TOM SWIFT

TOM SWIFT surveyed the gathering crowd in the Shopton Astronomy Club meeting hall with excited eyes, knowing that the eyes of the crowd were gazing back with equal excitement mixed with curiosity. The usual contingent of twenty-odd monthly attendees had swollen fourfold in response to the announcement that Damon Swift and his famous son would be addressing the group "on a matter of great scientific interest," as the invitation had put it.

If they knew what this is about, you wouldn’t be able to fit the crowd in a football stadium! thought Tom with an inward grin.

The club president introduced Tom’s father to warm applause. As Damon Swift approached the lectern microphone, a cameraman, supplied by the Swift Enterprises Office of Communications and Public Interest, pivoted his videocam, ready to immortalize the historic moments to follow. Seated in the first row, Ladeen Coverley, chief reporter for the Shopton Evening Bulletin, poised her pen over her notepad.

"Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished visitors, fellow club members—you all know that my son and I have belonged to the Astronomy Club in a tradition going back to my grandfather’s time—" At the mention of Tom’s famous great-grandfather, the original Tom Swift, the meeting room again erupted in applause. "Because of this sentimental attachment, we wanted to make our announcement here, rather than issuing a statement to the world press in the usual manner." He paused dramatically. "We are here today to announce the confirmed discovery of extraterrestrial life!"

A roomful of jaws dropped floorward. But there was no sound save an intake of the room’s collective breath.

"And as startling as that announcement may be, what I am about to tell you is more startling yet." All the attendees leaned forward in their seats expectantly—except Ladeen Coverley, who adjusted her bifocals and leaned back. "Ladies and gentlemen, our discovery consists in contact with a civilization of intelligent beings—ongoing contact that continues even as we speak!"

As anticipated, Mr. Swift’s calm declaration caused a sensation bordering on hysteria. There were gasps, shouts, and more than a little laughter. Chairs tumbled over on the tiled floor as several members of the audience rose to their feet. Skepticism competed with enthusiasm.

Mr. Swift motioned for Tom to join him at the lectern. "It’s no joke!" Tom insisted with a broad grin. "We’ve been in touch with scientists from another planet for months now!"

"Does this have something to do with that meteor?" a club member called out over the din.

The previous year a meteorlike object had flashed through the skies of Shopton, gouging deep into the earth within the grounds of Swift Enterprises, the research and invention installation presided over by Damon Swift. Shopton and the world had been given an abbreviated explanation of the nature of the object, one that neglected to mention that the object was clearly of intelligent design, purposefully directed to its destination and bearing a message from its creators.

As planned, Tom now took over the presentation. "The meteor was an artificial device, propelled to our world in some manner that we have yet to understand. We have only a very partial, incomplete grasp of the object’s structure and material composition. Nothing will penetrate its outer shell, including x-rays and gamma rays. We have no idea what sort of mechanism is inside it.

"But the important thing is what was on the outside," the young inventor continued. "The missile, if we can call it that, was covered in symbols representing universal mathematical concepts, which seem to stand for ideas that we can express in ordinary language. In time—"

"What do they want?" came a demanding voice. "Can we trust them?"

Tom frowned. "I’m sure they wonder if they can trust us—and with good reason."

"We call them our Space Friends," added Mr. Swift reassuringly. "There is every indication that they are friendly and nonviolent, motivated by scientific curiosity."

"Where exactly do they come from?" asked Ladeen Coverley.

"We believe they have a scientific station of some kind in orbit around the planet Mars," Tom answered. "We presume their home planet is somewhere else, probably in another solar system, but we really don’t know."

Christine Eggleman, the club recording secretary, called out from the back of the room, "Did you say Mars? Is this another one of those Tom Swift life-on-Mars claims?"

Decades before, Tom’s great-grandfather had endangered his public reputation by claiming to have observed signs of Martian civilization through his extraordinary giant telescope, under phenomenal atmospheric conditions that had never recurred. The world press had treated the unprovable claims as a scandal.

"That is precisely why I withheld making this announcement to the world," said Mr. Swift with quiet dignity. "Until recently it remained possible that we were victims of an elaborate hoax, perhaps orchestrated by a foreign power seeking to discredit American scientific methods. But after making a thorough review of the data, we think all rational doubt can now be excluded."

A young boy rose to his feet in the crowd. "What do they look like, Tom? Like us, or like—aliens?"

Tom laughed. "Well, Jase, they really are aliens, you know. But we don’t know anything about their appearance. They don’t seem to grasp the concept of visual images in the way we do, and they haven’t yet succeeded in telling us much about their biology. We do know that they have some sort of difficulty surviving in our surface environment."

"That’s a relief!" muttered a woman, provoking chuckles in the crowd.

Tom and Mr. Swift went on to explain how their communication with the space friends had developed over the ensuing months, to the point where they had learned to exchange brief messages by radio, using a special video-oscillograph device—essentially an imaging oscilloscope—connected to the experimental magnifying antenna on the Enterprises grounds. The beings had demonstrated their nonhostile nature on more than one occasion, warning Tom about a deadly space phenomenon during his first orbital flight.

Ladeen Coverley waved a hand in the air and asked, "Do they have their own rockets, or flying saucers, or whatever? Can’t they come to Earth themselves?"

"We think they have space transport vehicles of some sort," replied Mr. Swift.

"I saw something myself," Tom continued, "just recently, during the construction of the outpost in space. But it wasn’t a rocket, as we have; it didn’t even seem to be a solid object. Dad and I think they planned to meet up with us at the space station, but it didn’t happen—something went wrong, which they are unable to explain to us."

Mr. Swift said, "You all have to realize, these are not just people from a foreign culture, or even another species—but products of an entirely different biology. It’s a miracle that we’ve been able to break through the conceptual barrier to even a small extent."

At this point in the presentation, Tom and his father had planned to illustrate the lecture by projecting some of the symbolic messages that they had translated on the big video screen at the front of the hall, which they had plugged directly into the laptop computer that held the "space dictionary" of translated symbols. But Tom’s brow furrowed as he worked the keyboard, and the screen remained blank.

"What’s wrong, son?" asked Mr. Swift in a low voice.

"I don’t know," said Tom. A moment later he looked up and said, "Dad, the hard drive reads blank."

"Blank? Are you sure?"

"I sure am. And the backup datadisk is also empty!"

As the audience commenced to murmur, Tom said, "We’re having some technical problems, folks. But we’ll be releasing samples of the messages to the press."

"Make sure the Bulletin gets one," demanded Ladeen Coverley in curt tones.

After answering a few more questions, Tom and Mr. Swift drew the meeting to a close, explaining that George Dilling at the Enterprises plant would be available to respond to further inquiries, and that a detailed report was being transmitted to scientific journals the world over, as well as to the United States government. Then they left quickly with the rest of the Swift family, followed by several personal friends who had been invited to join the audience.

"I think I should get a medal, keeping this a secret for all these months," commented Sandy Swift, Tom’s sister, as they took the elevator down to the parking garage.

"And from me!" added Bashalli Prandit, her friend and Tom’s frequent date. "It must have been torture for you, Sandra, withholding such news from your closest friend!"

"We practically had to sew her lips together." The voice was that of dark-haired Bud Barclay, Tom’s best pal and personal pilot.

"You were very stoic, dear," Tom’s mother said to Sandy. "I’m proud of you."

Tom smiled faintly but did not comment.

"Tom, what’s wrong?" asked his sister.

Mr. Swift responded for his son. "I’m afraid Tom has the same thing on his mind as I do—the space dictionary code."

"It’s been stolen!" murmured Tom in quiet dismay. "I feel it."

"That’s impossible!" exclaimed his father, "How could such a thing happen? The space dictionary files were in the computer only yesterday, when we prepared at Enterprises for the presentation."

"Why would anybody want to fool around with those space-symbol files, anyway?" Bud asked as the elevator doors opened. The powerfully-built eighteen-year-old pilot grinned. "Webster’s dictionary is tough enough for me!"

Ordinarily Tom would have smiled, but now he was very serious. "Bud," said the blond-haired youth, "this may be a matter of life and death!"

BUD REACTED with astonished apology. "Good night! I didn’t realize that. Don’t forget, I just flew in from Frisco this morning."

"Okay," Tom said with a wry smile. He waited until all had entered the large Swift automobile, which was sealed against external listening devices, before continuing. "This is the story. Our mysterious space friends are planning to send us a rocket with planetary life aboard."

"What!"

"Yes. And any time now. We’re waiting for a message telling us the crucial details, including when they propose to land it at Enterprises. Then we’re to tell them if the arrival time will give us long enough to prepare. That’s why we need the space dictionary so desperately."

Sandy leaned forward. "Isn’t it exciting? A rocket from another planet!"

"And this time we all know about it!" observed Bashalli with an ironic smile.

Bud gulped. "Jetz!—exciting isn’t the word for it! If someone else on Earth should send phony signals to these space people, they might drop the rocket in the wrong place!"

"Exactly," said Tom as Mr. Swift drove out into the bright Shopton sunlight. "That’s why I said ‘life and death’."

"But Thomas, answer me this," Bashalli interrupted. "Did you not say that these space people couldn’t live here on our planet?"

Tom nodded and explained that the vessel would not contain any higher forms of life, and would be remotely guided to Earth by some unknown means. The mysterious beings had indicated that they were launching the craft in order to send the Swifts a sample of the basic biological structure and organic composition prevalent on their home planet. In turn, the two inventors were to relay instructions about how the friendly planeteers might survive Earth’s surface environment. Then they would visit this planet. But with the space dictionary gone, however, the entire project might take a different twist with disastrous results.

"It’s not so much that we’re missing the files themselves," Mr. Swift explained. "This was only a convenient compilation, which can be re-created. The main concern is that the code may be in the hands of someone whose motives are unknown."

"I see," Bashalli said. "Wicked foreigners in touch with super-spacemen. Just saying the words makes me nervous!"

Bud gave a low whistle. "Have you any hunch who might have done it?"

In the front seat Tom and his father exchanged troubled glances before the younger inventor replied. "The last outsider in our office was Munson Wickliffe."

"But he’s a topnotch scientist himself!" Bud pointed out. "He wouldn’t stoop to such a thing."

"That’s just it." Tom frowned. "He’s a man with a fine reputation in research. I just can’t believe he would get involved in scientific theft!"

Munson Wickliffe presided over a well-equipped laboratory complex in the nearby town of Thessaly, where he kept a corps of eager young scientists working around the clock. He was affluent, and had earned a national reputation beyond reproach.

"Just the same, you might pay him a visit, Tom," said Damon Swift, whom Tom greatly resembled.

"But carefully, please," added Tom’s mother.

"We’ll find out what we can," Bud said, emphasizing the word we. As Tom’s close companion, it was a rare adventure that Bud did not have a part in.

"And I’ll pass the word to our security division," Bud offered. "Harlan Ames will want to get to work on it right away."

"First we’d better examine the laptop in my lab," Tom cautioned.

Two hours later, in Tom’s sophisticated underground laboratory on the Swift Enterprises grounds, the young inventor unplugged the computer from a bank of test instruments and gave Bud a look that spoke volumes.

"Not good news, is it."

"It confirms what I suspected," Tom replied. "This was deliberate sabotage. Some sort of hyper-complex virus program was entered into the laptop. Everything is gone! And that’s not the worst, pal. It looks like the virus routine was specifically designed to temporarily copy the files to an unreadable drive sector, which was subsequently downloaded and deleted."

