TOM SWIFT

"DON’T TRY IT, Tom! We’ll blow up!" warned Bud Barclay as his friend Tom Swift sent the great silver Sky Queen nosing higher and higher. Bud, wild-eyed, nudged the portly figure seated next to him with his elbow. "Chow, Tom’s gone crazy! We’ll have to overpower him!"

"Relax, Bud. This ship can take it," replied the blond young scientist absent-mindedly. He kept his deep-set blue eyes focused on the instrument panel.

"Y’ cain’t fool ole Chow that easy, Buddy Boy," said Chow Winkler. "We been up a lot higher ’n this, and that was over th’ South Pole!"

Bud sighed. "Tom, people nowadays are getting mighty blasé about jetting around in the stratosphere. It’s a sad thing for a pilot. What am I gonna have to do to impress people—invent something?"

The altimeter needle showed they were at a height of 85,000 feet—more than sixteen miles up in the purplish black sky. Despite the star-blazed darkness it was only midday. Tom was flying the huge jet skyship, his famous three-decker Flying Lab, as high as he dared in order to test out his latest invention. This was a solar battery, to be charged by the unshielded radiation of the sun.

During the trip Bud had been intently watching the differential pressure gauge. The dark-haired young pilot, a passenger on this trip, knew that the pressurized plane was being subjected to a terrific bursting strain as the air outside grew thinner and thinner. He also knew that the revolutionary craft had proven time and again that it was well-equipped to meet the dangers of upper-atmospheric flight.

As the eighteen-year-old inventor kept the ship in a steady climb, Bud frowned dramatically. "Don’t say I didn’t warn you!" he muttered with feigned worry. "If this crate blows up in our faces, we won’t even—"

He broke off as the plane gave a violent lurch. There was a groan of tortured metal and the three were nearly wrenched out of their seats.

"What hit us? One o’ them meteors?" Chow gasped, gripping his armrest.

"Turbulent area," Tom replied, as the giant craft shuddered from stem to stern. Tom manipulated the controls calmly, and after a few jittery moments the ship had reached a safe region of placid air above the "ghost winds." Then he confidently flipped a switch, pouring power into the jet lifters. Instantly the plane roared upward, leaving mile after mile behind during its startling vertical ascent. As the upper limit of the stratosphere drew near, the Queen leveled off and seemed to hang suspended in the dark crystalline dome of the upper air, far above even the highest clouds.

Tom glanced over his shoulder as his flying companions nestled back into their contour flight chairs in silent relief. "Listen, pal, don’t scare me like that." Bud gave a grin. "It’s almost as hard on my arteries as one of Chow’s desserts!"

"You kin joke all you wanna, but I noticed you had three helpings o’ pie last night," Chow commented smugly. The former ranch hand was not only a close friend of Tom and Bud, but their personal chef. He was as used to needling as to Texas sunshine.

"Sorry, guys." Tom flashed a smile back at them. "You know we’re apt to run into those ghost winds almost anywhere up here. I figured we’d better get above the action quickly before the shaking did any damage."

"Speaking of ghosts, what’s that at ten o’clock?" Bud suddenly exclaimed.

"I wish you’d give up on tryin’ to spook me," said Chow languidly, his eyes following Bud’s pointing finger. Then Chow gave a snort of surprise. "Wa-al brand my contrails, what is that thing?"

Glancing to portside, Tom saw a large, silvery sphere floating some distance away. The sharp sunlight glinted off its surface as if off a polished mirror. "Must be a weather balloon." Tom’s eyes narrowed. "But I’m not so sure."

Bud glanced at him curiously. "What are you driving at, skipper?"

Tom raised a pair of binoculars and trained them on the balloon before replying. "That box attached to the balloon—it doesn’t look like the usual type of radiosonde for sending weather signals. Let’s get a closer look."

Feeding power into the main horizontal engines, Tom sent the ship gliding forward. Then he banked in a tight curve that brought the Queen close to the object. The balloon veered and fluttered in the rush of the plane’s airstream, but the young inventor finally maneuvered the Flying Lab to within twenty yards of it.

Again Tom studied the object as he held the ship steady. "How about it, pal?" asked Bud. He focused his own binoculars on the strange device, then lowered them with a puzzled expression. "It’s no weather balloon, that’s sure. But what is it?"

Tom replied thoughtfully, "Bud, that balloon may be rigged for some kind of solar-battery test."

"What!" Chow cried in an indignant tone. "Some lowdown rustler tryin’ to beat you to the punch?"

"It’s only a guess. But the reflectors on the surface of the payload capsule certainly fit with that kind of use."

Chow was disgusted. "Ramblin’ rockets, that means someone else may get the jump on Swift Enterprises before you kin bring your model t’ market!"

Tom shrugged ruefully. "There’s no law against competition."

Bud asked, "Who do you suppose sent it up?"

"Search me. I’m not aware of any companies doing active work in this area right now." Tom settled back at the controls. "Well, whoever they are, I wish them luck." He gently steered the ship away.

The giant bag was rising slowly—floating toward the upper levels of the stratosphere. Then, without warning, the balloon burst, spattering parts of the shiny fabric in all directions. Tom, Bud, and Chow craned their necks to watch the instrument package as it plummeted downward. A moment later a small parachute popped open to float it gently back to earth.

"Hey, let’s go after it!" urged Bud excitedly. "Maybe we can find out whether your hunch is right!"

Tom shook his head. "The persons making the experiment are probably tracing the balloon by its signals. They’ll be all set to retrieve the box when it lands. And after all, it’s their experiment—we don’t want to foul it up."

"Guess you’re right," Bud murmured in a disappointed voice.

"Too bad their big balloon popped," sniffed Chow. But he didn’t look overly sympathetic.

Tom sent the Sky Queen zooming upward in a steep climb. Soon the altimeter needle showed that the ship had crossed the upper border of the stratosphere and had entered the ionosphere as it neared the edge of airless space.

"High as we go," said Tom, putting the Queen into hover mode.

"Time to let loose that contraption o’ yours, Tom?" asked Chow.

"Yes," he replied, "assuming everything works properly. I hope the ghost winds didn’t put anything out of whack."

Even the lower ionosphere was not high enough for Tom to adequately test his new battery, which required exposure to the full intensity of the solar rays that earth’s atmosphere prevents from reaching the ground. As the skyship could not safely attain the altitude desired, he had designed a special carrying vehicle—a low-pressure glider with automatic guidance controls—to lift the experimental battery another dozen miles spaceward. This unmanned and unpowered glidewing, as Tom called it, was to be launched from a special ceilingless compartment at the top of the Sky Queen’s fuselage by means of a powerful electric catapult. In effect, it would be hurled into the ionosphere like a javelin.

After a last check of the instruments, which showed nothing amiss with the glidewing or the launching catapult, Tom activated an automatic countdown and waited tensely for the signal that the small craft was on its way. But instead a cluster of red lights glared on the control panel as the countdown reached zero.

"Looks like something’s wrong, skipper," said Bud.

Tom checked the feed from a videocam mounted in the launcher bay. "The glidewing’s shifted in its cradle, and the sensors won’t release the catapult mechanism," he replied.

"Kin we fix her up here, boss?" Chow inquired.

Tom grinned. "I just have to tap it and jiggle it a little, like a bad TV antenna. I’ll go put on a pressure suit." At this extreme altitude, the low pressure and subzero temperatures would be fatal to any human being not sealed in a protective covering.

Bud and Chow kept their eyes glued to the monitor screen on the control panel. They saw Tom squeeze through the narrow airlock into the compartment that held the catapult launcher. He grabbed two of the glidewing’s main support struts and gently pulled the entire lightweight assemblage sideways several inches.

"Does the board show green yet?" Tom radioed.

"Not yet," replied Bud.

Tom’s helmet rocked in a nodding motion. "Okay, I see the problem. Watch the board."

With Chow peering anxiously over his shoulder, Bud stared fixedly at the instrument panel. Suddenly all the red lights were replaced by green.

"That’s it, Tom," Bud said into his microphone. "Come on in." There was no reply. "Tom?"

Chow’s big hand abruptly clamped down on Bud’s shoulder like a steel claw. Bud glanced up at the expression on Chow’s face, then tracked his gaze to the video monitor screen.

The launching bay was empty!

"TOM! NO! No!" Bud cried in horror. "Tom Swift, can you hear me?"

Chow made a whimpering sound. "We gotta—we gotta do somethin’! He musta gone into orbit!"

Bud did not reply. His heart thudded. He knew that this was not a matter of going into orbit around the earth, but of falling through the atmosphere from a height of fifty miles!

An experienced pilot, Bud forced himself to think. He adjusted the radar sweep and immediately noted the characteristic reflection of the glidewing. Amazingly, it seemed to be following its prescribed arc into the ionosphere.

"No sign of—of a body," Bud choked. Tom hadn’t been caught up in the flinging motion of the catapult, then, which would have exposed him to a bone-snapping acceleration. Bud again reoriented the scan, now sweeping downward. The radar immediately signaled target acquisition!

"There he is!" Bud cried frantically, nodding at a minute blip on the screen.

Bud reset the Sky Queen’s supergyros, not bothering to warn Chow to hang on. The deck tilted sharply as the ship nosed down. Then Bud downthrottled the jet lifters while blasting the forward engines. The Flying Lab arrowed earthward in a roaring power dive that nearly lifted Bud and Chow from their seats!

"Fifteen thousand feet to target…eight thousand…nine hundred…" Bud reported in a whisper as the seconds ticked away.

"I kin see him!" cried Chow. A small, pressure-suited figure could now be seen through the large cabin viewport, tumbling limply over and over.

"Okay, listen!" commanded Bud. "Run up to the top deck and walk along toward the stern. Look out through every window you come to—tell me over the intercom whether I’m getting closer or farther from Tom. He’s in the radar blindspot now, and I’m trying to maneuver the Queen so Tom will float back into the launcher bay. You’re my eyes, Chow!"

With a gulp the heavyset Texan clattered up the metal stairway to the deck above. "Got him in my sights now," he intercommed. "He’s about a hunnert feet straight off t’ the side from the forward lounge." As Bud eased the great craft sideways, allowing gravity to accelerate it downward to keep pace with Tom’s falling form, Chow worked his way back toward the tail. "Gettin’ closer," he reported excitedly. "Now I kin see him through the porthole—he’s just above the top o’ that launcher room!"

In response Bud gave the equivalent of a tap on the accelerator pedal, opening up the lifter thrust just enough to retard the ship’s descent. "Wahoo!" Chow cried in triumphant relief. "Got ’im—he’s inside the bay. But Buddy Boy, he ain’t moving!"

Putting the Sky Queen on automatic pilot Bud rocketed out of his chair and scrambled up to the door of the glidewing launch compartment, roughly grabbing a pressure suit along the way. Through the sliding door’s porthole he could see Tom’s limp figure lying crumpled on the deck of the bay.

In his suit Bud made his way through the airlock and delicately lifted Tom’s helmet, peering desperately through the tinted visor. He could make out Tom’s face, but the deep shadows made it impossible to determine his condition.

Trying to be gentle in case Tom proved to have sustained serious internal injuries, Bud dragged his pal into the ship, where Chow frantically unsealed Tom’s helmet and pulled it off.

Wide-eyed and white as a sheet, Tom was alive and conscious!

"Genius boy!" Bud cried, his voice trembling. "H-how do you feel?"

Tom’s lips twitched, but he did not answer. He only stared, first at Bud, then at Chow.

