Now nothing could stop Bud's fall!

THE TOM SWIFT INVENTION ADVENTURES

TOM SWIFT
AND HIS
HUMANPLIFYING
EXOSUIT

BY VICTOR APPLETON II
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TOM SWIFT AND HIS
HUMANPLIFYING EXOSUIT

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CHAPTER 1
   
   
 

THE JUPITER TRAP

   
   
   
      
“EARTH to Spaceman Swift! You’re halfway to Jupiter, Skipper! How’s it going up there?”
    Test engineer Sid Baker’s voice came through Tom Swift’s control board loud- speaker with a hint of chuckle, echoed by the young inventor and his friend and co- adventurer, Doc Simpson. The youthful Swift Enterprises physician was accompanying his renowned employer on a daring research expedition — not to distant Jupiter, but into an equally deadly realm on planet Earth!
    “Halfway already? Nothin’ to it, Sid. Six G’s and all’s well.” Glancing at Simpson, Tom xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

added teasingly: “Actually, Doc looks a little green.”
   Doc motioned and Tom handed him the microphone. “It’s that soft, sedentary life of mine, Sid. I’m not used to stress.”
   “Uh-huh. Just thinking about gravity in double-digits makes me nervous. And I’m out here!”
   Baker, with several technicians at his side to assist him, was separated from Tom and Doc by two barriers. The nearer, outer, barrier consisted of an ultrastrong metal, called metal- lumin. Transparent as glass, Tom had originally devised the remarkable material to withstand and contain the high pressures of his aquarium for deep-sea life.
   The second barrier was the “skin” of Tom’s newest invention, a robotic vehicle with a humanlike form standing twenty-five feet tall on massive legs of gold-gleaming metal. This “exosuit,” as the young inventor had named it, would permit astronaut-pilots to tread the surfaces of planets where extremes of pressure, temperature, and gravitation prevailed. Like Tom and Doc, the dual exosuit operators xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

would ride in a sealed control compartment that took up most of the vehicle’s chest area. A bulging pane of metallumin offered the “test pilots” a view from a height.
   As Tom smilingly switched off the tele- intercom connecting the exosuit compartment to the team of test-chamber attendants, Doc made a further comment. “Chief, there isn’t any real reason to worry, is there? I know we discussed the medical aspects I’m monitoring in here, but — this gravity business... maybe I need a little bit of the sort of explanation you usually give Bud.”
   Tom understood. He always made sure to give his best friend Bud Barclay the lowdown on his latest inventive efforts. “Sure, Doc. As we planned, they’re bringing up the G-force gradually inside the chamber. We’ve still got a few minutes before we reach the level prevailing on Jupiter. What would you like to know?”
   “Just how you’re able to block the pull of gravity inside this robot-suit of yours. And how do you boost it inside the test chamber? I mean, you know — we’re talking about gravity.”
   Designed by Tom and his father, the new xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Swift Enterprises extreme-conditions test chamber was a fifty-foot cube of flat metallumin panels, its thick walls surrounded on all sides by a separate deck for control and observation. The entire chamber could be raised or lowered as a unit like a giant elevator, its floor resting atop powerful pistons. At the surface, under the bright morning sun of Shopton, Tom had maneuvered his exosuit prototype into the containment cube, one of whose walls could be swung open for access. Then, as a planned safety measure, the chamber had been lowered into the ground to a depth of 180 feet as reinforced panels slid closed across the shaft opening above it.
   “I’ll start with the second question,” said Tom to Doc. “You know how my gravitex device works, don’t you?”
   “‘How’ would be an exaggeration. I know you use it to generate a heightened gravitational pull to stabilize that cosmic-ray spacecraft you came up with.”
   “Right, the Space Kite. Well,  the gravitex units don’t actually generate gravity. They use a gyrating electromagnetic flux which acts as a kind of ‘magnifying lens’ for the gravitational xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

field, with the concentrated G-pull focused on the interior of the machine itself.” The young inventor explained that a bank of many such units, oriented upward, was built into the floor of the containment cube. “I’ve designed these special gravitexes to displace the focal point vertically, so the magnified gravity field projects upward and affects everything inside the cube — there only.”
   “Including us. Got it.” The medico nodded thoughtfully. He was clearly caught up in the gravity of the situation.
   “As far as the other question,” Tom continued, “the answer is really the same as the first one. But in this case gravitexes inside the exosuit refract the intensified field away from us, shoving it outside the hull where it just melds-in with the ambient field. Here in the pilot compartment we’re in the ‘shadow zone’ that the machines produce, the area that gravity has been diverted away from. It’s that zone of reduced G-force that counteracts — well, now it’s eleven times Earth-normal out there.”
   “And we’re stopping at twelve,” noted Simpson, “which is more than high enough for the first medical tests.”
 

   Both exosuit occupants were connected to a panoply of medical sensors and instruments to monitor and record their physiological responses to the experience. Doc scanned the output registers with a keen eye, alert to the possibility that the tug-of-war of invisible forces, though unfelt, might trigger an unex- pected reaction in their bodies. “Biochem good,” he pronounced. “Coagulation normal. Heartbeat strong. Pulse rate — as you might expect.” Doc added wryly, “Mine is running a tad high.”
   “And here we are! — twelve G’s, a nice day in the suburbs of Jupiter,” reported Tom triumphantly. “The exo’s skeleton is holding steady. You know, Doc, Jupiter doesn’t have a solid surface. Its atmosphere just gets denser and denser as you go deeper down. In there the exosuit would be less like a spacesuit-for-two than like a submarine, fighting off pressures as great as — ”
   A startling sound interrupted the thought.
   “Wh-what is it?” asked Doc.
   Tom frowned. “Automatic alarm.”
   “Something’s wrong, Tom. I feel it.”
   The young inventor cast a chiding look to- xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ward his test-copilot. “I know you’re a little nervous, Doc, but don’t let your imagination run away with you.”
   “No — I mean I really feel it! Don’t you? Like — like I’m getting — ”
   Tom Swift gulped in dismay. “Heavier! Now I feel it myself.” He hurriedly checked the instruments. “Good grief, the G-level here inside the suit is almost twenty percent higher than normal! We’re really starting to pile on the pounds.” He scooped up the tele-intercom mike from its cradle. “Sid, there’s some kind of glitch in our gravity-nullifying setup — the G’s are starting to leak through!”
   “Yeow!” came the surprised response. “Okay, Skipper, I’ll power down. We don’t want to turn you guys into pulp heroes.”
   Tom laughed at the comeback. But nervously.
   The vertical pressure began to ease off — then suddenly it redoubled! The two rocked back in their contour chairs as if massive weights had thudded down on them!
   “Sid! What’s — ”
   “We can’t power down! I think — I think the main controls have failed!”
   As Tom whistled to himself softly, Simpson xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

put an unsteady hand, concrete-heavy, on his friend’s arm. “It’s getting worse. At this rate of increase — ”
   “I know,” grated Tom. “In minutes we’ll be dealing with as much force in here as is outside in the chamber. And if the main controls are malfunctioning, the exterior levels might also go through the roof. In theory the cube’s gravitex array could produce over fifty G’s!” Tom calculated mentally. The resultant weight pressing down on his bones and body would be almost five tons!
   As Doc eased back in his seat with a sudden thump, Tom leaned forward in his, reaching for the microphone again. Even now it felt like his hands were wearing lead gloves! “Sid, throw the main power switch for the test chamber. Or call the plant’s generating blockhouse — but you have to cut all power immediately!” The loudspeaker remained silent. “Sid? Control, what’s going on?”
   The youth knew that the most likely cause of the silence was failure in the tele-intercom circuitry. They should still be able to elevate up to the surface so we can swing open the big door, he thought. We’ll walk the exo off xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the base pad. He decided to try signaling the control team by hand through the viewpane.
   The G-pressure made Tom’s head heavy and forced his neck and shoulders into a forward curl. Tensing his young muscles he raised his chin and managed a glance through the exosuit viewport. He was shocked by what he saw — or didn’t see. The control consoles beyond the metallumin walls were unmanned. Sid Baker and his fellow technicians were nowhere to be found!
   His muscles bulged as he struggled to brace himself against the chair arms. If he weakened and started to slump forward, he knew he would be unable to stop and would fall face-first onto the deck. If that happens, he thought, it’ll be the end!
   “T-Tom!” came a weak, choking voice. “We need to flatten out these seats or... our circulatory system... w-will...” Simpson paused, panting for the breath to speak, the strength to lift his chest. “Look, is there... can we lower ourselves to the deck?”
   “We can’t,” croaked the young inventor. “And don’t let yourself slip off the seat. You’ll... you’ll snap your bones if you fall even two feet...” He forced his eyes toward a readout dial on the xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

