fireball in a vacuum, where it wouldn’t be held in by the counter-pressure of the air.”

    Tom paused long enough to throw a glance at the bank of instruments, then gave a whistle.
    “Man alive! We’re getting some kind of radiation already!” the young inventor cried. “Look at those counters! They’re going crazy! And so’s the magnetometer!”
    “Maybe the explosion, or whatever it is, was touched off by the solar outburst,” Bud suggested tentatively. “Could those particles from the sun have triggered a reaction in a cloud of micro- meteorites?”
    “Maybe. I doubt it,” Tom replied. “But Bud, that’s not what worries me. Look! — you can still make it out through the light of the blast.”
    “Hunh? Make what out?”
    “Nestria! That space explosion took place right next to Little Luna!”
   

  
  
CHAPTER 2



 

CONTACT — LOST!

 
       
  
  
  
TOM and Bud exchanged fearful glances. If the burst of deadly energy had taken place too close to the scientific installation on Nestria, the entire base crew could have been affected — even wiped out!
    Tom snatched up the microphone and radio- commed the wheel-shaped space outpost. Established in part for international television transmission, the space station was line-of-sight reachable from any location across half the earth.
    “Sky Haven. This is Horton.”
    “Glad I reached you, Ken. This is Tom. Are you

watching that burst of light?”
    The voice of Ken Horton, commander of the space outpost, reported: “We sure are, Tom! The observatory crew up here is in a tailspin trying to figure out this thing. Any idea what’s causing it?”
    “I was hoping you fellows could tell me,” Tom replied. “And I’m very concerned about our guys on Nestria.”
    “I’ve got Rockland on the other channel, Tom. No damage or injuries at Base Galileo — but their signal is blooey. We’re filtering and enhancing, but it’s pretty bad. Here, I’ll patch you through.”
    After a click, Kent Rockland, director of the American research installation on the tiny moon- let, came on line. “We’re okay up here, Tom, thank goodness. But the space tracking station is telling me the blast occurred very close to the surface and the base. Lit up everything. It’s dimming out now, though.” His voice was eerily distorted by the processing required to filter out the static, and it faded in and out like a ghost. “I’m waiting for a report from Jatczak. Oh — Simpson and Chow are here with me.”
 

    “Put them on, please.”
    Doc Simpson was Swift Enterprises’ young medical officer as well as a researcher in his own right. He had recently been ferried to Nestria to assess the longterm effects of reduced gravity on the colony team. Chow Winkler, Enterprises’ executive chef and Tom and Bud’s close friend, had asked to accompany him to “treat them poor folks up there to some decent victuals fer a change.”xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    “This is... so far no...”
    The voice wavered in and out of audibility. “Doc, is that you? I can hardly make you out.”
    “Yes, boss, it’s me. They say the radiation... the problem. I can barely... through all the static. But here...”
    A different voice came on, but the words were a mishmash of indecipherable sounds.
    “Repeat, Galileo. Chow, is that you?”
    “Brand my hamhocks, son, I cain’t...”
    “Yup, it’s Chow,” Bud confirmed, winking.
    “How’s everybody doing up there, cowpoke?” asked Tom with an affectionate grin.
    “They ’as all doin’ peachy-fine up till now! But that there...”

    The voice faded out suddenly with a sound like a grating hinge, and did not return. After a moment Ken Horton came on again. “That’s all, Tom. We can’t squeeze any more out of the signal. We’ll keep at it.”
    “Thanks, Ken. It’ll get easier as the radiation dissipates. Signing off now, but give Fearing or Enterprises a call the second you get any more data.”
    “Roger.”
    Tom unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. “Take over, Bud,” he said thoughtfully. “Keep an eye on the test readouts. I’m going up to the astrodome for a better look.”
    “Right, Skipper! I guess we’ve got the best seat in the house to watch the blast, except for the — ” Bud broke off with a yelp of surprise. A queasy falling elevator feeling swept over the youths, then subsided with a jolt. “What was that?”
    “What does the control panel — ” Tom’s re- sponse was interrupted as the same sensation surged through them, longer and more severe.
    As it faded out again, Bud gibed nervously: “What is this, air travel by pogo stick? Something’s gone wrong with the balloon-bag!”

    Tom’s deep-set blue eyes scanned the monitor dials. “No, the Inertite shell is stable. It’s the repelatrons. The radiation is affecting the tele- spectrometers — we can’t get a precise fix on the air composition. In other words — ” The young inventor gulped as the XAIP took another unexpected plunge! He finished: “ — we’re out of tune!”
    “Good night! Will we lose lift completely?”
    “No. In fact, conditions will improve pretty quickly,” Tom responded reassuringly. “As we reach the denser atmosphere, less of the interfering radiation will get through to us. I’ll start taking us down.”
    “Seems to me we’re already on our way, Skipper!”
    As Tom used the gravitexes to steer the descending XAIP, he kept the mysterious patch of light in view dead ahead in the sky. It still seemed to be expanding, but more slowly now. Its bril- liance had faded to a dull glow against the black of space.
    What had caused the explosion, Tom wondered silently — if it had been an explosion? It was certainly no official American nuclear test in space, he reflected, or the Swifts, and scientists and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

governments around the globe, would have been given advance notice. An unannounced atom blast in near space could set of a nuclear alert, even trigger a war!
    And why had the event occurred so close to the base on Little Luna? The young prodigy racked his brain for an answer, but without suc- cess.
    Using the gravitexes and the liftbag, which was stable again, Tom guided the XAIP back to its pad at Fearing Island. Touching down at last, the two hastened to the blockhouse to make a brief report to the research team. As they came out again, the Atlantic sky was turning pale with sunrise. The blob of light from the explosion was no longer visible.
    “Wonder if the outpost has anything new on it?” Bud murmured.
    “Ken said he’d call, but let’s try him again.”
    They made way quickly to the communications center in Fearing’s control tower. As they arrived, the operator on duty told Tom that he was to contact George Dilling at Swift Enterprises immediately. Dilling was in charge of the Enterprises office of information and was usually “in the loop” with respect to unusual events that xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

might stir public inquiries.
    “Good thing I came in early to work up a press release,” he told Tom in harried tones. “The nightshift guy in the space communications room told me a message came in about an hour ago through the magnifying antenna. It was the space friends, Tom!”
    Tom’s eyebrows peaked in surprise. The space friends, mysterious other-planetary beings who had established radio contact with Tom, communicated with Earth by a visual code of mathematical symbols which were mot easily translated, even with the assistance of the computerized “space dictionary” Tom and his father had developed. “What was the message, George? Has it been translated?”
    “Demassin’s come up with something by using the computer, but the space people had to send several different versions. He thinks the last one was simplified — even so, I’ll leave it to you to figure out what it means. Here, I’ll digi-fax it to you now.”
    In moments Tom and Bud were gazing at the message in perplexity. Beneath the array of strange hieroglyphics was the tentatively translated text in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

English.