"Tom Swift, if’n you don’t say somethin’ we’re gonna throw you back!" Chow’s voice cracked with emotion.

"I’m…I’m…okay," whispered Tom. "I was…outside."

"Don’t we know it!" Bud exclaimed. "What happened?"

Bud had to repeat the question twice before Tom responded, speaking dazedly. "I’m not sure. I think… when I cleared the jam, the launcher went off automatically. The edge of it caught me. I—I blacked out for a few seconds...then I came to…and…" The memory seemed to distress Tom.

Bud insisted that Tom lie down on one of the sofas in the lounge. "We’re heading back to Enterprises!" he declared, striding rapidly toward the stairwell.

Tom twisted on the sofa, facing away from the lounge’s floor-to-ceiling viewports. Chow knelt down beside him, his leathery sun-worn face still pale with worry.

"Talk t’ me, son!" begged Chow. "Must’ve been quite a fright out there. Bet you figgered you ’as gonna…" He couldn’t finish the sentence.

"And I was alone," Tom breathed, turning slightly. Then his hand squeezed Chow’s knee. "But I wasn’t alone!"

"Never will be, Tom Swift," Chow murmured.

Even before the Flying Lab had landed at Swift Enterprises, its home base and the great invention facility run by Tom and his father, the young inventor had risen from the sofa and returned to the command deck, where he shakily checked the instruments that were monitoring and controlling the glidewing.

"Looks like it completed its program," he muttered, his voice thick and unwieldy. "It’s on a path back to the Enterprises airfield."

When Tom left the cabin, Chow nudged Bud on the shoulder. "You notice how he wouldn’t look up?"

Bud nodded. "He didn’t want to look out the window. Can’t blame him for that!"

Bud radioed the Swift complex to have medical personnel, from the plant infirmary, standing ready to examine Tom. As the Sky Queen gently touched down on its elevator-pad, a small company ambulance could be seen waiting nearby. Over Tom’s muted protests he was whisked to the infirmary where he was x-rayed and tested for any aftereffects of his fall.

"I don’t find any damage, Tom," the doctor reported. "Just a bad bruise on the shoulder where the mechanism clipped you. No effects of the actual fall through the air."

"It was only a few minutes," commented the young inventor irritably. Then he added, "Look, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer you not let this get around—I don’t care to worry Dad and my family. That goes for you too, Bud, Chow. Promise!"

Everyone nodded. "Far as I’m concerned, it never happened. But I wouldn’t advise trying that stunt again!" said the doctor.

"Don’t worry about that!" returned Tom.

Meanwhile the Enterprises flight control tower had announced that the glidewing had successfully touched down on runway six and had been transported to Tom’s lab in the cavernous underground hangar where the Sky Queen was berthed between flights. With Bud and Chow at his heels Tom descended to the lab and gave the glidewing a quick visual inspection.

"How’s she look?" asked Chow.

"Not bad," responded Tom. His voice was listless, and Chow and Bud exchanged concerned glances.

Mounting a short steel ladder, Tom climbed up next to a transparent blister attached above and behind the main wing. Tom’s new solar battery had been mounted in an aperture in the dome for exposure to the rays of the sun. Wires from the battery were connected to a port for a voltmeter and other electrical hookups.

When the young inventor climbed down again, his pallid face wore a frown of discouragement.

"Anything wrong?" Bud inquired.

"The voltmeter reading is way down," muttered Tom thoughtfully, running his fingers through his ragged blond crewcut.

"What does that mean?"

"That the battery’s efficiency for storing electricity will have to be improved. The battery will take a charge but won’t hold it properly. I have the feeling it still wasn’t getting a strong enough exposure to the solar ultraviolet. If it isn’t fully charged to begin with, the material tends to short itself out."

"Maybe you should send up a balloon like those other fellows," Bud suggested.

Tom stared at Bud as if he didn’t understand. Then he managed a weak grin. "We’ll go one better and send up a midget rocket. I’m starting to think that the best place to charge solar batteries is beyond the atmosphere."

"Shor ’nuff, but I don’t get it," Chow said in a puzzled voice. "How th’ Sam Hill could you go into production? You cain’t jest send up a new rocket ever’ time—"

Suddenly the westerner’s voice trailed off as the full meaning of Tom’s words sank in. "Great gallopin’ gravy, ya don’t mean—"

Bud finished the thought. "Look, genius boy, you aren’t thinking of setting up a factory in that new space station of yours!"

Bud and Chow knew that Tom’s solar battery project was being pursued at the same time as a much larger endeavor—the construction of a permanent manned space station in orbit around the earth, to be used by Swift Enterprises experimenters and engineers. Tom nodded. "Why not, guys? Dad and I have been talking for a long time about adding a manufacturing component to the space outpost. We’re both convinced that it’s practical. There are lots of advantages to working in an airless, zero-gravity environment for certain kinds of materials fabrication. The solar battery is just one example."

"If’n you say so, Tom," Chow said dubiously. He then changed the subject. "Anyway, we’re overdue fer some grub around here. You two feel like a good spicy—"

"I don’t need anything!" Tom snapped. "And I especially don’t need anyone fussing over me!"

Chow was taken aback by Tom’s outburst. "Son, I only meant—"

Tom interrupted, passing a hand over his eyes. "Sorry, Chow…I don’t know where that came from. I just don’t think I feel like lunch right now. Maybe Bud would like something."

Bud rested a hand lightly on Tom’s shoulder. "Tom—now don’t take my head off!—but maybe you should head home early and get some rest. In fact, I’ll drive you."

His friend nodded, red-faced. "Thanks." Tom apologized again to Chow, who brushed it off with a worried smile that concealed his deeper concern for Tom.

On the way to the Swift family residence at the edge of Shopton, Tom leaned back in Bud’s convertible with his eyes closed. He didn’t seem to want to talk, and Bud decided to leave him alone for the time being. But as he pulled into the long, curving driveway, the young pilot said with studied casualness, "Say, since you’re going to need a lift to the plant tomorrow anyway, how about if I spend the night—if your mother won’t mind another set of choppers for dinner!"

"She never minds," Tom responded without emotion. "Are you keeping an eye on me, Bud?"

"No, no!" exclaimed the other hastily. "I just—"

"Never mind. Maybe I need someone to keep me safe."

That sure doesn’t sound like you, Tom Swift! Bud thought. He regretted his promise to keep the morning’s drama a secret from Tom’s father.

After greeting his mother, Tom headed upstairs to his bedroom, kicked off his shoes, and promptly fell asleep on his bed while Bud chatted with Mrs. Swift, who always called Bud her "other son." When Tom came down for dinner hours later, he seemed refreshed and more his normal self. The meal was joined by Tom’s sister Sandy, who brought a vivacious spirit to the table, and, halfway through, by Tom’s distinguished father Damon Swift.

"Don’t worry too much about the solar battery problem," Mr. Swift advised his son. "I’m sure the solution will fall into place. Right now the space station project seems to be capturing quite a bit of public interest. I had an inquiry today from Jeb Soberstein at Consolidated Broadcasting."

"I remember him," Tom commented.

"Of course he and his people are interested in using your outpost in space in connection with their subscriber-TV service."

"Oh, right," Bud said between hearty mouthfuls. "SpaceLine TV—digital programming ‘direct from outer space to your door’."

"I’ve watched it over at Bashi’s," remarked Sandy, referring to Bashalli Prandit, who had become a close friend of the family. "The picture is nice and clear, but those programs!—old TV shows and movies from twenty years ago, when what’s-his-name still had all his hair! And it’s awfully expensive."

Mr. Swift chuckled. "Well, Soberstein and I didn’t talk about issues like that. I’m not sure he even watches his own programs!"

Later, at twilight, Tom sat at the polished mahogany desk in the den while Bud played with Featherbee, Sandy’s trained cockatiel.

Tom looked up from his sketches and figures. "Say, Bud?"

"Hmm?"

"Why do you suppose Mom kept asking me if I felt all right?

Bud looked up in surprise, not sure how to answer. "Well—she’s not used to seeing you home in the middle of the day."

Tom nodded thoughtfully. "No, I suppose not. But I just got a little tired at Enterprises. I guess I must not’ve slept too well last night."

Bud let Featherbee walk down his arm to the back of the comfortable armchair he was sitting in. The dark-haired youth regarded Tom with a curious expression. "Is that what you told her?"

"What do you mean?" returned Tom with raised eyebrows. "That’s why I was tired, pal—remember? Gosh, flyboy, you’re the one who drove me home!"

Puzzled and alarmed, Bud was composing a cautious reply when Sandy suddenly burst into the room. "Tom!" she cried.

"What’s wrong?"

"I—I think—someone’s watching the house from up in the big elm tree!"

Bud jumped to his feet. "In the tree?"

"The one across the road!"

Tom also stood. "What did you see? What did he look like?"

Sandy paced back and forth, agitated. "I was looking at the sunset and I saw something move behind the branches. I thought it was that stray cat, but—it was creepy! The light was shining on this face, and it was like—"

"Calm down!" Tom demanded. "What was it like?"

"Tom, it was like the face of a gorilla!" As the boys listened with open-mouthed amazement, Sandy described a face with a massive, heavy jaw and a brow protruding far over his small beady eyes. "And his hair was all bushy and thick all around, like some kind of animal."

"Maybe it was an animal," suggested Bud.

"No!" Sandy insisted. "He was wearing a jacket or something. I could see the collar. And he was as big as a full-sized man—a gorilla man!"

The three looked at one another in astonished silence for a moment. Suddenly Bud’s eyes widened.

"Everybody!—Hit the floor! Now!"

TOM AND SANDY responded to the authority in Bud’s voice by dropping down onto the den’s thick carpet and lying prone next to Bud.

"Bud, what’s—?" But Bud shushed Tom and pointed. Tom twisted his head and looked out into the darkening evening through the large window, divided into a number of small panes by a decorative lattice. "I don’t see anything," the young inventor protested.

"Not the sky!" Bud hissed. "The window!"

Then Tom saw what Bud was indicating, and Sandy gave a little shriek of dismay. One of the panes was pierced by a small, neat hole—a bullethole!

Other than a door to the side yard in the wall next to the window, there was only a single exit from the den, a door that led into the windowless library. The three crawled toward this door, Bud taking the lead. Stretching out a muscular arm he pushed the door open with his fingertips, just wide enough for them to squeeze through. They were fearfully aware at every instant that this portion of the floor was probably visible from the tree where Sandy had spotted the mysterious Gorilla Man.

"Okay, go!" Bud cried. Crouching to their knees he three of them scrambled into the library, Bud slamming the door shut behind him.

"He can’t see us in here," said Sandy with a quavering voice, rising to her feet. "But what about Mother and Daddy?"

In response Tom picked up a telephone, which also functioned as an in-home intercom. He punched-in the kitchen extension and his mother answered. After explaining the situation and urging his parents to seek safety in a central room not exposed to the exterior, Tom called the Shopton police.

"I’ll send a car immediately!" promised Lt. Madison.

No more shots were fired, and three officers, in bulletproof body armor, arrived in minutes. They examined the elm tree and made a careful circuit of the grounds and the nearby road.

"No sign of anything," said one of the young men, whose name was Greg Norcall. "Possibly some scuffing on the tree trunk, though. Let’s see if we can bag that bullet."

Joined now by Mr. and Mrs. Swift, the officers measured the bullethole and scrutinized the floor and walls of the den. "I don’t get this," muttered one young officer. "Are you sure that hole hasn’t been there for some time?"