control panel, straining pierce the spreading blur as his eye sockets and lids sagged under their mounting weight. 3.7 G’s inside the suit, and still rising!
   “Skipper... can you do anything?”
   “Maybe. Hold on, Doc.”
   “H-hold on? Not a time for joking...”
   “Don’t give up — I’m not. Bud and... and I lived through... a worse G crisis in the Star Spear, you know...”
   “Fine, an optimist. Now I f-feel much better.”
   “Hunh! Wish I did!”
   They both knew that the gravity-neutralizer setup inside the exo was much more limited than the array of gravitexes built into the test chamber. And Tom knew the precise figures. Even now the load was too much for the exosuit’s protective system to completely counteract. If the forces outside continued to increase, it would fail utterly! The exosuit will make it through in one piece, he thought wryly. But Doc and I won’t be around to appreciate it.
   Fighting desperately not to collapse, Tom suddenly levered his right forearm up onto the slanting control board, wincing as the sheer xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

weight rammed it down onto a protruding switch. He shoved it forward — it slid along on its own perspiration. Inching up to the selector dial he was aiming for, he fumblingly twisted it with a groan at the pinch to his yielding skin. Words glowed on the selector’s monitor panel.
   
  DRILL THREE RIGHT
  EXTEND
   
   Though the side of his face was pressed flat against his seat head-rest, Doc was able to read the words. “You’re going to... d-drill our way out?”
   Tom gasped out a reply. “Drill... diamond tip... cut through the metallumin walls. M-maybe we can ram our way through...”
   “If — right, if you cause... a weak spot.”
   The massive right arm of the robot-vehicle began to move, extending forward as the needle- sharp drill bit was thrust into view from a covered slot hidden in one of the exosuit’s chrome-silver fingertips, which served as con- tainer-pods for various tools and instruments.
   The control deck vibrated with a weird groan of straining metal joints. Suddenly the two cried xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

out as the exosuit seemed to jerk sideways. “It’s all right,” Tom muttered. “The... ungh!... the computer automatically repositioned a leg for better support. With gravity this high, just moving an arm is enough to throw us off balance.”
   “Th-that’s your idea of ‘all right’?”
   The instruments announced that the drill tip was pressed against the wall before them. Tom activated its powerful motor.
   Doc read the result from his friend’s face. “Not working?”
   “Not... fast enough... I can’t keep the arm in position to maintain the pressure. Maybe another place, different angle — Doc, I’m not sure... what to do.”
   “Listen to your doctor, Tom Swift. Don’t bother with being sure. J-just — ”
   “I know,” Tom whispered. He had no more energy to waste on speaking — no energy to waste on anything but a last chance at survival. Heart thudding with the tremendous strain, he thumbed the controls with a jerking movement. It was all the force he had left to marshal.
   Shadow crossed the viewpane. Doc could see the colossal right arm of the exosuit again xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

gliding into view. But the powerful mechanism was stretching, not toward another section of the cube wall, but upward. It was as if the machine were raising a hand to signal surrender! “Skip- per! What — what are you — ”
   His companion could barely manage a croaking response. “I’m... ejecting the drill bit... dropping it. Just dropping it.”
   He fumbled it, thought Doc as consciousness swam away into darkness. This time the opti- mist couldn’t think of a solution. No answer. First time. History’s made and you were there, Simpson! And now, boys and girls — I think it’s OK to give up.
   He did.
   

   
   
CHAPTER 2
      
   
   

TOM MEETS HIS MAKER

   
   
      
   
THE FALLING drill bit could no more be seen than a bullet in flight, nor could any sound from the world outside penetrate the walls of the exosuit control cabin.
   But sight and sound proved unnecessary. Even as Doc Simpson said his inner farewells, the leaden pressure on his chest and arms and head fell away and he rebounded from the cushions. Slowly, unbelievingly, muscles fiercely aching, he pulled himself upright and turned to look at Tom. “What — not that I really care at this point but what — happened? Did we pop a circuit breaker or something?”
 

   Tom found his voice. “In a way. I knew the drill bit would keep its point downward as it fell — high-velocity aerodynamics. When it hit the cube floor, the tip penetrated about half an inch. That was enough to break a few of the nano-thin wires embedded inside the deck plate — the breach-detection sensor grid.”
   “Emergency shutdown?”
   “I’d call this an emergency!”
   Doc snorted. “I tend to agree. But why was it able to break through when it just fell freely, but not when you were pushing it against the wall?”
   “Oh, that? Well...” Tom stretched mightily and groaningly. “I did a little head-figuring. It was about eighteen G’s out there, and I knew the field gradient was varying top to bottom as the third power. So — ”
   “At last! The ‘so’!”
   “So it hit the floor at roughly 8700 miles per hour. And that,” he noted, “was enough.”
   There was still no sign of the control crew through the viewport pane. With gravitation in the chamber now normal, Tom and Doc hastened out the rear hatchway and down the access ladder. As they approached the human- scaled door in the metallumin wall, Tom called xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

out with relief: “Look! Thank goodness!”
   A woozy head — Sid Baker’s — had risen into view from behind a console.
   In a moment the two were surrounded by the control team, all of them wincing and dizzy but apparently none the worse for their experience. “The G magnification zone wasn’t contained in the cube,” explained Sid. “It suddenly came sweeping out into the control deck. No one was braced, and it flattened us. Pulled us right out of our chairs!”
   “What could have caused all this?” asked a technician. “Didn’t the chamber and the suit check out completely the other day?”
   “Yes,” Tom acknowledged, “separately. We have to find out what factor emerged when we brought the two together.”
   “Boss, could it have been human error?” speculated Sid.
   “Sure! — everyone looks at me!” com- plained another team member, Dave Bogard. He wasn’t entirely kidding.
   Tom grinned and said: “I don’t see how any sort of simple mistake could have caused this. When gravity went wild the failure must have xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

been within the system, a glitch.”
   “Yeah — a major malfunction.” Baker nodded. “We’ll wheedle it out of her, Tom. Don’t worry.”
   “Worry? Hey, I never worry!”
   “I do,” sourly noted Doc Simpson.
   At home that evening, after a dinner full of inventorly conversation, the family retired to the living room of the spacious Swift home, which had recently been rebuilt. Sitting down on a curving sofa, Bashalli Prandit — Tom’s frequent date about Shopton town and a not infrequent guest for supper at the Swifts’ — asked if the crewcut young inventor had heard from Bud Barclay.
   Tom shook his head. “He’ll probably call later. I’m sure he’s out on the town with his friends.”
   His sister Sandra shot her older brother a skeptical look. “Out on the town in Waterfield? Tom, Waterfield doesn’t have an ‘out’!”
   “Just who are these friends that Budworth is charming with his usual wit and verve?” asked Bashalli.
   “Some boys on a trip that he used to know in school in San Francisco,” Tom’s mother ex- xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

plained to the Pakistani. “He called them his best pals.”
   “Ah, I see — first drafts of Tom Swift.”
   “Probably football buddies,” Sandy noted. “American boys grow up with ‘sports cronies’, Bashi. Is it the same in Pakistan?”
   “Of course. Different sports, but I think the male is the same the world over. Tiresome!”
   The male population of the living room, Tom and his father, laughed. Tom protested: “Bash, you’re stereotyping!”
   “Indeed you are,” put in Mr. Swift. “Games and competitions are stimulating to human beings in general, not just the male of the species. I suppose there’s an evolutionary ad- vantage.”
   “If there is such a thing as human evolution,” Bashalli stated, “how is it that we have people who talk on cellphones in movie theaters?”
   Mrs. Swift brought out a tray of desserts. “Do you girls know that Tom is going on TV tomorrow night?”
   The girls erupted in chicly-restrained excite- ment. “It’s nothing major,” Tom told them. “Just the Connie Flenck interview show, Today’s Crisis in Shopton. I’ve done it before xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

