TOM SWIFT

AND HIS

HUMANPLIFYING EXOSUIT

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 loudspeaker 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 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 metallumin. 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 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 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 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 unexpected 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 toward 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 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 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 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 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.

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 container-pods for various tools and instruments.

The control deck vibrated with a weird groan of straining metal joints. Suddenly the two cried 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 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! "Skipper! 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 optimist 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 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!" complained 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 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 explained 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 advantage."

"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 excitement. "It’s nothing major," Tom told them. "Just the Connie Flenck interview show, Today’s Crisis in Shopton. I’ve done it before—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-messages? 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 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. "Quimby Narz is old enough to be Sandy’s grandfather!"

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 express 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 was so you could have your own bank accounts."

"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 doorway. 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 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 one of the books from the rack and held it up before Tom’s eyes. Its bright, gaudy cover proclaimed:

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 scientist. 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 annoying!—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 invention."

"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. "Sabotage?"

"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, 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 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 phenomenon 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 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 microelectronics became undependable."

"Supremely talented as I am, even I would 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 that it’s even the same phenomenon at work. The test chamber control units were all constructed 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 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 exobiology."

"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 amplifiers."

"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 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 horsecar. 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 extension 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 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!"

"...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 California!"

"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 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 humanplifying 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 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. Howcome 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 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 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 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 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 somewhere 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 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 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 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. "Someone’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 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 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 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 pedestrians 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 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 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 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 vacations, normal as anybody."

The youth said frowningly, "What a strange occurrence. He seemed more interest 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 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," observed 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 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 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 highways."

"We can’t," Tom explained in reply. "The 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 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, medieval literature; and Chad owns a bar downtown. 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!" Tom nodded.

"Jetz! And what’d I get spending a few days in Waterfield with those three? Nothin’. We spent all our time eating and telling wheezy old jokes and playing poker. Matter of fact, I lost my shirt."

Tom looked humorously disapproving. "Maybe you shouldn’t play poker for money."

"I didn’t!" was the indignant retort.

Late in the day the two Swifts’ efficient secretary and receptionist announced an unexpected visitor—Tom’s mother. "Oh really?" Eyebrows up, Tom reacted in surprise. "Thanks, Trent." He stood to greet his mother, and unconsciously sat up straighter as they both seated themselves.

"Gosh, Mom, you hardly ever drop by to see me! Nothing wrong, is there?"

Tom’s words bore implications that a mother could easily decipher. "No, Dear," Mrs. Swift replied crisply. "This has nothing to do with your sister and her... suitor. I was out shopping, over in Mansburg, and I just thought I’d drop in on the way home."

"Hmm." It appeared that the son was a tad skeptical of the mother’s explanation.

"And—something else."

"Aha!"

"About the problem you’re having. The silicon eater."

The young scientist-inventor could not suppress a look of amazement and even higher eyebrows. "You have an idea—"

"Now Tom," said Anne Swift with patient motherly indulgence, "I did have a bit of a life before I became a wife and mother. Why, my goodness, I even had an advanced degree!"

Tom nodded with a laugh. "Sorry, Mom. I haven’t forgotten your degree in molecular biochemistry."

"I do hope you recall it to mind with every bite of pot roast."

"But—are you saying—the silicon thing could have something to do with biochemistry?" Tom frowned. "You think it really is some kind of nano-termite?"

"No," responded Mrs. Swift. "But my active scientific mind was fully engaged even as I shopped at Mordlen’s. I remembered something I’d read a year or so ago in Ladies’ Home Journal of Molecular Biochemistry. I have the issue on the library shelf with the others. That shade of teal makes such a nice color accent."

"What was it about?"

She smiled prettily. "Now I have your attention! The article was about, basically, the history of speculations in the research field that never panned out, never led to anything. One of the examples was a theory—a warning—about something with a memorable name. They called it a xenocule."

"Never heard of it, I’m afraid," shrugged Tom. "But the name must mean something like ‘strange molecule’."

"Mm-hmm. I don’t recall all the details, but the idea was that somewhere in the process by which they manufacture silicon-based semiconductor chips, there’s a statistical chance that single super-complex molecules could turn up as a contaminant, by accident. They have peculiar properties—dangerous ones. As a matter of fact," she went on, like a grim-faced magician delightedly producing a rabbit, "the thing about xenocules is this: they eat silicon!"