WE ARE FRIENDS . TRANSPORT CONTAINER FROM TOM SWIFT SINGULARITY EXPONENTIATION BY OPPOSED FORCE MATTER.

     “Uh huh,” grumbled Bud. “These guys need a good ‘English as a second language’ course.”
    Tom was frowning deeply. “I can’t make it out either, pal. Still, it’s just a rough approximation. Dad and I will study the symbols. Anyhow, let’s get Ken on the horn.”
    Before he could signal the space station, a beep announced that the outpost was calling in. A tense, excited voice came over the speaker. “Sky Haven to Fearing! Do you read me?”
    “We read you, Ken — Tom here. But your signal is fading in and out.”
    “We don’t know what’s causing it, but... Bad news, Tom. That burst of light? Well, it must have been one of our unmanned cargo rockets ferrying the monthly supply packet to Nestria. Evidently it exploded!”
    Tom and Bud were stunned! “Are you sure it was the rocket, Ken? I mean — the shuttle drones xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

are just ordinary combustion-thrust rockets. There’s nothing aboard that could cause a nuclear explosion.”
    “We’re positive, Skipper. We pulled up the tracking data. All of a sudden it disappeared at the same time and at same spot as that burst of radiation. It must have disintegrated.”
    “But what caused the explosion?” Bud asked over the microphone. “Any clues?”
    “Not so far, hombre. It’s a total mystery,” Horton replied.
    Tom’s face was grim. “Okay. You know how serious this is, Ken. Stand by and keep us informed,” he directed. “I’m taking the Queen back to Enterprises.”
    Tom immediately called his father in Shopton, awakening him. “Lord! — this could quickly become a crisis, son. I’m sure it’s occurred to you that we may be dealing with sabotage.”
    “I know,” Tom stated. “And the deadliest kind — nuclear sabotage. The only explanation I can come up with is that someone planted some kind of thermonuclear device aboard the rocket!”
    “What a horrible thought!”
    Puzzled and worried, Tom guided the Flying xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lab back north. Bud was at his side as always, his young face full of question. As Tom banked the huge jetcraft into a sweeping turn and began the steep descent into the ship’s underground hangar at the Swifts’ vast experimental station, he was no nearer the answer. Thank goodness there was no crew aboard the lost rocket, he thought.
    Easing down past the massive ceiling doors of the hangar, the Sky Queen set down by means of its jet lifters and the boys and the XAIP scientists disembarked. As Tom and Bud hurried across the morning-lit Enterprises airfield on one of the ridewalk personnel conveyors, a messenger on a scooter came speeding out from the control tower to intercept them.
    “We just had a flash from Fearing Island, Mr. Swift,” he told Tom. “They’re saying they’ve lost all contact with Nestria! The men on the base don’t respond to our calls!”
    Tom turned white at the news. “Dad was right, Bud — it’s a crisis. And I’m afraid it’s turning deadly!”
   

  
  
CHAPTER 3


 

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

THE sudden news sent a chill of foreboding through Tom and Bud. Once again they had to consider a dreadful possibility. Had the rocket explosion destroyed the personnel on Nestria after all, by some delayed effect?
    “This is awful, Tom!” Bud gulped. “Jetz, you don’t suppose — all those poor guys up on the base — ”
    “Don’t say it!” Tom shuddered. “It could be just more of the radio interference. Come on, let’s see what we can find out through the space prober!” With a quick thanks to the messenger,  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tom dashed off with Bud at his heels. The two boys hopped onto another ridewalk and sped across the grounds of Swift Enterprises in a different di- rection.
    The experimental station was a high-walled, four-mile-square enclosure, crisscrossed with air- strips and dotted with sparkling modern research laboratories, test facilities, hangars, and work- shops. Virtually a scientific city, it was here that young Tom and his equally eminent father Damon Swift developed their many inventions, continuing the family tradition begun by the first Tom Swift, Tom’s renowned great-grandfather.
    In moments they stepped off before the astronomical observatory building in an isolated section of the plant grounds, topped by its great rounded dome. Tom and Bud hurried inside, find- ing Mr. Swift waiting next to the console of Tom’s “Mighty Eye,” his megascope space prober.
    Mr. Swift looked up and nodded as the boys arrived. He was talking on a portable telephone.
    “No, sir. As yet we have no clue to the cause, but we’ll keep you informed. Dilling’s department will be handling the public statements... Right! Goodbye.”
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    “More trouble, Dad?” Tom queried.
    “A bit. Just as we feared, the United States and Canada almost had a nuclear alert,” Mr. Swift said wryly. Spare and athletic, with graying hair, he looked a great deal like his son.
    “A nuclear alert!” Bud gasped. “On account of our rocket exploding?”
    Mr. Swift nodded. “That was the North American Air Defense Command calling. The blast momentarily disrupted its detection and tracking system — even the deep-space satellites. They’re calling it an electromagnetic pulse effect, of extra- ordinary magnitude.”
    “Good night!” Tom exclaimed. “And Fearing has lost contact with the base on Nestria!”
    Mr. Swift showed instant concern. “I was just told. I’ve had no chance to try your space pro- ber,” he said.
    Tom’s megascope space prober, a recent invention, was an amazing video telescope of nearly unlimited range. Rather than using mag- nifying lenses like an optical instrument, it employed a revolutionary quantum-link principle to establish a remote viewing point near its tar-  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

get. A closeup picture of the object being sighted was produced on a monitor screen in astounding detail.
    Hands trembling with excitement and anxiety, Tom quickly fed the asteroid’s orbital data into the prober’s tracking computer, then tuned the range control. As the huge antenna shifted into position, the three waited anxiously for an image of Nestria to appear.
    The viewing screen remained blank!
    “What’s wrong?” Bud asked. Shrugging, Tom adjusted the megascope’s anti-inverse-square- wave generator without result. “Could something have happened to the whole deal? To Little Luna?”
    Tom’s forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. “Ap- parently the prober’s microwave beam isn’t get- ting through.”
    “That may be a good sign,” Mr. Swift put in. “Perhaps the researchers on Nestria are alive and well, but simply can’t communicate with us.”
    “But what’s blocking the signals now?” Bud in- quired, puzzled. “The fallout from the explosion?”
    “Possibly. Or it might just be one of those xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

freakish blackouts due to solar activity.” Mr. Swift went on worriedly: “And yet — the megascope’s spacewave guide-tube would be unaffected by electromagnetic radiation. The microwave beam shouldn’t be disrupted.”
    But Tom pointed out, “Dad, it could be the transparency of the guide-tube that’s causing the problem! The radiation could be directly interfering with the beam as it passes along the tube, scrambling its coherence parameters.”
    “True. But in that case... Try moving the sensor- node away from Nestria.”
    Tom gave a rueful smile. “I should have thought of that.” Tom used the trackball atop the console to shift the megascope’s viewpoint, pulling back toward the earth. He moved the beam-terminus slowly, mile by mile. At first there was no effect. Then, abruptly, a picture flashed into view on the screen.
    “There she is!” cried Bud elatedly. “Man oh man, what a relief!”
    The curving sweep of Little Luna’s rugged horizon filled most of the monitor screen. The asteroid’s dark, rocky terrain showed a haze of clouds here and there, floating close to the surface xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