— so has Dad. Local stuff.” When Bashalli asked the subject of the interview, Tom went on: “George Dilling thinks it’s time to go public with info about my exosuit invention. The rumor mill — and the Internet is about ninety-nine percent rumor mill — has been getting it wrong. They think it’s some kind of body armor for military use.”
   “Exosuit?” Bash looked puzzled for a moment. “Oh, but perhaps that is the great golden lummox you were speaking of, Thomas, your gianter giant robot!”
   “Uh-huh.” Then, as an uninvited thought struck the youth, he turned toward his sister. “Say, sis — have you received any more of those e-mes- sages? From Him?”
   Sandy frowned. “I would rather not discuss ‘Him’ right now, thank you.”
   “I am told that Him is still in — perhaps I ought not say hot pursuit,” commented Bashalli mischievously.
   “Perhaps you ought not say anything.”
   “Darling, I do wish you’d reconsider my speaking about it to Harlan Ames,” urged Tom’s father, a concerned expression crossing his face. Ames was the head of security for Tom Swift xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Enterprises.
   “No, Daddy. I can handle it — please. He’s really very sweet. Despite the slight difference in our ages.”
   “We must accept that Sandra considers him a live romantic possibility, should he live so long,” said Bashalli. “In other words, what you call here ‘a good catch.’ Surely more promising than waiting for Bud Barclay to grow up, don’t you think, Mother and Father Swift? And of course being an agent of your CIA is a job of great honor.”
   Damon Swift huffed disapprovingly.  “Quim- by Narz is old enough to be Sandy’s grand- father!”
   When Tom had traveled to the country of Brungaria to use his thoughtograph imager to defuse an international crisis, his family had accompanied him. A well-seasoned CIA agent, Quimby Narz, had been assigned the task of protecting the Americans. Without a hint, to the surprise of everyone, it seemed the sixtyish agent had become silently infatuated with Sandy Swift. While Tom and Bud were off in space, an exploit chronicled in Tom Swift in the Underlands of Mars, Narz had begun to ex- xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

press his feelings by regular e-mail messages, polite and proper yet increasingly personal, their implications too clear to be dismissed. A vestigial human remnant of an earlier generation, an all but extinct culture of peculiar customs, he had lately found one excuse after another to send Sandy little gifts of flowers and chocolates. The flowers were sniffed and tossed. The chocolates were eaten, thoughtfully.
   The matter was perplexing. “You have to admit, San, it is a little creepy,” Tom observed.
   Bashalli smiled. “I do believe the word wanted is ‘weird’.”
   Sandy crossed her arms stubbornly. “Meet the Swift family, Miss Prandit — all weird, all the time! Now listen, everyone, so I don’t have to repeat it yelling. When Tom and I were made emancipated minors, they said they approved our application because we had adult judgment and a mature sense of responsibility. So please allow me to judge and — er, respond!”
   Tom gave a grand bow. “Let it not be said that Tom Swift would ever stand in the path of true love.”
   “Is that why you two were made emancipated minors?” asked Bash with a shrug. “I thought it xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

was so you could have your own bank ac- counts.”
   “That too,” Sandy conceded.
   The next morning Tom arrived at the plant eager to hear from his engineering team whether anything had turned up in their preliminary examination of the test chamber and the exosuit. As he strode away from his bronze sports car, a beep penetrated his thoughts.
   He fished out his cellphone, doubly flipping it open from shoehorn size to a unit with four times the area on its face-panel.  “Tom here,” he said.
   “Tom, this is Murray over in the Visitors Center. You know, in the gift shop?” He seemed to be speaking in a whisper.
   “Sure. Hi!”
   “There’s a problem with a visitor. She’s — well — she’s here to see you and — ”
   “Have you called Security?”
   Murray sounded somewhat abashed. “Er, no. It’s not anything that’s really... that is, I wouldn’t want to...”
   “Okay,” Tom interrupted impatiently. “I’m in the executive lot. Be there in a minute.”


 

   Even before Tom arrived at the Tom Swift Enterprises Gift Shop, he could hear the sounds of a restrained, rather plaintive, argument. Yet at first he could only make out one voice, Murray’s. But as he drew nearer he realized that the pauses were filled with a soft piping sound.
   “Please, please ma’am, just leave the rack where it is. We don’t want you to hurt yourself, now do we?”
   “There is no ‘we’ here, I dare say. I am certainly capable of knowing what I’m doing!”
   Tom took in the scene from the shop door- way. Next to harried Murray Walsh a wisp of a woman, very elderly, had planted her two feet on the carpet like a stubborn bull. She was gripping with one hand a rotating metal-frame rack stocked with books.
   “M-ma’am?” Tom broke in. “I’m Tom Swift. May I help you?”
   Both faces brightened, and the woman called out in warm, reedy delight, “Tom! Why, so it is! Dear boy!”
   As Murray withdrew with evident relief, Tom approached cautiously. “Have we met, ma’am?”
   She let go of the rack. “Met? Oh, no, we xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

never have, you know. I didn’t think it was necessary. Yet I have always been curious.” She took a half-step forward and offered a hand that looked like a small bundle of dried twigs. “I am Henrietta Weidenhauser.”
   Tom grasped her hand, trying to avoid the slightest pressure. “Hello. I’m afraid I don’t quite recognize your name, ma’am.”
   She wheezed out a slight laugh. “My, my. Why Tom Swift, I am your creator!”
   “My — ! Um, excuse me?”
   She nodded. “Why yes, your creator; Tom Swift’s creator, that is — in a sense. Of course, I’m putting it in a dramatic way, as I’ve learned to do. To pique the interest of the reader.”
   Fine. Sandy gets one — now I get one! thought Tom wryly. “Sorry, but I don’t follow you.”
   “She’s been trying to drag that book rack all over the shop,” said Murray loudly — from across the room.
   “I did explain it to this — this clerk, Tom,” she retorted with haughty indignation. “You can’t blame me for wishing to have my books more prominently displayed. They are written with love, love on every page.” She plucked xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

one of the books from the rack and held it up before Tom’s eyes. Its bright, gaudy cover pro- claimed:

   
TOM SWIFT AND HIS
SPACE  SOLARTRON

   
   And suddenly it all came clear. Henrietta! “I understand. You’re the nice lady who writes the fictionalizations,” declared the young inventor. “The book series.”
   “I am indeed, indeed I am,” she confirmed with pride. “As were my dear late father and his father as well. Like your inventing, dear boy, it is the great work of generations!”
   Tom’s great-grandfather, whose name Tom bore, had made that name famous indeed. His mechanical and electrical inventions, his airships, warships, submarine-ships, and explorational hardships, had led the young man into danger and high adventure. Whatever facts lay behind those adventures had soon become entangled in a growing mythology as a series of books, edifices of fiction raised upon a smattering of truth and science, became popular with “science-minded boys” of several generations.
 