Mrs. Swift’s rabbit made Tom rear so far back in his chair that he had to windmill his arms to regain his balance. "Mom, that’s—fantastic!"

"Makes me a Swift, doesn’t it?"

"I’ll say!" The young inventor immediately called Hank Sterling and the head of Enterprises’ materials science division, Shan Lilof, and asked them to hasten to the office.

"Can’t say I’m familiar with the concept," was Sterling’s response to Anne Swift’s account. "Great name, though. Xenocule!"

"I remember the original research, Mrs. Swift," Lilof declared. "We studied it in a university class as an example of premature theorizing, along the lines of ‘polywater’ and the ‘cold fusion’ business. The mainstreamers concluded it was too unlikely to be worthy of consideration, although they couldn’t totally dismiss the possibility. Which didn’t stop them from snickering, of course."

"It just may be that now it’s more than a possibility," retorted Tom. "And if it’s getting spread around—or somehow spreading itself—it’s a terrible threat!"

CHAPTER 7

BAD TRIP

AT HOME that evening, Tom read the journal article avidly, then called up further information and comment via computer. The accidental antagonist from the microworld was just as Mrs. Swift had recollected, a dreadful threat to the modern world of microelectronic technology. One article was prefaced by the dire-sounding warning issued by a team of international scientists to a couldn’t-care-less global community:

"We suggest the probability that a unique molecular soliton, a ‘xenocule’, will eventually manifest as a byproduct of the manufacturing process, the likelihood of its appearance increasing dramatically as such manufacturing comes to dominate the world industrial economy. Bonding to the monoatomic vertices of the silicon crystal lattice, the xenocule will tend to ‘trap’ and dissociate weakly-bound terminus atoms, producing a free-ion plasma shunted by Van der Waal traction to the facia extremities, progressively degrading the product to unusability." The article went on to describe how the lifeless molecule would be able to mimic a retrovirus, using its silicon nourishment to effectively replicate itself, spreading unchecked to neighboring materials.

Tom sat on the edge of his bed, running over the worrisome scenario with increasing alarm. Was the molecular virus being introduced deliberately in a plot to destroy modern civilization? Or was it indeed an accident? How could the contamination be quarantined?

Could it even be stopped at all?

So much for a good night’s sleep, the youth thought ruefully. And then he began to ponder the consequences if the exosuit’s complex circuitry had been undetectably infected. Good gosh, the cross-country trip could make us Typhoid Marys! He was still thinking it as the first snore came unannounced.

Morning light dissipated much of the fear, but not the possibility. Tom discussed the matter with his father over breakfast. "Do you think it’d be best to postpone our trip, Dad?"

Damon Swift frowned. "I’m reluctant to. I’ve been reviewing everything your inspection team has come up with, and I don’t see the slightest indication of any sort of degradation or contamination in the exosuit’s circuitry. Furthermore, even the theorists admitted that these xenocules are big, bulky things, as molecules go. You saw the drawings—like complicated knots all tangled together. They could hardly be expected to penetrate even a thin layer of shielding. And Koku is sealed tighter than a drum."

"Yes—Inertite, Tomasite, and Neo-Aurium."

Mr. Swift added a chuckle. "And then, of course, we wouldn’t want to upset George Dilling!"

Tom laughed. "Okay, Dad, you’ve talked me into it—just as I’d hoped!"

Tom said his goodbyes to his family, adding a mischievous goodbye to be conveyed to Quimby Narz, which Sandy received without retort. "For once, don’t push the envelope too far, big brother," she said with big eyes. "And take care of Bud." Sleeping in shifts along a zig-zagging course, Tom had estimated that the road trip would take about four days.

Picking up Bud, Tom sped over to The Glass Cat to receive Bashalli Prandit’s fond bon voyage, then drove on to Swift Enterprises. They found Koku gleaming and ready, looming over the plant airfield like a mammoth, silent sentinel. "He’s been stocked up with food and given a last checkout by Art Wiltessa," Tom told his pal. "We’re ready to roll!—mm, walk."

"You could’ve stopped after ‘food’, genius boy!"

From sole to crown, Tom’s exosuit stood two stories tall on curving treetrunk legs of golden metal—ultrastrong, ultralight Neo-Aurium mined on the floor of the Atlantic. Above extended hip joints, the broad torso of the giant rested upon a gimballed waist which allowed it to bow at an acute angle or turn at will. Its arms were powerful looking and apelike, the curled metal bands of its "fingers"—twelve in all—spreading from the concave "palms" of hands that hung down to the metal creature’s knee joints. Its head was a molded sphere, its face a flat, dark panel rectangular in shape. From the center of this panel protruded a single huge, glassy eye, making Koku a mechanical Cyclops.