in the breathable atmosphere maintained by Tom’s two atmosphere making machines, one at each pole.
    Tom pulled back further, showing the entire sphere of Nestria, then moved the sensor-node closer again on another side of the moonlet. Once again the screen went blank. “Whatever’s causing the effect completely surrounds Nestria,” Tom pronounced grimly after several more attempts. “It’s like a barrier of interference, about seventy miles out. Obviously, it’s gotten much worse since the explosion. It’s not dissipating as I had expected — whatever it is.”
    “What about the explosion itself?” Bud deman- ded suspiciously. “That’s the biggest mystery of all!”
    “You’re right, Bud!” said Tom. “And it’s not only affecting Nestria directly, but may also be targeting defense and communications systems around the world! The whole thing may be a plot, and there’s only one way to find the answer. I’m going to hop back over to Fearing and take off for Nestria in the Challenger!”
    Bud nodded excitedly. But the elder scientist laid a hand on Tom’s arm. “Son, I know it’s hard xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

to stand by at a moment like this. But you’re a scientist as well as an inventor. Now is the time to gather data.”
    Bud looked exasperated. “But Mr. Swift, if somebody’s trying to screw up the whole world’s defenses — ”
    Tom sighed. “No, flyboy. Dad’s right. The EMP effect was momentary. It’s over now. And it just occurred to me that the signal interference could just be an aftereffect of the rocket explosion. See — ” Tom continued thoughtfully, “the artificial gravitational field around Nestria has a very sharp gradient. I can see how it might be possible for debris and fallout to ‘ride’ the gradient in all directions, creating a cloud of energized smog, so to speak.”
    “Okay. If you say so.” But the black-haired young flyer didn’t look entirely convinced.
    Mr. Swift said, “Actually, you two, I’ve already started the process of data-gathering. While you were flying back, I had Fearing send up the Challenger — not to Nestria yet, but into a high Earth orbit to make some long-range observations. After that, we’ll have a better idea as to the need for a landing.”
    “That’s great, Dad,” nodded Tom.

    Trusting matters to his son, Mr. Swift hurried off to a waiting jet, having scheduled one of his frequent trips to Washington D.C. After Damon Swift had left the observatory, Bud turned to his friend with a slight frown. “You know, pal, your Dad’s a smart guy. But sometimes I wonder if you don’t — well...”
    “Give in too easily?” The young inventor smiled. “Maybe. But only when he’s right.”
    Following a hasty breakfast, the boys waited anxiously in the observatory, with Tom making periodic efforts to sight Nestria through the space prober or contact the base there. But the blackout continued. “Even the lasercom setup doesn’t get through to them,” grumbled Tom in frustration. “There must be some sort of haze that distorts the laser beam, at least above Base Galileo.”
    Suddenly Bud’s face lit up and he snapped his fingers. “Good grief, I just thought of something. Why don’t you use the PER? You told me nothing can stop that!” Tom’s Private-Ear Radio used a quantum-link principle to connect paired commu- nications units in a manner that effectively annihilated the space between them. Bud knew that its basic technique was different from that of the megascope, and consequently would not be xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

affected by the interference around the moonlet.
    “That’s a great idea, Bud,” said Tom. “Just one problem.”
    “What?”
    “The Nestria crew doesn’t have any PER units.”
    “What! Not yet?”
    Tom snorted ruefully. “Actually, a shipment was on the way. In the rocket that blew up!”
    “Aw jetz.”
    “Exactly.”
    The boys resumed their vigil for news from Nestria — or at least a megascopic peek. They both had many friends among the base team, giving a face to their anxiety. At last Tom could stand the suspense no longer. “Come on, Bud! Let’s grab a ridewalk back to the admin building. I want to talk to Nels Gachter about that message from the space friends.”
    “Yeah. We’re not accomplishing much hangin’ loose here.”
    As they approached the tall administration building on the conveyor-belt transport, Bud re- marked restlessly: “Sandy said she’d give us a xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

call this morning to set up our date for tomorrow night. Bash wasn’t sure if she could duck out from the Cat.” Sandy was Tom’s younger sister and Bud’s frequent date about town, as Bashalli Prandit was Tom’s. The pretty young Pakistani worked for her brother in Shopton at a trendy coffeehouse called The Glass Cat.
    “I’m afraid I’m not going to be in much of a mood — ” Tom began. He broke off as his tiny cellphone chortled from its post on his beltloop. Tom snatched it up and answered.
    “Sandy?” Bud whispered hopefully to his pal.
    Tom turned away from the unit and shook his head Bud’s way. “Main switchboard.” He resumed the conversation. “Oh? You’re sure of that? I see. Yes.” Turning to Bud again, he said: “Somebody’s coming to Enterprises to kill me.” Turning back to the receiver, he asked: “Does he have an ap- pointment? Uh-huh. Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll drop by and you can give me the details. Keep trying Security, won’t you?”
    As Tom clicked off, Bud frowned at Tom suspiciously. “Some kind of joke, I take it.”
   Tom shrugged. “We get crank calls, including xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

death threats, almost every day. Security evaluates ’em, but it always turns out to be some guy in a house trailer with too much time on his hands. Jilly called me directly because she couldn’t reach Rad. Oh, did I tell you? — Harlan’s at the Citadel for two weeks.” Harlan Ames was chief of Enterprises internal security, Phil Radnor his assistant. Ames had traveled to the Swift nuclear facility in New Mexico, the Citadel, to assess its current security setup.
    Bud and Tom were about to step off the ridewalk in front of the administration building when suddenly a loud crash resounded across the experimental station! — followed instantly by the wail of sirens and the shrilling of an alarm tone from Tom’s phone unit.
    “Roarin’ rockets!” Bud blurted. “What’s going on?”