   Tom knew that the Swift family — perhaps unwisely — had long ago sold off the rights to the stories and their key “characters.” Swift Enterprises had managed to retain the right to publish and distribute the books, but their reissue, and the preparation of new ones based on Tom’s own exploits in modern times, were still in the hands of something called Odtaa Scienti-Fiction Authorship, Inc. And now Tom suddenly remembered that the company was owned by the authors of the books — a family of authors named Weidenhauser.
   Taking the book and glancing at its cover, Tom mused, “This is the one about how I rescued Dad and the space outpost.”
   “And don’t forget that crooked attorney! Really, I do love writing those sleazy, sarcastic villains.” Recharging herself with a gulp of breath, she added: “Oh, that ending! — it still brings a tear to my eyes.”
   “Mine too,” Tom commented dryly.
   “Now Tom, I do realize that my stories are not entirely... accurate,” acknowledged Mrs. Weidenhauser. “I am not a scientist, of course, although I do take care to consult regularly with a gentleman friend of mine who is a real sci- xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

entist. Well — he did teach general science, in high school. Before he retired some years ago.” She rushed on, “But these marvelous tales are not meant to be newspaper reports. They inspire! Imagine how many young boys — girls too, I suppose — have taken up science and engineering due to the romance and excitement of the field, as portrayed here.”
   “The romance and excitement of people getting hit on the head and things blowing up.” Smiling, Tom slipped the book back in the rack. “Well, Mrs. Weidenhauser, it’s nice to meet you.”
   “I came here today to speak to you about something important, Tom.” The woman paused for a long moment. “I know I did. How an- noying! — my memory has become a bit chancy since I turned eighty-five...”
   “If you think of it, you can — ”
   She brightened. “I remember. The jokes!”
   “Er — jokes?”
   “Yes indeed.” She took a set of cards from her purse and held them up in front of Tom’s eyes with quivering hand. “You see, I was speaking to your communications official, that very sweet man — what is his name?”
 

   “George Dilling?”
   “I don’t think so. No. Perhaps. But I do telephone him now and then, to hear of your latest adventures in science and space. He told me you were about to be interviewed on television, and were to discuss a new inven- tion.”
   “Yes, tonight.”
   Mrs. Weidenhauser smiled. “How nice. Well, you see, I have decided it is time to branch out a bit in my writing endeavors. One must expand, don’t you think? — just like the universe! But I am told one must first develop what they call a ‘track record’. And thus I have prepared a number of humorous remarks for you to salt into your conversation tonight, to lighten up what might otherwise be...” She suddenly grasped Tom’s wrist with apologetic earnestness. “I do hope you’ll forgive my saying it, but your scientific accounts can be just a bit dry, Tom. I rather agonize over the dialog at times.”
   The young inventor politely suppressed a laugh. “I suppose you’re right, ma’am. I’m not really much of a polished celebrity.”


 

   She pressed the note cards into his hand. “Oh, but you are. At least on paper.”
   Before parting from his creator, Tom promised he would try to work in some of her material.
   Finally arriving at the big office he shared with his father, he was pleased to find that the two lead members of his engineering team, Hank Sterling and Arvid Hanson, had arrived before him. “Find the problem?” Tom asked.
   They exchanged glances, and Hanson answered: “We think so.”
   Tom found the glances disquieting. “Is it a problem problem?”
  “It’s looking like a bigger problem than anyone could have guessed!”

   

   
   
   
CHAPTER 3
   
      
   

TODAY’S CRISIS IN SHOPTON

   
   
   
      
TOM was dismayed at Arv’s pronouncement. Yet somehow he was not entirely surprised. The sinking feeling was all too familiar. “Sabo- tage?”
   “We’re not using the ‘s-word’ this time,” Hank Sterling replied hastily. “Of course the day’s still young! The problem is technological, but pretty strange. The disturbing thing is that we can’t be certain just how far it goes.”
   Tom nodded. “Hit me with it, guys.”
   “Arv and I spent hours tracking the difficulty to one small component in the sensor for the gravitex-array modulators,” explained Hank, xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

showing Tom some notes as Arv nodded. “And finally we narrowed it down to something even smaller.”
   Hanson spoke up. “Much, much smaller, boss. A single microchip!”
   Tom shrugged. “They do fail occasionally. We’ll replace it.”
   But both engineers shook their heads. “It’s not that simple,” declared Sterling grimly. “We yanked it and put it under your leptoscope to examine its inner structure in detail. Tom, I know how this sounds, but — ”
   Arv completed the thought. “The silicon in the chip is being eaten!”
   The young inventor took a step back, not sure whether to frown gravely or laugh aloud. “I see. Eaten by what?”
   Hank grinned. “See, Arv? I told you he’d take it calmly. What a pro.” Then he sobered. “Tom — you’ve seen microphotos of the synapses of people who have Alzheimer’s disease, haven’t you? How the dendrites look like they’ve been stripped down and chewed up? That’s what we saw on the leptoscope screen.”
   “In my professional judgment as an engineer of Swedish descent, what you have here is an xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

infestation of silicon-eating invisible termites,” pronounced Arv Hanson. “Each one about the size of a molecule.”
   Tom glanced at the flip-calendar on his desk. “Nope — not April 1st.”
   “We’re putting it jokingly, Tom, but the phe- nomenon is real,” Hank assured his young boss. “Come see for yourself.”
   Tom had long since decided on a frown. “You saw nano-sized termites?”
   “Well, no,” Sterling admitted. “But it’s a pretty good way to describe what we did see. The silicon-semicon grids have been thrashed, broken up by jagged gaps that really do look like something has been busy gnawing away at them.”
   “Could it be some kind of acid?”
   Arv quashed the idea. “It’s not diffuse; it’s a pinpoint effect. Concentrated acid droplets just don’t get that small. If it is some sort of chemical reaction, Hank and I have never run across anything like it. But look, Tom, we haven’t yet told you the worst.”
   Hank Sterling was in charge of the worst. “Whatever’s going on, it’s spreading. The phenomenon has infected other silicon-based xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

microelements in adjacent components!” He explained that the deterioration of the other components hadn’t yet reached the point of failure. “But it may be just a matter of time.”
   Shocked and awed, Tom sank down into his desk chair. “Do you have any clue as to the mechanism of the infection — the process?”
   “So far we don’t know any more than we’ve told you,” was Arv’s reply. “The erosion of the silicon doesn’t seem to take place very rapidly. We detected no change over several hours in the infected components, and for all we know the chip that failed may have been deteriorating for weeks or months.”
   “Or days. The process may start slow, then accelerate exponentially,” Sterling cautioned.
   Tom snorted. “Don’t try to cheer me up, Hank!” The youth was silent for several moments, taking deep draughts of thought. “If the phenomenon really does spread like some sort of infection or infestation, it could get passed along all through the plant — and on into the outside world! Good gosh, imagine what could happen to our civilization if high-tech micro- electronics became undependable.”
   “Supremely talented as I am, even I would xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

have a hard time making a wrist-wearable computer out of vacuum tubes,” nodded Arv Hanson, who was Enterprises’ chief maker of models and miniature prototypes. “Man, you might as well try figuring a moon shot trajectory with a slide rule!”
   “Do they even make slide rules any more?” Tom mused. “I’ll talk to Dad right away. But for now, fellows, we have to institute quarantine measures as a precaution.” Tom directed them to keep the exosuit in the test cube for observation, and the entire test chamber sealed underground. “Also, please isolate that chip and the other affected units.”
   “Will do,” Hank promised. “We’ll keep ’em under glass. It’s mighty lucky your leptoscope works through glass, Tom.”
   Worried but trying to keep any sign of panic from his voice, Tom immediately called his father at home. “It’s a very serious matter, obviously,” observed the elder scientist. “And yet — what do we really know? One chip shows internal decomposition of a very striking form; several chips in the vicinity also show defects — but as of now we can’t be certain xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

that it’s even the same phenomenon at work. The test chamber control units were all con- structed at the same time, you know. All these components might have been drawn from a single bad lot.”
   “That’s true, I guess,” conceded Tom. “Some problem at the supply end. We can backtrack by  the serial numbers.”
   “Those components passed through many hands, son. The defect might be due to some kind of impurity in the original ore.”
   There was reassurance in Damon Swift’s voice. Tom expressed his relief by chuckling. “Thanks for cooling me down. I was ready to alert the authorities!”
   Mr. Swift joined the self-amused relief. “Who would have come charging in and shut down the entire plant. Now we’ll have a chance to actually solve the puzzle — not just puzzle over it.”
   Tom’s father ended the call by wishing his son good luck in that evening’s interview. “Your mother and I will be watching, of course.”
   Seven-thirty found the young inventor sharply dressed, pancaked, outlined in eyebrow pencil, miked, and fidgeting in a swivel chair in a small xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