Bud, who had been given training on the exosuit’s operation in Enterprises’ elaborate 3-D simulator, pressed the DNA-reading contact switch on the giant’s heel. The vehicle’s rear access door swung up and open, and a flexible ladder of Duraflexon unrolled down to them and turned rigid.

They assumed their seats before the view dome, and Tom actuated the control panel and monitors. "Ready, flyboy? I’m going to walk him out under manual control, then switch to the neurintel on the other side of the wall."

"Ready like you wouldn’t believe!" enthused the black-haired mission copilot.

Out on the tarmac a large crowd of Enterprises employees and friends, along with a throng of news people, had gathered to see the machine’s first big steps on the road to California. The boys noted Mr. Swift standing next to Jake Aturian, who was the chief of the Swift Construction Company. They picked out Hank and Arv, Linda Ming and her brother Felix, Doc Simpson, pilot Slim Davis, Markham Wesberg, Bob Jeffers, and many others, all friends. Security director Harlan Ames was a dignified hat-wearer, joined by stocky Phil Radnor, his assistant.

"Look, Tom, there’s that—I mean, there’s Dr. Kupp," said Bud, indicating a somehow blurry, blinking figure who appeared more theoretical than real.

"And George Dilling, naturally."

But as always, one bystander didn’t just stand by, but stood out—like a roly-poly western-themed signal flare. Picking up the microphone, Tom switched on the exosuit’s exterior phonosystem. The invention utilized the shell of the suit as a sound transceiver, making it a super-microphone and projecting loudspeaker in one. Tom had adapted the basic approach from a similar setup used by his hydrolung diversuits.

"Chow! You didn’t need to get all gussied up just to see us off!" boomed Koku with the voice of Tom Swift.

The big crowd echoed the cook’s good-natured laughter. "Picked up this ol’ shirt jest fer sayin’ adios, boss!" he called out. "You young’ns eat right on this trail drive o’ yours."

Bud took the microphone and said, "We’ll sure try, buckaroo! But we’ll be ready for the Armadillo Special when we get back!"

Leaning over the control board, Tom slipped his hands into a pair of glove-like handgrips and, with a wink at Bud, eased the right lever forward. In response the giant assumed a barely-noticeable tilt as it began to swing out its right leg for the first step on its journey of a thousand miles.

The tilt did not remain barely-noticeable. The youths cried out as Koku swayed alarmingly! "What in—!" gasped Tom. "Bud, we’re falling over!"

"Jetz! Koku’s tripping!"

The exosuit leaned further, turning and shifting as if it were straining to regain its footing. But it was no use. Like a toppling redwood, the multi-ton colossus arced down toward the frantic crowd below!

CHAPTER 8

UNIDENTIFIED WALKING OBJECT!

"BUD! The gravitexes!" Tom Swift barked, and Bud understood the command. His strong hands flew at the duplicate controls in front of him, manually adjusting the gravity concentrators to provide extra stabilizing force.

Even as he spoke, Tom was trying to right the exosuit, or at least to slow the giant’s fall. Force-beams from repelatrons concealed inside Koku’s golden shell stabbed out in the direction of the tarmac. The young inventor knew it would take a second or two for the telespectrometers to tune the repulsion machines to the element-mix of the surface. Did he have a second or two?

After a heart-thudding hesitation, the toppling giant slowed—and stopped. It hung weirdly in mid-fall at an angle of forty-five degrees, bobbing slightly.

The terrified crowd had begun to scatter, but one rotund figure had lost his own balance and remained unscattered. Chow Winkler thudded down wincingly, white face turned up at Koku’s huge golden one.

"Chow...!" muttered Tom in horror. For all he knew, the exosuit could resume its crushing fall any moment! He set at the controls like lightning, reconfiguring two of the repelatrons and tuning them to the cotton fibers in Chow’s clothing.

The Texan’s cowboy hat bolted off into the wind, and it looked like his gaudy-hued shirt was about to follow it. He chortled out a whoop of astonishment as an invisible force swept him roughly across the tarmac in a sitting position, shoving him out of harm’s way.