"I’m quite sure," insisted Mrs. Swift. "It’s not the sort of thing one could easily overlook."

"No, that’s true," admitted officer Norcall. "What we’re looking for is a high-powered ‘penetrator’ bullet, which is why it passed cleanly through the glass without shattering it. And your Gorilla must have used a silencer. Which leaves us with: where’s the bullet?"

"Not even a mark on the wall, or a rip in the carpet," noted the third officer.

"It’s weird," Bud commented.

"Could the bullet have passed right through the den and out through the door?" asked Sandy.

Norcall examined the door to the library. "Not a nick on it. Was this door open, though?"

"It was shut," Bud explained. "I had to push it open so we could get out."

Tom suddenly interrupted. "Wait, Bud—I don’t think it could have been completely shut!"

"How so?"

"Because the frame on this door is a little askew. When you latch the door shut all the way, it sticks; so we usually leave it a little bit ajar." Tom demonstrated how badly the door tended to stick. "But I remember that when you opened it, you just pushed it lightly with your hand."

"That’s right," said Bud thoughtfully. "It must have been open a little ways at that. I didn’t notice it from my angle on the floor."

"In that case," said Norcall, "the bullet might have shot, or bounced, right through the opening and into the library."

Asking the others to remain in the den, the police looked about in the library, trying to determine where the bullet would have struck if it had passed through an opening in the doorway only an inch or two wide. But again they came up with nothing.

"We’re not thinking big enough," declared Tom. "In fact, I think I can lead us right to the—well, not to the bullet, which is probably long gone, but at least to where it struck!"

"Go ahead, son," Mr. Swift urged.

"We’ll have to go outside," Tom said. "But I guess it’s safe now."

Switching on the powerful yard lights, Tom led the others—like a parade—around the side of the house opposite the side facing the elm. "But how could the bullet get way out here?" asked Sandy. "The whole house is in the way!"

"Maybe not," said Bud, catching on.

Tom stood gazing at the house for a moment, holding up his hand as if making a rough measurement of something. Then he walked a few yards across the manicured lawn to a planter of redwood planks and bent down.

"Look here," he called, pointing.

The planter had a broad, splintery gouge in its side, obviously freshly made. At the center of the gouge was a deep hole, as if made by a hurtling bullet!

Sgt. Norcall whistled and bent over with tweezers and a magnifying glass. But after a moment he straightened and declared, "Tom, you were exactly right—someone’s already made off with the bullet."

"How did you figure it out, Tom?" asked Damon Swift in proud amazement.

Before Tom could respond, Bud Barclay held up a hand. "I think I know. You just have to put it all together. The rifle must have been especially powerful. The bullet went through the window glass, through the crack in the door to the library, straight through the library, and on out into the side hallway through the open arch."

"Oh, I see," said Sandy. "It must have gone through one of those little decorative window-panes in the wall of the hallway, which goes along this side of the house." She walked over to one of the narrow windows in the nearby exterior wall and gave a whoop of triumph. "Here it is!—another bullethole."

"Sure," agreed Norcall. "And when you line the holes up, the trajectory ends right here at the planter. In fact, you can see that the angle tends downward, which is consistent with an elevated firing position."

Sandy nodded excitedly. "Up in the elm tree!"

"And we didn’t hear a thing!" remarked Tom’s mother.

"You wouldn’t, necessarily," Tom said. "We were already talking kind of loud, and the sound of the bullet going through the glass is so much like the clink of plates that we wouldn’t have paid any attention. Then—while San was telling her story—the Gorilla shinnied down the tree and trotted around here to the planter, where he gouged out the bullet and made off with it."

They all returned to the house, where they sat in the living room as Mr. Swift served some refreshments.

"But I thought you folks were protected by that magnetic alarm system of yours," observed one of the officers, whose name was Darrel.

"No system’s perfect," replied Tom. "A single bullet passing through the field wouldn’t create a strong enough impulse to activate the buzzer, and once it stops moving it becomes invisible to the sensor."

"But the man himself should have set off the alarm," Mr. Swift pointed out. "Perhaps not up in the tree, but when he entered onto our property. He wouldn’t have the neutralizer coils the rest of us have."

"Well, we didn’t set off your alarm, did we?" remarked Sgt. Norcall.

"No, because I set the field to ignore you. You can set the override directly from the telephone keypad." Tom frowned. "That may be the answer, too—the Gorilla may be able to temporarily reset the field sensors by remote control."

After further discussion the three officers left, promising to keep an eye on the vicinity from their patrol car during their normal rounds.

"So we have someone watching us," Bud said grimly. "And shooting! But why?"

"I don’t have any idea about the ‘who’ or the ‘why’," responded Tom after a moment. "But the ‘how’ is kind of intriguing."

"M-maybe he was trying to pick me off, because I’d seen him!" said Sandy nervously.

"Then why didn’t he?—given that we know he must be an expert marksman with an advanced kind of gun? No, he never intended to hit anything except that planter."

"Somebody must’ve put out a contract on your oleander bush," joked Bud. Sandy giggled in spite of herself.

"Here’s my theory," Tom continued. "I think that wasn’t any ordinary bullet, but some kind of sophisticated microelectronic device. In the split second it flashed through the den, it probably made some sort of visual recording."

"I see," Mr. Swift commented. "It would act like a hyperspeed digital camera with an all-direction lens. The recorded camera output could subsequently be downloaded into a computer and studied at leisure, no doubt with some sort of extreme magnification and enhancement feature."

Tom nodded. "In which case our unknown enemies now have copies of the sketches and calculations I was working on at the desk!"

"What were they about, Tom?" Bud asked.

"The solar battery!"

There was a long and ominous silence as Bud and the Swift family considered the implications of the strange invasion of the property. It seemed Tom Swift and his newest inventions were once again facing unexpected danger! This was nothing new for the scion of the Swift line of scientist-inventors. Just as the first Tom Swift—Tom’s famous great-grandfather—had defeated innumerable adversaries and threats early in the last century, so young Tom had already proven himself in astonishing adventures in the air, the deep sea, and in outer space. Only weeks before he had returned from Antarctica where he and his remarkable atomic earth blaster had been pitted against the ruthless agents of a foreign power.

"Well," said Tom’s mother with a sudden smile, "I don’t know just why anyone would want to snoop around our den, but—I think I may be able to help you identify who’s watching. Matter of fact, boys, just one phone call should crack the case wide open—as they say on television!"

TOM AND HIS father tried very hard to be men of the new millennium. But Shopton was a small, slow-moving town in upstate New York; and the Swift family had something of a reputation for being, in many ways, somewhat old-fashioned. All of which is to say that when Mrs. Swift spoke up, the others didn’t know whether to take her seriously.

"Anne, what do you mean?" asked Damon Swift. "How could you possibly—"

"Oh, Daddy!" Sandy interrupted. "Let Mother finish!"

Mr. Swift fell silent, an apologetic look on his face.

"What I mean is this—Dear," smiled Anne Swift with just a hint of sarcasm. "I do have a degree in molecular biology, you know; and as part of that program I took some courses in medicine and disease control. I remember a photo of a man, a disease victim, from one of my textbooks. He had the sort of look Sandy described—the disease caused it."

"That would sure make it easier to track the guy down," Bud mused. "He might be registered with local hospitals or something."

Tom’s mother nodded, her eyes gleaming. "It would be even easier than that, I expect. As I recall, the disease is extremely rare—only a handful of people have it."

"What’s the phone call you mentioned?" asked Tom.

"To my old professor, Joshua TeVenter."

"Ah. Yes—he sends us Christmas cards every year," remarked Mr. Swift.

"Yes, Dear. The one you can’t stand."

Tom’s father winced humorously and Mrs. Swift rose and walked over to the telephone. Minutes later she had concluded her call and was able to share what she had learned. "Professor TeVenter is sure I’m thinking of something called Inherited Xenotic Osteomorphosis Syndrome, or IXOS. It’s a form of chromosomal damage that can be inherited, but it almost always leads to stillbirths, or to death in infancy. It’s been traced back centuries to a single North African family of the Bedouine tribe. It causes progressive deformation of the shape of the skull and jaw, and the bones of the arms. In less enlightened times, victims were exhibited as ‘ape men’."

"How many victims actually live into adulthood?" Sandy inquired.

"Professor TeVenter thinks no more than five or six adults are alive at any one time, anywhere in the world. He said most of them live in Algeria, Morocco, Spain, or France."

"Mom, you’re a wonder!" Tom exclaimed, giving his mother a kiss. "Harlan Ames can probably get a list of where the IXOS-ers are living." Ames, a former Secret Service agent, was the head of security for Swift Enterprises.

There were no more harrowing incidents that night. The next day turned out to be a busy day of meetings for Tom and his father. The meeting with Harlan Ames was followed by a teleconference with several of the world’s chief rocketry engineers, and then, after lunch, an unscheduled meeting with Jeb Soberstein, head of the Consolidated Broadcasting Network.

The meeting took place in the office shared by Tom and his father. Soberstein, a rather massive man with a thin fog of white hair drifting shapelessly across his head, talked rapidly and gestured forcefully. "Damon, Tom—how are you, by the way?—the media has been full of little squibs about this space station of yours. When’s the grand opening?"

"Actually, Jeb, it’s all kind of up in the air right now," responded Mr. Swift.

"Up in the air! Good one. But you must have a schedule, hmm?"

"It really depends on a lot of things, but the prefabricated modules are near completion already, and I suppose we could start launching the rockets in a matter of weeks," Tom volunteered.

"I see. Matter of weeks? Got it. Where do you buy those shirts, if I may ask? Never mind." Mr. Soberstein was quiet and contemplative for a few nanoseconds. "Look Tom, Damon, I know you do deals with private industry now and then—Swift Enterprises isn’t a government operation, thank the Lord. You mind if I smoke?"

"Yes," said Mr. Swift.

"Yes, I can smoke?"

"No."

"No, you don’t mind?"

"If you smoke, it’ll set off a fire extinguisher in the ceiling right over your head," Tom warned.

Soberstein glanced upward and put away his cigar. "Fortunately I can think without it. CBN would like to lease some space in your station for our equipment. In a permanent manned facility at that distance our broadcasts could reach almost half the earth. And, by the way, we plan some exciting original programming, including a miniseries on—you know, the guy with the wild hair, the physicist, Adolf something."

"Albert Einstein?" asked Tom politely with a glance at his father.

"Something like that. What sort of figures should I carry back to CBN?"

"Jeb, we’re not—" began Mr. Swift, but the media mogul interrupted.

"Okay—figures negotiable. Let’s not get hung up on it."

Tom rubbed his eyes, hiding a smile. "It wouldn’t really be fair to give an advantage to one corporation over all the rest."

"What ‘rest’? There is no ‘rest’! We’re it! But think it over. Memo to follow. That t-shirt really does look good on you, Tom—horizontal stripes suit you. What do you call the dark color?"

"Blue."

"Just ‘blue’? Good thinking. And now, always a pleasure, later, guys." And he was gone.

Tom and his father burst into laughter.

"What do you think?" asked Mr. Swift.

"We should ask Bud or Sandy," Tom replied with a grin. "I don’t watch much TV these days. But as far as working with Mr. Soberstein…"

"I think we might as well give it a try," said Damon Swift seriously. "Public support for space development has fallen greatly over the last few years. It’s hard to make a case for it, given that most folks aren’t really interested in abstract science. But one thing they do understand is entertainment!"