Bud shook his head angrily. "So someone has a copy of all your space-symbol translations!"

Tom rammed a fist into the palm of his hand. "And ‘someone’ must be Munson Wickliffe! He’s visited us twice during the last week—Monday, then again yesterday. I’m sure he introduced the virus into the machine the first time, then made the download yesterday afternoon."

"I knew he was a physicist and chemist," Bud mused. "Is he also a computer genius?"

"No," answered Tom. "But he has a large workforce of experts, just as we do here."

The two eighteen-year-old companions hurried off, heading for the plant’s security office in the main administration building, where they described the matter to Harlan Ames, the chief officer.

"Well," said Ames glumly, "I suppose it has been a few weeks since our last security breach here at Enterprises, so we’re about due."

Leaving the building the boys hopped into a waiting nanocar—a midget electric vehicle used for quick transport within the walls of the experimental station—and whirred across the grounds of the vast, four-mile-square enclosure of flat-topped modern buildings and gleaming white airstrips.

At the north end of the station, Tom and Bud climbed into one of Enterprises’ VTOL jet heliplanes and roared aloft. A few minutes after landing on Wickliffe’s airstrip in Thessaly they were ushered into the president’s office.

Wickliffe, a six-foot, slender man, with sparse black hair and a high forehead spreading above thick glasses, stepped awkwardly from behind his desk to shake hands. "Hardly expected to see you again so soon, my dear fellow. I was just watching the news account of your announcement. What an incredible moment in human history! Please sit down. What has brought the two of you here?"

As Tom politely explained about the deleted space dictionary, Wickliffe seemed to freeze. He glared at the young inventor coldly. "And you are bringing this matter to my attention because—?"

"Well, sir," said Tom cautiously, "we’re a little stumped at Enterprises over the technical end of the—the incident. With your scientific expertise, I—"

"No," interrupted Wickliffe. "Don’t patronize me with foolishness, Tom. Are you by any chance implying that I might have something to do with destroying your code files?"

"Not at all," said Tom with a frown. "I haven’t said anything of the kind!"

Wickliffe gave a cool smile. "No. Of course you haven’t. Well, I don’t believe I can be of any use to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some important work of my own to take care of."

Tom flushed. "I’m sorry to have bothered you," he said, rising. "Dad and I feel this is a very important matter."

Flying Tom back to Shopton, Bud was steaming. "He just about admitted doing it, Tom! He was toying with you the whole time."

"I can’t waste any more time on it, flyboy. Whatever happened, we’ll have to put it aside for now and work on reassembling the space dictionary before the critical time comes."

"Right—the rocket!" Bud nodded. "Do you have any idea when it’ll get to Earth?"

"Very soon. But whether that means days or weeks, we don’t yet know."

When Tom returned to Shopton, he gave his father a quick report on the unsatisfactory interview while Bud stopped off at Ames’ office.

"Too bad Wickliffe took the wrong attitude," the elder inventor said. "Leaves us as much in the dark as ever."

"Have you started working on another dictionary, Dad?" Tom inquired.

"Yes, I’m scanning-in all the symbols and meanings that I can recall or find in my notes. Of course, we still have the meteor-missile with its inscribed symbols. That will help us, though it won’t be complete. Suppose you gather all you can think of. We certainly were foolish not to make additional copies of our compiled translations."

As Damon Swift exited the office, Bud walked in to report to Tom that the security police were launching a full-scale investigation of the vandalism and apparent theft. Then, trying to cut through the gloom, he asked: "But anyway, genius boy, any new inventions up your sleeve? Remember, I’ve been out of town since we got back from the space outpost with our hides more-or-less intact."

Instantly Tom’s eyes twinkled. "Well, it’s a little too big to go up my sleeve, but I am working on something over in Hangar Four. You ought to like it, Bud—it can fly or swim."

"You mean a sort of flying aerosub?"

"No. A diving seacopter."

"Cut the kidding," Bud retorted.

"It’s the truth," Tom continued. "It’ll even crawl around if necessary on tractor treads."

"No fooling!" Bud stared in amazement. "So it’s a ground-crawling helicopter that can travel underwater?"

"Right. In the air the rotor blades drive the air downward, allowing it to hover over the surface of the ground or water on an air-cushion, at a height of about two yards. In water the pitch of the blades is reversed for submerging—like a helicopter pushing down instead of up."

Bud wrinkled his brow humorously. "Okay, that much is clear. But why do it that way? Let me break this to you gently—in boat-building the goal is to keep the ship from sinking, not make it sink faster!"

Tom laughed heartily. "The big advantage of this kind of submersion," he continued, "is that these blades give the ship tremendous agility and maneuverability under water."

Bud perched on a stool. "Your jetmarine was plenty agile, Tom."

"I’m not aiming at raw speed this time, flyboy. You see, this approach eliminates the need for ballast tanks. With the rotors, the seacopter can easily stay at any level beneath the surface the navigator chooses, merely by adjusting the blade pitch. She’ll be wonderfully nimble down in the depths, too, thanks to the interplay of the downward push of the rotors with the ship’s upward buoyancy. Just like the way it’s easier to pull a string than to push it!" Tom now warmed to his subject. "The seacopter has a lightweight, ultrastrong hull constructed on the same principle as our rockets—layers of Tomasite over a rigid mesh of magtritanium alloy."

"She’ll need to resist some real pressure."

"Up to 18,000 pounds per square inch!"

Bud boggled. "It’s not that I don’t want to be a hero, but I’d prefer to be a three-dimensional one!"

"But think of what we could accomplish!" continued Tom. "Humans have rarely penetrated more than three and a half miles beneath the surface, but in places the depth of the ocean floor is almost twice that. The oceans cover more than 70 percent of the planet, but we’ve only mapped about 5 percent of the bottom. Who knows what mineral, chemical, or archeological secrets might be hiding down there—not to mention unknown life forms, as many as two million of ’em!"

Walking over to his sliding workbench, Tom touched a concealed button. Instantly a drawing board, with a large blueprint of the seacopter, slid out from the wall.

"Wow!" Bud exclaimed, admiring the drawing of the sleek forty-foot craft. Discus or saucer-shaped, but smoothly tapering fore and aft, the submersible had a wide, circular opening in its center that penetrated the hull from top to bottom. The adjustable propeller-screw, twelve feet in diameter and mounted on a vertical pivot, occupied this space.

Bud noticed that the body of the seacopter was divided into two self-contained sections. Cabins at either end, labeled Compartments A and B—each of which would accommodate three people—were linked by narrow corridors on each side of the rotor well, allowing passengers to walk from one compartment to the other.

The young pilot looked puzzled. "Which is the front end and which is the rear?" he asked.

"Take your choice." Tom laughed. "The ship can travel in either direction. This feature will come in handy should we get into a submarine cave, or other spot in which it’s impossible to turn around. And speaking of safety, the seacopter has positive buoyancy. If the power fails, she’ll just bob up to the surface."

"Great," Bud said with enthusiasm. Then he looked at Tom inquisitively. "But how do you do all this? I mean, how do you propel this contraption once you’re under water?"

Tom pointed to the undersides of the two compartments. In the middle of each section were streamlined, triangular units attached to the craft by a swivel coupling.

"These are jets," he said, "powered by super-heated steam created by atomic reactors, one for each compartment. The seacop won’t be as fast as the jetmarine—no Mach 1 for this baby—but she’ll really move."

"I see," said Bud. "And they’re your steering apparatus?"

"Yes. The jets are on a gimbal system, so they can be rotated through 360 degrees. The steam pressure also drives the turbine that powers the blades, which is inside this thick hub."

Bud nodded. "Very clever, pal—as always." Then he grinned. "So let’s get down to the meat. Or in this case, the fish! What’s all that nimbleness for, anyway? Herding whales? Or are you going on an oyster-hunting expedition?"

"You’re nearly right." Tom chuckled. "But instead of diving for pearls, we’re going after gold."

"Explain, chum!"

As Tom stowed the blueprints away, he said, "Well, it’s not entirely a treasure hunt. It’s half undersea exploration, half archaeology. In any event, it’ll take the seacopter into some pretty rough terrain on the ocean bottom."

"Rough terrain?" Bud looked at his friend suspiciously. "Just what is it you plan to go looking for, Tom?"

The young inventor smiled dreamily. "Oh, some old ruins—very old, in fact. You might have heard of the place. It’s called Atlantis!"

"ATLANTIS? Come on!" Bud responded as if suspecting a gag. "You’re beginning to sound like that Russian kook who thought she’d found a lost city under the Caribbean! Atlantis is just a myth."

"More than one old ‘myth’ has turned out to be founded on fact," Tom observed. "Troy, for example."

"Well—okay. But does any scientist or archeologist or anybody have a clue where it might be?"

Tom nodded soberly at his friend. "A couple friends of mine, George Braun and Hamilton Teller, who are expert oceanographers, have a theory that there may be ancient cities buried under the Atlantic Ocean seabed off the coast of Portugal."

"Buried cities!" Skepticism set aside, Bud’s voice throbbed with interest as he sensed the promise of a new adventure. "You mean underneath the ocean floor?"

"That’s the general idea," Tom said. "Ham and George want to search in an area where satellites have shown a gravitational anomaly."

"Uh-huh!" responded Bud. "What’s that, a place where gravity pulls sideways instead of down?"

Tom chuckled. "It just means that precise measurements of the earth’s pull show a sharp local variation in the density of the crust. It’s a hint that some sort of unusual geologic activity has gone on there in the recent past."

"Like a lost continent or two?"

"Who knows? And some of the thermometric data—heat readings—could be a clue that large structures are hidden in the same place."

"Under the ocean, even under the bottom," mused Bud. "And way out in the Atlantic."

"That’s right," Tom confirmed. "Anyhow, Ham and George need some kind of versatile undersea craft in which to make their exploration, so I figured a seacopter might be the answer."

"Good figuring, chum!" Bud exclaimed. "Count me in on that trip, will you?"

Tom’s face lit in an affectionate grin. "You’re as good as aboard, Admiral. Matter of fact, I’m making a test cruise tomorrow in one of the seacopter sections. Care to join me?"

"Absolutely! Where we cruising to, Bermuda? Some romantic, exotic spot?"

The young inventor winked. "Pressure Tank 3. Exotic but—"

"Not so romantic," concluded Bud with a wistful sigh.

After Bud left, Tom called George Dilling, Swift Enterprises’ chief of public communications, to ask about the public’s response to the day’s announcement of space life.

"Oh, everyone’s going crazy, as you might expect," Dilling replied. "But the journal reports and press backgrounders all went out without a hitch, and your Dad has been talking to the Washington crowd. Thank goodness we already have our contacts in the Department of Defense."

"Not to mention ‘Collections’," remarked Tom. ‘Collections’ nicknamed a mysterious government security group that seemed able to monitor the activities of Swift Enterprises at will, and had apparently known of the Swifts’ space communications for months. "Incidentally, George, I want to personally apologize for having kept you in the dark about all this until yesterday."

"No hard feelings, Chief," he responded. "You had your reasons. But I expect Rad to be ribbing me about it from now to doomsday!" Dilling was referring to Harlan Ames’ assistant Phil Radnor who, like Ames, had been apprised of the secret from the first.