Yet in the end the robotcraft did not fall. As the repelatrons, gravitexes, and gyros took hold, Koku slowly swung vertical again.

Bud sighed his relief, but Tom was already trying to untangle the problem. Was it possible that the silicon-eater had invaded the exosuit after all? The thought haunted him.

Seeing Slim Davis waving at him, Tom switched the phonosystem back on. "Skipper, the right leg flexed but didn’t lift! The thing tripped over its own feet!"

"I didn’t touch a darn thing!" came a defensive voice from back in the crowd—Dave Bogard’s.

"I’m checking it out up here," responded the young inventor tersely. "Arv, Hank, plug into the peripherals and see what you come up with."

Arvid Hanson produced a handheld diagnostic readout unit. With Hank at his shoulder, the modelmaker unsealed and opened an access panel in the exosuit’s ankle and connected to an output port. After a moment Hank called out, "Nothing obvious at this end, Tom."

But Tom had discovered the cause of the giant’s near stumble, and it reddened his face with chagrin. "Uh, folks—problem found and corrected. It was my fault. When I went manual I forgot to switch over the gradient sensors. Koku didn’t know where the ground was! Sorry."

"That there’s okay, son," yelled Chow, rubbing his ample backside. "Now git goin’!" He may have had a bit more to say, but Tom wisely switched the phonosys to Off.

This time Koku redeemed himself from disgrace. Ten mammoth strides, weirdly graceful and delicate, took the exosuit to Enterprises’ high perimeter wall. Pausing, Tom swiveled the robotcraft at the waist and waved goodbye to the crowd with the machine’s ponderous metal arms, extending them toward the sky to their maximum reach. Then, turning the upper chassis forward again, he guided Koku over the wall in a single high step.

"He didn’t get woozy that time," chortled Bud excitedly.

Tom returned a grin. "With all the stabilizing gimmicks we’ve built into the suit, Koku could balance on one leg as steadily as if it were set in concrete." He added wryly: "Unless the human pilot forgets to switch ’em on, of course."

Outside the wall, Tom brought Koku to a standstill and pulled the thick-padded headrest of his seat forward. When he had positioned it comfortably he flipped a control switch and leaned back against it. The board beeped. "Contact!" he said to Bud. "Let’s see if the Swift brain is smart enough to put a robot through his paces."

Pretending to ignore his pal’s nervous gulp, Tom tried to raise his arms. The youth’s arms of flesh and bone did not move a micro-inch—but the exosuit’s stretched upwards like a sun worshipper! Tom spent a minute practicing opening and closing Koku’s hands and extending various instruments from the giant’s fingertip compartments.

"Now a few neurintel baby-steps!" At Tom’s words the exosuit lurched forward, one foot, other foot.

"What’s it feel like, genius boy?" asked Bud.

It was Koku who responded, making a gesture like a shrug of the hand. "Got to watch that!" laughed the young inventor. "As for the feeling, chum, it’s very strange. It seems like I’m moving my arms and legs and striding forward—and yet they don’t move."

"I had knee surgery once, and they anesthetized my footballer legs," Bud commented. "When I thought I was lifting my foot a couple inches, it was more like a kickoff!"

The exosuit walked along across the undeveloped field that bordered that corner of Swift Enterprises in sync with its inventor’s will and muscle-commands, but it took some time for Tom to accustom himself to walking while sitting down, as he expressed it. But soon enough the machine was able to walk smoothly.

"Those big feet must be leaving some major footprints in the soft ground," remarked Bud. "When the rain fills ’em up, maybe we can stock ’em with trout."

Tom retorted, "Don’t forget, those ‘big feet’ distribute the suit’s weight over a fairly large area. And more than that," he went on, "we’ve stocked some big blocks of G-inverted anti-ballast at several places inside the exo."

"Right, the stuff that makes things lighter. So let’s give up on the fishing and teach Koku some ballet steps!"

The Mayor of Shopton had declared a mid-morning celebration in Tom and Koku’s honor, clearing the main road like a parade route. As the youths made their way up the deserted highway toward town, Bud pointed out that the skies above were far from deserted. "Jetz, look at all those choppers!" he exclaimed.

"News copters," pronounced Tom with a trace of concern. "The authorities are worried they’ll start crashing into each other, and so am I. But I’ve got a plan to handle the problem."

Bud grinned mischievously. "Koku can fire antiaircraft missiles?"

"Just wait!"