Tom rubbed his chin. "I get the idea. By working with CBN, we’re getting the public accustomed to the idea that space has its practical side—even its fun side!"

"Exactly. But we’ll make sure all our agreements are for the short term only, and that we’ll have space for the other broadcasters to lease in due time."

"Someday we’ll have a dozen space stations in orbit!" Tom exclaimed. Then he added: "But Dad, we’ll have to make quite a few changes in our plans. My three-spoke ‘wheel’ will have to be quite a bit bigger and more complicated—and Mr. Soberstein sounds pretty definite about wanting a geosynchronous satellite, not the sort of near-earth station we’d planned. That’s 22,300 miles straight up!"

"Obviously," nodded the elder Swift. "But your basic design is easily adaptable, and the modules are already being constructed. The main difficulty looks to be the launching schedule. Our company doesn’t have the capacity to launch a great number of our big Workhorse-line rockets in a short period of time."

They agreed to think the matter through further, and to try to come up with some figures to guide their deliberations.

As the busy day wore on, Tom arranged to have a different model of his solar battery launched on a brief flight into space aboard a suborbital micro-rocket that Swift Enterprises had developed. Launched from the Enterprises airfield, the sleek single-stage projectile, only twenty feet long, climbed through the stratosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere in minutes, rising into airless space for only ninety seconds before slipping back down into the atmosphere. But even that brief span was sufficient to expose the battery to the completely unshielded rays of the sun. Tom hoped that the alternative formulation of the chargeable metal foil in the battery, which Tom had named sol-alloy, would succeed where the other formulation had fallen short. The original version of sol-alloy had been developed to tap the power of the sun for Tom’s Flying Lab. But that first formulation was too bulky and inefficient for adaptation to a small portable battery cell.

In the Enterprises control tower Tom kept a keen eye on the instrument readouts and radar returns tracking the progress of the rocket.

"Tom, something’s wrong!" said the flight manager, Daylene McMurdo. She gestured toward one of the instrument dials. "The main chute didn’t deploy!"

"What about the reserve chute?" asked Tom.

"It took over automatically. But I don’t think I can correct for the change in trajectory—not with those high-altitude winds crossing our path." She did some fast calculations. "No, it can’t be brought back to the runway. Shall I send the detonator signal?" This emergency feature would blow the rocket to tiny fragments, which would rain harmlessly over the sparsely inhabited hills to the north of Shopton.

Tom studied the readouts with a grim expression on his face. "No, that’s not necessary."

"But Tom, if we—"

"I said no," interrupted the young inventor brusquely. "Switch to manual. I’m taking over the controls." Daylene moved aside and Tom sat down in her place. He reactivated the small maneuvering thrusters, which usually played no role after deployment of the parachute, and used them to gradually force the rocket onto a new heading.

"What do you have in mind?" asked Daylene with hesitation. Tom’s mood struck her as odd.

He took a moment to respond. "I’ll bring her down in Lake Carlopa, near Rickman Dunes. No one’s down there this time of year." Ten minutes later he stood up. "Okay, she’s down, and the signal beacon is still running, so everything should be fine."

"Great job, boss," declared Daylene. But Tom left the tower without replying.

Tom located Bud, and the two of them headed out to the nearby lake in one of the large Swift transport trucks. Using the triangulator equipment built into the vehicle’s dashboard they quickly zeroed in on the rocket.

"Is she floating in the lake?" asked Bud.

"I don’t think so," was Tom’s answer. "The location of the beacon hasn’t moved for several minutes now. I’d say the rocket has beached itself somewhere near the Dunes." They drove into the deserted Rickman Dunes recreation area, leaving the road for the sandy beach.

"I see her tail fins!" Bud cried.

In a moment the two youths had pulled up next to the streamlined hull, its chrome sheen now mottled with sooty black from reentry. The secondary parachute was spread out along the beach; the winds from the lake had caught the chute and pushed the rocket up onto the shore, just out of the water.

They got out of the truck and Bud pointed. "Looks like the dome visor opened all right. I can see the battery."

But as Tom neared the rocket, he was stunned to see a strange glow through the special glass of the dome. Instantly he dropped to the earth, yelling:

"Bud! Hit the ground and cover your eyes!"

BUD FLUNG HIMSELF headlong in the sand after Tom. Both boys shielded their eyes with their arms. A split second later came a blinding flash of light from the rocket!

Even with their eyelids squeezed shut, they saw the dazzling brilliance of the glare. As the light faded away, Tom opened his eyes cautiously and saw Bud scrambling to his feet. "What in the name of aerodynamics was that?" gasped the athletic young pilot.

Tom half-smiled wryly and said, "Crazy as it may sound, that flash of light proved our experiment is a big success.

"How so?"

"Come here, pal. I’ll show you." Tom led the way to the burned-out rocket and pointed to the now-blackened dome porthole. "Notice what’s happened to the metal frame around the quartz window!" he remarked.

"Wow!" Bud exclaimed. "Fused solid to the metal shell of the rocket! The heat from that flash must have been terrific."

"Right," Tom agreed. "Which means our battery picked up a sizable charge out there in space."

Bud responded enthusiastically. "Then this foil you developed is going to work?"

"Well, the sol-alloy did become energized by the solar radiation," Tom explained. "In other words, a big percentage of its free electrons were energized to a highly excited state and trapped at the surface of the metal foil. But the trouble is that they didn’t stay trapped."

"You mean the battery is still shorting out somehow?"

Tom nodded. "That’s what caused the discharge flash. Apparently even this alternate formulation of sol-alloy is very unstable when it’s in a charged state. So now the problem is to figure out a desensitizer for the stuff—something to keep it from discharging all of a sudden as it did just now."

"Sort of a tranquilizer, huh? I see."

Using the small crane attached to the long truckbed, Tom and Bud loaded the rocket fuselage onto the truck and ferried it back to Swift Enterprises, to the laboratory building. Tom and Bud stood by, watching through goggles, as a welder used an acetylene torch to cut apart the fused sections. Then Tom removed the sol-alloy from the battery inside the rocket and held it up to the light. The once-shiny metal foil was covered with a dull-gray coating.

"It oxidized completely when that flash occurred," Tom muttered.

"Cheer up, pal," Bud said, clapping him on the back. "Just be glad you didn’t oxidize along with it."

Tom pulled away from his pal. "What do you mean, cheer up? I feel fine." Startled by this response, Bud was silent for a moment, his eyebrows raised. Then Tom seemed to pass on to another thought completely. "If a commercial battery ever failed that way," he said, "no buyer would touch another with a ten-foot pole. It could ruin our whole market overnight."

During the next few days, Tom used the advanced facilities of Swift Enterprises to work on a desensitizer, which proved a surprisingly daunting task. As the weekend approached, the skies a dull gray and snow threatening, the young inventor struggled over his problem. But at last he felt that he had it licked. Late Saturday night, Bud came to watch him complete the assembly of a battery to be used in the new test.

"Hey, what happened to the color of your sol-alloy?" he asked with a puzzled look. "It’s darker than it was."

"That’s because of the desensitizer I’ve mixed with it, so that the stuff won’t pop off like an old flash bulb the second it gets exposed to air," Tom replied.

The young inventor explained that he had used as a desensitizing agent a trace amount of a transition metal sulfide, incorporating it in the sol-alloy when it was smelted. "And now we’ll put together a four-cell battery," he said.

"What happens if the sol-alloy oxidizes again?" Bud asked.

"Back to the proverbial drawing board. But I don’t think that will happen this time."

Tom rolled up four sheets of the sol-alloy and inserted them into cylindrical cells along with granules of a substance he had invented which he called catalium. Then he filled the cells with liquid ammonia under pressure. As each cell was filled, Tom sealed it off. Finally, when all the cells were ready, he assembled them in a battery case made of Herculesium, a lightweight malleable material with amazing electrical-conduction properties.

He handed it to Bud who gave a surprised whistle. "Genius boy, this is so light a child could lift it easily. Man, wait until the automobile makers get wind of this!"

At noon Monday, Tom and Bud eagerly watched from the control tower as the second experimental rocket took off, carrying the new battery. Tom glanced at his wrist watch. "Well, here’s hoping," he muttered to Bud. "This time we gave the parachute an extra checkout. If this test—"

He was interrupted by a voice shouting his name. "Tom! Come in here quick!"

The boys whirled around to see Nels Gachter beckoning to them from another room, an excited look on his face. Gachter was Enterprises’ chief of communications science.

"What’s up, Nels? Anything wrong?" Tom asked as he and Bud made a dash to investigate.

"Nothing to do with the rocket. It’s the space video-oscillograph! A message is coming through from your space friends!"

Tom and Bud looked at one another excitedly. Gachter referred to the mysterious beings from another planet who had been communicating with the Swifts by mathematical symbols, intermittently, for many months now. The first message had arrived on a strange missile, invisible to radar, which had plunged into the grounds of Swift Enterprises like an oversize meteor. Since then several communications had been received and decoded by Tom and his father, and responses had been successfully transmitted back. The two Swifts had kept a record of all the symbols and had compiled a computerized dictionary. The messages indicated that the senders were intelligent beings who had mastered the problems of space travel—except one. They wished to visit the earth but were unable to endure some unexplained feature of our planetary environment.

When Tom and Bud reached the video-oscillograph, they saw a series of weird symbols appearing on the screen. The earlier parts of the message had already been recorded automatically for extended study.

"Howlin’ headwinds!" Bud cried out. "That machine’s going crazy!" The impulses were coming through stronger and faster than ever before. Tom recognized many of them at a glance from previous messages.

Suddenly an odd symbol which Tom had never seen before began to take shape on the scope. But before his eyes could fully register its shape, the screen went dead!

Tom groaned as he and Gachter checked the instrument hastily. "It’s not the oscillograph itself—the pulses were coming through with so much power that they burned out the limiters in the magnifying antenna!"

"At least you got the first part of the message. What does it say?" Bud asked impatiently.

"Give me time," replied the young inventor. "There are many new configurations in the symbols, so it may take awhile to translate this." He made a digital disk of the received symbols for later study.

As Tom and Bud left the room, Daylene McMurdo called over, "Tom, that rocket just touched down on runway two. Where do you want it?"

"The big test lab, please," responded Tom. "I’ll head there right now."

At the lab, Tom made sure the rocket was grounded against any dangerous electrical emissions, then unsealed the dome and hooked-up the test instruments. Heart pounding, he stepped back to the readout board and closed a switch. Instantly the voltmeter needle swung around to the right—and kept moving further and further around the dial!

"Good night, look at that!" Bud cried.

When the needle came to rest, the pair could hardly believe their eyes. Tom himself gave a whistle of amazement. "Hang on to your space hat, Bud! The voltage is almost fifty percent higher than what I’d hoped for!"

Bud gave a whoop of triumph and threw his arms around his friend in a bear hug. Tom laughed—but then, to Bud’s shock, he seemed to sag in Bud’s arms, as if he were about to fall to the floor.

"Tom?"

Tom straightened up, regaining his feet. "Just lost my balance for a sec, pal. That’s all."

Bud nodded, hoping his doubt and concern didn’t appear on his face, and glanced at his wristwatch. "What say we knock off early? We could round up Sandy and Bash and head out to—"

"Flyboy, you’ve got to be kidding!" Tom said in a strained voice. "Too much to be done—the figures for the space outpost, the launch schedule problem—I, I can’t—"

As Tom seemed to be becoming agitated, Bud quickly said, "Oh, it was just an idea, Tom—you know, to celebrate your success."