TV studio near the Shopton city limits. Consuela Flenck, petite and as slim as she could plausibly engineer, sat two feet from the lanky youth’s kneecap. “Welcome to ‘Today’s Crisis in Shopton’,” came booming from the darkness, “with Connie Flenck and a live studio audience.” Tom had seen the audience before the lights had gone down — several cameramen, an audio technician, a childlike director, and a woman who could have been Miss Flenck’s mother. All were alive.
   “Our guest today needs no introduction. So I haven’t written one,” declared the interview host to the amusement of a titter-generator somewhere or other.
   She turned to the unintroduced guest. “Tom, you’re actually using one of your inventions right now, even as we speak.”
   He nodded. “I sure am, Connie. Instead of reading from your prompter screen over there, I have a contact lens in my left eye that displays words in perfect focus, easy for me to read. It’s linked to a midget computer in my — ”
   Miss Flenck interrupted. “You needed prompting to say ‘I sure am, Connie’?”
   “No, I mean, I will be — ”


 

   “Now then. Something new and very big is about to come forth from the Brain Factory on the other side of town. You call it an X-O suit. What does the ‘X-O’ stand for?”
   “Er, actually... it’s ‘exosuit’, as in exobiolo- gy.”
   “All right. What do those letters mean in X-O biology?”
   “It’s not letters — that is, it is letters, but not those letters — well, two of them are, but — ” He stared helplessly. His ocular mini-prompter offered no help. “To explain...”
   “Please.”
   “An exoskeleton is a rigid covering that certain insects use, in place of bones, to support their bodies. But nowadays you hear it in reference to man-made frameworks that a person might wear to artificially enhance his strength, or to extend his reach. I’ve heard them called human am- plifiers.”
   “Mm-hmm. And now Swift Enterprises is coming out with one of these ‘humanplifying’ machines.”
   Humanplifying? Tom hoped the mush-mouthy term wouldn’t catch on — a hope doomed to dashing. “The exosuit has room for xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

two operators inside. The shell is extremely tough, its muscles are as strong as any of our Swift robots, and its huge stride allows it to move along at better than fifty miles per hour. Although it could have many uses here on Earth, we’re thinking of it as a tool for human exploration of other worlds.”
   “So. Big and fast.” The woman smiled blandly. “Does that also describe its inventor? — I mean, we can see that you’re fast.” The mechanical audience ate it up and spat it back.
   “I’m a little over six foot,” Tom replied, when he could. “The exosuit is about 25 feet from head to foot, and with his extensible arms up, you can add another 15 feet or so. As a matter of fact — ” Tom made use of the joke that had been poised before his left eye since the interview began. “Um, ‘the exosuit is so big that he gave his girlfriend a basketball hoop as an engagement ring.’ ”
   “The machine has a girlfriend?”
   “Well, no — I’m just illustrating how big it is. Matter of fact, I’ve nicknamed it Koku, after my great-grandfather’s shop assistant, who came from a South American tribe of people who are unusually tall.”

 

   “We’ve all seen pictures of Tom Swift’s famous giant. What a life he had! Isn’t it true, Tom, that Koku was basically a slave?”
   The youth flushed angrily. “A slave? Absolutely not! He was not only provided with free room and board, he was paid the same wages as every one of — ”
   “That was before the minimum wage law was instituted, of course. A different world. Back in those days, speed meant faster than a horse- car. Times have changed. Don’t you think?”
   Rather than challenging Miss Flenck’s daring assertion about time, Tom forced himself to cool down and, touching a hidden button,  moved along to his next scripted joke. “Our aircraft, such as my Flying Lab, are the world’s fastest, Connie. Why, ‘you can lose both your luggage and your lunch in just three minutes’!”
   Miss Flenck stared at Tom curiously. “Yes. Well. What sort of power does Koku run off of?”
   “Atomic. You see, ‘lugging a really long ex- tension cord all the way to Venus would be a problem.’ The exosuit uses one of my atomic power capsules, called a neutronamo.”
   “Tom, ‘neutronamo’ sounds like something xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

you’d yell jumping out of a plane.”
   With a thin smile, the young inventor decided he had more than done his duty by Henrietta Weidenhauser’s wit. “Seriously, Connie — ”
   “I thought we were being serious!”
   Hahahahahahah!
   “...one reason I’m here tonight is to make an announcement about the exosuit. To test it out, we’ve given ourselves a real-world challenge. If Koku stumbles, everyone’s going to know about it!”

   

   
   
CHAPTER 4
      
   
   

NO-PLAYER PIANO

   
   
   
   
   
CONSUELA FLENCK showed no surprise on her pancaked face. Leaning forward in her chair, she put a petite hand to where her ear had been prior to cosmetic rethinking. “We all know the importance of secrecy these days, Tom. Just whisper it — I won’t tell a soul.”
   “Aheh! Yeah. Well, our plan is to walk all the way across the country, New York to Cali- fornia!”
   “Now that’s quite a walk. For publicity?”
   “Swift Enterprises doesn’t need publicity.” Tom had a brief image of George Dilling shaking his head. “This is a real test of Koku’s basic xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

capabilities over the long haul. We’ll be looking for opportunities to make use of his various systems in a spontaneous way, as they come up en route. Nothing will be planned in advance.”
   “Will the exosuit be plastered over with decals, like a racing car? You could turn quite a profit auctioning advertising space.”
   “No. We never — ”
   “And that’s it for our premier guest tonight, Tom Swift,” pre-empted the host. “You’ve heard it here. Tom Swift and his human- plifying exosuit! — stomping your way soon on the streets of Shopton.”
   As the program went to a commercial for the local organ mart, which was running a special on thyroid glands, a pert young girl rushed forward to free Tom from his collar mike. “It’s so nice to see you again,” she murmured.
   “Have we met?”
   “No, but we could.”
   Standing, Connie Flenck offered the young inventor a limp, cool hand. “Thanks so much, Tom. Till next time.” Their hands touched briefly and she turned the laser of her attention elsewhere.


 

   Tom’s drive home from the studio was a frown on four wheels, interrupted by a cellphone bleep. “Dan Perkins, Tom,” said the owner and editor of the Shopton Evening Bulletin.
   “Hi, Dan. You caught me on the — ”
   “Figured you’d be driving home. I saw the show, Tom. Now don’t fret about it. You’ll be avenged. It’s disgusting how the broadcast media sensationalizes everything — the old gotcha game. Flenck, she’s the worst. No principles. A piranha! Terrible kisser.”
   Tom was puzzled as to how to respond. Was Enterprises’ one-upping news stalker trying to be kind? He dismissed the bizarre thought instantly. “Actually, I thought it went pretty well,” he said hesitantly.
   Perkins chuckled. “Right. Glad you can joke about it, my friend. I was outraged on your behalf. I say: trust the print media! Says so right on our website.”
   “Okay, Dan. Thanks.”
   When Tom arrived home, he was surprised to find the lights dimmed funereally and only Sandy waiting up for him. “Mom and Dad went to bed a little early,” she explained.
 

   “They saw the interview, though. Didn’t they?”
   Sandy looked away. “Sure... I suppose they did.”
   Tom knew he looked as pitiful as he felt. “I know I’m not a TV personality, San. Those jokes...”
   “Oh Tom.”
   “I should keep the day job?”
   “Stick to inventing. By the way,” she added, “Bashi called.”
   Her brother nodded. “Same sentiments?”
   “Ohhhh Tom. But she said to call her tomorrow morning when you get a chance.” The girl paused, looking a bit resentful. “I gather she thinks you need some kind of ego stroking. She said something about my not being tactful. Hmmph!”
   As the embarrassed young scientist-inventor began to drag himself upstairs, he glanced back down. “And did ‘He’ have an opinion?”
   “Yes ‘He’ did, Tomonomo, as a matter of fact,” she replied pertly. “Which happens not to be any of your business!”
   “Well,” said Tom, “I’m sure he’s seen a lot of comedy in his long life.” He smiled. She didn’t.