While Tom was on the phone Mr. Swift had reentered the office with a sheaf of photos of the inscribed shell of the meteor-missile. The young inventor turned to his father. "Let’s start working on those symbols."

In order to write down as many of them as they could from memory, he and Mr. Swift worked far into the night. Meanwhile, plant engineers stood by in case any messages started coming through from the space people. But morning dawned without any communications being received.

At ten o’clock Tom and Bud rendezvoused at the huge metal block that was Pressure Tank 3, one of several tanks used for aquatic testing. The top of the tank had been swung aside and, as Tom and Bud watched, Compartment B of the new seacopter was gently lowered inside by crane. Separated from its other half, the section had a stubby, curving arrowhead shape, a half-circular notch showing where the central well for the diving blades would be. Bud remarked on the bright crimson hue of the gleaming craft.

"That’s the look of our translucent Tomasite coating over the new alloy of magtritanium that we’re using for the outer hull." Magtritanium was a superstrong lightweight metal developed by Enterprises materials-science technologists for Swift rocketcraft, including Tom’s Star Spear. Tomasite was a tough, flexible plastic resistant to most forms of radiant energy, as well as absorptive of radar and sonar waves.

Dropping down from a catwalk the youths strode across the flat top of the hull to a small round hatchway and entered the interior of Compartment B.

"Not very big, is it," noted Tom apologetically. "Each compartment is designed for a crew of three."

Bud clapped him on his t-shirted back. "Skipper, it’s like a hotel lobby compared to your jetmarine. And with picture windows!" Bud gestured at the clear plexi-quartz viewport that curved around the fore-edge of the craft.

Closing the overhead hatch, Tom contacted the support crew outside the tank. "Everything is ready," a workman reported. The tank interior turned dark as the lid swung back into place, then light again as the seacopter’s external lamp, mounted on the hull just above the middle of the viewpane, was switched on. The tank was already filling with water, formulated to match salty oceanic seawater in chemical composition. In minutes Compartment B was completely submerged.

Seated side by side in comfortable contour chairs, which were attached to recessed tracks set in the deck that allowed them to slide right and left, Tom activated the controls in the bow. At his signal the exterior work crew fed power into the hydraulic pressure piston, and the pressure on the hull began to build.

"Well, we haven’t been squashed flat so far," Bud remarked presently. "How far down are we?"

Reading a gauge on the control panel, Tom said, "In pressure terms we’re one hundred fathoms under, Bud!"

"That’s six hundred feet," Bud mused. "Tom, this is great! You’ll revolutionize underwater travel."

Suddenly Bud felt an icy-cold spray of water against his wrist. Looking down, he exclaimed in horror, "Tom! The cabin’s leaking!"

A moment later water began to gush in at a terrifying rate!

INITIALLY a narrow jet surging into the cabin from beneath the control board, the stream of water was rapidly broadening out into a wedge-shape coming from all along the seam that joined the deck to the sloping wall of the cabin. Fragments of material, forced out of place by the pressure, were shooting into the air like shrapnel and pinging against the far wall.

Tom grabbed the microphone from its holder in front of him. "Guys—drain the tank! We’re leaking!" he shouted. But before the last syllable was sounded, the overhead lights began to flicker.

"Did they hear you?" asked Bud with a gasp.

"I don’t know," said Tom, forcing himself to remain calm. The water inside the compartment was already ankle-deep! "Bud, stand on your chair seat. If the water’s gotten through to the generating system somehow, there’s a danger of electrocution."

The two stood up on the seats, hunching their shoulders down as their heads bumped against the low ceiling.

Bud cast a glance at the hatchway. Set in the ceiling next to the starboard bulkhead, it was yards away. "Electricity or no, as soon as the pressure’s equalized we’ll have to open ’er up and make—"

"The pressure!" Tom interrupted. He pointed at the gauge, which could still be made out in the dim, flickering illumination. "It’s dropping, and fast!"

Bud sighed with relief. "They got the message, pal."

Emergency high-volume pumps were soon brought into play, draining Tank 3. Then the tank lid was unsealed and the frantic work crew made their way onto the hull and forced open the hatch.

"What’s going on down there?" cried a voice.

"A major leak," Tom called back. "We’re flooded." Now that the cabin was open to the outside air, Tom was able to kill the electric power completely, removing the danger. He and Bud sloshed through the flooded compartment and made their way up through the hatch. In a moment they were standing in the morning sunlight.

"I was afraid the system had started shorting out before I had finished my message," Tom told the crew chief. "Thank goodness I was wrong."

He gave Tom a blank look. "Message? What message? We started draining the tank when Art Wiltessa came running up and told us that orders had got fouled up and the high-pressure sealant had been left off some of the seams!"

Bud raised his eyebrows high. "Man, I guess somebody up there was watching out for us—and I don’t mean your Space Friends."

Tom was glad, and immensely relieved, to know that there was nothing wrong with the basic design of his seacopter.

The damaged compartment was drained and removed from the tank and returned to its berth in Hangar Four next to its twin. Tom, directing repairs on it the next day, asked Bud to check with Harlan Ames as to developments in finding the person who had sabotaged the space dictionary.

"No leads on him yet," the security officer reported in disappointment. "But we’re working on it. If Dr. Wickliffe is responsible, I’d sure like to know how he managed it." He added that agents of both the FBI and the Department of Defense were also investigating Wickliffe.

But lost Atlantis was the chief topic of conversation that evening in the Swift home. Bud had been invited to join them, and to meet Ham Teller and George Braun. Tom performed the introductions. As he shook hands, Bud sized up the two men.

George Braun, red-haired, had twinkling green eyes and an easy grin—and the physique of a man who rarely left his office chair. Ham Teller, a wiry six-footer, was prematurely gray except where he was bald, which was nearly everywhere. Both seemed relatively young men, no older than thirty.

Teller chuckled quietly. "S’matter, Bud? Expecting a couple old fogies?" Teller had a fairly noticeable Brooklyn accent.

"Manners, Ham!" cautioned Braun jokingly. "That word ‘fogey’ hasn’t been current for years now."

Bud laughed in response, slightly embarrassed. "I’ll admit I was expecting someone a bit on the high-domed side."

"Well, Ham is high-domed but nobody can call him a long-hair!" Both men smiled broadly and Bud decided he approved of their casual, bantering ways. Tom and Bud in later life, he thought.

At dinner, they introduced themselves in more detail. "George is an oceanographer with an interest in archaeology, and I’m an archaeologist with an interest in oceanography," Teller explained. "And we both share an interest in the development of early civilization—and the persistent legend of Atlantis."

"It was a perfect stroke of good fortune to have met Tom at an academic conference last year, where he talked about his jetmarine trip to the Caribbean," added Braun. "We were turned on—do they still say that?—by that undersea canyon you two found."

"I remember," Bud said. "That’s the one that Tom thinks must have been formed in the open air."

Teller grinned. "Yeah, ’zackly so. Open air—meaning the whole sea floor must’ve sunk, and not so long ago neither. Maybe just a few thousand years back."

"That’s not exactly yesterday," commented Sandy.

"Aw, in geologic time—which is the only time we worry about these days—it’s nothing at all!"

As the dinner turned to dessert, the topic turned to Tom’s new diving seacopter. Tom’s mother, an attractive, gentle person, listened attentively. As she served warm pie, she looked first at her husband and then at her son.

"I wish you two advanced thinkers would invent things that weren’t so risky!" she said.

"If my latest invention turns out half as well as this pie, Mom, you haven’t a thing to worry about," Tom said, smiling. He knew that despite occasions of worry and, at times, real fear, she was very proud of his achievements as well as those of his father.

After dinner, the family gathered in the big, cheerful living room with Teller and Braun and talked about Tom’s promised expedition in search of ancient wealth under the sea.

"I’ve been meaning to ask about the ‘wealth’ part," Bud spoke up, lounging back in an easy chair. "Tom said something about looking for sea gold."

"Many of our ancient sources refer to the vast wealth of the lost city," Braun explained. "A few even explicitly refer to it as the city of gold."

"You know, my illustrious grandfather found his own underground city of gold, in Mexico," said Damon Swift. "That was in 1912. He was hardly older than Tom here."

"We Swifts have a specialization in history," observed Sandy with a touch of irony. "Namely Swift history!"

"We’re familiar with that find," Ham Teller said. "There might be a connection between the ancient Mexican civilization and the one we usually call Atlantis. Some authorities think the forerunners of the old societies of the Americas, such as the Olmecs and the Maya, were Atlantean survivors."

"But we leave that sort of speculation to the cultists," put in Braun quickly. "Our ideas come from solid scientific sources."

Mrs. Swift spoke up. "Just where is the real Atlantis supposed to have been located?"

In reply the two men rose to their feet and walked over to the wall of the room, where there was a large, detailed map of the world which showed various suboceanic features.

"Somewhere in here!" exclaimed Teller with a laugh as he made a sweeping gesture with both hands that took in the entire map. “And I'm being serious! Over the years people have ‘located’ Atlantis all over the globe."

"We once made a list—remember, Ham? It ran on for five pages!"

Teller nodded. "Let’s see, there was Scandinavia, Cuba, Haiti, the Amazon basin—"

"Both lower and upper California, Indonesia—"

"The island of Santorini, near Greece; Turkey, around Mount Ararat—"

"Central Africa, Alaska, the Gobi Desert in China, the bottom of either the Mediterranean or the Black Sea—"

"The North and the South Poles, under the ice—"

"Oh, and my favorite—Ireland, just off the western coast!" concluded Braun.

"My goodness!" said Tom’s mother, as Bud and Sandy chuckled.

"Basically, all you need for Atlantis is enough water to cover it over!" Teller joked.

Sandy held up a hand. "But doesn’t the legend come from Plato? And didn’t he say Atlantis was somewhere around the Rock of Gibraltar?"

Mr. Swift nodded approvingly at his daughter. "Exactly. He said it was just beyond the Pillars of Hercules, as they used to call it."

Braun pointed at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating Spain from North Africa. Then he moved his finger a few inches westward. "That’s this area here. After having dallied with the Atlantic Ridge and the Cape Verde Islands, we took a look at the gravitic and thermal data being collected by space satellites, and guess what?—we think old Plato knew what he was talking about!"

Curious, Bud got up and approached the map, looking at the tiny lettering by the tip of George Braun’s finger. "The Horseshoe Seamounts," he read off. "Just north of the Madeira Islands, and pretty much due west of Gibraltar."

"About 500 miles distant," Braun elaborated, "and about 300 miles from the southwest corner of Portugal, at a depth of around 60 fathoms."

As the men sat down, Teller added, "Actually, the main point of interest is a lowland area between the ‘arms’ of the ‘horseshoe.’ It’s where we get the most suggestive readings, and we think it may be the plain that Plato mentions in his—"

Suddenly a loud buzzing noise interrupted the conversation—which had turned into something of a lecture. "The alarm system!" exclaimed Sandy. "Wonder who’s calling?"

"I’ll see," said Tom, getting up.

The Swift residence was surrounded by a magnetic field which touched off a signal when broken. The family and their friends avoided this by wearing wristwatches containing small neutralizer coils. But the alarm always sounded at the approach of prowlers or unexpected visitors.

When Toni opened the door, he was surprised to see William Clyde, the pudgy, middle-aged mayor of Shopton. The man was excited and red in the face.

"Come in, sir," Tom invited him.