The rural highway merged into Commerce Avenue, running down the middle of town and now lined with rank upon rank of excited onlookers. Tom greeted them by phonosys and waved jauntily and gigantically. Coming opposite The Glass Cat, he raised, then lowered Koku’s right arm, bringing it near the roof of the building. Extending a delicate gripper-tendril from a fingertip, he rapped loudly on the roof, and Bashalli came running out in her apron, waving and laughing merrily.

Further along Tom came to a furniture store, its owner a friend of the Swifts. The young inventor made a quick cellphone call as Bud looked on, puzzled.

As some employees dragged a couple large beanbag chairs out onto the sidewalk, Tom gripped his microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, please step back and give Koku a little room to display one of his talents."

The giant turned toward the shop and bent over slightly, stretching his arms and spreading his bouquet of metal fingers. He picked up one beanbag in his left hand, the other in his right, then stood straight. "Let’s hope Koku and I don’t make fools of ourselves," he muttered side-wise to Bud. "I taught myself to do this while I was testing out the neurintel interface with the motor-muscles."

The exosuit tossed one of the beanbags into the air, tentatively, catching it again as it fell back. Then Tom tossed it higher—and simultaneously flipped the other beanbag across to the now-empty hand. In a moment Bud was alight with happy amazement. Koku was juggling!

Inevitably Tom fumbled a beanbag and the show was over, but the crowd had already grown hoarse from roaring delight and limp from applause. The giant bowed primly, while inside Bud applauded.

The exosuit resumed its lope.

Commerce Avenue ended at the recreation pier on Lake Carlopa. With a glance at his copilot, Tom guided the exosuit forward in confident strides—right into the Lake!

"Good night, Skipper, you might’ve warned me!" laughed the young Californian gleefully.

"And spoil the surprise? Anyway, I wanted to give the exo a real-time underwater test," Tom said. "Could be useful on Neptune’s moon Triton. There may be oceans of liquid water beneath its icy surface."

They marched further and further from shore as sailboats and motorcraft made way with toots and shouts. The waterline rose to the bottom of the viewpane—then surged over it. In seconds the robotcraft was completely submerged, head and all. Abruptly changing direction, Tom said, "Now let’s see the flying newsies chase after us!"

"Bet Dan Perkins is up there somewhere."

"He can stay up there ‘somewhere’!"

Demonstrating the suit’s main features, Tom split the underwater gloom with a beam of brilliant light that issued from Koku’s cyclops-eye like a science fiction death ray. "Mighty bright," Bud commented, "but it’s hard to see anything, what with all this muckety-murk our boy’s stirring up around us."

"Then how about this?" A change in the board readouts showed that Tom had used the neurintel to make an adjustment to the control settings. Bud started back in his seat as the confused glare beyond the dome was replaced by a sharp, clear scene, brilliantly lit.

"Man oh man!" breathed Bud. "Bring on the sun! I suppose it works like the aqualamps on your subs, hmm?"

The young inventor nodded—about all he was able to do while his muscles were keyed to the neurintel and kept "offline". "But the aqualamp setup can’t do this!"

The view was suddenly magnified, as if a powerful telescope had annihilated distance. "Don’t forget, Bud, this isn’t just a nice picture window; we can make the pane opaque and turn the inner surface into a digitized TV screen. Besides the polyfrequency light beam, we can see in sonar, radar, infrared, ultraviolet, all sorts of modes. I could even bring up a spectroscopic profile or a computer schematic."

"How about a sitcom?"

"Sure. Bored already?"

"Not just yet."

Koku rose up out of the lake in a wooded area some distance from town, and Tom turned southward as planned. The arching trees apparently shielded them from aerial view. The distant choppers, discouraged, appeared to be scattering.

They advanced steadily on a prescribed, somewhat isolated route across woodland and farmland, occasionally stepping across a stream, ducking under a bridge, or, now and then, paralleling a roadway. Noting the startled swerves and goggling stares of drivers, Tom announced: "I guess it’s time to do a little ‘silent running.’ Or at least unseen walking!"

The board readouts changed, but no change was apparent through the viewpane. "Did you do something?" asked Bud, puzzled.

"Not much. Just made us invisible."

"Okay, not exactly invisible—but hard to see." Moving into Barclay explanation mode as he liked to do, Tom reminded his friend that the exosuit was outfitted with a unique kind of camouflage system based upon Tom’s 3-D telejector. "Photon holoceivers up on top detect and analyze the wavefront patterns coming in with the reflected light from all sides. Then telejector antennas hidden inside the shell produce a curving ‘screen’ around and above us that reproduces the opposite-side images in 3-D, as if Koku had turned to glass."