   The next morning Tom gave a call to Bashalli from one of his labs, and they agreed to meet near noon at The Glass Cat coffeehouse, owned by her older brother. 
   He had scarcely finished speaking to the young Pakistani when the phone beeped with a call routed from outside. It proved to be Henrietta Weidenhauser. In her thin, whispery voice, a voice that suggested ancient yellowed parchments that had learned to speak, she thanked her literary creation for making use of her materials on television.
   She concluded by suggesting that his timing needed “work.”
   As he plonked down the receiver he heard the clack of cowboy boots in the hallway. Right on time, he thought. And I need a little cheering up! He hastened to seat himself on a chair across the lab, leaning his head back so that his blond crewcut pressed against the front of a padded boxlike device attached to the wall just behind him.
   Chow Winkler entered with his usual morning snack for Swift Enterprises executives and team leaders.
   “Mornin’, Tom,” said the rotund former range cook to his young friend. “Got some o’ them xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

fritters you like. Had yer breakfast?”
   “At home,” responded Tom with a hidden grin. “Say, Chow, isn’t ‘Home On The Range’ one of your favorite tunes?”
   Chow’s gaudy-hued shirt bunched in a shrug. “Where’d you get that ideer, son? Even us Texans git tired o’ that old saw.” Seeing Tom’s face fall, he continued quickly, “Wa-aal, now, not t’say it ain’t a nice piece o’ music. How- come you asked?”
   “Oh, I learned how to play it on the piano.” He gestured and Chow’s baggy eyes followed. The cook noticed for the first time that a small upright piano had been rolled against the far wall of the lab.
   The westerner nodded. “Been doin’ yer practicin’ here, hunh?”
   “Yep. Want to hear?”
   “Shor would, boss.”
   Instead of rising from his chair, Tom leaned back relaxedly, resting his open palms on his knees, fingers spread wide. Suddenly Chow started as piano music began to tinkle out from across the room! He swiveled in surprise.
   The bench in front of the upright was bare of life, but the keys on the piano were moving xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

visibly up and down with no hand upon them. The tune plunked out was awkwardly done and barely recognizable, but “Home on The Range” it was — and inexplicable.
   Chow turned back to Tom. “One o’ them m’chanical player pi-anees, is it?”
   “Nope!” replied the youth in languid satisfaction. “I’m playing it myself, right now. For example, I can do this — ” A pair of notes tinkled in the highest octave. “Or this — ” Another pair tinkled at the low end.
   Chow’s eyes narrowed. “Guess it’s one o’ them jokes you ’n Bud Barclay like t’play on me. You got a ree-mote c’ntrol on you?”
   Tom held up both hands, palms wide. “See one?” Even as he spoke, the piano echoed the rhythm of his words.
   Chow scratched his head, looking perplexedly back and forth between instrument and performer. “Guess I give up. Say now, you got Buddy Boy hisself a-hidin’ inside it?”
   “Not at all, pardner.” The piano clunked out a last note. Tom stood up and stretched. “But you’re right about it being a joke.”
   “Uh-huh. Figgers.”
   “Still, it also gave me a chance to give another xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

test to an invention of mine.” He slapped his friend on his broad back. “Had to see if I could sneak the gimmick past a shrewd cowpoke.”
   Chow beamed. “Unnerstan’ that! So tell me about it.”
   “I’m calling it the neural impulse intellitor.”
   “Got a short version fer that one?”
   “Just call it the neurintel,” laughed Tom. “It’s a sort of remote-control system I’m developing for use in the exosuit.”
   “Right — that there human-firin’ exer-thing.” The Texan added, “Watched you on th’ TV last night.”
   Tom paused but refused to let the reminder sour his mood. “Er — right. Chow, you remember Ole Think Box?”
   The Texan chuckled. “Shor do! That’s the feller from space who couldn’t chew gum.”
   “Our energy-brain visitor from Planet X. But Ole Think Box wasn’t the fellow himself, but the robotic container we designed to allow him to perceive the Earth environment and interact with it.”
   “That’s right. Looked like a right big fireplug t’ these old eyes.”

 

   “It wasn’t very stylish,” agreed Tom; “but it worked. We’ve developed some other things from that basic sense simulation technology since then, including the cortex-‘reader’ in the thoughtograph imager.”
   Chow scratched the plain of barren skin that covered his own cortex. “Guess that’s th’ antenna that reads-off yer brain waves.”
   “You could say that. Anyway, the neurintel is another step. It’s tuned to scan certain parts of the central nervous system for patterns of nerve activation that indicate...” He spent a moment searching for a term that Chow would grasp right off — but failed. “Well, it’s called a readiness wave.”
   “Wa-aal now — I think I heard o’ that,” stated the cook. “Ain’t that what they do at football games?”
   “It has another meaning too,” was the careful, polite response. “It’s a spreading pattern in the cortex and nervous system that happens just before you start to move your muscles — to reach for something, for example, or to press a button. See?”
   “Guess I do. Before ya do it?”

 

   “By a fraction of a second.”
   “So what happens if y’ change yer mind?”
   “I don’t know. I suppose there’s a second signal — disregard previous message! At any rate,” Tom continued, “the neurintel’s electronic sensors are able to detect the readiness wave and to interpret it. In other words, they can tell what a person is about to do with his muscles.”
   “Uh-huh.”
   “And then it does it for you!”
   “Uh-huh. So’s you don’t hafta.”
   “Exactly.”
   “Now, son,” said Chow with a frown. “Don’t mean t’say a discouragin’ word, but ain’t that sorta the height o’ bein’ lazy? Jest what’re yew thinkin’, thet folks need to rest their blame button-pusher muscles?”
   The pained, pointed remark made Tom laugh heartily. “You’ve got a point! But even with all the advances in artificial intelligence and face-recognition technology, our human reactions to the unexpected can still be quicker and more precise, or more delicate, than a robot’s. That could be important for planet explorers.
   “And there might be a practical advantage to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

being able to do some simple routine sorts of things with your brain, by trained habit let’s say, while your hands are left free for — well, for whatever hands do best. You could learn a sort of ‘muscular code,’ if you see what I mean. When it’s perfected, a person could train himself to use it like an extra hand, just as we can do one thing with our right and something else with our left at the same time.”
   “Guess that’s so,” Chow conceded. “Druther use my hands t’ shape the dough than t’ switch on the stovetop.” As a further thought struck him, he asked: “So now — you got your brain all trained to play the ol’ upright?”
   Tom explained that Arvid Hanson had rigged up a set of tiny motors in the piano console to depress the keys from within. “The neurintel itself is inside this box on the wall, and the sensors, which have only a short range, are inside the panel I was leaning my head against. As I ‘tried’ to move my finger muscles, the neurintel transmitted an ordinary remote-control signal to the piano — and it played!”
   “Didn’t see any twitch in your fingers, though.”
   “No. Feedback from the machine suppresses xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

overt movements of the selected muscles. Our bodies do the exact same thing every night, while we sleep.”
   “Ceptin’ fer dogs. They allus got their paws twitchin’ when they dream about chasin’ rabbits. Funny thing t’see.” Sufficiently impressed for one morning, Chow turned to leave, then half-turned back. “Oh, and boss? Meant t’ say — about the show last night — ”
   Tom groaned slightly. “I apologize.”
   Chow shrugged. “Hunh? Fer what? I thought you did jest fine! Wa-aal, one thing, though — a person has gotta be a mite careful with how yuh say things. Don’t get your feelin’s hurt now, son, but some o’ them things you ’as saying made me laugh out loud!”
   The young inventor worked for hours on the details of his exosuit, pondering, back some- where in his mind, the worrisome matter of the silicon infection. He tried to remind himself not to fret. “So far the problem’s only shown up in a few of the chips in the test chamber equipment,” he murmured. “No trace of it anywhere else — such as the exosuit.”
   As planned, Tom drove to The Glass Cat around noon to visit Bashalli and receive her xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

irony-tinged sympathies, chatting with her as she tended the lunch crowd. As noontime slipped into afternoon, she said to her friend, “Moshan is taking the next shift, Thomas, while I go to the bank with a cash deposit. Will you join me for more of this pleasant banter?”
   “Sure, Bash,” grinned the youth. “A little head-clearing banter sometimes leads to big ideas.”
   “So I am told by Bud. I shall be his temporary substitute.”
   The twosome strolled the block to the smallish World Commerce Bank of Shopton, enjoying the sun and the fresh breeze from Lake Carlopa. As they stood together in line, another line-stander, elderly but clearly in a jaunty mood, nodded at them. “Sweet day in Shopton,” he said.
   “It is lovely,” agreed Bashalli.
   But three seconds later, sweetness had flown and loveliness had turned ugly. The same man yelped out “Fire! Fire!” at the top of his lungs as a thick puff of smoke surged over the tellers’ countertop!
   