Hardly had the mayor entered when he burst out, "You Swifts have got to stop that rocket coming here from outer space! Otherwise, the whole town will be blown up!"

MAYOR CLYDE’S outburst caught Tom by surprise. Stunned into silence, he politely ushered him into the living room where the others waited expectantly. All ears had overheard what the Mayor had said.

The man nodded nervously to the others as Tom said, "Please sit down, sir."

The caller sank into an easy chair. As he mopped his brow with a handkerchief, he reiterated why he was there. "You must stop that rocket!" he insisted tensely. "Do you understand?"

Damon Swift regarded him quizzically. "Bill, there must be some misunderstanding here. Please tell us how you got your information."

"I received a phone call in my car just fifteen minutes ago," the official explained. "Whoever it was gave no name, but he told me the Swifts had received a message from those space aliens of yours—a message saying a rocket from outer space would soon land in Shopton!"

"That certainly doesn’t mean it will be an explosive rocket," Mr. Swift pointed out. "I’m quite sure from the message we received that it will not be."

"In fact, Mr. Mayor, we really shouldn’t be calling it a rocket," Tom pointed out soothingly. "It’s a vehicle of some kind, but if it’s like the meteor-missile that came to us last year, it doesn’t work on an external combustion principle at all."

"Is that supposed to be reassuring? Do you expect me to stand by and do nothing when the lives of thousands of people are at stake?" the mayor stormed. "Explosive or not, that thing could cause great havoc in a town like Shopton!"

Tom glanced at his father, uncertain whether or not to reveal the secret details of the Swifts’ recent communication with their space friends.

Mr. Swift took the cue. "I’ll speak frankly, Mayor," he said. "We have received a message from the space scientists concerning their sending us a sample of life-forms. Like the others, this message came in a mathematical symbol code, which we previously compiled into a space dictionary on computer. That dictionary has been destroyed, apparently after having been copied without our permission."

Mayor Clyde gasped. "You mean the perpetrator is the person who called me?"

"That’s quite probable," Tom spoke up. "The latest message was recorded in the most recent of the computer files—it was the one concerning the rocket."

"Our security division has been working on the incident, along with various government authorities," Mr. Swift added. "Tom, call Ames and find out if he has any news, won’t you?"

Going to the phone alcove, the boy dialed Harlan Ames’ private number, only to learn that there was nothing new to report. Tom informed Ames of the anonymous phone call to the mayor.

A worried frown creased Tom’s forehead as he hung up. There was as yet no real proof of any involvement by Munson Wickliffe. Could the theft have been an inside job by someone working at the plant—perhaps an employee? And if so, what was the motive?

Returning to the living room, he reported Ames’ failure so far to solve the mystery. From Mr. Swift’s expression it was plain that he shared Tom’s concern. Nevertheless both father and son tried to reassure Mayor Clyde. The official, however, could not be calmed. He begged them to send a message to their space friends, calling off the rocket plans.

"Very well," Mr. Swift agreed. "We’ll try to contact them later tonight, when Mars is over the horizon."

Tom was amazed and dismayed by this sudden decision. As the Mayor left, he turned to his father, trying not to sound accusing.

"Dad, did you really mean that about contacting our space friends? This is our chance to learn something about life on other planets, something scientists have dreamed of for centuries! We can’t throw it away!"

"Don’t worry, Tom," Mr. Swift replied. "Our message will simply ask the space people to hold off landing the rocket for a while. That will give us time to work out more of the code and to calm down the Mayor and any others who have heard the news."

Tom grinned sheepishly. "I should have known you wouldn’t back down."

Mrs. Swift and Sandy had listened in alarm to the mayor’s remarks. Now Sandy burst out, "If someone’s trying to make trouble, he may do something treacherous! Please be careful, Dad. And you too, Tom!"

"How about me?" demanded Bud.

"You be careful too," said Anne Swift. "And that goes for you boys as well," she added, looking at Braun and Teller, who nodded vigorously.

"We’ll be on our guard, my dear," Mr. Swift promised. "Tom, we’d better get busy on that message right away!"

Apologizing for ending the evening so abruptly, they sped to the plant with Tom at the wheel of his sports car. Darkness had fallen, but the grounds of Swift Enterprises were illuminated by powerful floodlights.

Hours later they were ready to transmit the brief message they had composed. But as they neared the room that housed the imaging oscilloscope equipment that was connected to the magnifying antenna, the employee who had been monitoring the device during the night shift ran into the hallway to meet them. "Tom! Mr. Swift! A message is just coming through!"

They dashed into the oscilloscope room. Not content to wait for the replay of the recorded message, Tom’s father began jotting down the symbols appearing on the screen. For several moments the unusual pictographs continued to march across the oscilloscope. Then the monitor went blank.

"Does any of it look familiar, Dad? Can you translate it?" Tom asked breathlessly.

"Not yet, son." Mr. Swift thumbed through his notebook and wrote down several words, then glanced up with a worried frown. "Decoding this series will involve some hard work, especially without the space dictionary. See if you can remember any of these symbols."

Between them, Tom and his father struggled with the message for over an hour, covering sheet after sheet in their computations. Finally they worked out the meaning:

The two inventors faced each other tensely. Neither of them dared to voice the disturbing thought that raced into their minds. What if the missile exploded in the middle of Shopton!

Before the Swifts could speak, the phone jangled. The operator reported that he was relaying an outside call. Tom gulped when the operator disclosed that the call was from Mayor Clyde!

Clyde’s voice crackled over the receiver. "I just got word about that exploding missile! Confound it, Tom Swift, you and your father promised you’d stop the infernal thing from being shot at us!"

"What!" Tom cried unbelievingly, putting the phone on speaker mode. "How in the world did—"

"Don’t ask questions!" Mayor Clyde exploded. "You said you’d call off this dangerous business. Now my secret informant calls me at home to tell me about this exploding missile nonsense!"

"Bill, it takes time to put our message together in the symbol code," Damon Swift protested. "We were about to—"

"Never mind making excuses. Damon, you’re the CEO over there, and I’m holding you responsible for this catastrophe in the making. I’m telling you as Mayor, do something before Shopton is wiped out!"

An emphatic click told them the Mayor had hung up.

"Whoever has the space dictionary files knows how to use them, Tom." Mr. Swift’s face was anxious. "And they’ve used the technical data to tune in on the space messages themselves." The words were hardly out of his mouth when the phone rang again. "What’s wrong now? More trouble?"

This time the caller was Dan Perkins, editor of the Shopton Evening Bulletin. He informed Tom’s father in icy tones—yet with a certain journalistic glee—that he had been told by a "privileged source" that the Swifts were going too far in their efforts to communicate with the alien scientists. "It’s only fair to tell you that I’m preparing an editorial saying that if you allow that missile to explode in Shopton, it’ll be criminal negligence at best—and at worst, murder!"

When Damon Swift lowered the phone receiver, deeply shaken, Tom said softly, "Dad, what can we do?"

Mr. Swift began to pace about the room with clenched fists. "We must amend our message to say that an explosive missile is out of the question. It never occurred to me that these scientists wouldn’t realize—"

"Listen!" cried Tom. A strange whistling sound seemed to be coming from somewhere outside.

An instant later a blinding flash turned night to day, followed by a terrific and frightening roar!

The force of the explosion, in the sky over Swift Enterprises, shook the buildings like the impact of a giant’s hammer. In the room where Tom and his father stood, books and small objects were tumbled to the floor. Two of the windowpanes cracked and caved in. Tom dashed to one of the windows followed by Mr. Swift. The sky above was illuminated by a strange phosphorescence, with a cloud of fine fragments raining down on the experimental station.

"The missile must have exploded just above," said the elder scientist. "Thank goodness it was above and not among us!"

"I’m sure our space friends planned it that way," Tom replied, racing from the room.

Outdoors pandemonium held sway as guards and night employees swarmed around the grounds. But as dawn broke hours later it was clear that the space visitor had caused no injury and done no major damage. Quick calls to Shopton, cautiously worded, indicated that the townfolk had not noticed the blast, which was highly localized.

"Well, at least we can honestly tell Perkins and Mayor Clyde that they no longer have anything to fear from the explosive missile!" Mr. Swift commented wryly to Tom.

They caught a few hours of needed sleep on cots in their shared office, and breakfasted at the plant commissary. Mr. Swift composed a reassuring notice which was circulated among the work force. As Mars was still over the horizon, they were able to transmit a revised message to their space friends urging them to temporarily postpone the arrival of the rocket, and warning them that unauthorized persons might attempt to interfere with the project by sending false or misleading information.

As the morning passed and Mars descended behind the western horizon, Tom and his father were disturbed at the lack of a confirming response to their transmission.

"They’ve had plenty of time to compose a message back to us," Damon Swift commented.

Tom’s response was worrisome. "Dad, they may never have received it. If Wickliffe or some other technically savvy person has possession of the space dictionary data, they know enough to jam our outgoing signals." Mr. Swift conceded the truth of this possibility.

As he often did when a problem proved insoluble, Tom withdrew to his personal laboratory-workshop, where he turned his mind to some remaining technical issues concerning his seacopter design. As noon approached, Bud dropped by.

"George and Ham are great guys," Bud observed. "Do you think they have the real low-down on that soggy sea-city?"

"They’re on to something, flyboy." Tom flipped open a large, detailed chart of the floor of the eastern mid-Atlantic. He pointed to a spot on the chart north of the Madeira Islands and slightly east of the Horseshoe Seamounts. "Notice this formation of underwater peaks?"

"Sure. What about them?"

"They could he more than just the upjuttings of a mountainside."

"Meaning what?" asked Bud, fascinated by the hint of mystery in Tom’s voice.

"I believe that they may be part of a great ceremonial grounds with pyramids, buried in lava-rock and sea silt. They seem too pointed and narrow, and too regularly arranged, to be natural. This is where I think George Braun and Ham Teller ought to start their search."

Bud bounced out of his chair excitedly. "Tom, on our next test of the seacopter, why don’t we go there and take a look?"

Tom had to grin at his friend’s enthusiasm. Bud was always ready for action!

"Slow down, boy! There’s a lot of work to do yet before the seacopter will be ready for a distance cruise. We haven’t even tested it with the pieces all put together."

"Well, make it soon. I can hardly wait to start for the lost city!"

"Which reminds me," added Tom, "I have another project under way that I haven’t told you about!"

Hopping into a nanocar, the boys drove to one of the multistory laboratory buildings. Stepping onto a ridewalk they were smoothly carried down the main corridor of the quarter-mile-long plant wing by a silent conveyor belt. They stepped off near the entrance to the photographic laboratory.

Inside, experimental work on all kinds of cameras was taking place. Tom led Bud to a device which looked like a supersized television camera gimbal-mounted on a metal support column. It bristled with knobs and dials, and had what appeared to be a TV screen at the rear of the housing.

"Quite a toy!" said Bud, scratching his head. "What does it do?"

"Takes video images and picks up sounds through walls and solid objects," Tom replied. "After a five-second processing delay, it displays the result on the screen and through the headset earphones."

Bud nodded his understanding but said, "Can’t your tele-tec machines already do that?"

The young pilot was referring to the television detector, invented by Tom’s famous great-grandfather and namesake in the 1930’s and improved over the succeeding decades with advances in electronics technology. It was in use for security purposes at Swift Enterprises and around the world.