Bud looked abashed. "Bet that was part of the training, wasn’t it. I knew I should’ve read the manual."

After a time the pilots brought up a computer map onto their big screen to see where they had gotten to. "Just east of Terris Palma," Tom murmured. "Let’s see now, here’s the river... then down to Kossuth... We should be having lunch somewhere in the wilds of Pennsylvania."

"Well, it’s got to be more exciting than Waterfield," remarked Bud.

The giant’s legs and hips were configured in such a way that the up-and-down swung of the exosuit’s strides were compensated for, giving the pilots a smooth ride across any sort of terrain. For long stretches it was possible to leave Koku to his inbuilt cybertron unit, his sophisticated automatic pilot, with only an occasional correction—mostly in the best interests of wandering cows.

In the quiet of the pilot compartment the boys chatted about the future of human-amplifying devices. "It’s a different direction for robotics and cybernetics," Tom told his friend, turning his head slightly against the neurintel headrest. "There’s a place for machines built entirely with efficiency in mind, but the human form—and the brain that runs it—have been developing for quite a while to deal with whatever nature cooks up. We shouldn’t be so much in love with techno-stuff that we get prejudiced against finding uses for human technology. Do you see what I mean?"

Bud’s unexpected response was: "Do you see what’s going on out there, Tom?"

"Hunh?" Tom swiveled his blue eyes back to forward for a startled look. "Gosh, what’s the matter with those people?"

They had come near a dirt road not clearly marked on the map—but evidently much more used by the locals than the map assumed. The road was crowded with pickup trucks, farm tractors, bikes, and motorcycles, with more converging on Koku across the wide fields on either side. And there were people too, running and waving their arms and shouting as if in a frenzy of excitement.

Or was it fear? Tom briefly switched on the phonosys, cutting it off again as the cabin filled with yells and horn-honks.

"Excited greetings from the locals?" speculated Bud with no conviction.

"They don’t look happy, pal, they look afraid." The puzzled scientist-inventor brought the exosuit to a halt. Blanking the viewpane, he brought up television programming. Brief channel-surfing produced a news report. "...still coming in of rumor and panic along the way. But we’re told that curiosity is also playing a role, Frank."

"We sure are, Cindy. To bring our viewers up to speed, authorities and news outlets have been flooded with reports of an unidentified phenomenon moving southward across northern Pennsylvania." Pictures cobbled together from cellphone videos now took over the screen. They showed an eerie, oblong object skimming along irregularly near the ground, a vague, ghostly silhouette. It had no details, no center, and no shadow—a dim transparent halo engaged in a continuous writhing motion.

Bud gasped. "Tom, that’s us—Koku! Good grief, we’ve set off a panic!"

CHAPTER 9

FREEDOM’S THREAT

"OH NO!" Tom gulped out in dismay. "I assumed everyone would realize from the news—"

But Bud shot his copilot a wry look. "Pal, I don’t think anyone happened to mention this camouflage-cloak deal to the media."

With a sinking feeling it came to Tom that his chum was right. The public had no idea that the weird phantom gliding across rural Pennsylvania was Swift Enterprises’ golden superman! "I’d better call—who?"

"Keep cool, kid," Bud urged. "Betcha Harlan Ames is already on top of this."

"Right, right."

Suddenly he winced, and Bud almost jumped from his seat, as a swarm of loud Clang!-s battered the suit’s Neo-Aurium shell! "T-Tom—about keeping cool? Forget it!" gulped Bud, wide-eyed.

"Now somebody’s shooting at us!" Tom grated. "This nonsense has gone way too far." Resolving to take quick action the young inventor neurinteled the control computer to deactivate the telejector camouflage. The roiling crowd, some armed with shotguns, some with metal bats, most with cameras, flinched back with shouts of alarm at the startling materialization—a giant invader from outer space!

"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed the enormous voice, "this is Tom Swift, from Swift Enterprises in Shopton, New York. Please don’t be afraid and don’t panic. And please stop shooting at us! This is my exosuit, the robot vehicle you’ve seen on the news. It’s just being tested—it’s not a danger."

The ragged masses yearning to shoot free seemed to hesitate, exchanging glances. Then the control compartment filled with amplified cheers. "Hey Tom! Hey! It’s Tom Swift!"