   
   
CHAPTER 5
   
      
   

BANK BUSINESS

 
   
   
      
   
THE EARLY afternoon banking crowd was sparse, but proved themselves equal to the challenge. They panicked. The several tellers stumbled backwards away from the counter, the customers sprinted or tottered toward the walls, and only the armed guard approached the source of the smoke from his post at the door.
   “Stay calm, everyone!” called out the bank president, Mr. Ablate, darting from his office in pursuit of his stomach. “There is no danger! We’re federally insured!”
   Tom Swift and Bashalli Prandit stood their xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

ground in the middle of the tiled floor. “Good night! If I had one of my repelexes — ”
   “But you don’t,” interrupted the black-haired Pakistani. “It seems to be just a little fire, though,” she added. Then she added more: “In fact, do you see any flame? I see only smoke.”
   Suddenly a shot rang out! — as shots seem always to do. An accompanying voice did not so much ring as dribble out. “All right, everybody, relax. Tellers, stay back from the counter. No button-pushing, please. Not even with your feet.”
   It was the elderly man who had spoken pleasantly to Tom and Bash. He brandished a pistol in his hand, like someone who thought he knew how to use it well enough to do at least a little damage. “Now listen, ladies and germs, there’s no fire, just a little tiny smoke-maker, absolutely harmless — and it’s used up, anyway. Still, it sure got the tellers to back away from their alert buttons, didn’t it, folks? Excited the security guard, even brought my old friend Hyman Ablate out from his office before he could phone anyone. Oh, speaking of phones — ” The man unpocketed a cellphone and set it down on the countertop. “Before you good xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

people start fumbling with your speed-dial buttons, look at this little gizmo of mine. Won’t take your picture or call Grandma, but it does beam out static interference to keep other phones from making a connection. Not bad! — if you’re a bank robber.” He rotated toward the guard. “Naw, forget it, you just set that gun down, Barney, and slide ’er my way.” The crook-wannabe winked at the crowd. “Not that he could hit much after his breakfast round of Whiskey Sours.”
   “Hey!” grumped the guard indignantly. “My doctor says I gotta stay relaxed!”
   “It’s working. Your liver’s just about fallen asleep.”
   “I suppose you want us to lie down,” snapped one irritated woman.
   “No,” replied the man. “Just sit down, I guess. Keep your hands out where I can see ’em. Form a half-circle, like when you did ghost stories at camp.” As the nervous crowd complied, the man strode up to the main door, fixing it shut with a metal rod that he had hidden in the sleeve of his neighborly cardigan. “Some- one’ll come along and get rattled soon enough, but this’ll only take a few minutes.”

 

   “Augustus Tenney!” pronounced the bank president thunderously. “Do you really imagine you can get away with robbing this bank? Robbing your friends and neighbors, who have entrusted their hard-earned wages to this secure institution, with its friendly tellers, high interest rates, and free checking?”
   “I’m making the speeches today, Hyman,” responded Tenney with a chuckle. “You know, folks, when he says ‘high interest rates’, he means the rates on the loans he makes.” Holding the gun casually, as if its barrel were a microphone, he began to rove around the circle, an expression of merriment creasing his face. “Who do we have here today? Anybody here from Iowa? Well look — Rick Fourth! His family has a street named after ’em. Here’s Sammy Bondoola, a real idiot.  — no, don’t say anything, Sammy, I’m just quoting your father.”
   Tom jolted slightly as Bashalli giggled, and Mr. Tenney turned in their direction with a wide smile. “And here we have today’s celebrity guest, young Tom Swift, along with his wink-wink girlfriend from that hippie coffeehouse down the block.” He took a step closer. “Just kidding. The Glass Cat offers a wide range of xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

flavorful coffees at a very affordable price.”
   “I thought you looked familiar,” Bash said. “Thank you.”
   “Don’t mention it.” The man now commenced a rambling speech to his nervous, bemused, attentive audience. It seemed the time had come to speak of many things. He made pithy comments about wealth and poverty, local politicians, weather, taxes, gun control, motion pictures, the New York Police Department, internet spam, and rap music. “And as for that great big concrete box of discounts over at the edge of town, I say: what about the woodlands? Is cheap hairspray worth the massacre of hundreds of homeless squirrels? You tell me, ‘Mr. Diveen’, who used to be known as Herbert Kropp of Sulphronia, Arkansas! I’m not saying you’re not a good stylist, Kropp, but whatever happened to the American barber?”
   “Mr. Tenney — is it Augustus? — you have a lot to say, but scaring people is no way to get them to really listen to you,” said Tom gently.
   “True enough,” the man replied. “And it’s Gus. But don’t assume I expect to make any changes in this world. A little late in the day for xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

that. I’m just here to — ” He paused, then grinned, and his grin became a laugh. “Why, I’m here to rob a bank! Better get on with it. Time’s almost up.”
   Tenney emptied some money from a cash drawer into a plastic bag, then headed for the front door, which he unfastened. “Well, everybody, I’ve said my piece. Big clock on the wall says it’s time to go. Listen, you’ve been a great audience, and I do thank you for your time and your kind attention. Meant a lot to me. Sure did.”
   With a nod, he left the bank.
   “Crazy,” muttered Sammy, the real idiot.
   “Do you know him, Mr. Ablate?” asked Bashalli as she regained her feet.
   “Know him? Not really, no. The man lives in a house trailer!” The bank president sniffed contemptuously. “Of course I try to be friendly to our customers. This is a bank with a friendly face. I sent him a cheese log last Christmas.” As a teller approached and said something in low tones, Mr. Ablate shook his head. “No need to use the expensive alarm system we just put in, Rita. I shall assume we can contact the police directly.”
 