"Sure…" murmured Tom. "But now…I’m going to take the battery up in one of the Pigeon Specials."

"What for?"

"To see whether it picks up any charge at all under lower atmospheric conditions—but I’ll have to get above the cloud deck, to where the sun’s shining."

Bud said evenly, "Okay then, meet you out at the hangar in ten minutes."

Tom gazed at his pal blankly. "At the hangar?"

"I’m your pilot. Right?"

"No," Tom responded in a soft voice. "I think I’ll fly her myself this time." He shook his head slightly, as if too clear it. "Look, Bud, I’ll meet you for dinner. Okay?"

Not waiting for an answer, Tom climbed up the ladder and began to unclamp the battery.

Forty minutes latter Tom sat in the cockpit of a Pigeon Special, the small commuter prop-plane developed by the Swift Construction Company for mass production. As Bud watched from the control tower, a frown creasing his face, Tom taxied out to his assigned runway and parked, awaiting final clearance for takeoff.

"Pigeon Special TSE-59, you are cleared for takeoff," Bud heard the traffic control operator say—and then repeat twice.

Bud glanced back over his shoulder. "Didn’t Tom answer, Fred?"

Fred shook his head negatively, repeating his call again. Bud looked back out the tower’s high view window. The Pigeon Special was still sitting in place.

The hairs prickled on the back of Bud’s neck, and he abruptly made for the tower elevator.

BUD RAN TOWARD the silent, unmoving Pigeon Special at a frantic pace. Through the forward window of the strange, loop-winged craft he could see Tom Swift sitting rigidly, eyes wide open.

"Tom! What’s wrong?" Bud cried as he ran up to the plane. But Tom neither answered nor moved. In a single athletic motion Bud leapt up to the cabin door, grasped the handle and half-stood for a moment with his feet pressed against the side of the fuselage. "Tom!" he cried again.

His eyes glazed and glassy, Tom slowly turned in his seat to face his pal, then leaned forward to unseal the door and allow Bud inside.

"What’s up, Bud?" inquired Tom calmly.

"What’s up?" returned Bud incredulously. "Tom, don’t you realize—?"

Tom looked at Bud, his brow furrowed deeply. "I—I couldn’t start up…"

"You mean something’s wrong with the plane?"

"No. Something’s wrong with me!"

Bud sat down quietly next to Tom. His expression told the young inventor that Bud wanted to hear anything and everything his best friend had to say.

Tom swallowed hard and said, "The other day…the problem with the glidewing in the Flying Lab…something happened, didn’t it."

"Don’t you remember?"

"Not exactly. It’s as if I’m remembering a nightmare. Bud, did I—fall?"

Bud nodded.

"And you pulled me in. Chow was there…"

"You were trying to free up the launcher mechanism, and—"

"Yes," said Tom. "The bruise on my shoulder. The whole thing doesn’t seem real anymore, as if it never really happened."

Bud scratched his head. "I’m not a…I mean, I don’t know about this stuff, but maybe you’re sort of blanking it all out because—"

"Because it was so terrifying," concluded Tom. "Falling and falling all alone. I was looking mortality right in the face and—I blinked. I couldn’t take it. And now I’m afraid to look out at an empty sky, or to go up in a plane. I can’t touch the throttle. Crazy things run through my mind, just like the space symbols on the oscillograph screen."

Bud lay a reassuring hand on Tom’s forearm. "You know I’m here for you, pal. We all are."

"If I can’t fight this off, you know what it means." Tom looked away in anguish. "I won’t be able to participate in the space station project. I’ll be grounded completely, useless."

"Don’t talk that way!" demanded Bud.

"Maybe you’d better taxi the Special back into the hangar," Tom said. "I—don’t think I can do it."

As they left the airfield minutes later, Bud asked Tom’s permission to discuss Tom’s problem with Mr. Swift. "Please don’t," responded Tom. "Give me a chance to fight this off without worrying anyone—anyone but you, chum. If I fail, do what you need to do."

Some hours later, after a silent, listless supper in his laboratory, Tom went home. He attempted to work, but found himself nodding off to sleep as if he had been drugged. Finally, he gave up and crawled into bed.

It wasn’t even nine o’clock.

The next morning Tom felt somewhat invigorated. Tom’s whole family accompanied him to the plant to witness his first test of a new invention he had developed in connection with the space outpost project, which Bud was to test and demonstrate.

The little group included Bashalli Prandit. "Tom, what is this ‘zero-G chamber’ of yours, anyway?" she asked in the car, running her fingers through her long, raven-dark hair. "Do I understand it is for losing weight?"

"I guess you might say that, Bash," laughed Tom. "It has to do with helping our worker-astronauts become accustomed to low-gravity conditions without ever leaving the earth."

"I would think not having gravity to fight would make life easier," she remarked.

"Some experts believe human beings couldn’t survive prolonged exposure to weightlessness," noted Tom’s father. "Astronauts who have been in orbit for weeks or months not only become physically weaker, but seem to suffer a general deterioration in their nervous system and basic reflexes."

"That could be a very serious problem when it comes to doing construction work in space," added Mrs. Swift. "Small errors could be fatal."

"But won’t the space outpost be rotating like a wheel?" inquired Sandy. "I thought the idea was to cause a feeling of weight."

"Yes…but…" Tom seemed to drift away in mid-sentence, and the car, his father’s, swerved slightly.

"Dear, you’d better pay attention to the road," Tom’s mother warned.

"Sorry. I’m all right." Tom cleared his throat. "Sandy, the wheel will rotate, but not until all construction work is finished. During the construction phase is when we’ll face the greatest danger of errors or accidents."

"Indeed," said Bashalli breezily. "One wouldn’t wish to fall off. So, Thomas, your chamber creates these conditions here on the ground?"

The young inventor gave a slight nod. "Yes. Of course, it won’t really reduce the actual pull of gravity—no more than floating in a swimming pool is gravity-free. I use a pulsating electromagnet to create a counterforce." Tom explained that the pulsating aspect allowed for more efficient use of energy. "But the principle is very simple. It’s like using a little horseshoe magnet to raise a piece of metal off a table-top. But as you start to approach the magnet in the chamber ceiling, a positional sensor decreases the pull in a calculated manner, taking your upward movement and acceleration into account. So you end up floating in mid-air instead of conking your head on the magnet." Tom elaborated further, relating how the system was designed to compensate for the slightest shift in position of any test object inside the chamber, whether human or otherwise. Thus the controls would maintain a precise balance at all times between the downward pull of gravity and the upward attraction of the magnet.

"But has it occurred to you that human beings are not made of metal?" Bashalli objected.

"Bud will be wearing a special sort of metal garment."

Sandy winced. "Ouch!"

"With cushioned underwear, I would hope," Bashalli said.

Tom was quiet for the rest of the short drive to Swift Enterprises. Inside the gates, Bud Barclay greeted them in the underground hangar, where the chamber had been constructed. "All set for Barclay’s ace high-wire act—without the wire?" he asked Tom.

"I’d better be," Tom replied, leading the way to the zero-G chamber. "Looks as if we’re going to have a good-sized audience."

Chow Winkler and a number of engineers and other employees were already gathered around the experimental chamber. It was made of transparent plastic and was a thirty-foot cube. On the ceiling was rigged one pole of a special electromagnet of Tom’s design. Inside, the room had been furnished with a desk, chair, couch, and tools.

Dave Bogard, an electrical engineer employed by Swift Enterprises, was putting the final touches on the control panel which stood alongside the chamber.

"How’s she coming, Dave?" Tom asked him.

"When this panel was moved, one of the junctions pulled loose. Kind of tricky the way you have these fine adjustments set up. I guess I’ll have to consult the diagram."

"Here, lend me your screwdriver," Tom suggested, and soon wired the connections. Dave shook his head and grinned admiringly. "I don’t know how you do it, Tom, but you’ve sure got what it takes."

Tom lightly brushed the compliment aside. "After all, I drew the diagrams, so I should know how to make the hookup."

Sandy said, winking at her brother, "It’s all very clear to me. Now where’s this suit that you’re going to wear, Bud? Bashi and I want to be sure it fits right."

Bud grinned. "It’s the latest fashion on Mars," he said. "If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go put it on." Tom left the room at Bud’s side. When they returned, a surprise was in order—Tom, not Bud, was wearing the zero-gravity garment.

"I talked Tom into it," Bud explained. "Tom makes a better clothes model—he’s slimmer, y’know."

Tom’s appearance drew a loud buzz of interest. From head to foot, he was clothed in a weird, tight-fitting metal suit resembling fish scales, which was securely strapped on over his normal street garb. It was composed of a myriad of tiny soft iron disks, sewn together on a fabric backing. The disks were built up like the flesh on his frame, clustering most heavily on the thickest parts of his body, whereas the gloves encasing his hands were fairly thin. "Well, brand my lariat, a walkin’ hardware store!" Chow exclaimed. "How kin you ever move around in that there suit o’ armor?"

"Feels a bit heavy, all right." Tom agreed. "But I’m expecting the zero-G chamber to change all that."

Mrs. Swift laid a hand on her son’s arm. "Tom, there—there’s nothing dangerous about this experiment, is there?" she asked anxiously.

Tom patted her hand before replying. "Well, Mom, I’m not going to electrocute myself, if that’s what you mean."

"Son, the answer I’m looking for is, No."

The blond youth chuckled and hugged his petite mother. "If I should feel any bad reaction, I’ll signal Dave to turn off the power immediately."

"Good luck, Tom," said Mr. Swift. He nodded at Dave Bogard, who stepped to the control board as prearranged.

Tom entered the zero-G chamber and closed the door behind him, then signaled his father to turn on the current. Now he was sealed in the air-conditioned cube!

At first Tom experienced no change. Wondering if the device had been activated, he tried to take a step. To his pleased surprise, the upward motion lifted him gently off the floor. Now he hung suspended in mid-air. A queer sensation of buoyancy and lightness, mostly psychological, came creeping over him.

"I think I know how to get out of this," Tom said to himself. Tilting his head back, he converted his slight drift into a somersault. The force shoved him back to the floor again.

Outside the chamber, Tom’s audience applauded.

Tom realized at once that he would have to master a new gait. Shuffling his feet along the floor, he dragged his body behind like a comedian doing a mime act. The watchers laughed uproariously at the strange antics. Even Tom had to grin at his predicament. "Wait till they see this one." Standing on tiptoes, he gave a bound to the ceiling, where he walked on his hands! Then, pushing with his fingers, he made his way to one of the walls, which he crept down on hands and knees. Contrary to expectations, the suit’s magnetic material seemed to adhere very slightly to the walls, a phenomenon he was determined to investigate further.

The vertigo-like tension Tom had experienced at first was vanishing, and he resolved to have fun with his experiment. He propelled himself toward one side of the room and proceeded to walk calmly straight up the wall!

Startled gasps broke from the audience. "Tom Swift the Human Fly!" Bud exclaimed like a carnival barker.

"It’s magnificent!" cried Bashalli. "I wish to try it next!"

The cries of amazement grew louder as Torn continued his stroll by walking upside down across the ceiling!

Chow Winkler yanked out a red bandanna and mopped his brow nervously as he stared in half-horrified fascination. "Br-rand my Damonscope," he drawled, "that ain’t human! How’s Tom ever goin’ to know which is top side up when he comes out o’ that place?"