Tom’s answer was, "Actually, it’s a further evolution of the Swift television detector." He explained that the device still worked by projecting an electromagnetic scanning beam through obstructions, which was reflected back by objects in the range of its focus. "But this model uses three beams that intersect at the focus-point. This allows us to use extreme low frequency waves, which can pass through water up to a distance of about 100 feet. That’s something the standard tele-tec can’t do. We can also register sounds by using a Doppler-diffraction technique to ‘read’ the molecular motions of sound vibration."

"The all-seeing eye!" Bud exclaimed in admiration. "What do you call this super-snooper?"

Tom winked. "Well, I was going to call it a snooper-visor, but maybe I should leave the puns to you."

Bud assumed a humorous look of superiority. "But of course. How about the Eye-Spy camera?"

"Perfect!" The young inventor flicked on several switches, and the monitor screen began to glow. "The color-processing unit isn’t ready yet, but I can show you this black-and-white job in action." Tom wheeled the bulky camera dolly over to the far side of the room. "We’ll watch the traffic out in the hall," he said, adjusting several control dials as Bud looked over his shoulder in fascination.

Five seconds later a clear view of the corridor sprang into focus on the screen. Along came a roly-poly figure, bald-headed and bowlegged, pushing a cart loaded with food.

"It’s the Chow Winkler show!" Tom said, grinning broadly. Chow, a happy-go-lucky former chuck-wagon cook from Texas, had met the Swifts while they were constructing an atomic research facility in New Mexico. He had returned to Shopton with them to be chef for the Swifts and culinary expert for the Enterprises plant.

"Yee-ow! Look at that checked shirt Chow’s sporting," Bud muttered. "Good thing we’re not in color or he’d probably blow out your picture tube." The Texan’s weakness for gaudy western apparel was legendary.

Tom panned the camera to keep the cook centered on the screen. Chow paused every few steps to sample the food from various containers. After each taste he stuck out his tongue and made a horrible face. The boys shook with laughter at the spectacle. Then Tom held the headset up to Bud’s ear, and Chow’s voice could be heard muttering a number of salty imprecations under his breath.

"It’s not Chow’s own cooking, that’s for sure," Bud commented.

"In any case, I hope the food isn’t for us," said Tom. "Chow acts as if it were poison!"

After the Texan had delivered the food to the metallurgy department next door, Tom went outside and called him into the photographic lab. Pretending to be stern, he said: "What’s the big idea of sampling food from that lunch cart, Chow? Don’t you get enough to eat in your own kitchen?"

The cook’s sun-bronzed face wrinkled in dismay and disgust. "Aw, Boss, brand my galley pans, I ’as jest checkin’ up on that new fry-cook Boris, who keeps mouthin’ off about working in the best hotels o’ New York and—"

Tom interrupted in mock impatience. "Never mind that. What’s with the vulgar language, anyway?—saying such things about a defenseless bull!"

"Now Tom, I only—" Suddenly Chow’s jaw dropped open in a look of amazed perplexity. "Say now, wait jest a minute, how’d you know I was tastin’ them vittles? Wasn’t no one else out there but me. I’m dead sure o’ that!"

Tom nodded gravely. "You really want to know?" He touched a button on the Eye-Spy camera, activating its digital replay mechanism. The entire sequence of events showed again on the monitor, complete with sound.

"More o’ your newfangled contraptions!" declared the cook with a sidewise glance, and Tom and Bud burst into raucous laughter. As Tom explained and assured Chow that he’d only been teasing, the grizzled old Westerner shook his head glumly. "This here’s like 1984 in the blame twenty-first cent’ry! From now on, a coot’ll have no privacy ’round here no-ways no-how. How’m I goin’ to cook up any fancy surprises fer you with that camera snoopin’ at me?"

Bud laughed again. "Pardner, if you’re dreaming up any more surprises like that sagebrush stew and pickled rattlesnake, I’d say Tom’s gizmo has more than proved its worth!"

The boys’ fun was suddenly cut off by a voice over the public address system. "Tom Swift, report to the master oscilloscope at once! An incoming coming signal has been detected!" It was the prim voice of Munford Trent, the Swifts’ efficient office secretary.

"The space scientists must finally be responding to the message Dad and I sent!" Tom cried excitedly. He and Bud hastily made their way to the oscilloscope room, which was in the airfield control tower building.

Mr. Swift was already present when they arrived. "Look, Tom—only two symbols this time, then nothing." He gestured at the glowing monitor screen.

"Looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics to me—by way of Chinese!" Bud exclaimed.

As was characteristic of the space writing, each pictograph was actually a cluster of smaller symbols that showed the relation of the concepts. Tom pointed to one of the sub-symbols. "I remember that one. It means something not brought to completion, unfinished."

"And this part is their sign of reversal or negation," said Damon Swift. "And this looks to me like ‘extend’ or ‘intensify,’ don’t you think?"

In minutes father and son were agreed on the translation of the message from space:

CONTINUE COURSE

"I don’t get it," Tom said, puzzled. "There must be more coming." But though they waited for fifteen minutes, there were no further transmissions.

"Try sending our own message and see if they reply this time," Mr. Swift suggested.

Borrowing the notebook of reconstructed translations, Tom sat down at the transmitter and began beaming impulses into space. Suddenly Mr. Swift, who was monitoring the signal on the oscilloscope, cried out, "Hold it, Tom! We’re getting interference!"

Instead of showing the symbols Tom was sending, the scope was acting wildly. Starbursts of light flickered back and forth across the screen.

"Someone’s jamming your signal!" Bud exclaimed.

Tom waited a few moments until the flashes died away, then tried once more to send the message. Again the scope exploded into wild flashes of light.

"No doubt about it now," the elder inventor commented grimly. "Someone is doing his best to prevent us from contacting our space friends! It’s obviously either the person who downloaded the space dictionary or someone who obtained it from the thief."

Tom snapped his fingers as an alarming idea occurred to him.

"Dad, maybe he’s the person who was sending that ‘continue course’ message!"

MR. SWIFT looked startled by Tom’s suggestion. "In other words, it came from right here on earth, not outer space, just like the interference signals."

"Then it’s a lucky break!" cried Bud. "You’ll be able to home in on the source of the signal."

Tom examined several instrument readings from the magnifying antenna and shook his head in discouragement. "No dice. The jamming signals are coming from multiple sources simultaneously, probably a dozen small relay transmitters mounted in vehicles that are on the move. And the message signal looks like a partial reflection from the upper ionosphere. What we received may be just a fragment of the original message, outgoing or incoming."

"I see we’ve arrived at a moment of high drama!" proclaimed a feminine voice from the doorway. Sandra Swift and Bashalli Prandit came traipsing in. "But then the drama is always high here in the Fortress of Swiftitude," Bashalli continued.

"We heard the loudspeaker announcement, so we knew where to find you," said Sandy.

"Look at their faces," said Bashalli. "They have no idea that they were to have a late lunch with us today."

With a glance at Tom, Bud admitted that he had forgotten to mention the plan. "See, Tom started showing me this new invention of his that—"

"What a pair you and Tom are!" Sandy moaned, shaking her head in mock disapproval. "All you do is eat, sleep, and work!"

"Especially work," Bash teased. "How long has it been, Sandy, since they took us out on a date?" She looked Tom’s way and added pointedly, "I hope I don’t need to put that concept into mathematical symbols for you."

Sandy’s blue eyes clouded mischievously. "I really can’t remember. Was it the night at TinCanz when Tom ditched us to go see that gangster?"

"No, I am quite sure it was the night Tom ditched me in the living room to chase after that Gorilla Man in the garden."

"They’ve just been too terribly busy to bother with us, I guess."

Mr. Swift, a slight twitch of a smile on his face, diplomatically excused himself.

The boys realized they were being needled. "No kidding, girls," Tom spoke up, "we have been busy. The plant’s working overtime on my diving seacopter, and then there’s been all this trouble about the rocket from space—"

"Oh, don’t apologize—it’s quite all right," Bashalli interrupted airily. "We knew in advance you’d forget the luncheon plan. We came here merely to instill guilt. Tonight we’re going out with a couple of smart engineers, anyhow."

"Meaning Tom and me?" teased Bud, thinking the girls were about to heckle them into a date.

But his smile faded fast as Sandy replied smugly, "No, two engineers who work for Munson Wickliffe. Very good-looking, too, and reputed to be clever conversationalists."

"You don’t know them?" Tom burst out.

"Why I believe we have their attentions!" commented Bashalli. The young Pakistani smiled sweetly. "How very flattering it is!"

"Betty Kenwood introduced them to us at the Thessaly Library Fund dinner, and they asked us to go out with them," Tom’s sister explained.

"And with very little prompting," added Bash.

"With no prompting!" Sandy corrected hastily. When both boys flushed, Sandy observed with a sparkle of mischief, "My, my! Is that my jealousy detector I hear buzzing?"

Tom cleared his throat and asked, "Have you girls made any plans yet about where to spend the evening?"

"We’ll be meeting at home, and Betty spoke about a dance at the Thessaly Tennis Club," Sandy replied. Her face grew sober. "But seriously, I guess Ferd and Kelt—don’t you say a word, Budworth!—figured having dates with us would be an easy way to pick up some inside information on Swift Enterprises. Anyhow," she added, "I’m certainly going to give a full report!"

"Won’t they be surprised to learn that Sandy and I know nothing!"

Sandy gave Bashalli a reproving look. "That’s not the best way to put it, Bashi dear."

Bud smiled blandly, but the look on Tom’s face bespoke concern. In fact, Sandy wondered later if her big brother had spoken to their mother during the afternoon, for Mrs. Swift asked them to change their plans and spend the entirety of the evening in the Swift home. "You may think I’m a silly old fuss-budget, dear," said Anne Swift, "but I’m terribly worried about that space rocket. If anything should happen, I’d like to know that all of us are near one another in Shopton. Would you mind entertaining your dates here at home just this once?" To spare her any anxiety, the girls readily agreed.

Soon after eight o’clock, Betty Kenwood and her date arrived at the door to the Swift home just as the two Wickliffe engineers, Ferdinand Acton and Kelton Price, pulled up in Acton’s car. Acton was blond, thin, and anemic-looking. He was dressed in a plaid jacket, wine-red cummerbund, and white flannel trousers, and he wore tinted glasses with thin wire rims. His friend Kelt Price made a somewhat amusing contrast, being short and pudgy with a shock of thick black hair. Both men were in their late twenties.

Sandy shot Bashalli a secret look that said, They’re not as cute as they seemed the other night!

The group came into the living room, where the Sandy’s parents were waiting.

"This is Ferdinand Acton," Betty introduced one, "and this is Kelton Price."

"But please let’s not be formal!" Acton smiled suavely, making a little bow and offering his hand to Mrs. Swift. "Just make it Ferd and Kelt."

"We insist!" said Kelton Price.

"We az-yoomed the girls would feel right at home with a couple of technical chaps like us." Price beamed, staring at Bashalli with undisguised admiration.

"By the way," said Acton to Mr. Swift, "is your brilliant son going to join us for the evening?"

Damon Swift coolly answered, "I’m afraid Tom and his friend Bud have other things to attend to. They’re working late at the Swift Enterprises plant." He knew that they were attentively monitoring the space oscilloscope and various tracking instruments for any sign of the anticipated vessel from space.

Sandy’s parents politely excused themselves and retired upstairs. "It’s a good thing Bud isn’t here to meet those two," said Mrs. Swift softly to her husband. "I can just imagine him saying, what a couple of creeps!"