  
  
  
CHAPTER 4
  
  
 

THE GATE-CRASHER

 
    
  
  
  
  
“IT’S A patrolscope alert!” Tom exclaimed. “Level one!”
    Bud gulped at his friend’s pronouncement. He knew that the plant’s sophisticated internal radar system was designed to instantly detect intruders not cleared by wearing special antiradar amulets. “That crash! — it sounded close, Tom.”
    Dashing into the lobby of the admin building, Tom switched on an auxiliary monitor and keyed in the main plant radarscope. A message flashed at the top of the screen: security alert, level one xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  

breach. He and Bud watched breathlessly as the sweeping scanner painted a blip of light near one edge of the screen. “Someone or something at the executive gate!” the young inventor exclaimed. This security gate, at the end of a private roadway, was only used by Tom, Mr. Swift, and a handful of key Enterprises executives. It was just outside the administration building, out of sight around a corner.
    Bud dashed out through the door at Tom’s ominous words, his pal following as they trotted around to the far side of the building. “Looks like an accident!” Bud cried.
    Tom joined Bud for a hasty look. A car had apparently plowed into the entrance gate at top speed. Employees were running to the scene from all directions.
    The young scientist-inventor grasped Bud’s arm. “Come on! Let’s find out who it is!” Tom urged. As they dashed forward toward the wreck, a midget electric vehicle, called a nanocar, sped past them.
    “There’s Radnor!” Bud exclaimed.
    Braking next to the gate, the stocky security man leapt out. A second nanocar, bearing three uni- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

formed security personnel, screeched to a halt next to him.
    Radnor twisted his head, flashing a warning look at Tom. “Better stay back, Skipper!” he called. “This may be the killer! Jilly just told me about the threat.”
    “I doubt if he’s in any shape to be dangerous now!” Tom replied coolly as he drew near.
    Through the magtritanium bars of the gate they could see that the driver, visible through the shattered windshield of the car, lay slumped over the steering wheel. Blood streamed from a scalp wound.
    “Let’s get this gate open!” ordered Radnor. “You — Flemmer — get the plant ambulance over here!”
    “The gate’s buckled and the crash wrecked the opening mechanism, sir,” one of the men reported after a moment. “We’ll have to go out through the gatehouse at the employee gate.”
    “Then do it!”
    By the time Tom, Bud, and Radnor reached the car, a high-powered blue sedan, the ambulance team from the Enterprises staff infirmary had come roaring up by way of the private road. “We can’t xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wait,” said one of the medics, grimly motioning toward the black smoke wafting from the engine. “Go ahead, guys, lift him out, gently as possible. Try not to let him sag.”
    As they extricated the driver from the wreckage, he was revealed to be a slightly built man of about thirty or thirty-five, apparently of Asian extraction.
    Tom pointed to a sticker on the car’s rear bumper. “M.I.T.,” Tom muttered to Bud.
    Meanwhile the crumpled gate had been forced open, allowing passage to Doc Simpson’s assistant, Ralene Bell. As she began to examine the unconscious victim, two carloads of state troopers, guided to Enterprises by Captain Rock of the Shopton Police Department, pulled up at the site.
    “That’s our man, all right,” said Captain Rock to the troopers after a quick look. The man had been placed on a blanket on the ground next to the road. Rock asked Dr. Bell, “How badly is he hurt?”
    “Pretty seriously, I’m afraid,” the doctor said. The medic pointed to a nasty-looking wound in the victim’s left side. “He stopped a bullet, and the windshield stopped him. On top of his wound, a broken collarbone, and blood loss, he may have xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

a concussion.”
    Captain Rock nodded briskly in Tom’s direction. “We were told he’s an escaped mental patient. The hospital guards who were chasing this fellow are armed and must have wounded him.”
    “Yeah? Then where are they, Captain?” objected Bud, scanning the area.
    Rock looked surprised. “Now that’s a good question! Of course, they may have taken a few shots at him during his escape. But...” Keeping a wary eye on the smoke, which was now diminishing, Rock approached the wrenched-open door of the car, Tom at his heels. When they returned, Tom told Bud quietly, “Just a few spatters of blood on the seat and the dashboard — but look at that wound. He couldn’t have been hit more than five seconds before he crashed.”
    Bud nodded. “So. Like I said.”
    “I’m having my guys search the roadside all the way up to the main road,” said Phil Radnor, adding in a wry whisper: “Before those troopers start clomping over all the evidence!”
    A hasty check of the man’s pockets produced no identification except for a Massachusetts xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

driver’s license. It had been issued only months before in the name of “John Tsu” at a Cambridge, Massachusetts address. The photo matched the face of the accident victim.
    Staring at the license in Captain Rock’s hand, Tom frowned deeply. “Captain, there’s something wrong here.”
    The officer nodded. “My friend, there’s quite a bit wrong here. It was a gas station jockey over in Thessaly who phoned in the first alarm,” Captain Rock reported. “I took the call and decided to check it out myself, since you’re something of a big wheel around these parts, Tom.”
    “Thanks,” Tom said with a grin. “How did the guy know about the threat?”
    “Everybody’s supposed to be on the alert these days, looking for suspicious behavior. The attendant said this Oriental fellow had stopped at his station to inquire the way to Swift Enterprises, and specifically whether Tom Swift was likely to be there at this time. And of course, who knows? — you could be on Mars. The attendant thought something was wrong because the guy’s manner seemed kind of wild and distraught. Then, a minute or so after he left, another car pulled in, with two men in it.”

    “The guards?” asked Bud.
    Captain Rock nodded. “They told the attendant they were pursuing a dangerous delusional psychotic who’d escaped from the locked facility where he’d been under confinement for three years. They described him and said he had some kind of crazy grudge against Tom Swift. Said they figured he was heading for Swift Enterprises to bump you off, Tom. The attendant told them the route the psycho had taken, and they took off at top speed. Then he thought it all over and called me, and I called the Staties.”
    “Did the gas station guy describe the pursuers?”
    “He did. Two more Asians. Bigtime accents for all of them.”
    Bud gave a frowning glance at Tom and the captain. “Guards too? Isn’t that just a little odd? I mean — it’s not like they have special mental hospitals for people of Asian descent.”
    “What institution did he break out of?” Tom asked.
    “Don’t know yet. The caller says they didn’t mention it, and their car was unmarked. And strangely enough, although we have a homicidal psychopath who must have got loose at least several hours ago, surely, we’ve had no bulletin xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

on the escape.”
    Tom snorted derisively. “It’s one-hundred-percent phony! Tsu owns this car, based on the license info. How did the guy just happen to have his own car handy? It didn’t sit in a hospital parking garage for three years. How did he renew his license? And that M.I.T. sticker is for this year.”
    “And then there’s the blood business,” Rock added. “Looks to me like the make-believe ‘guards’ raced on ahead, lay in wait just outside the wall, and winged old John pretty good!”
    At that moment a screaming siren heralded the arrival of the ambulance Dr. Bell had called in from Shopton. “Shopton Memorial?” asked the driver.
    Dr. Bell nodded, but Tom suddenly held up his hand. “No! There’s a private surgery clinic north on the highway outside the city limits. Know it?”
    “I know it,” said the driver.
    “Take him there, please. I’ll phone the medical chief — he’s a friend of the family.”
    Rock chuckled in a gruff way.
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    “Fast thinking, Tom — and you’re on the beam, all right. We may have scared off those guys, but they’ll probably check out the big hospital first thing. And they’re still armed! I’ll send one of these nice troopers along to keep watch over our Mr. Tsu.”
    As the ambulance men began to apply an oxygen mask to Tsu, his eyes flickered open weakly and focused on the young inventor. They were wide, panicked, desperate. He choked out something beneath the mask.
    Asking the ambulance attendants to stand back for a moment, Tom approached the collapsible stretcher and bent down. “We’re taking you to a safe hospital, Mr. Tsu,” he said gently. “Don’t be afraid. Did you want to tell me something?”
    The man made a movement with his eyes, and Tom pulled back the oxygen mask a crack. As if summoning all his remaining strength, Tsu mut- tered something — then collapsed back, eyes closed.
    “Let’s get going!” ordered the ambulance driver.
    As the vehicle sped away, Bud asked: “What xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