Reaching the other side of the room, Tom suavely ambled down the wall. Next, he lay down on the couch. His body, being buoyant, failed to dent the cushions. And because he lay without making any effort to restrain himself, the slight movement of his shoulder blades as he breathed was enough to propel him off the couch. He was left floating in the center of the chamber.

He now turned his attention to some of the other equipment in the room. When he sat at the desk and wrote, even the slight effort of wielding a pencil caused him to be shoved this way and that.

The tools and other items in the room had been made specially for the experiment. They contained just enough magnetic material to counterbalance the pull of gravity. A slight touch was enough to send a wrench or wastebasket floating across the room!

Finally Tom picked up a hammer and tried to drive a nail into a board. As he swung the hammer downward, his feet shot up from the floor and the hammer landed feebly on the nail. "I never felt so helpless in my life," Tom murmured, his comments amplified through the external loudspeaker.

The observers outside the zero-G chamber were laughing and talking with great interest as they watched Tom’s every move. At last they saw him straighten up and signal to Dave Bogard that the experiment was over. Smiling and pleased, Bogard reached toward the control board. But the smile suddenly faded. The master power knob turned easily, but the instrument dial indicated no diminution of electrical current—the magnet was pulling hard as ever.

Seeing the look on Bogard’s face Mr. Swift came over to lend a hand. They were soon joined by Bud.

"The controls have frozen!" Bud whispered, his heart sinking. Sensing that something was wrong, the rest of the audience pressed closer.

"Damon!" cried Mrs. Swift suddenly, her voice taut with alarm. Tom’s father whirled to see his son trembling violently as he floated in the middle of the plastic-walled chamber!

Bud dashed to the door of the zero-G chamber and attempted to yank it open. But the door would not budge. "It can’t be opened until the current is turned off!" yelled Dave Bogard. "Tom told me he’d set it up that way as a safety feature!"

"Great!" gritted Bud. "Can’t you override it?"

"I don’t know how!"

Bud pounded on the transparent wall frantically and desperately, trying to get Tom to respond. But the young inventor seemed only hazily aware of his surroundings. His muscles were tightly clenched and perspiration was beaded upon his forehead. He seemed to be gasping for breath!

"Bogard! Can’t you just cut the power?" demanded Bud.

"The controls aren’t responding!"

"Not the answer I’m looking for!" cried the young pilot. In four leaping strides he had reached the point where a pair of thick power cables joined the lab wall. Wrapping his jacket around his hands for insulation, Bud grasped the cables tightly. Then, bracing his feet against the wall, he gave a mighty heave, muscles bulging.

The cables gave! With a flash and a cascade of blue-white sparks, the cables wrenched free of their sealed connection. Instantly the faint electronic hum of the powerful electromagnet was replaced by silence, broken a moment later by the loud thunk! of Tom’s metal-clad body hitting the floor of the chamber.

Bud pulled the door open easily and scrambled to Tom’s side. Bud immediately began to choke—the air was full of a pungent odor, and his every breath seemed to sting his throat. "He needs oxygen!" Bud called.

Holding his breath as best he could, Bud carried his friend from the zero-G chamber. With the first breath of fresh air the young inventor ceased to tremble. But his eyelids were fluttering, as if he were about to pass out.

Laying Tom down, Bud chafed his wrists, and an emergency oxygen mask was applied. Everyone stood by, pale with fear. Bashalli put a comforting arm around Sandy, who was in tears.

"Some Swift I am," Sandy murmured.

But even as she spoke these words Tom returned to full consciousness, his eyes darting back and forth from Bud to Mr. Swift, and then to Chow Winkler.

"Hey Pard!" came Tom’s weak voice, muffled behind the oxygen mask. "That shirt of yours is gonna knock me right out again!"

Chow glanced down at his typically gaudy western shirt. He did not answer, but there were tears in his eyes.

"Boy, am I glad to see you back on planet earth!" said Bud. "And not all battered up, either."

The young inventor slowly pulled off the mask. "I guess I should learn to expect the unexpected," he said, his throat raw and his voice hoarse. He turned his gaze to his father. "It was the anti-condensation coating on the plastic walls, Dad. The high frequency electromagnetic pulses were causing it to soften and give off some kind of waste gas. That’s why I was able to cling to it like I did!"

"We’ll get it fixed, son," said Damon Swift. "I suspect some sort of inductive resonance is what froze the controls."

Tom’s mother kissed his cheek gently and said, "Don’t you dare think of doing a thing until you’ve been looked over by the doctor. And then I expect to see you home and in bed for the rest of the day!"

"That there’s good advice, boss," added Chow.

Mrs. Swift smiled and remarked, "Charles, it wasn’t advice—it was a direct order!"

Tom returned the smile weakly. "Yes, ma’am!"

With Bud’s help Tom was able to rise and stagger to a chair. "Sorry, Tom," Bud whispered in his pal’s ear. "Guess I should’ve tried to talk you out of it."

"Then you’d be here, and I’d be the one helping you," commented the young inventor wryly. "I thought it would be a good way to face my fears—floating in the air, like…"

"Like the other day. So how does it feel to go floating around like a feather?" Bud questioned softly.

"It’s fun, once you get your bearings," was Tom’s reply. "At least until things go blooey! With proper training in the zero-G chamber, a well-picked space crew should have no trouble at all learning what to do."

"Then I guess the experiment was worth it," Bud concluded. "Maybe!"

That evening, Tom having announced that he was fully recovered and the Enterprises doctor concurring, Mrs. Swift invited Bud and Bashalli Prandit to join the family for dinner. When the meal was over Tom rose to his feet in front of his chair, rapping on a glass for attention.

"Everyone, I, er—" Nervously he glanced at Bud, who was sitting next to him. Bud gave him a reassuring half-smile and a thumbs-up signal.

"What is it, son?" asked Mr. Swift, puzzled.

Tom took a gulp of water. "It’s just this. I’m kind of nervous and afraid and a little stressed-out—more than a little!—but there’s something I’ve needed to tell you all for a while now. And this is the time!"

"OH MY!" gasped Sandra Swift before Tom could go any further. "Tom, are you—?"

She turned to look at Bashalli, who gave an ironic shake of her head. "Sandra—get the clue, as you say here."

"Go on, Tom," his mother said, her voice steady and calm. "You know you have nothing to be afraid of."

Tom proceeded to tell of the near-tragedy of the other day, and of the strange effect it seemed to have had on him. "I know now that I should have told you right away, and not tried to handle it all myself. But I guess I’m a stubborn Swift, and I didn’t want to worry you—and I was afraid I’d be sidelined from the expedition to construct our outpost in space!"

Bashalli nodded in understanding. "And that is surely something you could not stand for."

"But the good news is, I seem to be getting better with time," continued Tom. "Even what happened today in the zero-G chamber somehow made me feel stronger."

"If you can handle that, big brother, you can handle just about anything!" declared Sandy.

But Damon Swift looked troubled and concerned. "Even if you weren’t my son—just for the sake of Swift Enterprises—I would have a few qualms about your undertaking a space flight in this condition."

"You’re right, Dad, and I won’t expect any favoritism. I’ll train like the rest of the team and undergo whatever evaluation you think necessary."

Bud gave Tom a wink that said, I’m proud of you, pal! The discussion then passed on to other subjects.

"I meant to tell you," Mr. Swift said, "Harlan Ames came through, as usual, with the information we needed on those victims of IXOS. The only likely candidate for our shooter is a man named—I’m probably mispronouncing it—Miza Ranooq. He was born in France of an Algerian family, and now lives in Montreal."

"Not far from Shopton," commented Bud.

"Not far at all. He’s enrolled in a special clinic there."

Tom’s mother gave an imperial nod all around. "Please hold your applause, thank you very much!"

"This is the Gorilla who gave Sandy the creepies? Perhaps his mind is affected as well as his body," said Bashalli.

Tom asked, "Did Harlan say whether he had any kind of criminal record?"

"There’s nothing on him in this country," responded Mr. Swift. "Now I have a question for you, Tom. Have you come up with anything I can send over to Soberstein at CBN?"

Tom looked sheepish. "No, Dad. I’m afraid I’ve let myself get distracted. When it has crossed my mind—well, I don’t see the solution."

The young inventor briefly explained the problem to the others. "If the problem is that you can’t launch so many rockets at one time, why don’t you just build the station gradually?" Sandy suggested eagerly.

"The International Space Station took years, didn’t it?" Bud remarked.

"Yes, but the design of the space outpost is completely different. Because of the need to keep the structure balanced, we have to attach the modular sections to the hub more-or-less at the same time. And if we just leave the materials hanging in orbit, tiny variations in orbital parameters—even something as slight as the pressure of sunlight—will cause them to spread out over many miles."

"Swift Enterprises must not be allowed to get a reputation for untidiness," said Bashalli. "Nor do you wish to have loose shingles from this space-house falling on someone’s head!"

During the laughter and joking that followed, Tom noticed that his mother was looking at his dinner plate. He had eaten little at dinner. Sandy also noticed this—a major departure from Tom’s usual heroic appetite, which he shared with Bud. Both Anne and Sandy Swift knew the signs of too much concentrated work.

"Don’t you think you’re overdoing a bit, Tom?" Mrs. Swift suggested gently. "If only you’d take a short vacation, I’m sure you’d feel much better—and get on with your work faster, too."

"I’d like to, Momsy, but I just can’t break away," he said.

"But Tom," Sandy spoke up, "a vacation needn’t mean twiddling your thumbs or wasting time!" She rounded the table to drop on a hassock beside his chair. "You could use your vacation to help your space station project."

"Just how would I do that?" her brother inquired. smiling doubtfully.

"By flying to Florida with three wonderful, stimulating young people—who are all in this room!—and lying on a sandy beach absorbing, er—solar radiation. It will free up your mind and give you a new perspective."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. And why Florida, in particular?"

"Because it’s going to be snowing here, and that’s where people go. And besides—" Sandy held up a handwritten letter. "We just got an invitation to spend a few days with the Lawsons."

The Lawsons, a retired elderly couple, were longtime friends of the Swift family. They now lived in a large waterfront house on the southwest coast of Florida, at the edge of the Everglades.

"Oh, Tom, please say yes!" Bashalli urged. "We could have so much fun. And truly, I had enough of snow and ice when we all flew up to Alaska."

Tom was greatly tempted by Sandy’s suggestion about combining work and play—and by the thought of having frequent dips in the warm blue waters around the Ten Thousand Islands region of southern Florida. Finally he let himself be persuaded.

"Do you think it’d be all right, Dad?" he asked.

"You seem to come up with some of your best insights away from the office and the lab," answered Damon Swift with a smile. "I suppose I can substitute for my genius offspring for a few days!"

The girls cheered, but Bud pretended to object. "Hey, I don’t recall anybody asking me what I think! Let’s see, on the one hand gray skies, snow, slush, and chapped lips; on the other hand sun, sand, ocean breezes, swim trunks…Let me think it over." Sandy grabbed a pillow from the sofa and threw it at him.

Two days later the foursome took off southward in a Swift Construction Company commuter jet, Bud on the stick. Winging their way out of Shopton and gaining altitude, they sighted another of the silver experimental balloons carrying a payload that suggested solar battery development. Describing the prior encounter, Bud was laughingly giving it a wide berth when Tom’s sister cried out, "Look! It happened again!" All eyes turned to see the balloon disintegrate in shreds and the tiny parachute start earthward with its cargo of instruments.