Mr. Swift grinned back and whispered, "Maybe Sandy and Bashalli aren’t feeling so happy right now, either. From the looks of their dates, I’d say they really booby-trapped themselves for the evening!"

Meanwhile, Betty Kenwood and her date had gone off to the Thessaly Tennis Club, leaving Sandy and Phyl alone with Ferd and Kelt. The young men had seemed happy about staying at the house when Sandy had requested this.

"Remarkable chap, your brother," commented Ferd Acton as he whipped out a foreign cigarette and inserted it in a long, carved ivory holder.

"Do you really think so?" asked Sandy coolly, eyeing the cigarette.

"Yes, indeed. Really, I’m such a great admirer of Tom Swift—he’s produced so many amazing, er—"

"Inventions?"

"Precisely. I dare say he’s busy on some new project right now, isn’t he?" The inflection in his voice proclaimed that he was prying, ineptly, for secret information.

"I suppose so," Sandy smiled. "He usually is." Not discouraged by her noncommittal response, Kelt Price asked bluntly, "What’s the wonder boy working on these days?"

Sandy and Bash glanced at each other. Sandy managed to answer the question without giving a direct reply. But the two Wickliffe engineers soon resumed their probing.

Ferd Acton’s next question took Sandy by surprise. "Is Tom improving his jetmarine to do some underwater searching?"

Sandy did not reply to Acton’s question at once. Had he heard rumors about Tom’s new seacopter and his plans to join George Braun and Ham Teller in searching for buried lands beneath the ocean?

"You’ll have to ask my brother about that," she said sweetly. "I don’t keep up with all the details of his work. But I am curious as to why you asked about that particular invention."

"Oh, I don’t know." The thin, blond engineer blew out a cloud of purplish smoke that made Sandy wince. "Sometimes I get these hunches."

"He really does," said Price.

"It’s a gift," continued Acton.

"It really is," said Price.

"No doubt he’s hard at work on some labor-saving idea, hmm?" Though made in an offhanded way, the remark to Sandy probably was a new attempt to wheedle information, she realized. She was sure of it when Ferd Acton stared at her with one eyebrow raised quizzically.

But Sandy ignored the hint. Instead, she decided to do a little probing on her own—in a subtle, roundabout way. "Have you been working for Munson Wickliffe very long?" she inquired.

"About four years," Acton replied. "Charming fellow! Before that I was in Europe."

"In Europe? How interesting!"

"I received a good deal of my technical education over there, you see. I studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and got my master’s degree at the University of Gottingen in Germany."

Bashalli said, "I have heard of Gottingen, but please, what is the sore bone?" Sandy stifled a giggle, realizing that her friend was teasingly commenting on Acton’s poor pronunciation.

Acton frowned. "Are you joking?"

"Oh, living abroad must be exciting!" Sandy exclaimed quickly.

"Ah, yes, it is indeed. After all, Europe is the home of cult-yoor." Acton waved his cigarette holder gracefully, like a conductor’s baton. "It’s a place where art and beauty are truly appreciated. I find America so crude by comparison."

"But you do enjoy your work at the Wickliffe lab, don’t you?" Sandy pursued.

"Oh, quite—in a different way. It offers a challenge to my scientific talents."

"I’m sure it must." Sandy’s face assumed an eager, fascinated look. "Of course it’s probably way over my head, but what exactly does your work consist of?"

"You mean, what do we do?" asked Price.

"Oh, we carry on research in many different fields," said Ferd Acton vaguely.

"Sure, we dabble in everything," boasted Price. "Electronics, plastics, computers, atomic physics—what have you."

"Then I suppose you’ve done some underwater research yourselves," said Sandy innocently. This time, it was Ferd Acton’s turn to smile. "Naturally some of our work may find application in the submarine field. Then again it may be connected with aircraft design—or it may be strictly earthbound."

From his reply, Sandy had the feeling that Acton was secretly making fun of her attempts to gain information. She felt annoyed but knew it would do no good to lose her temper if she hoped learn anything from him.

Bashalli seemed to guess what her friend was trying to do. In an effort to help, she inquired, "Have you men ever been down on a submarine dive? It must be a terrific thrill!"

Kelt Price gave a shrill chuckle. "Maybe so, but I prefer diving in a swimming pool. Always seems a lot safer—that is, if you don’t crack your head on the bottom!" He guffawed loudly at his own remark.

Acton exhaled another plume of exhaust in Sandy’s direction. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Oh, pardon me!" Sandy smiled weakly, and he continued: "Where are my manners? May I offer you a cigarette?"

"I don’t smoke," said Sandy.

Acton turned toward Bashalli. "You?"

"Thank you, but I prefer cigars exclusively," Bashalli responded tartly. "Sandra, allow me to help you in preparing the ice cream."

Sandy excused herself and went to the kitchen to fix plates of ice cream and cake for her guests. Bash followed to help serve. "What an evening!" whispered Sandy.

Bashalli nodded gloomily. "I thought it might be fun to tease Tom and Bud by having blind dates. But I guess the laugh has fallen on us."

When the girls returned to the living room with the dessert, Sandy asked Acton if he had any plans to go back to Europe on vacation.

"No," he replied, "but Kelt and I may be taking a trip together soon."

"To a land of romance and adventure!" Kelt added. "Not that I’m the type who goes in for this sun-helmet sort of thing," he added, laughing. "It’s business, mostly."

He did not offer to explain what the business might be. He did mention that a river at the spot he was going to was as big as twenty Mississippis and wound through miles of steaming jungles.

"Wait’ll you hear some of the more gory details," Price wheezed. "Tell her about the piranhas, Ferd."

"Ah, yes—the piranhas." Acton grinned at the girls slyly. "Most amazing little devils!"

"What are they?" asked Bashalli.

"Fish—cannibal fish—with bulldog snouts and razor-sharp teeth. Less than a foot long, but they’re probably the most vicious and deadly of all living creatures. They’ll slash at anything that moves. And the scent of blood drives them into a frenzy!"

Bash smiled. "I respond in much the same way."

Ignoring the comment, Acton went on. "Listen to this. An American scientist had a little too much of the bubbly, you know? So he passed out in a canoe and let his hand trail in the water. When he pulled it out, all he had left below the wrist were bones!"

"His own bones," added Price helpfully.

Acton smirked. "Maybe you’d like to hear about some of the twenty-foot snakes that squeeze—"

"Ah, the time, the time," said Bashalli. "How fast it passes. Sandy, what time is it?"

"Oh, it’s—" She turned in her chair to get a view of the large grandfather clock out in the foyer. A look of surprise crossed her brow. "What in the world—?"

Rising to her feet, she led the others into the foyer. Though the old clock was always kept well-wound, it had stopped. But what was uncanny, even frightening, was the sight of the heavy cut-glass pendulum. Rather than hanging down vertically, it was suspended off to one side at the high-point of its arc!

"What makes it do that?" inquired Acton.

"It’s shaking," murmured Sandy in wonderment.

"So is this punch glass," said Bashalli. "Something is pulling on it!"

Suddenly there came a loud crash. The ornate glass punchbowl had shattered against the ceiling! Punch dribbled down to the carpet below, but the pieces of glass remained pressed against the ceiling as if held in place by glue.

"My glasses!" shouted Ferd Acton. His glasses had leapt from their perch on his ample nose and flown upward, landing like a housefly on the foyer ceiling. "What is this, some kind of scientific—"

His words were cut short as a shrill, distant whine split the air, insistently rising and falling.

"It’s the emergency siren at Swift Enterprises!" Sandy gasped. "Something must be wrong!"

The family’s watchdogs, Caesar and Brutus, began baying in their kennel. Accompanied by Acton and Price, the girls rushed through the front door and down the steps. "Look!" cried Bashalli in awe, pointing skyward.

Through the starry night sky, from the northwest, sailed an eerie, silent object, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. It was arrowing straight toward Shopton!

SANDY AND PHYL stood rooted to the spot as the strange object sailed majestically through the sky. But Acton and Price, after a quick glance, made a dash for their convertible, which was parked at one side of the drive. Gunning the engine, Ferd Acton sped off into the darkness with a screech of rubber.

Sandy and Bashalli paid little attention to their departing guests. Wide-eyed with alarm, they stared at the streaking menace in the sky. The object did not appear to be a plane, jet, or other kind of conventional aircraft. Inside the oval corona of multicolored light, a darker central object, like a hazy shadow, could be dimly made out. Unlike a rocket or missile, there was no sign of any fiery exhaust. But it seemed to be following a beam of faint, milky luminescence that extended in front and slanted downward like a bridge from sky to earth.

"Bash!" Sandy whispered. "I’m sure that glowing beam comes down right at Swift Enterprises!"

"It looks like it’s going to crash!" gulped Bashalli in helpless dread. "What if it blows up?"

Alerted by the siren, Mrs. Swift had hurried outside and now clung to the two girls. All three were trembling. Second by second the rocket of light drew closer.

"Do you suppose it’s the one from outer space that Tom was expecting?" Bashalli asked shakily.

"It must be!" Mrs. Swift answered. "Mr. Swift is on the phone trying to get in touch with the plant right now. If only we could tell where it will land, we might—"

She stopped, thunderstruck. Both girls exclaimed in surprise. The guiding ray of light had vanished! The glowing object stopped dead in the middle of the night sky, as if waiting. Then a new sky-trail appeared, curving off toward the southeast. But Sandy and Bash barely had enough time to register this fact. Moving like lightning, the weird craft had flicked across the sky and silently vanished beyond the far horizon.

"Oh, thank goodness—thank goodness!" Mrs. Swift murmured softly.

"It seems like a miracle!" Sandy nestled against her mother. "I wonder if Dad and Tom did something to keep the rocket from landing."

"Let’s check and make sure that they’re all right," Sandy’s mother urged.

Rushing back inside, they found Mr. Swift on the telephone talking to Tom. He passed the receiver to Sandy, who held it so the others could hear.

"Don’t worry, sis, everything’s under control," he assured her. "What’s that? No, we can’t take any credit for saving Shopton. In fact, we’re as mystified as you are about the rocket veering away. But remember that message we picked up about ‘continue course’?"

"You think that’s the answer?"

"It could have meant to continue course beyond Shopton to another landing place."

As Tom hung up, Bud came rushing into the oscilloscope room, where he and Tom and posted themselves. He was waving several large photographic prints.

"Here are pictures of the rocket!" he exclaimed. "The department got some beauties."

Tom examined the prints eagerly. The enhanced photos showed a strange-looking vessel, far different from any missile designed on earth. Cigar-shaped, it had a series of round cuplike protrusions, running from small ones at the nose to large ones at the tail.

"Amazing!" murmured Tom. "I’ve never seen fins like that on any projectile, foreign or American. They’re worth careful study."

"Then you’re sure it’s the rocket from your space friends?" Bud asked.

"I’d say that there’s no doubt about it. It contains those specimens of planet life we’ve been expecting."

"Then why did the rocket keep going? I thought it was being sent right here to you."

The young inventor frowned, mentioning his theory about the "continue course" message. "Another move by our invisible enemy," he said. "Or—" Tom continued thoughtfully, "there’s another possibility. Our space friends may have decided on their own to have the rocket continue on toward the Atlantic."

Bud regarded his friend in surprise. "Why?"