did he say?”
    “Just a sec.” Tom made a note in the notebook he carried. “I’m writing down how it sounded. I think it was Chinese.”
    Phil Radnor rejoined Tom and Bud, reporting that he hadn’t found any clues in the brush near the roadway. “Let’s go talk to Jilly,” Rad suggested.
    In the plant switchboard room, Radnor asked Jilly for details of the warning call. “Oh, Mr. Radnor, I just don’t have much information. He didn’t identify himself. He just said to warn Tom Swift that someone was on his way ‘now’ to kill him.”
    “Did you recognize the voice, Jilly?”
    “No, not at all,” she replied. “And I have a good ear. I’m sure I’ve never heard it before.”
    “What was the voice like?” Tom asked. “Did he have an accent?”
    “Yes, a slight one. I couldn’t tell what kind, though. He spoke well — kind of cultured, a deep voice. An older man, I think.”
    Bud said: “You must’ve got where the call was coming from, right?”
    “No. It was ID-blocked.”
    Thanking the switchboard operator, Radnor left xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

to return to the security office. Tom motioned Bud away, toward a waiting nanocar. “Where’re we going?” Bud asked.
    “Let’s go hunt up Felix Ming.”
    “I get it. If the words Tsu said are Chinese, he’ll be able to translate.” Felix was a Chinese-Ame- rican aircraft engineer at Enterprises who had previously assisted Tom in a similar situation.
    Locating Felix in one of the construction hang- ars, Tom took out his notebook and attempted to repeat the sounds John Tsu had uttered.
    “One more time, please,” Felix requested, frowning in concentration. At last he said: “Well — it’s pretty difficult, Tom. There are many distinct dialects of what we, in this country, call ‘Chinese’. To make things worse, it’s an inflected language. The up-and-down tones, giving it that ‘sing-song’ quality, modify the meaning.”
    “Then you don’t have anything?” Tom asked, disappointed.
    “I may. It doesn’t make much sense. But it’s the only possibility that makes any sense at all.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “I think the fellow may have said: Beware the Black Cobra!”
 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Tom and Bud exchanged startled glances. The looks expressed dismay at the sudden recognition of an alarming possibility! “Beware the Black Cobra,”  Tom repeated. “Is that the whole thing?”
    “Yes — but...” The young engineer hesitated as Tom and Bud waited impatiently. “The form is idiomatic. The ‘beware’ isn’t just your garden- variety ‘be careful’. It’s more urgent, like a warning shout. Like what you’d yell out at someone if you saw that a cobra was about to strike!”
   

  
  
CHAPTER 5
    
  
 

INTERRUPTED WARNING

    
  
  
    
AS TOM turned to leave after thanking Felix for his translation, ominous but vital, Bud held back for a moment. He felt a need to break the grim mood. “Say there, Felix, how’s the ol’ romantic life going?” he asked jokingly, referring to a subject of recurrent concern to the Chinese-Am- erican.
    “Alas, it is in the hands of my honorable an- cestors.”
    “Got a date lined up yet?”
    “Are you asking me out?”
    “No.”

    “Then no.”
    As Tom drove the nanocar across the grounds, Bud observed: “Bet you and I are thinking the same thing, Tom.”
    “He did say he was shedding his skin.”
    It was while developing his spectromarine selector that Tom had first been told of Comrade- General Li Ching, a traitor to his native China who had fled into hiding with a treasure trove of military and technical secrets. Nicknamed “the snakeman,” he had made himself the imperious head of an international syndicate of scientific thieves and murderous agents from many countries. It was during Tom’s deadly struggle with the man in the course of his recent exploit with his megascope space prober that he had been sent the cryptic message that this new development seemed to explain. Tom continued: “It hangs together pretty well, don’t you think? Evidently our recovering the stolen stealth drone inspired him to adopt new methods.”
    “Or at least a new moniker,” Bud noted wryly. “And hey! — remember that energy burst you and Hank Sterling detected out in space? When you were trying out the Private-Ear gizmo in the Space xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kite?”
    “I know what you’re getting at, flyboy. Li could have been testing some sort of energy weapon, which he’s now used against the Nestria delivery rocket!”
    “Right, from his ship, the Fanshen. Sounds like he’s our enemy,” agreed Bud. “Tsu may have been a turncoat, and the Chinese guys chasing him must be Li’s cronies.”
    Tom nodded thoughtfully as he braked in front of the Administration Building. “Bet you’re right, pal. But what about that warning phone call we received? We need more answers, and I think I know how to get them.”
    Up in the spacious office he shared with his father, Tom activated his computer and accessed his personal journal. The journal was stored on a protected server; yet protected or not, he knew that an ultra-secret U.S. government agency, which Tom had come to call Collections, somehow mo- nitored the connection. One of its agents, “the Taxman,” had frequently responded to his inquiries.
    After establishing his identity and signaling his desire to contact the agency, he typed: “A man has been shot by unknown pursuers while xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

trying to warn me of someone called ‘the Black Cobra’.”
    The reply appeared on the monitor almost immediately.
  
    OLD NEWS
    
    “Li Ching?”
    
    BINGO
    
    “Is he behind the problem with Nestria?”
    
    To Tom’s surprise, there was no immediate answer. “Maybe he doesn’t know, for a change.” Bud murmured over his pal’s shoulder. “Er, if you heard that, Mr. Taxman, no offense intended!”
    At last a message appeared.
  
   NEW YORK CHINATOWN
    86 CHATHAM SQUARE
    SUITE 313
    TRANS-PACIFIC IMPORT COMPANY
    FRIDAY 2 PM
  
    “What about my question?” Tom typed.
 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    “Does Li Ching have designs on Nestria?”
  
CANT DO ALL YOUR WORK FOR YOU
NOT PAID ENOUGH
DOING OUR PART TO KEEP TAXES LOW
    
    The young inventor was annoyed by the response. “This is no time to play games!”
  