   “Use the land line,” urged Rita.
   “Do I look stupid?” he huffed. “It’s Sammy Bondoola who’s the idiot around here.”
   “It just happened the one time,” protested the youth.
   As Tom and Bash hurried from the building a police car roared past, followed, unexpectedly, by an ambulance. “They must think someone is injured,” said the girl.
   Tom frowned. “But they’re not stopping.”
   The vehicles screeched around a corner, and Tom and Bashalli joined some other pedes- trians who were trotting after them curiously.
   The vehicles stopped next to where a small crowd was growing. A white-haired figure lay spread-eagled on the sidewalk next to a spread-eagled bag of cash. “He just started gasping, and then he fell down,” a woman was explaining to a police officer, cellphone in her hand.
   Bashalli gasped too. “My word! It’s — ”
   Tom touched the responding officer’s elbow. “He just robbed the bank, officer. His name is Tenney.”
   “Well, he’s not nobody no more,” said the ambulance medic who was bending over the xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

body. “He’s gone.”
   “But — but — ” objected Bashalli, “with those electrical shocker-things you use — ”
   “TV lover, huh. This guy isn’t fibrillating, lady, he’s just plain dead.”
   “He was fine just minutes ago,” Tom told the officer.
   “He’s still fine,” shrugged the officer. “He’s just not here.”
   Tom whirled as a familiar voice called out, “Tom! Bash!”
   “Bud!”
   “Just got back,” panted the dark-haired, muscular youth as he came running up. “So what do I see right off? Tom and Bash running after an ambulance!”
   The two gave a concise, breathless account of the bank business to their friend. “And now the guy’s dead? Jetz!” exclaimed Bud Barclay in amazement.
   “And it was just the other night that Sandra spoke of ‘weird all the time,’ was it not?” noted Bashalli.
   Hoping to investigate the bizarre incident further, Tom asked Bud to run Bash back to her shop in his red convertible, parked recklessly xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

somewhere in the vicinity of a curb. But before they could leave, an unfamiliar voice made Tom look up. “Tom, Bud — good luck!” It came from a nondescript figure in the crowd, who waved.
   “Who’s that?” Bud inquired.
   The young inventor shrugged. “A well-wisher.”
   “Perhaps a television viewer who thinks Tom needs it,” stated Bash dryly.
   Tom sped to the Shopton PD police station and sought out Captain Rock, a longtime friend of Tom and his father. “Already heard all about it,” Rock said. “Just about everyone in the bank called the station as soon as their cells got up and running. It’s just unbelievable, Tom.” He paused to shake his head. “Unbelievable! Barney Ferlands back on the bottle again. Dinny dan doh, that poor cocker spaniel of his.”
   Tom inquired whether the culprit, Augustus Tenney, had any sort of reputation with the police. “Nothing criminal,” was the reply. “A pretty nice guy, matter of fact. Lived in Shopton all his life. Wife passed on some years ago, but xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 

he’s got children out there somewhere. I guess I’ll have to be the one who calls them.”
   “Was he some sort of recluse?” Tom asked. “Older people can develop — problems.”
   “Yeah. So can young guys like me,” snorted the officer. “I never heard anything about him having mental lapses, if that’s what you’re driving at. He wasn’t a shut-in or recluse, either — went shopping, talked to his neighbors, took vaca- tions, normal as anybody.”
   The youth said frowningly, “What a strange occurrence. He seemed more interested in talking to us than in robbing the bank. Good night, that small amount of money he took hardly justified the effort!”
   “And then a block away, down he goes,” mused Rock. “Guess old Shopton was just next in line.”
   Tom was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
   “What, you haven’t read about it? Tom, I’m bettin’ our fair burg has just been hit by the Nonsense Wave!”

   

   
   
CHAPTER 6
   
      
   

XENOCULOUS POSSIBILITIES

   
   
      
   
“I’M SORRY,” responded Tom Swift. “Did you say — nonsense wave?”
   “Sure did,” nodded Captain Rock. “You don’t know what it is?”
   “Isn’t it something they do at football games?”
   The man chuckled. “Gotta remember that. No, my friend, it’s what the papers have started calling a series of very peculiar events taking place across the country — city to city, running north up the Atlantic states. Guess it’s mostly back page stuff so far. Little humorous stories.”
   “Tell me about it, won’t you?” urged the xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

young inventor.
   Rock shrugged. “Each one’s different as far as the details. The only thing that really ties ’em up is just the fact that they’ve all been bank robberies pulled by ordinary citizens, not pros. Coincidence.”
   “I’ve learned to be a little skeptical when coincidences come too thick, Captain,” ob- served Tom with a smile.
   “Good policy. Well now, this one’s number six. Priors in Fort Lauderdale, Charleston, Richmond, Trenton, and just a couple days ago in Syracuse. All of them spaced out since the first of the year.”
   Tom rubbed his chin. “Then this would be the first time there’ve been two robberies in the same state. And also — all the others have been big cities. Shopton isn’t.”
   “That I’d definitely agree with,” said Captain Rock. “But I suppose the news people will roll it in with the others, to make a better story.”
   “I’m still not clear on why they call it a Nonsense Wave.”
   “Oh, well... Now I’m gonna have to dredge up a few items from my memory, Tom. They’ve all been just as strange and senseless as this xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Tenney business. They get the customers in a helpless position, then do things that aren’t so much dangerous as off the wall. First robbery, the guy stripped off his clothes — every stitch, interested onlookers reported, and he wasn’t exactly a gym-goer — and ran out the door that way, money bag in hand. Let’s see — a lady acted out a scene from a current movie. A teenage boy sang songs like one of those Las Vegas lounge guys. The Trenton fellow dumped a gallon of blue paint over the head of a customer. The old lady in Syracuse just told jokes — dirty ones, they say.”
   “That’s terrible!”
   “Actually, they were pretty good.”
   “But what’s the point? The connection?”
   “There is no connection, Tom. Silly things like this happen all the time, but sometimes, on a slow day, the news guys pick it up and run with it. It’s just people. Never underestimate the eccentricity of the human race.”
   Tom shrugged. “I don’t. But Captain — don’t you think there are a few common threads here? You said these are plain citizens without records, stealing negligible amounts while... I don’t know — it almost seems they’re xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

forcing people to watch them do things they’ve always wanted to do but haven’t dared.”
   “A real captive audience! Okay, I’ll concede the point,” declared Rock. “And if you really want to push it, I guess there’s something else, too. Of the six bank robbers, three were dead, of natural causes, within twenty-four hours — including our Mr. Tenney!”
   “Natural causes,” Tom mused. “I can’t make anything of that.”
   “No one can. Let it go, Tom,” urged the older man.
   He’s right, Tom thought, rashly and all-too- hastily, as he left the station. For once this nonsense has nothing to do with Enterprises — or with me!
   The attempted bank robbery was all over the local papers for days, but Tom set it aside as he made preparations for his test-trek across the country in Koku. As always, his best pal would be by his side.
   “What’s the actual itinerary, genius boy?” asked Bud. “Have you mapped it all out? I suppose we’ll be stalking along the major high- ways.”
   “We can’t,” Tom explained in reply. “The xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

legal department has had to get all kinds of permits and permissions to do what we want to do, and we had to agree to keep clear of major thoroughfares and big-city streets, to prevent traffic jams and, er, stepping on people. We’ll be crossing some national parks, federal reserves, and military bases, though — even an Indian reservation!” He added that, with some effort, he had gained permission to invade a few towns along the way to test, with gentle care, Koku’s superhuman abilities.
   “Man! So where does this jaunt end up, Tom? Hey — how ’bout San Francisco? We could stay with my folks!” enthused the young pilot.
   Tom grinned but said, “No-can-do this time, flyboy. We’ll cross into California through the desert south of the mountains and end up on the El Toro Marine Base, on the coast near San Diego.”
   “Assuming that silicon bug doesn’t stop you,” Bud noted.
   The comment brought a shadow to the face of the young inventor. “There’s no trace of a problem in the exosuit, but we still don’t know the cause of the phenomenon. The leptoscope xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

doesn’t show anything unusual, nor the Swift Spectroscope.”
   “Have you thought of this? — Maybe it’s one of those micro-robots, the nano-things you’ve dealt with that are smaller’n germs. Saboteurs always keep up with the latest.”
   “We checked out the possibility right away. So far it doesn’t look like the answer. Anyway, pal,” continued Tom, “you and I and Koku will be ‘stepping off’ sometime tomorrow.”
   “Not too early, I hope!”
   After an affectionate chuckle, Tom said: “You know, pal, I haven’t really had a chance to ask you — how did things go last week, spending time with those old buds of yours?”
   The present bud winced slightly. “It was okay... I guess. People sure can change over just a few years. Soupo’s married — that’s what he calls it —, Bunk has a degree in, get this, medi- eval literature; and Chad owns a bar down- town. Good night, were they ever dull!”
   “You don’t suppose they might have been a little — envious?”
   “Yeah. Green! So what’d they think I’d do with my life, hang around Fisherman’s Wharf?”
   “Instead, you went to the moon — and Mars!” xxxxxxxxxxxxxx