"Hello everybody!" called Koku. And then a second, different voice came floating down from above. "Say, folks, where are we? Where is this?" Bud waved through the viewdome.

"Four miles west of Rompro Turkeys," a petite farmer’s wife called from atop a tractor.

The exosuit had been halted on a downslope next to a dry creek, near a concrete highway bridge which was—literally—within reach. Several trucks had pulled to a stop on the bridge for an elevated view. And in the control cabin a few yards below, Tom Swift’s nose began to twitch.

He sneezed.

—and the colossal, supersized arm of the exosuit whipped upward toward a nose that didn’t exist! Koku’s flailed fist slammed into the side of the bridge just below the flimsy guard rail with the force of a bundle of TNT. Tire-sized chunks of concrete erupted in all directions. And a few of those directions led to shrieking human beings!

Automatic reactions, humanplified by the neurintel setup, took over as Tom instinctively moved to bat aside the hurtling debris. With no thought his inert muscles became the exosuit’s powerful pistons. Koku batted the fragments whirlingly aside and off into the empty—cowless—field.

"The truck!" Bud cried. One of the big trucks was tottering over the edge of the break Koku had made. In an instant it slid off the road bridge into the empty air!

But Tom was already primed for action. Feeling himself stretch, he deftly extended both exosuit arms to their limit, simultaneously opening the clustered finger-bands wide. They closed gently on the truck chassis, following along as it fell, slowing it and easing it to the ground in a single motion.

"Man—nice catch!" Bud chortled. "Swift snags the high fly!"

Though the crowd’s cheers had redoubled, Tom was horrified at the consequences of his humanplified human reflexes. Switching off the neurintel and again able to move freely, he unsealed the control cabin and scrambled down to the ground, trotting up to the rescued truck. Its occupants, a big gruff-looking man and two boys, stood shakily next to it. Tom gulped involuntarily as the man began to stalk toward him.

"Sir, I—I don’t know what to say! It was a freak accident, but if anything had happened to—!"

The man interrupted the youth’s stammered spiel with an extended hand. "No apologies, guy! Whilikers! We’as gonna be on the news, my boys ’n me—part o’ jim-danged hist’ry!" The two boys tripled the man’s enthusiastic hand-pumping.

"Er—my pleasure," said Tom.

The young Shoptonian climbed back aboard and put a few miles of distance between Koku and the crowd, avoiding any sign of humanity or highways. Switching the manual controls over to Bud, Tom turned to the section of the board that controlled the exosuit’s communications capabilities. Selecting the quantum-matrix cartridge linked to the Enterprises switchboard, the youth was soon speaking to Harlan Ames by PER, his space-annihilating Private-Ear Radio. "My apologies, Tom," said the security man. "I had lunch in town with my daughter and left my cell behind in the car. I just now heard about this public snafu. But fire me later," he went on. "Radnor and your Dad have been in touch with the authorities, and they’re starting to get the word out."

"I’m not too sure people are much interested in ‘the word’ right now," Tom commented dryly. "They’re in the mood for excitement. I just gave them quite a sideshow." After providing Ames with details of the incident, he said: "I’ll keep the camo system off, but I’m still concerned about flying media people flocking overhead and fouling one another."

"Well, I think that’ll be taken care of," responded Ames. "Your Dad contacted the aviation authorities in D.C., as well as the Homeland Security folks. As long as we keep them updated on Koku’s general route of travel, they’re prepared to issue emergency orders keeping air traffic at a distance, for safety’s sake."

"That’s good, anyway. We’d better stick to the offroad routes even more than we’d planned. It seems we can’t win—visible or in-!"

After a chuckle, Ames told Tom that he had a further matter to tell him about. "You remember Hal Brenner, don’t you? The FBI man who got involved in rescuing you and Sterling from—oh, whoever it was that time."

"Sure, Harlan, I remember him."

"He’s been trying to get through this morning, but the switchboard has been flooded, as you can imagine. Anyway, he left his direct number—wants you to call him right away."

A new interruption! Tom was surprised. "It’s that urgent? Okay, give me back to the switchboard. I’ll ring him immediately."

As Tom waited, Bud leaned over and whispered, "I’ll re-invisibilize us, Skipper, while we’re standing still. It’s moving ghosts that spook the natives, I’ll bet."