"Oh, brother!" Bud exclaimed. "That one didn’t even make the stratosphere! What do you suppose they’re up to?" The question was addressed to Tom, but the young inventor barely acknowledged it, and Bud did not repeat himself. He knew his friend was gamely struggling with his inner fears and tensions.

In surprisingly little time they were crossing the long green Florida peninsula. Sandy, an excellent pilot trained by Tom and Bud, asked to take over the controls, finally bringing the jetcraft down to a smooth landing at the international airport near the seaside town on Gullivan Bay where the Lawsons lived. The spry, silver-haired couple were there to meet them and drove the young people to their home, which was set back only one hundred yards from the surf. After lunch their hostess smilingly said, "I know you’ll want to be on the beach as much as possible, so go right out there. The water is perfect today."

It was not long before Tom and the others were sprawled in swim suits on the dazzling white sands of the beach, under the shade of a broad striped umbrella.

As Bud rolled himself out into the sun, Bashalli remarked, "Now Bud, surely your tan needs no more perfecting. You already look like your were dipped in mahogany stain!"

"Just think of me as a human solar battery," Bud drawled lazily.

Other vacationers lolled nearby, having escaped the clutches of winter in the north. Though the conversation was light for a time, it finally turned to more serious matters. "Does anyone have even an idea why this Rah—Ran—the Gorilla would be spying on us?" Sandy asked Tom.

Answering for Tom, Bud remarked, "Oh, you know, San—what’s a Swift invention without a little intrigue and mystery? Maybe you girls should make one of your lists of suspects."

"I swear I’m going to kick sand all over your well-oiled skin, Budworth!" returned Bashalli. "Obviously we are victims of some rival battery company—the ones who are launching those balloons."

"Sure," grinned Tom. "It all adds up. They sent up the first balloon knowing we’d fly close to it to investigate, so that—when it burst—the vibrations would dislodge the glidewing in just such a way that when I went to fix it, I’d be knocked overboard. It’s a plot to make me psychologically unfit to put a rival battery factory in orbit!"

"Naw, Tom," Bud objected. "It’s one of the other TV networks, the ones that compete with CBN. They’re afraid of losing the ratings war, see?. In fact, I’ll bet that guy Soberstein is really an alien clone who—"

"Have we heard enough, Bashi?" asked Sandy.

"Very much enough," replied the young Pakistani.

The two girls, lovely in their swimsuits, scrambled to their feet. "This is supposed to be a vacation, so let’s forget all that spaced-out chatter for a while and go for a swim," Sandy demanded. Shouting and laughing, the four young people raced across the sand and plunged into the rolling blue-green surf. All were fine swimmers and a moment later they were cavorting like dolphins.

When they emerged, dripping and refreshed, they lazily strolled back to the spot where they had erected their beach umbrella. Beneath it, Bud had stuck a pop bottle, half full, upright in the sand.

"Oh well, Bud, you’ll have to get more cola," Bashalli remarked. The bottle had been tipped over and most of the cola had dribbled away into the sand.

Bud started to make a joking rejoinder but Tom held up his hand and put a finger to his lips, frowning as he looked down at the sand. In the dampened sand next to the bottle was a deep footprint facing away from the water.

"That’s weird—isn’t it?" said Sandy quietly, glancing right and left up and down the beach. "None of us could have left that footprint!"

The foursome had carried a wicker picnic hamper out with them, to hold their tops and extra towels. Tom now sunk down to his knees, taking care not to obscure the footprint, and began to examine the inside of the hamper. A minute later he shot Bud a glance and slowly withdrew his hand. Between his fingers was a small, round object, no bigger than a quarter, with a wad of adhesive gum stuck to one side.

"What is it?" whispered Bashalli.

"A bug," replied Tom, barely audible. "A listening device. I’m sure of it. And it couldn’t have much of a signal-range."

Bud’s muscles tensed for action as he slowly scanned the nearby shoreline. "Then our enemies are here—right here on this beach!"

SANDY CLUTCHED her brother’s arm fearfully. "Oh, Tom," she murmured. "I shouldn’t have talked you into coming down here after all! Maybe we should fly back to Shopton right away."

Tom patted Sandy’s hand reassuringly. "And let those creepies scare us out of our vacation? Not on your life, Sis." He gave some whispered instructions to the others and pulled out his wallet, which he had stuffed in his shoe in the hamper. From the wallet he withdrew a tiny extendable screwdriver, with which he forced open the back of the bugging device, exposing its microcircuitry. "Ready?"

Tom had quickly divined the lay of the circuitry, almost in a glance. He used the screwdriver to force an unintended cross-connection inside the device. The others were looking in three different directions along the beach, trying to cover the small transmission radius of the mechanism. "Okay!" he hissed, pushing home the connection.

"Nothing," said Bashalli.

"Me too," Bud reported.

Sandy shook her head in disappointment.

Tom sighed, frustrated. "Well, it might have worked. My connection should have caused the receiver to give off quite a screech in somebody’s ear."

"Not a wince in sight, pal," Bud said.

"The listener must be hiding behind something," Bashalli commented. "Or perhaps the signal goes to a tape recorder, not an ear."

"Still, there’s no reason for panic. One thing is certain—an enemy is within reach and may be still nearby on the beach."

Bashalli looked incredulous. "That is your idea of not a reason to panic?"

Tom shook his head. "If we could only lay our hands on him!"

"Which may not be so easy," commented Bud, looking around. The area was dotted with people. Some were stretched out on the sand, sun-bathing with their eyes protected by dark glasses. Others were chatting or playing cards under beach umbrellas. Tom casually questioned several persons. None had noticed anyone suspicious.

"It’s hopeless!" Sandy groaned. "How can you possibly identify the person who stuck that thing in the basket?"

Frowning, Tom studied the maze of footprints in the sand all around their umbrella. "It doesn’t look as though these tracks will do us much good either. Except where the cola spilled, the sand is just too soft." Most of the footprints were little more than vague blurs. But that one print of a bare foot, the one that had first attracted their attention, was fairly sharp. Tom and the others crouched down to examine it. At first glance the print seemed perfectly ordinary. Then Sandy exclaimed, "Look! Isn’t this toe mark shorter than it should be?"

She pointed to the print of the great toe on the footprint, which was of a man’s left foot.

"Good for you, Sandy!" Tom said.

"But I still don’t see how it’s going to help us," Bud muttered.

Bashalli smiled and said, "Why not? All you have to do is go around like the prince’s messenger in the Cinderella story and ask every man you meet to take off his shoes!"

The others burst out laughing, and for the time being the search was postponed. None of the young people forgot the incident, however.

During the next two days, Tom’s mysterious enemies made no further moves and the searchers got no additional clues. Not even one bather with a short toe appeared on the beach. All that was accomplished by their efforts at surreptitious foot scrutiny was to give the Lawsons’ guests a peculiar reputation!

On the third day the sky was slightly overcast—for Florida—and the Shopton four decided to take a tour of Everglades National Park. The elaborate tour, by air-conditioned swamp boat, lasted all morning and continued, after a break for lunch, for another hour into the afternoon.

At the conclusion Bashalli mentioned how much she had enjoyed the tour. Sandy gave a wan smile and said, "I think I’ve seen about enough of alligators and weeping willows and floating moss for awhile."

"Then I have an idea!" announced Bud with enthusiasm. "Let’s rent some swamp-kickers and take our own tour!"

"Swamp-kickers?" repeated Tom.

"Didn’t you see the sign? They’re like—" Bud searched for words. "Well, it’s a kind of platform that you strap your feet onto, with handlebars."

"I do not understand the customs of the American South," said Bash dubiously. "Of what use are handlebars for the feet?" Then she laughed to reassure everyone that she was only joking.

"Oh, they’re like jet-skis," Sandy explained.

Bashalli wrinkled up her forehead. "It sounds like quite a lovely way to break a leg or two."

"It’s fun, and you can learn how to use it in minutes," Bud insisted. "That is—if Tom—"

Tom managed a faint grin. "I’m doing fine. Let’s give it a try. If I end up sitting it out, I’ll just pull out my pocket magnifying glass and study, er—floating moss."

After renting the swamp-kickers and practicing in some shallow channels under the eye of trained instructors—who seemed years younger than the foursome—they were each given a map of the areas open to public recreation and turned loose.

"Best ya keep puttin’ on your skeeter lotion thick as can. But don’ let them Swamp Rangers catch you over th’ line, you guys," drawled one boy. "They’s a might stingin’ fine t’ pay!"

Soon the four were laughing and cheering as they wove their ways through the dredged backwaters of the swamp. The swamp-kickers were hardly traveling fast at all, yet the experience was so novel that they felt as if they were soaring along in mini-jets. They played a kind of aquatic hide-and-seek, the girls against the boys, and Bud performed a few daredevil stunts that probably were not covered by the rental company’s liability insurance.

"Why do boys just have to show off?" called out Sandy sarcastically.

"Why do girls wear skimpy swimsuits?" retorted Bud with a laugh.

As their paid-for time neared its limit, Bud and Sandy decided to race Tom and Bash back to the dock. The two teams took different routes, and Bud and Sandy arrived back first. But as the ensuing minutes ticked by, there was no sign of the others.

"Must be a-tryin’ to run out th’ clock," said the rental manager.

Bud nodded, trying to put up a confident front for Sandy. But each knew the thought paramount in the other’s mind. What if Tom and Bashalli had run into an unexpected danger?

And that was indeed the case! At that very moment the Shopton youths were engaged in a high-speed chase in which they were the prey, splashing through ponds and channels willy-nilly and sometimes skidding across mud, their throttles turned up to top pitch.

"Are they still there, Tom?" cried Bashalli.

Tom nodded, leaning forward on the handlebars of his swamp-kicker. Somewhere behind them was a pair of powerful motorboats, each flat-bottomed and driven by a duct-fan. The first had come darting out of nowhere directly in their paths, the mottled sunlight between the arching trees flashing across a leering gorilla-like face.

They had veered off and fled immediately. Seconds later a backward glance had revealed that a second boat had joined the Gorilla, taking the lead. In the second boat were two men, one carrying a shotgun!

Though the boats were momentarily out of sight, Tom could hear the burr of the engines over the sound of their own. He motioned for Bashalli to pull closer and hissed, "I’m sure they’re only after me! You can get under cover and—"

But Bash shook her head, determination in her eyes. "Absolutely not, my dear Swift!"

Tom frowned but nodded back at her. At that moment the boat with the two men—and the gun—came charging into sight behind them. "Come on!" Tom shouted, and gunned the throttle.

They were speeding along much faster than was safe, given the danger of underwater obstructions and submerged wildlife with sawtooth jaws. Like water skiers they leaned into their sharp turns, sending a rainbow spray of water over the rotting logs and luxuriant foliage. But for all their speed, the leading boat was gaining on them. Tom flinched as a shot cracked out—then another! But the bullets had not yet found their mark.

In fear of their lives, Tom settled on a desperate plan. Trying to speak as quietly as possible over the roar of multiple motors, he barked out directions to Bash, concluding with: "Try to keep even with me if you can!"

As the stalking boat bore down on them, Tom and Bashalli leaned forward against the handlebars of their swamp-kickers, shifting their weight. "That one!" Tom cried, nodding toward a dark shape low in the water far ahead.