"To cool it off," Tom explained. "They may have figured that was the only way to keep the specimens inside alive until we find out how to open it in the surface environment without injuring the contents."

The phone rang and Tom scooped it off the hook.

"George Dilling, Tom," came the voice over the wire. "I contacted the Coast Guard and had this flash."

"What’s the word?"

"The mystery meteor was sighted heading out to sea at 9:27! Here’s the estimated course, speed, and position—"

Dilling rattled off a set of figures. Tom jotted them down on his desk pad.

"Okay. Thanks, George. Keep contacting all ships, planes, air bases, weather stations, or any other observers who might be able to give us a report. This could be an all-night job."

Dilling chuckled wryly. "You’re telling me!"

"Bud’s with me. We’ll come over to Communications and help you," Tom said, then hung up.

When Tom’s father arrived at the facility, they began making hurried phone calls, contacting numerous individuals, government agencies, and points along the coast, hoping to garner further information.

"It was invisible to radar," Mr. Swift reported. "National defense didn’t go on alert until it had completely left U.S. airspace."

Bud was studying a breaking-news internet site. "Hey! A report on the rocket’s coming in!" he exclaimed suddenly.

Tom and Mr. Swift dashed to Bud’s side. The message was from a coastwise oil tanker, the Petrol Queen, and told of sighting a strange, meteorlike object in the sky. This was followed some minutes later by a similar report from a Greek freighter, the Pantheon, bound for Norfolk, Virginia. Both gave latitude and longitude at time of sighting.

Tom plotted all three positions on a huge wall map. The course of the rocket immediately became clear. "Heading very slightly south of due east," he commented.

"Trouble is," said Mr. Swift, "there’s no telling when or where the rocket may strike the water."

As the evening wore on, a steady stream of phone calls, radio flashes, and reports via the Swifts’ private videophone television system, came pouring in. Some were eyewitness accounts of the rocket from planes and ships at sea. Others were second- or third-hand versions relayed by microwave stations and ham operators. All indicated that the mysterious sky traveler had continued on a southeasterly course. They even received a report from Ken Horton, stationed in Swift Enterprises’ outpost in space, in orbit 22,300 miles above Ecuador. Horton relayed word from the space station’s astronomy staff that an anomalous fast-moving light had been observed over the Atlantic through a break in the cloud cover.

Although the reports trickled in at intervals, this did not reflect the actual times when the sightings were made. "It’s unbelievable!" Mr. Swift noted. "Sightings separated by thousands of miles were made almost simultaneously."

"The rocket—or whatever we ought to call it—must be traveling at hundreds of miles per second! That’s a serious percent of the speed of light!"

As midnight approached, the reports dwindled and nothing more was heard. Bud finally went home to bed, but Tom and his father remained at the plant, sleeping in shifts on their office cots. But no further messages came during the night.

"It’s odd no one has reported where the craft landed," Mr. Swift mused as he and Tom had a hearty breakfast served by Chow. The were watching the early morning news programs, which were full of excited reports of the mysterious "fireball," when the red signal light of the nearby videophone unit flashed on. "I’ll get it!" exclaimed Tom, jumping up from his chair.

He switched on the videophone and the face of Kaye, Enterprises’ Key West telecaster, appeared on the screen.

"Any news?" Tom asked eagerly.

"The payoff. A plane from Nantes, France, landed at Funchal on Madeira Island early this morning. The pilot reports that he saw a glowing object plunge into the sea about 300 miles north of the island."

"Did he spot the position?"

"He didn’t even take a bearing, so all I can give you is a guesswork range of latitude and longitude. I’ve marked the possible area on this chart." Kaye held it up for Tom to see, adding, "Don’t take too much stock in my figuring, though. It could be way off."

Tom copied down the information, thanked Kaye, and signed off. The elder Swift watched with interest as his son plotted the area on their own wall map.

Tom turned to look at his father, astonished. "Dad—this can’t be a coincidence!"

"The exact area your two friends want to explore for the sunken city!" Mr. Swift marveled. "This makes no sense to me at all. The only connection between these two projects is the involvement of Swift Enterprises. Is it conceivable that our space friends anticipate your upcoming seacopter operation? That they have the ability to actually see into the future?"

"If the rocket did come down here, that would agree pretty well with earlier reports on its course," said Tom.

Mr. Swift nodded. "You’re right, son. As scientists we can’t fight the facts, however mystifying they may be. But I’m afraid that still leaves a vast area of the Atlantic in which to search for the rocket."

As the two sat thinking, the telephone rang with an internal call. Mr. Swift picked it up. The scientist’s face was troubled as he hung up a few minutes later.

"What’s the matter, Dad? Something wrong?" Tom asked, worried.

"That was Harlan Ames," he answered. "His contacts just reported to him that Munson Wickliffe and two of his employees flew out by private jet early this morning, just before daybreak. Their announced destination is—"

"I can guess," Tom said, his face grim. "Madeira Island!"

"Precisely."

Tom stood at the window for a moment, looking out over the vast experimental station. "You know what that means. Wickliffe knew about the revised destination of the rocket before we did. He may even have suggested it." He turned to his father, every muscle primed for action. "We can’t afford to wait a minute longer, Dad. I’ve got to get the seacopter in the water and beat those renegades to the punch—or some of the most important scientific secrets in human history will be lost to us!"

TOM SWIFT and Swift Enterprises shifted into high gear to meet the new objective. The determined young inventor turned his attention to the center unit of the diving seacopter, a remaining problem. Tom was not fully satisfied with the performance of the rotor blades in a tank test. Close examination had revealed hairline cracks in the blades.

"Perhaps," he mused, "the mechanism for changing the blade pitch could be improved along with the blade design." For the balance of the morning and into the afternoon he struggled with the problem, using a hydrodynamic test chamber to study the play of fluid around various shapes and types of prop blade. By two o’clock he had sketched out a new design. The blade was slightly more slender and more squared-off on the end than the old version. Tom immediately sent the new design over to Hank Sterling, his chief engineer, a fast and reliable worker and a good friend. "Have a new set of blades cast and machined according to these drawings, will you, Hank?" he directed. "And tell Art Wiltessa to stand by for some changes in the blade-pitch mechanism."

"You don’t want to make a prototype for testing first?" asked Hank in surprise.

"No," Tom said brusquely. "We’ll have to trust my figures—and my instincts."

Working round the clock, a new set of blades was cast, machined, and installed. Then the rotor section of the seacopter was doused in the pressure tank and a test run off under high speed and pressure. When Tom checked the blades in the gamma-ray fluoroscope the following day, there was no sign of any crack or flaw.

Bud clapped Tom on the back. "Congratulations, pal! Looks like you’ve done it again!"

In the meantime Tom had perfected the scheme for controlling the blade pitch of the improved rotors. Art Wiltessa promised to have the equipment installed and running within two to three days.

"I was hoping for two to three hours, Art," responded Tom. "But I’d settle for ten."

"Done, boss!" Art came back. "Don’t ask me how."

"I won’t!"

By lunchtime the next day, Tom Swift’s revolutionary diving seacopter was assembled and gleaming in the Shopton sunlight!

"Brand my pie tins!" Chow cried, standing next to Tom and Bud. "That thing looks like a combination flyin’ saucer and fry-skillet. You sure it won’t leak this time?"

"It’s passed all its tests, Chow," answered Tom. "At least, the three sections have individually—the two compartments, and the prop-rotor unit. But we’ll have to wring the kinks out of ’er on the way to the city of gold!"

"She got a name?" asked the cook. "Every ship’s got to have a name."

"Yep," was the answer. "I’m calling her the Ocean Arrow."

"Each half does look a little like an arrowhead," Bud observed.

"Yes, but that’s not the only reason for the name. Great-Grandpa Swift named one of his first inventions, his motor boat, the Arrow. This is kind of a tribute to him." Tom ran his fingertips along the crimson hull. "But don’t go looking for a champagne bottle to christen her with, Chow—we don’t have time. We leave this afternoon!"

"I shore hope that-there we includes me," said Chow in a slightly plaintive tone of voice.

"Sure does," laughed Tom. "We have room for a crew of five—you, me, and Bud, and George Braun and Ham Teller. But George and Ham will have to do their archaeological work during the off-hours until we find that space rocket."

Bud asked, "Why only five? Didn’t you say the seacopter could hold six?"

"Yes, but I’m taking along a lot of extra equipment—my new Eye-Spy camera that I showed you, the Damonscope radiation-detector, and a device Dad came up with to detect the presence and precise composition of metals from a distance, under water."

By late afternoon the three Ocean Arrow sections had been separately loaded aboard a convoy of special wide-body flatbeds for transportation to a pier Enterprises had rented in Ogdensburg. From there the seacopter would fly up the St. Lawrence River to the Gulf, and then on out into the Atlantic Ocean.

At the pier, large mobile cranes swung the sections of the craft together, and automatic locking bolts and a sealer flange drew the seacopter together into a single watertight unit. The Ocean Arrow was ready and waiting for her maiden voyage!

As the cranes began to drive off, Chow said to Tom, "Say, boss, where’re they going? Won’t you need ’em to put your sub into th’ water?"

"No, Chow—get on board and watch how we do it." Chow, Bud, George, and Ham clambered up on to the top of the hull by means of an extensible metal ladder, which folded up into a sealed locker in the hull when not in use. Then they entered through the two topside hatches, George and Ham into Compartment B and Bud and Chow, followed by Tom, into Compartment A, which would normally serve as the main control deck.

Tom waved at his father and Hank Sterling, who stood on the pier, and then turned his attention to the controls. They heard a soft whirring sound, then a thunk!, and then with a slight jolt the forty-foot craft began to move toward the edge of the pier.

"Brand my sea monkeys!" exclaimed Chow, craning his neck as he looked out the viewport. "Is somebody pushin’ us?"

"The Arrow has two sets of small, flexible tank treads made of Tomasite, one set per compartment," Tom explained. "Each set consists of three tread units, which can be extended or retracted as needed. Most of the time we’ll keep them hidden away behind panels on the bottom of the hull."

The seacopter crawled down a broad ramp and, without hesitation, continued on into the waters of the St. Lawrence River. There it settled down a ways, floating with the waterline about a foot below the lower rim of the viewpane.

"She rides a little low in the water," Bud remarked.

Tom nodded. "That’s because of the weight of the prop-drive section. Each individual compartment would float quite a bit higher." The young inventor now intercommed Compartment B. "How’s it going in there, guys?"

"Ship-shape, Cap’n Swift," came the voice of Hamilton Teller. "The water’s staying outside where it belongs."

"Let’s go under," said Tom. The ship began to vibrate as powerful steam turbines started the blades spinning. The river water was flung upward through the central prop well, and the seacopter lurched downward, the blade pitch adjusting automatically as the blades bit more deeply into the water.

Bud cheered as the viewpane was completely submerged. "From tank to boat to submarine!"

"It’s a might wonderful thing," said Chow in awe. "We could go up the Rio Grande under water one o’ these days, mebbe."

"Mebbe," Tom agreed, thrilled at the performance of his new invention. Now he activated the steam jets. With a rush of bubbles the Ocean Arrow shot forward into the river.

Bud pulled his seatbelt taut. "Fast as a greased barracuda!"

"But I don’t want to travel all the way downriver while submerged," Tom said. "So hang on." He cut the power to the blades. As they slowed, the seacopter seemed to leap upward and broke the surface.