DEPENDS ON THE GAME
    
    Tom flicked off the unit with a sharp movement. “I’m not willing to wait any longer, Bud. Cobra or no, I’m taking the Challenger up to Little Luna to see what’s going on!”
    Bud cheered. “I’m with ya, Skipper!”
    Tom made a call to Fearing Island and spoke to Amos Quezada, chief ground controller of space missions. “What’s the latest from space? Any luck yet contacting Nestria?”
    “None. The blackout’s as solid as ever.”
    “Nothing new from Horton at the outpost?”
    “Afraid not.”
    “Well, tell him to keep trying. I’m taking off for the asteroid as soon as I can get to Fearing.”
    “I can save you some time,” Quezada offered. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Hannah Morgensteiff is up in orbit in the Chal- lenger right now — your Dad’s survey flight. I could have her dip down above Shopton, and you could have one of your choppers drop you off.”
    “That’s a great idea. Let’s put it together.”
    Little more than an hour later, Enterprises pilot Slim Davis soared into the afternoon sky in the SwiftStorm, Tom’s wingless ultrasonic cycloplane. His passengers were Tom, Bud, and Enterprises’ chief engineer Hank Sterling, all of them suited up for space flight.
    As the craft’s furiously whirling lift-cylinders carried them vertically into the upper stratosphere, Tom explained his plans to his comrades. “Ac- cording to Hannah’s radio report, the Challenger crew didn’t detect anything dangerous around Nestria. Just the spherical interference zone.”
    “No orbiting radioactive byproducts from the explosion?” inquired Hank.
    “None detectable, thank goodness.”
    Bud was skeptical. “Fine. But then just what is that ‘spherical interference zone’, anyway? Maybe it’s like a tripwire, guys! We cross it and Blackie shoots a missile at us.”
    Tom smiled half-heartedly. “Can’t rule it out, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I guess. But unlike the drone rocket, we have a whole bunch of neat gadgets called repelatrons. Anything nosing too close’ll get tossed back into space.”
    “Well, we had repelatrons in the XAIP, too,” Bud persisted. “That explosion fouled them up, remember?”
    “We’ve readjusted the telespectrometers to protect them from the EMP effect, now that we understand what happened,” explained Hank. “And if you’re worried about that anti-energy powder, the crystal stuff Li shot at us from his ship that time we were headed for the outpost — ”
    “— which, by the way, knocked out the repelatrons! — ” Bud interjected sarcastically.
    “ — don’t worry. Great minds have figured out how to get around the refraction effect,” concluded Sterling. Bud snorted.
    It was Slim Davis who spoke next. “Got the Chal up above on radar, boys. I’ll let the cy- bertron set us down on the landing deck.”
    The SwiftStorm’s robot brain brought the craft even with the flat vehicular deck that extended like a porch from the front of the huge, multistory spaceship. The cycloplane gently touched the deck xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and a conveyor-belt system drew it forward into the open portal of the Challenger’s hangar-hold, which was then pressurized.
    “Best luck, guys,” Slim called out as his three passengers disembarked. “Here’s hoping you don’t need it.”
    “Seems like we always need it,” said Tom with irony.
    In minutes the gyroscope-shaped spacecraft was zooming up to the edge of the atmosphere — and on into space, its bank of powerful repulsion-ray generators pointing earthward.
    “It won’t be long at constant 1G,” Hannah Morgensteiff, at the control board, said to Tom.
    In response the young space pioneer nodded tensely. “I’m going to feel every minute, believe me.” He picked up a microphone and intercommed Hank Sterling in the main communications com- partment. “Got anything for me, Hank?”
    “Not so far, Skipper,” was the reply. “But as you say, we just might start to pick up a signal from close range. I’m calling — and keepin’ my ears wide open.”
    “I know you are. Thanks.”
   Still tens of thousands of miles remote in space, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nestria was already visible through the Challenger’s big rectangular viewports, a blob of light against the blackness showing the hint of a disk. It swelled by the minute, soon disclosing its dark, mottled surface and craggy horizon, barely softened by the cloak of atmosphere that clung very close to the ground.
    “How far?” Bud asked presently. “It’s been a while since we reversed thrust.” It now seemed that the asteroid was beneath them, the ship descending toward it.
    Tom checked the monitor dials. “Coming up on the 500 mile mark. We’ll make a polar flyby before we try — ”
    His last words were lost behind a fierce alert tone from the intercom. “Incoming transmission, Tom!” reported Hank excitedly.
    Bud whooped. “Man alive! Ask ’em how they’re doing up there — I mean, down there!”
    Hearing the comment, Hank had a quashing response. “No, it’s not the asteroid. It’s on the frequency used by the space friends!”
    “Good night!” muttered Tom. “Maybe they’ve found a way to elaborate on that message they sent.”

    “Not exactly the best timing,” harrumphed Bud.
    “I’ll send what I’m getting up to your monitor, guys, by way of the translating computer,” Hank offered. After directing Hannah to continue the flight as planned, Tom turned his attention to the imaging-oscilloscope screen.
  
    WE ARE FRIENDS . PROCEED
    
    After a moment, Tom intercommed Hank impatiently, “Where’s the rest of it?”
    “There is no ‘rest of it,’ Skipper,” was the engineer’s answer. “Like Chow says, That’s all she wrote!”
    Bud shrugged. “Thanks a heap, space buddies! Well, at least they’re encouraging us.”
    When Tom did not comment, Bud cast a curious glance his way. To his surprise, the young inventor was frowning — and pale!
    “Look at this,” Tom said in a raspy voice, pointing at a corner of the screen.
    Again Bud shrugged. “Yeah, one of the space symbols.”
    “Without a translation under it. And that’s because it’s not complete.”

    “Guess they were called away from the phone.” Bud looked again at his pal’s expression. “But this isn’t a joke, is it.”
    “The space symbols modify one another, clustering together in groups that show the relation of concepts,” Tom reminded him. “The symbol for ‘proceed’ made it through, but this one was cut off — we got just the bare bones. Bud, I’m sure it would have been the symbol for negation!”
    “Huh? Negation?” Then the young pilot’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “Jetz! They’re saying don’t proceed!”
    “Otherwise known as Stop!” Tom rushed to Hannah’s side and directed her to bring the ship to a full stop as rapidly as possible, station-keeping high above Little Luna. The Challenger began a sudden deceleration, pressing her crew downward against the deck as if they’d been turned to lead.
    “Full stop and hover mode,” Hannah reported. “Altitude 481.4 miles, extended radial from Nestria surface.”
    “What do you think’s going on, boss?” asked another member of the crew, Bob Jeffers, a veteran of Swift Enterprises space flight.
    Tom paused before answering. “What do I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

think? I think something — maybe someone — in- terrupted the space transmission at a crucial point. I think our space friends are trying to warn us of a danger to the ship if we continue on course.”
    “Danger? Danger of what?”
    No longer whitefaced, Tom looked Jeffers in the eye.
    “Of total destruction!”
   

   
  
CHAPTER 6
  
  
  
 

DEADLY MATTER

    
  
  
  
  
THE OTHERS on the Challenger’s control deck stared at Tom in shock. “Do you mean — they’re going to start shooting at us?” Bud demanded. “Or set off a bomb in space?”
    “He means someone’s planted a bomb on board — like they did on the supply rocket,” murmured Hannah in fear.
    Tom shook his head, gazing downward through the Tomaquartz viewpane at the ball that was Nestria. “It may be something much more deadly. Let’s hope I’m wrong.” He flicked on the intercom. “Join us, Hank. Got a project for you.”