They cut back on their throttles for a few moments. The chasing boat immediately gave a roar of increased speed, as if snapping up an opportunity. In his mind Tom could visualize the gunman taking aim, the crosshairs of the gunsight centered on his back!

"Ohhh-kaaay!" breathed Bashalli, an exclamation ending in a little scream as the pair pushed themselves upward, as if jumping into the air from their platforms. But, feet strapped in place, the result was to swing the platforms up and forward beneath them, almost out of the water. And at that moment, the undersides of the swamp-kickers thwacked against the submerged log!

The jolt would have been deadly if Tom and Bash had not anticipated it. Like aquabatic performers they bounded up over the log, splashing down cleanly on the other side and regaining their balance immediately. They veered off into a side-channel to the left.

The pursuing boat could neither stop, nor turn, nor hurdle the log. The prow rammed into it full-force, sending boat and boatmen twisting and thrashing through the air.

Tom and Bashalli did not choose to linger.

Minutes later the bedraggled pair came splashing up to the recreation dock, where Bud held up his forearm, displaying his watch. "Eight minutes over!" he called. "You two come by way of Tahiti?"

The story was told in choking breaths, and the rental owner immediately called the swamp patrol, who flashed by the dock moments later as a police helicopter beat the air overhead.

An hour later the shaken foursome were making a statement to the state police. "You recognized the one guy?" the sheriff asked Tom.

"I recognized his description," he replied. "Did you catch up with him?"

The sheriff shook his head. "Naw. Not a trace. The other two are in intensive care with a few dozen broken bones. They were able to haul themselves out of the water—lucky for them. But no identification, fingerprints unknown; and I don’t guess they’ll be talkin’ much for quite a while."

"I don’t know who they are, or what they want." Tom explained how he had discovered the hidden listening device, and Bud spoke up:

"Those two goons are probably just underlings. The Gorilla’s the guy you want. He’s some kind of electronics genius!"

"You don’t say," responded Sheriff Olmenez. He turned back to Tom. "And I guess I’m convinced you really are the Tom Swift. I hear wherever you folks go, wildness an’ weirdness follers you like a shadow. Spies, kidnappers, mad scientists, bank robbers—lemme ask you somethin’, young fella."

"Yes?"

"Ever considered maybe just stayin’ home?"

Tom gave a laugh in spite of himself.

As the four left to drive back to the Lawsons’, Tom asked Sandy if she had had enough vacation yet.

"No," she replied with a stubborn, but discouraged, look on her face. "I refuse to let that swamp of doom be my last memory of this trip! We haven’t had enough vacation, have we, Bashi?"

"Well, as a matter of—"

"There, you see, Tom?" Sandy interrupted. "You and Bashalli haven’t fully recharged your batteries yet!"

"And besides," Bud put in tentatively, "we still haven’t found the man who planted that bug. It obviously wasn’t the Gorilla, and the sheriff said those other two had regular-size toes."

Tom reluctantly agreed to another few days.

Despite the frightening event, Tom was able to enjoy the remainder of his vacation and spent most of the time loafing in the sun. The bruise on his shoulder was fading nicely. Yet his inventive mind was never inactive. One morning he seemed to be dozing on the sand next to Bud when the others saw him suddenly stir and snap his fingers.

"What gives?" Bud asked, looking up from a trivia-quiz game he was playing with the girls.

Tom raised himself on one elbow, an excited glint in his eye. "I’ve got the answer to how to get going with the outpost in space!"

"You do?" boggled Sandy.

"Yep!" grinned Tom. "And you won’t believe it!"

"THEN TELL ME, Thomas," demanded Bashalli. "I can believe a lot of things with ease!"

"Hot rockets!" Bud grinned back at his pal. "Don’t you ever stop inventing?"

Tom ignored the gibe. "Look at that kid over there." He tilted his head toward the surf, where a young boy was playing with an inflated beachball. The boy was having a high time pushing the ball under the water and letting it bound up into the air.

"What about him?" Sandy asked.

"It suddenly struck me that there might be a way to save fuel by launching our supply rockets under water!"

There was silence as Bud, Bashalli, and Sandy traded glances, trying to absorb Tom’s peculiar idea. "Well, skipper, I know they launch Polaris missiles from submarines..." Bud murmured.

"Is that what you mean?" Bashalli asked. "To set off your big rockets from submarines?"

"Nope!" The young inventor shook his head, beaming. "I’m thinking that we could anchor the rockets to the sea floor as part of a sort of buoyant carrying vehicle, which would effectively replace the first stage of the rockets." He began to diagram his idea in the sand. "Think of something like a narrow cylinder a couple hundred feet long or so, made of some strong and lightweight material—maybe reinforced Tomasite plastic. It would really be just a big, streamlined tank full of air."

"Like that beach ball!" Sandy contributed.

"Exactly, but shaped like a spear pointing upward. Attached to it, or maybe enclosed inside it, will be a pared-down version of the Workhorse rocket Swift Construction Company makes. It’ll have just two stages. The lower segment will carry it into orbit, and then will be converted into one of the modular ‘spokes’ for the space station. The small top stage will hold the construction crew, and will carry them back through the atmosphere when the project is over."

"Sort of a quick-and-dirty version," remarked Bud. "But I don’t see the advantage of launching under the ocean like that."

Bashalli brightened. "Ah, but I see! It is the buoyancy! Like that beachball, the rocket pops up into the air without burning fuel, and is on its way."

"All right," said Sandy. "But can you really get a heavy rocket way up to the stratosphere or something, just by buoyancy?"

"No you can’t," Tom admitted. "But as I figure it, by having the whole rocket fuselage in rapid vertical motion by the time it breaks the surface of the water, we’ll save a great deal of fuel, as well as the time required to prepare a conventional launch stage. You know, most of the fuel burned on a rocket flight is expended within the first mile of travel—and most of that just clearing the top of the gantry!"

Tom was now engaged, excited, and back in his element. After further discussion, he looked at the girls and asked in a sheepish voice, "To really develop this, I’ll need my lab equipment. Don’t you think we’ve had enough—?"

"No!" declared Sandy firmly. Then she softened. "But when Tom Swift wants to go inventing, no one better try to hold him back."

"Tell you what, San. Let’s leave tomorrow afternoon." Then Tom’s face took on a warning look. "But—to play safe, let’s all stick around here between now and then!"

Later that afternoon, an unexpectedly warm one, Sandy and Bashalli went down to the beach for a dip. Perhaps inspired by Tom’s illustration, the two girls were tossing a beach ball back and forth before going into the water, when suddenly Bash stopped the game. She came close to Sandy and whispered excitedly: "Look at that man over there—the one with the striped trunks, and—"

"And nothing else!"

"And notice his left foot. It has a short great toe to match that queer print we saw in the sand!"

Sandy stole a second glance in the direction Bashalli had indicated. The man lay stretched out on a big beach towel with a rolled-up T-shirt across his eyes to protect them from the sun.

The girls looked at each other knowingly and studied him for a moment. His black hair was close-cropped above a high forehead, and though his face was partly hidden they judged him to be about thirty years old. Sandy turned to Bash and hurriedly whispered a plan for finding out more about him.

Casually the girls edged their umbrella closer to the spot where the man was lying, then resumed their game of beach ball. Sandy purposely let the ball go past her. It landed several yards away and rolled up to the corner of the towel the man was lying upon. As it hadn’t rolled quite far enough, Bashi carefully strode closer and gave it a nudge—twice—quickly jumping away. At last it bumped up against the man’s legs. He pulled the T-shirt from his eyes and regarded Bash curiously.

Sandy hurried to recover the ball and apologized profusely. "Oh, I’m terribly sorry!" she said. "I missed the ball."

"Not a problem," he said with the hint of a drawl. The man now looked at Sandy with a friendly grin; or at least a grin of some kind or other. It crossed her mind that he certainly did not look like a criminal. One of the suave variety, Sandy decided. Now he’s going to say something charming!

"Actually, I’m glad I was lying in the way," the stranger said pleasantly. Even more than pleasantly.

I was right! thought Sandy. She cocked her head and assumed a puzzled frown. "Aren’t you the man who lives next door to the Lawsons?" she inquired.

"I’m afraid not." He laughed. "But if that would make us neighbors, I’m all for it."

He was smooth—clearly a hard case! Sandy laughed too, reddening a tad beneath her new suntan. She and Bashalli abandoned their game and reclined under the beach umbrella. The conversation with the suspect was resumed.

The stranger told them that he was an ex-Army officer, recently separated from the Signal Corps. He had come to Florida for some sunshine and a much-needed rest.

"By the way," he added. "may I introduce myself? Kenneth Horton."

"Oh, is that your name? Mm, I mean—" She bit her lip. Oh, is that your name? Ugh! "I’m Sandra Swift," responded Sandy, "and this is my friend, Bud—er—"

"No," Bash corrected.

"Bash. Bashalli…something."

The man offered his hand. "Hey there, Bash Bashalli Something. You two just meet?"

"Comparatively speaking," Bashalli replied. "My last name is difficult. Foreign, you know."

"Well, Kenneth is foreign to me, actually. I’d rather you called me Ken."

Sandy gulped. This mission was not going as planned! "Sure…Ken."

Bashalli spoke up in the brief silence that followed. "Sandy and I are here, here on this beach, in Florida with our boyfriends, Bud and Tom, to vacation. Here. Florida. Which is where we are now."

"With your boyfriends."

"Prexactly. Excisely."

"Who are here."

"Yes."

"So where are they?"

"Well, ah, they’re…elsewhere." A curse upon this American hunk-lizard! was the phrase that came to Bashalli’s mind, unbidden.

"We ought to get together," Horton said. "That is, the five of us—if I’ve kept track."

"Oh, absolutely and look what time it’s getting to be!" Sandy cried with a glance at her wrist.

Horton raised an eyebrow. "You’re not wearing a wristwatch."

"No," said Sandy earnestly. "No, in fact, I’m not. Do you wear one?"

He held up both bare arms. "See one?"

"We must run," Bashalli said. "Really we must." She looked at Sandy, who looked back helplessly. "Really we must! Run!"

"Later," waved Ken Horton.

The girls grabbed their things in a flustered flurry and trotted away across the sand. "That went well," Sandy murmured.

As they arrived inside the Lawsons’ house, where Bud and Tom were relaxing, Bashalli was speaking to Sandy in a tone of disgust. "Sandra, to swoon is not the act of a modern woman!"

"Well, I’m not a modern woman; I’m a modern teenage girl. At least that’s how I feel right now," she pouted. "And look who’s talking, little miss ‘excisely’!"

Both girls gave themselves over to the very traditional act of giggling.

"What’s up, you two?" asked Bud.

"Ah, very much way up!" Bashalli declared. "The small-toed enemy reclines even now upon the beach!"

Tom jumped to his feet. "What!"

"Oh, no, no," objected Sandy hastily. "It was just sort of a mistake. His toe wasn’t all that short, really…you know."

Bud stood and pounded a fist into his open palm. "I think I wanna meet that guy!"

"Oh, now, Bud," fretted Sandy. "He’s not a criminal or a spy. He’s very nice—an Army veteran."

Bud snorted. "Yeah? Of which country?"

Tom tried to calm the proceedings. "Look, we won’t take a swing at him. But there’s no harm in running whatever we know past Harlan Ames and his various connections." He pulled out his ever-present notebook. "Just tell me what you learned about him. Did you get a name?"

"Of course we did!" Bashalli pronounced. "It is Kenneth Horton, of the Army Signal Corps."

"