When Agent Brenner came on the line, Tom could detect a flinty seriousness in his voice. "Believe me, I wouldn’t interrupt this test trip of yours if it weren’t a top priority."

"Meaning—lives at stake?"

"Very possibly," was the response. "Yet it’s a delicate situation and our chief wants us to move cautiously. What are your goals for the rest of the day? We know you’re heading southward."

Tom thought over the prospective routes, making some quick decisions. "We crossed Sinnemahoning Creek and are getting close to Weedville, but obviously we’ll skirt wide around Pittsburgh—no jokes, please."

"I never joke."

"We’ll clip the corner of Ohio, then work our way down into eastern Kentucky, then southwest through Tennessee into Alabama. That’s where we’ll see sundown."

"All right," said Brenner. "Now—in Kentucky, what would you think of heading toward Crittenden County, way over at the southwest corner on the Ohio River?"

"I’d have to work out the exact route, but it wouldn’t make any real difference to our testing routine. But why?"

"I’ll explain. There’s a fairly large wooded district over there, mostly state owned but with a few rural townships here and there—and also quite a few squatters with good lawyers."

"Just a sec," Tom interrupted. "I’ll bring up a map." Blanking the viewpane, the young inventor projected a detailed map of the state and zoomed in on Crittenden County.

Brenner provided some coordinates. "See a little speck called Erstwhile Gap?"

"Got it."

"It’s not really a town, just a road and some buildings. Now, though, it has a new name—Freedomhome. A backwoods-type militia group has established a compound there on private land, a few dozen families. They call themselves the Fierce Freedomites. They have a weekly shortwave radio show and webcast, Cries of Freedom, run by their leader, a man named Kent Philbin Foster. Rightwing neo-anarchist stuff. I’d call it paranoid. Get the picture, Tom?"

"I think so," replied the youth. "What are they up to, Agent Brenner?"

"Our local field office received several anonymous tips last night and this morning, and our analysts think there’s something to them—but after the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents, we need solid substantiation to look very closely. That is, officially," Brenner added pointedly.

"What were these tips about? A threat?"

"Mass suicide!"

"Great space!"

"Or maybe mass murder would be a better way to say it. Foster’s supposed to have absolute control over his followers, and the tipsters are saying that he plans to ‘inspire’ the women and children to kill themselves—whether they want to or not, I’m sure. Guess the Freedomites want the world to take them more seriously."

Tom’s mouth was dry. "What can Bud and I do, sir?"

"One little thing. It’s not difficult, and we think your exosuit vehicle is well equipped to do it—and to protect you two while you do it.

"The sky will be overcast tonight. We feel sure that using your ‘obscuration screen’ you’ll be able to get fairly close-up to the compound without being seen."

"But surely these guys have a fence with an alarm setup," objected the young inventor.

"Heavy rains last year washed out a part of their perimeter fence along the back acres, somewhat out of sight of the main buildings. I can send you a detailed schematic showing how to get quite close to an old barn." Brenner explained that, according to the tips, the women and children had already been herded into the barn and locked up. "Tomorrow noon the men plan to fire the barn—and there’re plenty of gasoline cans inside. We hope you boys can get close enough to use your instruments to get some sort of photo or video evidence that the people are being held prisoner. Send us something credible and we can move on it."

Tom pointed out that the FBI’s trained agents would be a more logical choice for such an operation. "You’re absolutely right, Tom," the man replied crisply. "But there’s all kind of legal and political ‘stuff’ coming down. The emergency authorizations aren’t getting through, not soon enough. Given the obvious danger to even a trained agent—well, our hands are tied. You’re a private citizen with a big metal-hulled machine and the sort of equipment the operation would need..."

Tom finished for him. "And a public excuse to be blundering around in the woods."

"Look, it’s entirely up to you. I felt a kind of moral duty to tell you the facts. The tips may be false—but we don’t think so."

With a deep breath and a glance at Bud, who was nodding and grinning with excitement, Tom agreed to the plan.

Hours of cross-country trekking, as much removed from public view as possible, ended in deep night-shadow near a place once called Erstwhile Gap, between tall trees. A couple fly-yellowed lightbulbs and the outlines of some ramshackle buildings hulked a few hundred feet in front of them.

"Something’s going on inside that barn," murmured Bud in a whisper that the sealed exosuit made unnecessary. The high structure, on the far side of some low trees and brush, showed threads of light between its planks.

"I’m recording from th