Tom eased one of the control levers forward, and the rotor engines began to sound again. "Now we’ll become a flying seacopter!"

With the pitch of the blades reversed, the ship mounted up higher and higher on its cushion of downthrusting air, departing from the water completely. After a moment its ascent slowed, and Tom checked a near-range radar altimeter. "Eight feet up!—better than I expected."

After radioing his father with a report on the performance of the Ocean Arrow, Tom turned to his companions and announced, "Well, crew, let’s go rocket hunting!"

He opened up the steam thrusters, and in less than a minute the seacopter was jetting along the river at high speed—destination: Atlantis!

HURRIED HOURS later the Ocean Arrow was skimming along above the cold Atlantic swells on an east-southeast heading.

"You gonna fly ’er the whole way, son?" Chow inquired. "That ocean view out there is gettin’ a mite monotonous, if’n you wanna know the truth."

"Aw come on, pal, look at those stars!" Bud teased. "People pay good money for picturesque ocean voyages." It was mid-evening, and the sky was alive with sparkling light.

"That they do, buddy boy," the Texan conceded. "But I got caught in one o’ them ocean storms once—a typhoon!—and it shook me up right bad. Say there Tom, how’d this air-boat handle a storm like that?"

"Like a dream," Tom replied. "Remember, we can go under the storm any time we want to." He glanced back at Bud. "And by the way, flyboy, doesn’t this look a little familiar?"

"Should it?"

"We’ve been here before—admittedly quite a bit lower down and further south. We’re crossing the Atlantic Ridge!"

Bud grinned and nodded, remembering the sight of the vast range of rugged peaks that splits the Atlantic floor in two. "That was quite a sight when we crossed over in the Nemo," he remarked, naming Tom’s jetmarine.

Their immediate goal was the town of Vila da Praia da Vitória on the island of Terceira in the Azores. Here the Ocean Arrow would be berthed for the night at a dock rented by Swift Enterprises. The arrival of the expedition had purposefully not been publicized, but when the seacopter approached the dock—Tom having set it down on the surface like a conventional marine craft—he was dismayed to see that a small crowd had gathered to watch, though it was well after midnight.

"I guess word gets around," Bud remarked.

"Especially where Swift Enterprises is involved," was Tom’s rueful comment.

The five were greeted effusively at the nearby bed-and-breakfast where they were to stay the night. In halting English, with many interruptions in frustrated Portuguese, the proprietor asked if they had come to "search in the ocean for the great sky-rocket."

"Why do you ask?" Tom inquired.

"Ah, Senhor, everyone knows of the thing that fell from the sky!" the man replied. "But I must tell you, here in Terceira you are too far north. It fell closer to the Madeiras, our rivals to the south. Alas, they will get the tourists from it, I think."

Bud asked if any others had come to the island in recent days, seeking information about the rocket. "For example, there’s a friend of ours, Dr. Munson Wickliffe, who thought he might meet up with us here. Have you heard of him?"

The proprietor squinted his eyes and scratched his head. "No, no others have come—and I know everyone—and if I do not, my cousin Boli does! But I tell you what, this man you seek, this Wickliffe—you should ask Professor Taclos."

"Who’s that?" George asked. "What sort of Professor is he?"

"You have not heard of him? He lives on Madeira, on the sea coast outside Porto do Moniz. He works for, how do I say?—the Institute for the Study of Weather, at the University of Lisbon."

Chow snorted. "We don’t need t’ talk about the weather."

The man shook his head. "You do not understand. He has an astronomy-observatory, and much equipment. Also a special scientific boat, a big one, with a—" He thought for a moment, finding no words. "Well, it is round, like a metal gourd, and you let it down into the deep waters on cables, with people inside."

"A diving bell!" exclaimed Tom. He glanced at his companions. "That could be how Wickliffe plans to reach the rocket!" He warmly thanked the proprietor for his information.

By sunrise the next morning, with only a few hours sleep, the five oceannauts were on the move as the Ocean Arrow sped above the waves in the direction of the large stretch of the Atlantic where the subocean search would commence. Before submerging, Tom radioed Harlan Ames in Shopton and asked that he try to contact Professor Taclos.

"I’ll do my best," responded the security chief. "And if I can’t get in touch with him, I’ll at least get an address for you, so you can pay him a visit."

Reversing the blade pitch, Tom now sent the seacopter diving down into the shadowy turquoise depths. It plunged at a thrilling pace, like an elevator.

"This is marvelous!" Ham Teller exclaimed. He had traded places with Chow in Compartment A for the day, as Tom wished everyone aboard to become somewhat familiar with the ship’s control procedures. "I only wish more light penetrated down here. The view would be tremendous."

"Hey, give me some credit!" joked Tom, flicking a switch. Ham gasped in awe as a broad section of the ocean floor became clearly illuminated, as if by strong daylight.

"It’s genius boy’s magic aqualamp," Bud Barclay explained. "Something about penetrating waves of different frequencies, and a coating on the glass plate. The fish tell me they can’t see it at all."

"A submarine sun!" murmured Ham, gazing downward at the floor of the ocean, covered with wrinkled and twisted volcanic rock and overgrown with multicolored subsea forests.

After hovering for a time, Tom opened the throttle and the rotors hummed and picked up speed. Again he shoved the control wheel forward. Like a sinking stone, the seacopter plunged downward into the greenish depths.

Fascinated, Chow watched the schools of fish that flurried past the windows. There were herring, sea bass, and tunny.

"Man oh man, what a sea-food dinner them critters’d make!" Chow muttered.

At ninety-three fathoms down, the seacopter reached the ocean floor. With the vehicle pressed against the bottom by the action of the rotor-prop, Tom extended the caterpillar treads and they began crawling along the sandy, somewhat mucky, terrain. Sea anemones with waving tentacles, grasping sea urchins, and five-pointed serpent stars came into view, as well as many other strange, flowerlike creatures.

For nearly three hours the seacopter roamed the offshore waters, exploring at various depths. Bud asked Tom, "Where are we exactly, skipper?"

"Just west of the East Azores Fracture Zone, and approaching the northward extension of the Horseshoe Seamounts. We’ll start our search on the other side of the peaks, in the Tagus Plain."

Soon after, the powerful aqualamp search beam revealed the first crags and peaks of the Seamounts. "Wow, undersea Alps!" murmured Bud, impressed by their size and grandeur.

"Plato’s account mentions the magnificent mountains surrounding the habitable plain of Atlantis on three sides," Ham Teller commented. "The plain itself lies further south, if our theory’s right."

Crossing the peaks, the Ocean Arrow began to descend toward the flat Tagus Plain that bordered the continental slope of Portugal. Now the real search would begin, using a methodical zig-zag pattern that Tom had devised with the help of the two oceanographers, who had already studied the undersea terrain in minute detail. The search area encompassed an oval region 600 miles long by 200 miles broad.

Mr. Swift’s metal detector had been mounted in the bow of the seacopter, with its transmitter-sensor antenna unit protruding through the hull and into the water. The box-shaped Damonscope had been installed in an open space on the deck just back of the detector, its camera lens pointing downward through a small porthole. Tom pushed a button and the Damonscope began to whir softly. Then he switched on the metal detector and carefully adjusted several tuning knobs as Bud and Ham watched with keen interest.

A few seconds later the detector’s audio-alert gave off a faint clicking noise. At the same time, the indicator needle flickered upward into the frequency range that indicated its probing beam was being reflected back by metal.

"Listen to that response!" exclaimed Bud. "Maybe we’ve found the rocket!"

Tom shook his head, smiling at his friend’s excited optimism. "Sorry to disappoint you, but a concentrated mass of metal like a rocket would set off a much louder signal. What we’re getting right now is mostly background noise."

"What’s causing it?" Bud asked.

"Various igneous ores, most likely. This whole volcanic basin is dotted with veins of the stuff."

The detector response continued off and on during most of the day’s search. Tom kept a wary eye on the monitor screen of the Damonscope, but found no trace of the colored fluorescence that would indicate that they had passed over radioactive material. In disappointment, the searchers went back and forth from deep to shallow water without a sign of the rocket.

Though well aware that they were unlikely to find the space vessel on the first day of searching, Tom could not help becoming frustrated. "I’m going to try the detector and the ’scope at a higher power setting," Tom mentioned to Bud. "Maybe I’ve misjudged the absorption characteristics of seawater at this depth."

In Compartment B, which included the ship’s galley equipment, Chow had spent the hours examining and testing the various culinary accoutrements of the Ocean Arrow while chatting with George Braun. Using edibles that had been packed on board at Enterprises, the ingenious cook prepared the first meal of the voyage.

"You git to be my guinea pig, George," said Chow. "But don’t worry, I ain’t lost a subject yet!"

Braun sniffed at the meat, which was enclosed in frankfurter rolls. "I’m honored, but what is this stuff?" he demanded with mock concern. "Sure is no regulation weenie!"

"Taste it an’ find out," Chow dared him. "You scientists like to experiment, don’t you?"

Frowning, the oceanographer chewed a small mouthful. His face relaxed. "Mm, not bad," he admitted. "Matter of fact, Chow m’man, it’s delicious. There—I’m on record. Now what is it?"

"Whale steak, shrimp, and crab meat stuffed in a sausage skin—my own special recipe. Stead of a frankfurter, I call it a deep-sea ’furter!"

"You should open up a submarine refreshment stand," suggested George. "Probably clean up a fortune selling red-hot sea dogs and whaleburgers!"

"I might jest do that!" Chow grinned smugly, pleased at the success of his first "deep-sea special."

At that moment the cabin lights dimmed slightly.

George glanced up at the lights. "Wonder what that was."

"Prob’ly nuthin’," the Texan responded. But as the minutes passed, the incident stuck in his mind, and the chef began to worry. "Mebbe I’d better call Tom an’ Bud an’ find out what’s-what over there."

Switching on the intercom, he called Tom’s name. But there was no response. He called louder. Still no answer.

"Something wrong, Chow?" asked George, noting the worried expression on the cook’s face.

"By jingies, that’s jest what I’m wonderin’! Tom an’ Bud don’t answer! The way th’ lights flickered, you don’t s’pose—mebbe one o’ them detector thingums blew up!"

George Braun stared at Chow in alarm. "They don’t answer? Something serious may have happened to them!"

"That’s what I’m thinkin’!"

"And the ship is running itself?" George asked in awe.

Chow snapped off the intercom. "Reckon we’d better find out pronto!"

HASTILY OPENING the watertight door, Chow scrambled through the narrow passage which doubled as an airlock, passing one of the Arrow’s two underwater hatches. George Braun followed close behind. Panting from the effort of restraining his ample spread, the cook emerged into Compartment A. "Wa-al, I’ll be a three-horned toad!" Chow exclaimed.

Tom and Bud were conversing calmly at the controls, as Ham Teller studied the Damonscope screen.

"Why the delegation?" Tom asked, turning around. "Catch a whale back there, Chow?"

"Must be George’s idea," remarked Ham. "He can’t stand to be apart from me for too long."

The cook scratched his bald head in perplexity. "We thought somethin’ was wrong with you two! How come you don’t answer ole Chow when he phones up on that there inner-com?"

"What!" Tom was amazed to learn that the communication system that linked the compartments was out of order. Asking Bud to take over the controls, and grabbing a tool kit from one of the lockers, he quickly checked the system.