     When Hank emerged from the inter-deck ladder shaft, Tom explained: “I think there’s something in front of us, something we can’t see or detect with our instruments, that could destroy the whole ship if we blunder right into it!”
    Hank whistled. “The same thing that blew up the supply capsule?”
    “Probably.”
    “Then what’s your idea, Skipper?”
    “To do like lost hunters do when they don’t want to step into a bear trap.” Tom adjusted the deck computer to bring up a current ship manifest. “We have four of the Donkeys down in the hangar- hold. Good.”
    “Er — just what do hunters do?” Hannah whispered to Bud. “To avoid bear traps?”
    “They poke ahead in the underbrush with a branch,” was Bud’s answer. “I see what Tom’s got in mind.”
    The Repelatron Donkeys were small flying platforms, elevated and propelled by single repelatrons, that Tom had used for survey work on the moon. Now Tom asked Hank to join him below in the vehicular hold, to assist him in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

making some quick, jerry-rigged modifications to the Donkeys’ control circuitry. When they returned to the command compartment, Hank reported: “Not much to it. Now we can control ’em remotely from the main board.”
    Tom rolled up the hangar’s protective doors and the conveyors pulled the four transports out onto the exterior deck. At a signal they rose gently, then curved downward toward Little Luna, splaying out in different directions.
    “So you think they’ll blow up?” Jeffers asked Tom.
    “Or worse!”
    The crew waited tensely, minute after minute.
    The lengthy vigil was finally broken by an announcement from Tom. “Crossing the hundred- mile altitude mark,” he stated. “I have Donkey number four a few dozen miles in the lead, roughly in the direction of Base Galileo — not too close, though.”
    “But it’s getting close to where the megascope beam started failing,” Bud explained to the others.
    Eyes on the telemetry readouts, Tom initiated a countdown. “Eighty-eight miles... eighty-one... xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

seventy-six...”
    Blinding light suddenly flooded the command deck!
    The crew staggered back, shielding their eyes. Tom adjusted the variable transparency settings for the viewpanes, blocking out more of the glare.
    “Man, I think we just got some data!” Bud gulped. “You Dad’ll be pleased!”
    “Hard radiation, very high intensity,” reported Hank Sterling. He looked up at Tom. “It’s what we saw in the Space Kite. Same overall profile.”
    Tom gave a grim nod. “Then that settles it. This is the same phenomenon. And I’m sure it’s some- thing artificial, a weapon of some kind.”
    They continued to study the radiation intently. But suddenly the crew gave a start as a strange thrumming sound filled the deck! “It’s coming from outside, through the hull!” declared Hannah in amazement. “But what could possibly — ?”
    “Ionized particulates, spreading out from the blast in concentric waves,” Hank stated. “From Earth it must look like a fireball against black space, just like the shuttle explosion.”
    “And the instruments recorded an EMP effect,” xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

added Tom. “We’re lucky our Tomasite-Inertite coating protects us.” He noted that the blast, impressive as it was from the viewpoint of the Challenger, was much smaller than the prior one. “It shouldn’t have caused the same big effect on communications and defense systems.”
    “Well, lemme tell ya, it was more than big enough for me!” Bob Jeffers commented.
    One by one the remaining Donkeys met their doom with blazing brilliance. “It’s clear that what we have here is a spherical barrier enclosing Nestria like a bubble,” pronounced Tom Swift. “Anything that comes into contact with the barrier disintegrates completely — converts to energy. Evidently the barrier wasn’t wholly stabilized when the supply rocket hit it, but as it reached its fullest extent it began to fuzz-out radio trans- missions, including the microwaves my space prober uses.”
    “Then you think the barrier may be some sort of electromagnetic field, Tom?” Sterling inquired, puzzled.
    But the young scientist-inventor wagged his head. “No, Hank, although I’d guess such a field xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

may be keeping it in place.”
    “Then what?”
    “Antimatter.”
    “Huh?” Bud was aghast at the thought. “Like the matter-eating gas from the taboo mountain?”
    Tom’s exploration of Mount Goaba in Africa, by means of his terrasphere vehicle, had revealed an astounding phenomenon taking place in the caves of nuclear fire far beneath the surface. By means of some complex, inexplicable atomic reaction, a mineral-like substance was releasing a gas, termed Exploron, that in turn emitted anti- protons. These subatomic particles, bearing electrical charges opposite those of the nuclei of ordinary matter, caused such matter to disintegrate in a violent flare of radiation. Bud knew that reversed-charge substances, which had previously only appeared in minute quantities in experimental settings, were called antimatter by physicists.
    But Bud’s comment was not quite on the mark. “No, pal,” Tom corrected his friend. “What we’re dealing with here is a whole lot worse than Ex- ploron.”
    Hank nodded slowly. “You mean — true anti- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

matter.”
    “That’s what I think. Look,” he continued, “the phenomenon isn’t fully understood yet, but the researchers at the Goaba installation think they’ve cracked the basic sequence of reactions. Exploron gas emits antiprotons, but it isn’t true antimatter. It’s one of the two main byproducts of the reaction of an anomalous substance, which they’ve named Diracinium, with certain catalysts.”
    Bud observed, “Catalysts like saltwater. You’re talking about that mineral deposit at the bottom of the cavern.”
    “That’s it. Catalysis induces a sort of ‘nuclear combustion’ — the nuclear fire — with its own ‘smoke,’ namely vaporous Exploron and granules of Inertite. But there’s one more thing that happens. The surface of the Diracinium, the part directly exposed to the catalyst, converts to a molecule-thick coating of Diracinium in antimatter form — actual antimatter molecules. It’s only the interspersed presence of Inertite particles in the film that damps-down the reaction. Otherwise a big chunk of Africa would be history!”
    “If particles of anti-Diracinium could be dis- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

persed in space around Little Luna,” noted Hank, “the cloud might be too dilute to be detectable, but more than dense enough to destroy — ”
    “Anything!” concluded Tom Swift. “The space friends are trying to warn us — twice now. The reference in that first message to ‘opposed force matter’ was their attempt to convey the idea of antimatter.
    “Whoever caused the barrier,” he went on, “may have figured I’d take off for Nestria to investigate the base’s silence, and that my ship would meet the same fate as the cargo rocket.”
    Bob Jeffers shuddered. “What a devilish scheme! Which happens to be Li Ching’s stock in trade.”
    “But wait a second,” Bud suddenly objected. “Like you just said, Tom — Inertite blocks off the reaction. Wouldn’t the Challenger’s coating pro- tect us?”
    It was Hank who answered Bud. “The cargo rocket was also coated, Bud. Inertite is effective against most radiation, and protects against the sort of fine spray of antiprotons produced by Exploron. But in the case of something like this barrier, you’re dealing with massive grains of the anti-stuff. Evidently a little works its way through — and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

when you’re dealing with antimatter, as the saying goes: the little things mean a lot!”
    Bud nodded, grasping the dreadful situation the Nestria team was in — totally cut off from their world! He said to Tom: “Wheeoh, genius boy, your brain’s got quite a lump to chew on this time!”
    Tom didn’t answer, but Bud could see that the young inventor’s brain had already taken up the task.
    Soon the control readouts announced that the ship’s repelatrons were again humming with power. Tom had directed Hannah Morgensteiff to reorient the dish-shaped radiator antennas to brake the ship and send it on its long, wheeling descent back to Earth. “We’ll land at Fearing,” Tom stated. “I want to test something using the big space communications gear.”
    “What’s your idea?” inquired Hank.
    “It is only a theory,” Tom said. “Let me hash it over a little, Engineer Sterling.”
    The young inventor radioed a full report to Fearing Island, but the rest of the trip was spent mostly in grim silence. Two hours later the Challenger was biting into the earth’s atmosphere, then dropping smoothly like a clump of feathers xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

to set down finally at the rocket base.
    The astronaut team ate dinner in the island mess hall. Afterward, as Tom and Bud walked back to Tom’s private laboratory on the island, Bud remarked, “I can tell plenty is going on in that high-powered head of yours, pal. Feel like talking about it yet?”
    “Our first job is to find out the exact nature of the disintegration barrier,” Tom said thoughtfully. “So far we’re only guessing that antimatter is what’s causing the trouble. Since the barrier seems to be scrambling and nullifying our long range instruments — even the spectroscopic scanners — we’ll have to take a sample to study in the lab.”
    “And how do we do that?” Bud asked in challenging tones. “How do you get a tankful of something that turns anything it touches into the Fourth of July?”
    Tom grinned at his chum. “Hey, we had the same problem at Mount Goaba, remember?”
    “Which you solved with Inertite. But in this case — ”
    “I know. Inertite isn’t enough. But it just may be that we can bring a sample down to Earth xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

without touching it at all!” As Bud started a skeptical, if fascinated, objection, Tom held up his hand. “That’s for tomorrow, flyboy. Right now I have something else in mind.”
    “Well, there’s plenty of room for it up there in that head of yours! What?”
    “After I run some numbers on my lab computer, I’m heading over to Communications. If my theory is right, we’ll soon be back in touch with Little Luna!”
    Bud lifted his eyebrows, creasing his forehead with worry. “Let’s hope there’s someone up there to answer!”
   

  
  
CHAPTER 7
  
  
  
 

AN ADDRESS IN CHINATOWN

    
  
  
  
  
IN THE space communications room inside the Fearing control tower, Tom explained his idea to Amos Quezada and the chief communications engineer, Harry Lengle. “The numbers look good,” he declared. “So my idea is plausible, at least.”
    “Which is?” challenged Quezada.
    “My guess is that during the shadow-traverse every three and three-quarters days, when Nestria orbits through Earth’s shadow, the unusual mineralogy of the asteroid will be affected by the temperature drop — remember, the higher eleva- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

tions stick up beyond the atmospheric envelope which insulates the lower parts. About eighty percent of Nestria is airless.”
    “Granted. Okay, chief, so you have a quick change in surface temperature. But what good does it do?”
    “My calculations show that it makes Little Luna as a whole less permeable to magnetic forces,” Tom continued excitedly. “Something is holding that barrier in place, and it may well be electromagnetic in nature. If I’m right, when the average surface temp drops, the field’s lines of force will be pushed away from the surface further out into space.”
    “I understand Tom’s idea,” Harry spoke up. “That would tend to make the barrier thinner and less opaque — like a stretched balloon — so it’s easier for radio waves to penetrate.”
    “All right then.” Quezada checked his wristwatch. “We’re lucky — she’ll be starting the traverse in about six hours. We can give it a try.”
    “I’ll be grabbing some shuteye in the cottage,” Tom said wearily. “I have to — but call me immediately if you get through.”
    Tom met up with Bud, who had been chatting with one of his friends among the staff, and the two xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

headed across the facility grounds toward the executive quarters. As he walked along, the youthful pilot gave a mighty yawn — which turned into a laugh. “Good grief, I just realized something. It’s only been twenty-four hours since we went up in the XAIP!”
      Tom echoed the yawn. “Quite a day!”
      Tom slept helplessly for hours. It was daylight when he awoke. A quick check with the communications center was disappointing — the moonlet had entered Earth’s shadow, but there was still no radio response. But that’s not too surprising, Tom thought hopefully. It may take a while for the anti-magnetic effect to build up.
      Some time later, having a late breakfast with Bud, he was interrupted by a buzz on his cellphone intercom. “We’ve just made contact with Nestria, Skipper!” Harry Lengle reported excitedly. “Come on down!”
      Tom and Bud were thrilled by the news. They sped across the island by jeep and dashed into the communications office.
      “Still getting through?” Tom cried.

    Lengle nodded. His expression was pensive. “Their signal’s pretty weak, but we’ve enhanced it enough to make out the audio.” He added into the microphone in his hand, “Galileo, here’s Tom now.”
    Tom seized the mike. “Do you read me? What cooks up there?” he asked eagerly.
    A blur of voices could be made out through the earphones. One voice was especially prominent. “He said cook. He’s asking’ fer me!” The young inventor was smiling broadly as Chow came on the line. “This here’s ole Chow, boss! Brand my — ”
    But Tom had already begun speaking, the signal delay overlapping their voices. “Are you fellows all right?”
    “Sure thing, son, right fine! Wa-aal — con- sidering’.”
    “It’s great to hear you, pardner, but maybe I should talk to Kent. The communications window may not last very long.”
    “Okay. Here he is.”
    Rockland’s voice came on. “Looks like you had the same idea as Professor Jatczak, Tom. We’ve been trying from our end for an hour now. We xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

know there’s some sort of screen or cloud barrier around Nestria that blows things to kingdom come — we’ve sent up a few test missiles.”
    “Have any of the scientists determined the nature of the barrier?” asked Tom.
    “No, we can’t get a fix on anything. One of the Brungarians thinks it might be some kind of antimatter deal.”
    “I have the same theory,” Tom stated. “What sort of condition is the base in?”
    When Rockland’s response came through after the delay, Tom noted that it had become more distorted and was noticeably weaker. “We’re getting water from our atmosphere-making machine, but we could use some food. We’ve got quite a few mouths up here right now.”
    The mineralogist explained that the explosion of the supply rocket had sent out a shower of radioactive fallout which had contaminated nearly all of Base Galileo’s experimental vegetable gardens. The colonists, given a few minutes’ warning by the base’s radiation sensors, had retreated to protective shelters but had had no time to shield the crops. “We’ve started de-radding the area, but Doc Simpson says the edibles are xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx