TOM SWIFT

THE ALERT signal buzzed like an angry wasp as the border of the monitor screen flashed an ominous red, the color of danger.

"Emergency!" intoned a shrill mechanical voice from the speaker. "Ghosts on Saturn’s moons and heading this way!"

In response, Tom Swift’s voice was perfectly calm, perfectly controlled—even bored. "I don’t think so."

"And why not?" challenged Bud Barclay.

Tom pressed the button on his joystick. "Because I just sent all the ghosts to the Galactic Dungeon with my Transmittaton."

Bud groaned. "You mean you still had a charge left? Dirty dog!—you win again."

Tom clicked on the exit icon. A colorful screen-saver—a photo gallery of Tom Swift inventions—replaced the words GALAXY GHOSTS game over.

"Sorry, Bud," said Tom to his pal. "Just saving the Earth."

Bud rose from his chair and stretched. "I’ll admit you have the advantage on these video games, genius boy. But I’ve got it all over you in touch football!"

"And racquetball, basketball, tennis, and just about every sport where muscles count more than scientific brain power," Tom confirmed teasingly.

The two youths were killing time in Tom’s lab at Swift Enterprises, awaiting the late afternoon arrival of a courier whose delivery was a mysterious one. A game of SeaStalker had given Bud his first taste of defeat for the day, and now Galaxy Ghosts had reconfirmed his friend’s mastery of mouse, trackball, and joystick.

"Wasn’t the guy supposed to be here by now?" asked Bud. "Absolutely, positively guaranteed?"

Tom shook his head, grinning wryly beneath his ragged blond crewcut. "That’s a different company. The motto of this courier service is: You’ll get it when you get it!"

Earlier in the day George Dilling, chief public information officer for the famous invention and research company owned by the Swift family, had told Tom that he had taken a phone call from a Dr. Maurice Galbein—a long-distance call originating in Alaska. Dr. Galbein had indicated that a courier would be hand-delivering an air-freighted package concerning an important scientific matter directly to Tom Swift. The courier had been instructed to place it in Tom’s hands, and Dilling had promised to alert plant security personnel so that the messenger would be escorted promptly to the right office without triggering Enterprises’ elaborate radar-alarm security system.

Tom flipped open a phone unit and asked the main gate whether there had been any sign of the courier.

"Not so far, Tom," the guard replied. "Could he have gone to one of the other gates?"

"I don’t think so," was the young inventor’s response. "He was told very clearly to go to the main gate and give the identifying password George came up with."

As Tom broke off the connection, Bud remarked, "Oh well, I suppose he’s just running late. Care for another round?"

Tom shook his head. "No thanks. Frankly, Galaxy Ghosts is pretty tedious going."

"Yeah, I suppose winning all the time does get old fast."

"It’s not that," said Tom with a chuckle. "Not just. I guess I’m put off by the lousy science they use in the game, and those lame ‘dangerous situations’. If I’m going to spend time playing a game, I’d prefer something more realistic—it seems more challenging after all we’ve been through."

Bud sat down again on a stool, running a hand through his dark, tousled hair. "Okay, I’ll admit that galaxy-hopping ghosts made of ‘photo-essence’ sounds more like bad TV than good science. But those Transmittaton machines are pretty cool, doncha think?"

"Cool?" Tom sighed at his friend in good-humored resignation. "Listen, Budworth, whoever designed that game doesn’t know any more about science than you could fit on the back of a cereal box! Didn’t you read the backgrounder they provided about how the thing’s supposed to work?"

"I never bother with that stuff," Bud admitted sheepishly. "Maybe that’s why I never win. What about it?"

A snort prefaced Tom’s reply. "Their Transmittaton gizmo is supposed to be some kind of matter-transmitter—a typical science fiction teleporter, as they’re called. Some sort of scanning beam takes you apart atom by atom, then another beam—"

"The Lektromag."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Whatever—it sends all these loose atoms across trillions of miles of space, where some kind of receiver reassembles them into the original form."

"So what’s wrong with that? It’s just like television, except with matter instead of light."

Tom shook his head in disgust. "Bud, a television camera doesn’t send light anywhere—it sends information in coded form. The information allows the receiver to simulate the original. The original light-image stays behind."

"True."

"Even though a Transmittaton like the one in the game disintegrates the original and recycles its atoms, the machine they describe is more like a replicator than a transportation device. It’s like destroying a person and replacing him with a perfect clone. Besides, trying to transmit information giving the precise state and instantaneous position of every particle in a human body would take centuries at any baud rate remotely conceivable. And imagine the effect even a little space static could have!"

"Yikes! I guess I’ll stick to my convertible." Struck by a sudden thought, the young pilot pointed an accusing finger at Tom. "Hey, I know what you’re building up to, pal. You’re about to explain to me how your own Tom Swift matter-transmitter is superior in every way. Right?"

Tom winced but couldn’t help laughing. Bud knew him all too well! "My quantum telesphere works on an entirely different principle—but it works!" He paused, then added ruefully: "If it works."

"Oh, it’ll work. They always do!" Bud said confidently. And he was in the best possible position to know. Bud Barclay had been at his best pal’s side on many a thrilling expedition, many a hazardous experiment. They had flown together to South America in Tom’s Flying Lab, there to outwit rebels and kidnappers. They had broken the sound barrier beneath the ocean waves while fighting modern-day pirates in Tom’s jetmarine. The quest for molten iron had taken them to the South Pole, where Tom’s atomic earth blaster had probed the inner world. But the two youths had faced some of their greatest challenges away from earth entirely, traveling through the void of space to the phantom satellite, to the moon, even to a captive planetoid headed for the far side of the sun. Only recently they had returned to earth after plunging deep into the outer solar system aboard the Starward, Tom’s huge cosmotron express.

The young inventor smiled appreciatively at Bud’s loyal comment. "Thanks. But the problems with the telesphere aren’t just technological, but theoretical as well. We’re trying to do something on a large scale that was thought to be impossible on any scale just a few years ago."

Bud nodded his understanding. "You told me they’d licked it, though."

"Some scientists did manage a first step, that’s true," Tom continued. "They caused a single subatomic particle to be detected in two places at the same time, so to speak. It was sort of a trick; still, it showed that there was a way to do it. But the difficulties involved in accomplishing something like that with macroscopic objects—ordinary things, like this chair or a whole human body—required a major conceptual breakthrough. You know, Dad’s been working on the basic idea for years now, with our theoretical physics section."

Tom’s father Damon Swift was the grandson of the first Tom Swift, who had thrilled the world with his amazing mechanical and electrical inventions in the early twentieth century. He had inherited the legendary Swift aptitude for invention, for seeing intractable problems in a different light, and had passed this useful quirk of mind along to his son.

Bud grinned and said, "I can tell I’m going to have to take a few night school classes if I’m going to understand this Swift invention!"

Further conversation was interrupted by a brisk knock at the lab door. Tom pressed a button and admitted Harlan Ames, head of Enterprises security.

"Sorry to intrude, you two, but I was just down the hall when I took a call over my cellphone," Ames apologized. "Tom, you know of this Galbein fellow?"

Tom nodded and related the message from George Dilling. "That explains it," said Ames. "But there may be trouble brewing. Galbein has been calling to find out why his courier hasn’t reported back to him. He was supposed to have arrived here more than an hour ago."

"Beats me," Tom said with raised eyebrows. "And I don’t have any idea what the courier is bringing to me, either. Since it’s ‘for your eyes only,’ it must be pretty important. I’d guess Dr. Galbein wants to enlist the aid of Enterprises in solving some sort of scientific problem he’s run up against."

"Who do you suppose Galbein is, anyway?" asked Bud. "Maybe he’s a phony."

"Let’s find out." Tom switched on his lab computer and connected to the internet. After a moment he announced, "Here he is. Maurice Galbein, Ph.D.—in paleontology and zoology. Various journal articles…vertebrate migrations in northern Canada, mitochondrial dating techniques…interesting stuff."

"Not exactly cloak-and-dagger material, though," remarked Bud. "I was hoping we’d have some excitement around here. Or at least a good juicy mystery."

Ames’s pocket cellphone beeped softly, and he answered. A frown creased his forehead as he made a few cryptic comments before clicking off.

"That was Galbein again," the security chief explained to Tom and Bud. "I guess things are heating up. The courier just contacted him and reported that he’d been attacked and his package stolen!"

Tom cast a wry look in Bud’s direction.

"Be careful what you wish for!"

"I THINK it’s high time we found out what this is all about," Tom said with determination. Taking the phone number from Ames, he placed a call to Dr. Galbein while the others listened. Obviously very concerned, he answered immediately.

"It’s good to speak to you, young man," said the scientist. "In retrospect I suppose I ought to have done so prior to sending out my courier."

"Maybe so," agreed Tom. "We might have been able to protect him at our end here in Shopton. But why use a courier in the first place?"

The man sounded embarrassed. "I’m afraid I yielded to my rather pathetic urge for drama. The scientific matter is quite significant and I wanted your full attention."

"Well, you have it now," said Tom dryly. "What were you sending to me?"

There was a long pause. "Tom, forgive me, but are you quite sure no one is listening in?"

The young inventor glanced at Ames and Bud. "I can assure you that no one is listening who shouldn’t be. Our phones are able to detect taps or interference of the ordinary sort."

"That will have to do," Galbein declared. "Tom, my field is—"

"I know—paleontology."

"Yes, well… I’ve spent several years now engaged in scientific studies in northern Alaska, north of the Brooks Range near Teshekpuk Lake. It’s flat, desolate, semi-arctic land. My original purpose was to document the early Ice Age migrations of mammals over the Siberian land bridge and across the continent. Do you follow me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Some months ago, I made a tremendous discovery, quite by accident. In a region once heavily glaciated I came upon a cave system revealed to sight by the collapse of an ice cliff. My party and I descended into the caves. Conditions there are strikingly unusual from a scientific standpoint, but the important thing—"

As Galbein paused, Bud whispered, "Frozen dinosaurs! Bet it’s frozen dinosaurs!"

Tom nudged his pal and urged the scientist to continue.

"In the underground ice lies the body of what I first believed to be a mastodon—that is, mastodont americanus, the great elephantine creature of the Pleistocene. No doubt you’re familiar with the species?"

"Familiar? Not really," replied Tom. "I’ve heard of them, of course."

"Ah, well, it doesn’t matter," continued Galbein impatiently. "For it wasn’t a mastodon after all, you see. It was an anthropoid!"

Tom’s eyebrows shot up. "An ape?"

"Indeed—or a relative thereof. As you know—well, perhaps you don’t—such creatures are not found in the Americas. And this one was a species never seen before, anywhere. I estimate its height to be eleven feet!"

Bud whistled at the words from the phone speaker. "You were able to extract it from the ice, then?" inquired Tom.

"No," replied the paleontologist. "It can be observed from several angles, but extracting it presents many difficulties. However, using special instruments, and working with what I can assure you was the utmost caution, I was able to excise about one ounce of material from its epidermis for study. The flesh is astoundingly well preserved, all chromosomal markings easily readable. The packet I was sending you contained a portion of that sample, in a preservative capsule."

"This is all very intriguing, Dr. Galbein," Tom said, an edge of excitement to his voice. "But I’m not yet clear on the role you’re asking Swift Enterprises to play."

"Perhaps I haven’t expressed myself with adequate specificity," the man responded. "Given prevailing conditions, we dare not try to melt the ice around the creature—whom I have named Gigans, incidentally—nor to risk chipping or cutting it out in the conventional manner. Thus, in the cause of science, I am asking you to devise a way to free the carcass from its icy shell as a whole, without exposing it to destruction or decay."

Tom lowered the phone receiver for a moment, his eyes flashing with the thrill of a scientific challenge.

"Tom? Are you there, my boy?"

"Yes, sorry. We’ll obviously have to talk about this at great length, sir. But what happened to your courier?"

Galbein sighed nervously, like a wobbly machine venting exhaust. "He was attacked, assaulted in your town of Shopton when he stopped for gas. His assailants must have been following him by car, obviously. The packet was stolen."

"Was the courier badly injured?"

"Apparently not—he was finally able to contact me from the hospital where he had driven himself."

Harlan Ames murmured, "Must be Shopton Memorial. I’ll see if I can reach him." He quietly slipped out the door.

Tom asked if the scientist had any idea who might have been behind the robbery. "You spoke of other members of your party," Tom noted.

"Indeed yes. There are four others who have been working with me in the ice cave. But—I can’t—"

"I understand, sir. It’s very hard to have to be suspicious of persons you’ve worked closely with," the young inventor said in sympathetic tones. "Sometimes your colleagues are your closest friends."

"Quite true," responded Galbein. "I’m afraid in my present agitated state of mind I would be unable to investigate the affair very thoroughly. I’d be grateful to turn it over to the authorities, or perhaps to your company security apparatus."

After some further discussion of various details and a promise to get back in touch within twenty-four hours, Tom clicked-off and looked at Bud. "Juicy enough for you, flyboy?"

Bud laughed. "It’ll do! But who’d want to rob somebody of tissue samples from an old refrigerated monkey, anyway?"

Rubbing his chin, Tom replied, "The samples don’t have any market value, but in a scientific sense they’re almost priceless. Outside of old movies, I’ve never heard of anything like an eleven foot anthropoid, not in any era of life on earth."

Bud gave his pal a shrewd look. "Are you hinting this big banana-muncher is not from earth?"

Tom’s eyes blazed. "We’ve seen plenty of evidence that our planet has been visited by extraterrestrials."

Some time before—and it now seemed like quite a long time before—a small, meteorlike missile had slammed into the grounds of Swift Enterprises. Inscribed with symbols that expressed mathematical concepts, it had led Tom and his father to establish limited radio communication with mysterious other-planetary scientists, voyagers from another star system who operated from an installation in orbit about nearby Mars.

Though strangely reticent about their native civilization and physical form, the space friends, as they were called, had acknowledged earlier attempts to survive in the terrestrial environment. Tom had uncovered evidence of these projects among the Mayan ruins of Yucatan, in the submerged city of gold in the Atlantic, even in a secret crypt buried deep beneath the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

"Maybe this gorilla guy is one of the space friends themselves!" Bud exclaimed.

But Tom shook his head. "No, we’ve learned enough about them to rule that out. Still, the idea struck me that there may be some connection between Gigans and those ancient expeditions. It’s something we’ve got to find out!"

Tom and Bud headed for Ames’s office in the plant administration building, which was located next to the private office Tom shared with his father. When they arrived Munford Trent, the Swifts’ secretary, relayed the message that Ames had gone to the hospital to question the waylaid courier, whose name was Paul Zarvas.

"Thanks, Munford," said Tom.

"Please—it’s ‘Trent’," the secretary corrected him with barely concealed brusqueness. The young inventor apologized.

"Let’s join Harlan at the hospital," Tom said to Bud. "But first let’s stop by Arv’s shop. He has something there that might help us pick up a few clues." Arvid Hanson was Swift Enterprises’ expert modelmaker, who fabricated scaled-down prototypes of Tom’s inventions for testing purposes.

The youths took the ridewalk—one of the moving ramps that facilitated personnel transport within the four-mile-square installation—to Hanson’s workshop, where they were greeted by Linda Ming, his assistant. "The big Swede’s over at Tech Three right now," she said. "But the prototype of your analytracer is finished, if that’s what you came for."

At Tom’s confirmation she brought him a compact, rectangular device molded from black plastic. About a foot and a half in length, the dial-studded machine had a handgrip on top, and was to be held like a dust-buster mini vacuum. A thin, flexible tube protruded from its forward end.

As Tom and Bud rode through town in the direction of Shopton Memorial Hospital in Bud’s convertible—a new model but still bright red in color—Tom explained the invention resting on his lap. "It uses the technology developed for the aquatomic tracker to sniff-out and analyze trace particles adhering to the target object."

"Like the machine you attached to that robot bloodhound you used in Australia?" Bud inquired, referring to their adventure with Tom’s sonic silentenna.

"Only in part," Tom said. "The analytracer isn’t designed as a tracking device, but for the purpose of locating and identifying dangerous trace chemicals in an experimental or industrial setting. But here we’ll use it for evidence gathering."

At the hospital they were directed to Zarvas’s private room, paid for by Dr. Galbein. His forehead swathed in bandages, the courier proved to be no older than Tom and Bud—half as old as Harlan Ames, who had been questioning him.

"Found the answers, Harlan?" Bud asked.

"I wish. Paul here didn’t catch sight of his assailants, or their car."

"Like I was telling Mr. Ames, they pulled in behind me while I was pumping gas," said the skinny young man, his voice husky. "I remember the sound of a car pulling up—sort of. Didn’t pay any attention, you know? Then pow! I woke up lying on the ground with a big bump on this hard head of mine." He touched the bandages and winced. "My girlfriend’s gonna dis me for this. Not to mention my Mom!"

Tom inquired if the service station attendant had seen anything.

"No," answered Ames. "He says he’d fallen asleep behind his service window. A customer woke him up and said she’d seen three men struggling with a fourth, whom they left unconscious—Paul. She was too upset to notice anything about the men’s car."

"They broke into the security locker in my back seat—pried it open," explained Zarvas with a sad sigh. "The packet is gone, natch. I’ll prob’ly get fired!"

"I don’t think there’s anything you could have done to prevent this," Tom said reassuringly. "In fact, by getting knocked out, you may have helped us catch these guys!"

"How ya figger that?"

In response Tom moved closer and activated the analytracer. The device lit up but remained completely noiseless. He slowly moved the point of the vacuum nozzle, which was no wider than a knitting needle, over Zarvas’s hands and arms, and then over his scalp. Then his keen eyes played over the output dials on the top of the device.

"Got anything?" Bud inquired, fascinated.

"Sure have," Tom responded. "Paul likes peanut butter, and looks to be something of a chocoholic."

"Yeah—guilty!" commented the courier with a laugh.

"Let’s see. Here are the traces of gasoline, transmission fluid, and motor oil from the service station. Rubber particles. Asphalt and good old dirt from the pavement. And this—" Here Tom pointed at a bright bar on one of the meters. "Antiseptics from the hospital. Bandage fibers. And all sorts of organic material…the computer matches this group of readings here to our local woodlands."

"Right," Paul confirmed. "After I received the packet from the air courier, I drove directly to Shopton from the Waterfield airfield. Lots of trees along that route."

"Yep." Tom mentioned a dozen more readings, the device’s computer reporting the most likely source for each. Then the young inventor frowned. "Now this is interesting…"

"What is it, Tom?" asked Ames.

"Mineral and chemical traces that the analytracer can’t identify from its memory-library." Tom looked up excitedly. "Guys, this could be exactly what we’re looking for!"

"CAN’T YOUR machine tell you where the traces originated?" Ames inquired.

"No," Tom replied. "Its onboard computer is mighty powerful, but only contains data on the more common sources, especially the local ones." He provided the scientific names of the various mineral and chemical substances identified, but explained that it would take time to cross-reference them.

"That’s a tough break," remarked Paul Zarvas. "I’d sure like to know who conked me! And so would my mother."

After chatting with the young courier for a while, a friendly youth somewhat in awe of the Tom Swift, the three Enterprises employees went their separate ways for the evening. Harlan Ames, a widower, lived with his teenaged daughter Dorothy—called Dodie—in a condominium overlooking Lake Carlopa. "I don’t dare be late tonight," he explained to the boys, a wry smile on his face. "Dodie’s been taking a cooking class and I gave my solemn word I’d try her latest creations. But assuming I survive, I’ll be talking to our police and security contacts about this incident."

As Bud dropped Tom off at his car at Swift Enterprises, he gave his reason for not joining his pal for a home-cooked meal, as he often did. "I’m heading over to Big Burt’s Gym for a few hours. If I don’t keep my physique in trim, you’re going to start beating me in sports as well as computer games!"

In his sleek, bronze-hued sports car, powered by silent electricity, Tom wound his way through the streets of Shopton. Though the family home lay at the border of the town within walking distance of the plant, Tom had headed off in the opposite direction, taking a meandering route that took him all around the lake. As a late supper had been planned, he wanted to take time for a lengthy drive, to think as he drove through the lovely open country that provided Shopton its relaxed, small-town atmosphere.

One of Dr. Galbein’s associates must be behind the theft, he reasoned. No one else knew about the discovery. But what was the motive? Professional jealousy?

At the dinner table Tom discussed the incident with his father, mother, and sister Sandra.

"What’s your theory about this, Sandy?" Damon Swift asked his daughter, eyes twinkling with fond amusement. "You usually have one. Or two!"

Sandra Swift was a fan of whodunnit-type mystery stories as well as extravagant paperback romances, and had made something of a hobby out of trying to predict the ultimate result of crime investigations in the real world, gleaned from the daily news.

"Oh, I don’t know, Daddy," she responded, sighing. "I’m usually wrong. Come to think of it—have I ever been right?"

"Oh, there have been a few times, you know," remarked Tom’s mother with a warm smile. "None come to mind, but I’m certain there were."

Sandy frowned and picked at her food. "Tom," she said abruptly, "are you really sure the Black Cobra is dead?"

Long before, while perfecting a novel mode of space propulsion for cosmic astronauts, Tom had matched wits with a ruthless, brilliant Asian scientist, Li Ching, an outcast from his native land. Allying himself with other international renegades possessed of scientific expertise, Li had established a shadowy multinational crime corporation with himself the dictatorial head. Now styling himself the Black Cobra, the amoral genius had attempted to destroy the Swift installation on the asteroid Nestria, orbiting between the earth and the moon. The Cobra seemed to have developed a peculiar fixation upon Tom and Swift Enterprises, striking out at them on several subsequent occasions without mercy. But Tom and his friends had always triumphed.

"If Collections tells us he’s out of the picture, that’s good enough for me," Tom said, referring to the secret U.S. government agency that had assisted the Swifts on many past occasions. "They seem to know just about everything."

"What makes you think the Black Cobra is involved?" Mr. Swift asked.

Sandy didn’t answer for a moment, her blue eyes, usually bright and vivacious, darkened with sober reflection. "I’m not sure," she finally answered. "It just sort of came into my head while Tom was telling the story."

Tom asked if something in the story had reminded her of their foe.

"Maybe," said Sandy. "Or maybe it’s just intuition. But you know, Tom, these arch-enemy types never seem to stay dead!"

Tom laughingly agreed.

"Not to change the subject," interjected Mr. Swift, "but I wanted to remind you, Tom, that our test tomorrow morning has been moved up to seven AM."

"Why so early?" inquired Anne Swift of her husband.

"Our visiting observer from Sweden, Professor Armuldsson, has been called back home to Stockholm by the University. He has a mid-morning flight. I offered to fly him back on one of our own jets, but his employers have a rule against it, it seems."

"Is this that matter-beamer of yours, Tom?" Sandy inquired.

Tom groaned humorously. "Please don’t call it that, San. It doesn’t ‘beam you up’." He glanced wryly at his father. "Dad, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to explain to the general public how to think about the quantum telesphere!"

Damon Swift chuckled in a sympathetic way. "I’m afraid old television reruns have pretty much poisoned the well for us."

"All right then," said Sandy, setting down her knife and fork. "This is science fiction—pretend that I’m intelligent! How exactly does the machine work?"

Mr. Swift nodded at his son, as if to say: It’s all yours!

"You asked for it," Tom declared. "Sis, why are things in one place and not another?"

"Excuse me? What kind of question is that?"

"Here’s what I’m getting at," said the young inventor as the others at the table leaned in over their plates. "What is it that keeps a given object concentrated at one particular location, and not spread out over space?"

Sandy looked puzzled. "Gravity?"

Tom nodded. "Sure. And inside the atom you have other forces as well. But I’m asking a more basic question, kind of a philosophical question. Why is there such a thing as space—the space that separates one thing from another, for instance? If space is just emptiness, how does it keep objects apart?"

Tom’s mother spoke up. "Not to be a name dropper, but the philosopher Descartes asked the same question. He wondered why, if a barrel were completely empty and contained nothing but space, the sides didn’t come together and touch."

Sandy shrugged. "I guess space is a kind of ‘something’ after all."

"Exactly right." Tom grinned approvingly. "What we call ‘space’ isn’t just emptiness, but something with properties and qualities, as if it were a sort of substance. Now look at this." He removed a cherry tomato from his salad plate and set it on the tablecloth. "It has a particular, well-defined position in space—so many inches from you, so many from me, so many from the floor."

"Mm-hmm," murmured Sandy with a hint of sisterly sarcasm. "Got it."

"But as objects get smaller, as they approach subatomic size, it turns out that their positions are not so well-defined," continued the young inventor, his eyes sparkling. "Electrons, photons, and other such things occupy positions in space in a vague way, as if they were blurred."

"Like that picture I took of Bud passing a football." Sandy nodded. "He had just thrown it, and it looked like a dandelion puff."

"That’s the idea, sis. But in this case the ‘blur’ is real, not just a deficiency in the way our equipment works. These subsized objects are actually spread out in space. It’s their natural condition, you might say."

The attractive blond girl, a year Tom’s junior, wrinkled her brow. "I think I understand that. That’s why things like photons of light can be treated like either waves or particles."

"Very good!" commented Mr. Swift.

Tom pushed on the tomato with his finger, starting it rolling. "If this tomato were blurred over space like an electron is, you wouldn’t have to wait a few seconds for it to reach your plate. It would be partially there from the start, because the blur would extend across the whole region of space between here and there."

"But it wouldn’t really be here," Sandy observed thoughtfully. "I mean, it wouldn’t be here like you expect a tomato to be, would it? It would be indistinct, like a mist."

Tom set the tomato back on his plate, flashing an apologetic look at his mother. "You’re right. Normally we’re not aware of the blurred aspect of objects in what Professor Armuldssen calls quantum protospace, which is the space that ordinary space itself is ‘in’, so to speak. The distended portion falls below the quantum minimum for interacting in a continuous way with ordinary matter and energy."

"Then how can we see things at all?" Sandy objected. "Aren’t you saying that all the little bits that things are made of are like that?"

"Yes," Tom replied. "But the intensity of the ‘presence’ of the particle varies, just as that football image was dark in some places and almost transparent in others." Building upon this concept, Tom explained that what he had called "intensity" in truth referred to degrees of probability—the probability that a given particle would be detected at a certain location in space.

"Well, what does probability have to do with it anyway?" the girl demanded. "I mean, if the thing has gotten to a certain place, then it’s one hundred percent there, and the probability of detecting it must be one hundred percent too."

"And the probability of detecting it elsewhere must be zero, right?"

"Are you saying it isn’t?"

Tom crinkled his eyebrows, trying to create a simple picture of a very difficult idea. "What experiments with subatomic particles suggest is that such a particle has no definite, one-hundred-percent location during the period of time between when it is emitted, and when it interacts with something so that we can detect it. Instead of being a little point-particle at a given place in space, it has a kind of ghostly partial-existence at every place that the laws of physics allow it to go to—until, in a completely unpredictable way, it collapses onto just one of the other particles that happen to lie within its ‘blur’. That’s when it really turns into the sort of particle we assumed it was all along."

Sandy said, "Like the way a little pinprick makes a balloon pop. One moment it’s this big round ball, then suddenly it’s just a tiny scrap of withered rubber."

Anne Swift spoke up. "If you don’t mind getting away from tomatoes, I remember another analogy, from one of my professors in graduate school. He said it was like bowling. If you close your eyes at the instant you release the ball, it could go anywhere as far as you’re concerned—even into the gutter. All you can do at that moment is guess the likelihood of a spare or a strike, based on how the ball felt when you let go. You have a range of probable outcomes, you see. So in terms of your own knowledge, that one bowling ball is spread out over space with different densities."

"Uh-huh, the greatest density would be along the route with the highest probability," Sandy agreed. "In my case, that’s probably the one leading straight into the gutter!"

"But then," Tom continued, "when you hear the ball hit something, the probabilities change instantly, becoming one hundred percent for one outcome, and zero for the rest. The ball’s protospace collapses into ordinary space. Do you see?"

"I think so, Tom." Sandy tapped her finger on the table top. "Okay, but bowling balls don’t normally turn into probability-clouds. How do you make a bowling ball, or a person, or even a tomato, go from point A to point B in this ‘protospace’?"

"The technical details are fairly recondite," commented Mr. Swift.

Sandy nodded, but her determined expression said: Try me!

"Okay," said Tom. "I can at least give you the basic approach. There are two telespheres. You step into the departure sphere, and the two spheres acting together create a subnucleonic matrix—well, we had to call it something!—that distorts the positional probabilities of your personal protospace, which is just the combination of the protospaces of all the particles of your body."

"And your clothes?"

"Everything inside the sphere. So you blur out and disappear into protospace."

Sandy smiled. "So far so good. Continue!"

Tom explained that the concluding step was to deactivate both telespheres in succession. "Your protospace collapses into the normal space of whichever sphere is switched off last, even if the difference is only a nanosecond. So if the arrival telesphere is a thousand miles away—there you are."

"But—ah-hah!" Tom’s sister objected. "What about matter and energy conservation laws? Daddy kept telling us both, In science you can’t get something for nothing!"

"And that was entirely valid," responded Damon Swift. "But the approach in this case is to cause a change in location without a change in velocity, so momentum is completely conserved."

"In other words, you sort of trick the universe."

"Right!" Tom laughed.

The next morning found Tom and his father in the giant underground hangar that housed Tom’s Flying Lab, the Sky Queen. This manmade concrete cavern beneath the Enterprises airfield was as broad as two city blocks, and its metal roof, which could be swung sideways in two panels to allow the great skyship to be raised to ground level, loomed several stories above the floor.

The pair of prototype telespheres had been set up about thirty feet apart. Each sphere was four feet in diameter and was composed of a clear plastic-crystal material of the sort Tom had devised for one of his earlier electronic inventions, the polar-ray dynasphere. But in this case the spheres were hollow, and were mounted atop twin shoulder-high columns of gleaming metal.

"My heart is quite pounding, gentlemen," said Professor Armuldsson to Tom and Mr. Swift. The Swedish scientist absent-mindedly flicked a curl of white hair off his forehead.

"You don’t find it a bit anticlimactic, Gustav?" asked Damon Swift. "After all, we’ve been successfully transpositing large molecules for weeks now."

"It is we Swedes who are reputed to be cool and reserved, but I envy you, Damon." Then he nodded at Tom. "I envy both of you! How marvelous to be born in such a family."

As Tom reddened in a flush of modesty, Bud Barclay, standing next to him, quickly spoke up. "Professor, I’m with you. My chest is always flopping like a fish on a line when these guys start experimenting. Next thing you know they’ll be—"

"Hey there, buckaroos! Jest a second, now!" The interruption sounded like a scouring pad scraping burnt batter off an iron frying pan—with a Texas accent.

"C’mon, Chow!" called Tom. "We’ve been waiting for you!"

The little knot of observers was joined by Chow Winkler, a larger-than-life character with rounded edges, colorful in more ways than one. Chow, who long ago had branded himself a "former chuck-wagon cook" based upon his many years on the range in New Mexico and his native Texas, was the Swifts’ personal chef and a good and loyal friend; though like all friends he was subject to some good-natured teasing at times, which he jokingly paid back with interest.

"Better make him change shirts, Tom—you’ll have to recalibrate your machines!" cracked Bud as Chow came trotting up. The westerner was fond of gaudy shirts, which his current garb illustrated in vivid tones of lime-green and rose-red.

"Don’t much know what recalpitation means," panted the heavyset cook, "but I don’t guess buddy boy here does neither!"

Tom laughed and said, "Don’t mind Bud. He’s still half asleep."

"Me too," said Chow. He stepped back for a moment, looking over the twin telespheres through skeptical, well-weathered eyes. "S’these here are your telly-spheres, huh? You gonna beam somethin’ from one t’the other?"

Suppressing a slight groan of disapproval at Chow’s choice of words, Tom answered, "That’s right, and it’s our biggest load yet."

"What is it, anyway?" asked Bud.

In response Tom pointed to the inside of the nearby departure sphere. Bud stepped closer, squinting through the transparent globe. "I don’t see anything."

"Look up above, at the top."

Finally Bud noticed a small, thin wire, about the length of a pencil, extending downward at an angle. "You mean that little wire?"

"Nope!" Tom said. "That filament is just for guiding a tiny droplet of mineral oil to a point precisely above the center of the sphere. It will fall down of its own accord, and when the laser-detector setup shows that it’s reached the exact center, the telespheres will be activated automatically. If all goes well, it’ll finish its fall in Sphere Two."

"Brand my spacelane brainstorm!" gulped Chow. "This’ll sure put th’ buses an’ taxicabs out of business. I’m a-gonna watch it land!" He strode over to the arrival sphere, his tall-heeled cowpoke boots clacking on the cement floor.

"Tom—Mr. Swift—the machine is ready when you are," called out Hank Sterling, Enterprises’ young chief engineer, who was operating the control board.

"One moment, if you please," muttered Professor Armuldsson. He whipped off his metal-framed glasses and wiped them on his shirt. "Proceed!"

"Here goes," said Tom. He gave a nod to Hank, who actuated the mechanism. "Matrix acquired," the engineer said. "I’m letting loose the droplet." Powerful multiphase lasers flashed through the sphere, and for a split second the watchers could catch the pinpoint gleam of the falling droplet as it reached the center of the telesphere—and blinked out of existence!

But there was no time to reflect on this miracle of science. A sharp Bang! and burst of light flooded the huge hangar as the watchers flinched back in shock. Sphere Two had exploded with terrifying force!

"CHOW!" Tom cried out in a frenzy of fear. The seasoned cowpoke had been standing near the arrival telesphere and had taken the brunt of the blast.

"Call the medics!" demanded Mr. Swift as Hank Sterling raced for a nearby telephone.

Chow was lying on his back on the floor, surrounded by fragments of the telesphere globe. The air was full of a smoky haze, and parts of the Texan’s clothing were smoldering. Blood was oozing from cuts on his face and arms.

Tom, Bud, Mr. Swift, and Professor Armuldsson clustered around their stricken friend while Hank doused the shattered telesphere with foam from a fire extinguisher.

Chow was dazed but conscious. "B-brand...my…I dunno what!" he murmured in a weak, husky whisper.

"Are you in pain?" asked Armuldsson gently.

"Shor am in somethin’!" gasped Chow with a wince. He rolled his eyes in Tom’s direction. "Boss, I may look a sight, but I bet I look better’n you!"

"Just a little concerned, pardner," said Tom, tears peeping from the corners of his eyes.

"Aw, now, I’m all right."

"Here’s Doc Simpson," Bud said. The young plant physician rushed up to Chow’s side and examined him carefully.

"Kin I get up now?" the cook demanded.

"Suppose so," Simpson responded with a reassuring smile. He helped Chow to his wobbly feet and turned to Tom and the others. "He’ll be okay. Everything I see appears fairly superficial. That generously-upholstered backside of his cushioned his fall."

"Whoa now!" protested Chow indignantly. "That there’s not what I’d call a good bedside manner."

Bud was examining the remains of the base of the telesphere globe—a circle of orphaned shards sitting uselessly atop the silver column. "Look, Tom. The crystal isn’t just broken, it’s melted!"

"This is most unexpected," declared Professor Armuldsson in genuine concern. He turned to Mr. Swift. "And so, Damon, what shall we assume here? A fundamental flaw, do you think?"

Mr. Swift shook his head. "It would be very premature to draw that conclusion. One expects reversals in developing a radical new technology. What do you think, Son?"

Tom looked up from examining the fragments of the sphere. "I don’t know yet. But I have an idea."

Hank Sterling suggested, "If the transpositing process converted the mass of the droplet into energy—"

"No, no," interrupted Armuldsson. "In that case we would not be here to tell the tale, I can assure you."

"I feel sure it was a thermokinetic wave," Tom said thoughtfully.

"What’s that?" Chow piped up. "I’d sure like t’know what conked me!"

Tom smiled. It was the second time in twenty-four hours that someone had used that expression! "When the transpositioned object reenters normal space in the arrival telesphere, it pushes aside whatever’s already occupying that space—in this case, air. And the push is extremely fast, virtually instantaneous. It basically turns the air molecules into hypersonic projectiles, generating a shockwave and an intense blast of heat."

"But we calculated that effect very carefully," objected Damon Swift with a glance at Professor Armulddson.

"Obviously an error must have crept in somewhere," his son retorted. "We’ll have to recalculate."

"And maybe redesign the machine," added Hank ruefully.

"Glad I could help," Chow said. "But boss, next time I volunteer someb’dy else for guinea pig!"

Tom retired to his design-engineering laboratory to ponder the problem while Bud went off with Chow to have a late breakfast. After an hour, Tom’s father joined him.

"I have some good news," said Damon Swift. "Gustav spoke with his superiors at the university in Sweden. He’s been given permission to remain with us for several more weeks, to assist in solving the telesphere problem."

"That’s great, Dad," Tom remarked absently, his thoughts elsewhere. "Professor Armuldsson knows more about quantum theory than any man alive."

After Mr. Swift left the lab, Tom worked on through the day, sketching out ideas for redesigning the paired globes on his electronic flatscreen. He also commenced a lengthy process of rechecking the energy calculations one by one, by computer.

Well, here’s why we were taken by surprise, he said to himself. There was a subtle error in one of the key equations. Making the correction, Tom saw immediately that the transpositioning of any object of significant mass and volume would have explosive consequences. It presented a difficult problem.

His train of thought was interrupted by the bleep of the telephone. He frowned but answered politely.

"It’s Phil Radnor, Tom." Phil was Harlan Ames assistant in the Swift Enterprises security division. "There’s been a surprising turn in the courier-theft case."

"A lead?"

"Stranger than that. The tissue sample has been returned!"

Tom was thunderstruck. "What!"

Radnor chuckled. "Believe me, I was amazed too. That courier fellow, Paul—just gave us a call from his home over in Waterfield. A package containing the preservation capsule was placed on his doorstep within the hour. No one saw who left it."

"Was there a note with it?"

"Not a thing—just the capsule surrounded by padding. But the capsule is transparent, and Paul thinks the entire sample is inside. It doesn’t appear to have been tampered with."

"If a small amount was removed, it wouldn’t necessarily be visible to the eye," declared the young inventor, frowning. "We’ll have to transmit DNA micro-spectrograms to Dr. Galbein—he’s the only one who could confirm that we’ve received back the genuine article."

"You'll have it in your hands by the end of the day," Radnor said. "That’s where Harlan is. He and one of the grounds patrollers just left for Waterfield in Harlan’s car. By the way, Tom…"

"What?"

"There must be a flu bug going around. Harlan looked a little funny, and when I asked he said his stomach had been feeling queasy since last night."

Tom grinned. "Something tells me Dodie’s culinary experiment wasn’t any more successful than our telesphere test this morning."

Just as promised, Tom had the package in his hands by late afternoon. Bud at his side, he held the small quartz cylinder from within the package up to the light. A tiny, pinkish mass was suspended within.

"So that’s it," commented Bud skeptically. "Man, it’s no bigger than a cornflake."

Tom nodded and placed the container, unopened, under the powerful lens of the micro-spectroscanner. After scanning the sample, Tom transmitted the data to Dr. Galbein, who had temporarily traveled to Fairbanks, via digital facsimile. "No need to uncork it until Galbein says it’s all right to do so," Tom noted. "Besides, we have a little scientific detective work to do."

"On the tissue sample?" Bud inquired.

"On the package," was the reply. Tom brought out the analytracer prototype and moved the intake tube across the reinforced, coated paper of the package, which was not the same package as the one originally carried by Paul Zarvas.

"Sniff anything?"

"Nothing worth sniffing," Tom retorted, discouraged. "I’d say the thief took extra care not to get any incriminating substances on the wrapping. But he may have been less careful with this packing material inside."

The analytracer slowly nosed through the soft cushioning material that had cradled the capsule. "This is more like it!" Tom exclaimed with pleasure. "Some unusual trace compounds. And look, Bud!—here’s a reading of that same unidentified stuff we found on Paul."

"That proves you’re on the right track, genius boy!" Bud said excitedly. "Can you track down where any of those new compounds came from?"

By way of answer, Tom plugged the analytracer into one of his lab terminals, which was linked to several major databanks in the worldwide scientific, chemical, and engineering communities. The moments ticked away, and Tom gave his pal a wry glance. "Taking a long time. I’m afraid the new particles are just as hard to pin down as—"

But just then an electronic chirp announced a response to Tom’s inquiry. Chemical symbols and writing scrolled down the screen.

"Here’s the most likely source location," muttered Tom, reading the output. "The Pietrie Valley."

"Where’s that?"

Tom now input this geographical query into the computer, and had the answer in a second. His eyebrows rose. "Newfoundland! The Pietrie Valley is on the western coast, near Table Mount."

"Up in Canada, huh." Bud nodded. "It wouldn’t be too difficult to fly up to Newfoundland and back to New York over night. But what’s in that big brain of yours?" He noted the reflective expression on Tom’s face.

"Just that the name of that valley sounds familiar," Tom replied. "I read or heard something about it recently. Bud, I’m sure somebody important lives there!"

Bud flashed Tom a look of triumph. "And that must be who’s behind all this—the enemy!"

AGREEING with Bud’s conclusion, Tom again turned to his computer, seeking out references to the Pietrie Valley region. But nothing of obvious import came up.

"You don’t remember where you ran across the info?" Bud asked.

Tom stroked his chin. "Not at the moment." He wrote down the name of the valley in his notebook, then glanced at his watch. "According to the watch and the yelps from your stomach, flyboy, it’s time for supper. Want to join us tonight? Dad might recall the reference we’re looking for."

Bud grinned. "I’m already recalling your Mom’s braised salmon casserole!"

As Tom had hoped, his father had the answer to his query.

"It was on that biographical program we watch, a few installments back," he said, tapping his knife on the edge of his plate.

"Which one?" Tom asked.

"The one about Derleth Szelgar."

"Derleth Szelgar! The Derleth Szelgar?" cried Bud. He leaned over to Sandy and inquired in a mock-whisper. "Quick—who’s Derleth Szelgar?"

"Oh, Bud!" Sandy giggled. "He’s…Well, I’ve heard of him. Somewhere."

"He’s a philosopher," Tom said. "I remember the program now."

"He was well known at one time, quite some years ago," Mr. Swift explained. "But even when I was in college he was considered—well, old-school is the phrase that comes to mind. He must be nearly a hundred. Frankly, I was quite surprised to learn that he’s still alive."

"He’s probably surprised himself!" joked Bud. "So what does he philosophize about? I mean, philosophers specialize, don’t they?"

"He’s a philosopher of epistemology—the study of what constitutes valid knowledge, and how it’s acquired," Tom observed. "But I couldn’t summarize his theories if you paid me."

Tom’s mother spoke up. "What in the world would such a person want with tissue samples from a prehistoric creature?"

"We don’t know that he had anything to do with the incident," cautioned Tom. "It’s just that he’s the only person living in that area that I’ve heard of."

Sandy asked if Newfoundland was where Szelgar made his home. "I have that impression," her brother responded. "Isn’t that what the program said, Dad?"

"I believe so," said Mr. Swift. "I think he retired there after his active public career was over. But you know, we might try contacting his daughter. I don’t happen to recall her name, but I’m quite sure she’s still alive. The computer can help us, I’d imagine."

When supper was completed, the internet was searched, and an answer came up almost immediately. "Arcena Szelgar Myres," Tom read from the screen. "She’s the head of the Verulam Institute in London, and here’s the main number. It’s too late at night now, but I can try calling her tomorrow."

Bud’s eyes twinkled. "You? Not Harlan Ames or Phil Radnor? What do you pay those guys for, anyway?" Bud knew Tom couldn’t resist playing a personal role in untangling the many mysteries that challenged his analytical mind.

Tom gave his pal a humorously reproving look. "I happen to know Harlan’s recovering from indigestion."

"And Radnor?"

"I’ll think of something!"

The next morning Tom put in a call to the Verulam Institute. His attempt to speak to the philosopher’s daughter got only as far as her officious, and obviously unpersuadable, secretary. "I’m most sorry, Mr. Swift," said the woman in clipped tones, "but Mrs. Myres has imposed a very strict rule. She does not take inquiries concerning her father."

"I can respect that," Tom began, "but, ma’am, this is actually a matter of the utmost—"

"The utmost importance, no doubt," interrupted the secretary sarcastically. "As is Mrs. Myres’s time. I might suggest your sending us a letter. Good day." And she hung up, leaving Tom to stare in frustration at the phone in his hand.

"Good try," commented Bud, sitting nearby.

Tom cast a glance at his friend and gave a half-smile of determination. "I wonder if this Arcena Myres would turn us away in person."

"Planning to fly over?" asked Bud excitedly. "It’s been a while since we’ve been in London."

"Not fly, Bud," replied the young inventor. "I’ve been meaning to take a look at those new high-tech docking facilities they just constructed on the Thames. They’re set up for submarines as well as surface craft. Besides, Heathrow is a little too crowded these days for the Sky Queen. We’ll take the Nemo and be there almost as fast as if we’d flown."

After making arrangements Bud flew Tom by jetrocopter to the Swift Enterprises pier on Long Island, where they boarded the Nemo, Tom’s original jetmarine. This sleek midget craft, one of Tom’s first inventions, used a hydraulic jet principle to zoom through the water faster than any submersible.

"Man, does this bring back memories!" sighed Bud, gazing through the transparent nose viewdome as the crystalline blue of the deep Atlantic waters hurtled by. They were spearing through liquid space with such amazing rapidity that the marine life outside flicked past at bullet speed, barely visible to the eye. Far below, at the limit of Tom’s electronic aqualamp, the sea floor seemed to unroll before them like the landscape of a strange distant world.

In a matter of hours the Nemo had entered the territorial waters of the United Kingdom. They traveled up the English Channel and through the Straits of Dover, then westward up the Thames River, passing blithely beneath its heavy traffic. Guided by doppler-sonar beacons, the jetmarine arrived at its reserved berth in the new McKenna Aquatic Terminal at 7:12 PM local time.

As the Verulam Institute was undoubtedly closed by that hour, the boys took a cab to their hotel in The City, where they changed and showered after their trip. Their luggage, which had been jetted-in separately to save space in the jetmarine, awaited them in their room.

"Got a restaurant picked out?" Bud asked eagerly, darkly handsome in his gray slacks and saffron sportshirt.

"No," Tom replied. "Why don’t we stroll for a while and see what grabs us—and our stomachs!"

Some time later they turned from Bettinge Street onto a small lane that wound between rows of modest office buildings, most closed for the night. Here and there music and laughter poured from a small pub, but there seemed to be no restaurants or cafes to be found.

"All we need now is some London fog," complained Tom ruefully. "I’m getting hungry, and I don’t need to ask if you are."

"After all, we haven’t had lunch," Bud retorted indignantly.

Abruptly Tom paused and glanced behind them. Bud asked what was wrong. "Maybe nothing," Tom responded, eyes narrowed. "I kept thinking I was hearing footsteps on the sidewalk behind us."

"No one there now," said Bud. "Probably just one of those London bobbies." Then he quickly reversed himself. "Yeah right!—like we can’t figure out that we’re being tailed."

"Let’s check it out." Tom reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out what looked like a heavy marking pen. One side of the device was flat, and a luminous strip ran down the middle of that side from one end to the other.

"Calling for help?" asked Bud. "That’s no fun!"

Tom grinned. "Wouldn’t want to deprive us of fun," he murmured softly. "This is my rear-view radarscope. Moving objects at street level register as points of light on this little strip. The position of the dots shows how close they are."

As they continued walking, Tom held the instrument close to his chest, where it could not be seen by anyone shadowing them from behind.

"Doesn’t your body block the scanning waves?" inquired Bud.

"Better not—or it wouldn’t be much good as a rear-view detector. It uses ultra-long paired waves that pass right through anything closer to the transmitter than six feet." In a moment he gave Bud a surreptitious nudge. "There!" Tom whispered. A single blip of light showed on the indicator!

"Should we try to take him?"

"Hasn’t done anything wrong yet," replied the youthful scientist-inventor. "But from the zigzag way he’s moving, I’d say he’s ducking behind obstructions and into alleyways, so he won’t be seen."

After a whispered conclave, the boys casually parted company at a street corner, Bud turning onto a sidestreet and immediately pressing himself into a door alcove. Tom strolled on past the intersection. For long moments there was no sign of life. Did the guy catch on to us? Bud wondered. He was about to abandon his post when movement at the intersection caught his eye. To his amazement a small-sized figure had appeared, walking cautiously along Tom’s route.

"Just a kid!" muttered the young pilot in disgust. He stepped out from his hiding place and approached the boy from behind. "Hey, pal, what’re you doing out so—"

The figure whirled and Bud gasped in shock. Their pursuer wasn’t a young boy, but a dwarfish adult with an oversized head—and an evil-looking knife clutched in his hand!

BUD WAS so startled that he stopped dead halfway across the street. The dwarf’s eyes seemed to burn with an inexplicable rage, his mouth a ragged line of hatred. He slowly lifted his knife—a long straight-bladed dagger of the kind called a dirk—up to his face, point to the sky.

Good gosh! Bud’s brain cried silently. What’s he going to do, cut off his nose?

But the dwarf pressed the dirk against his lips, as if warning Bud to be silent under penalty of death. For a moment the two stood frozen, looking into one another’s eyes. But suddenly the sound of thudding footsteps caused Bud’s eyes to swerve away. Tom was barreling toward them from further up the street.

Bud’s eyes shifted back instantly as he made ready to charge. But the follower had vanished!

"Tom!" Bud gasped. "D-did you—did you see—"

"I saw," replied the blond youth. "He ran over this way." Tom indicated a black-shadowed gap that separated two buildings.

Bud was astonished. "In there?" He walked closer. "This isn’t even a foot wide! How could anybody squeeze into it?"

Tom shrugged. "I don’t know how he did it, pal. But that’s what he did." They both listened for a time at the opening, but could hear not a sound. Nor did the radar unit show any motion.

"I’d love to believe that knife was just a toy," muttered Bud. "But I wouldn’t bet on it!"

"Maybe he was a mugger—or just an eccentric," Tom said. He added nervously: "And maybe we should head back to a busier street!"

There were no further incidents that night, and the boys finally found an open restaurant and managed a satisfying dinner. The next morning, nicely dressed in suit and tie, they presented themselves at the office of Arcena Szelgar Myres in the Verulam Institute in central London—a vast, dark old building, Victorian in style.

Tom had to plead a bit with the secretary, who turned out to be a formidable young woman with cherry-red hair. Without budging her frown, she ultimately relented. "Well, I suppose you did come all the way across the ocean," she conceded. She disappeared through a door, and after a minute emerged again and beckoned Tom and Bud into the presence of Mrs. Myres.

Arcena Myres stood in front of her great oak desk, hand extended. She was an attractive, well-dressed woman, her hair as gray as a London pea-souper. As she shook hands with her visitors, she looked them each in the eye, her manner courteous but uncompromising. "You are very determined to come see me, I should say," she said to Tom. "In a submarine, no less!"

Tom gave a brief account of the attack on the courier. "The stolen scientific materials—forgive me for not going into detail, ma’am—were returned the next day, anonymously."

"Then if you’ll forgive my bluntness, what problems remain?"

"You mean besides who did it and why?" remarked Bud sarcastically.

Mrs. Myres frowned. "I suppose that was an attempt at wit. Do warn me the next time, won’t you."

Tom spoke up hastily. "There was an indication that the package that the material was returned in came from the region in Newfoundland where, as I understand it, your father resides."

"From which fact you conclude—what?"

"No conclusions," replied Tom, "just questions. Certainly your father is not under suspicion, but perhaps one of his associates might have an interest in…in the subject."

The woman nodded gravely. "The subject—which is not to be disclosed to me."

"I’m not at liberty to—"

"Never mind," she interrupted. "What specific questions do you have?"

Tom hesitated. It suddenly occurred to him that he had neglected to formulate any specific questions!

"Let me tell you about my father," Mrs. Myres continued after a pause. "As of two months ago, he is 97 years of age. He is very feeble, largely confined to bed, and, to speak with painful frankness, only intermittently aware of those around him. He communicates in sighs when he communicates at all, and for him to depress the button next to his bed to call the nurse is, for him, a great accomplishment. His mind, the greatest of the century just concluded, is now a flickering and insubstantial thing. The last time I saw him filled me with enough anguish to darken the three years that followed, and I choose not to tolerate such disruption to my responsibilities."

"I understand," Tom said with sympathy.

"Now then, you wonder if someone on his staff might be involved in this affair," she said. "What peculiar motive you might be attributing to these good people I cannot imagine. There are six of them, professional attendants; as well as the house staff. They have been with Father for decades now, every one of them. He requires that degree of—consistency."

Tom nodded.

"And so," concluded Mrs. Myres, "now I must ask if you have any further suspicions to air before me."

"No ma’am," replied Tom. "I apologize."

She bobbed her head dismissively. As the boys turned to leave, she spoke once more. "You are a very celebrated young man, Tom Swift, as is your family. Perhaps you can grasp the poignancy of my situation. I will continue to do whatever is necessary to protect Father’s privacy. I ask you to respect that fact."

"I do, Mrs. Myres," was the sober response.

The youths passed the sentinel stare of the secretary and made their way out into the street.

"What do you make of it, genius boy?" Bud asked.

Tom shrugged. "She obviously doesn’t want us nosing around. Given the circumstances, I can understand her attitude. It must be terrible, having to see someone decline like that year after year."

Bud nodded. "Sometimes people sort of outlive their lives."

After checking out of their hotel and sending their luggage along, Tom and Bud, now comfortably attired, spent a few hours sightseeing in the great old city of London. They presently paid a call upon Inspector Raeburn of Scotland Yard, whom they had first encountered during Tom’s aquatomic tracker adventure.

"We meet this time under rather more pleasant circumstances, eh?" said the inspector.

"Not entirely pleasant," Tom retorted. He described their mysterious follower of the evening preceding.

A grave expression settled on Raeburn’s face. "This is most interesting," he said, "and perhaps a bit worrisome. We were briefed just this morning on a number of local reports concerning a prowling figure, described in very much the same way. But yours is the first to mention a weapon."

"What’s this guy after?" Bud asked. "Has he been caught breaking in anywhere?"

"Not precisely," was the answer. "Yet his actions were thought suspicious enough to be worthy of reporting. He may have been, as you fellows say, casing the joint—joints, actually."

Tom inquired if the joints he had been casing were likely targets for robbery.

"Not obvious targets, let us say," replied the inspector. "Not jewelry stores or banks or chemist shops—pharmacies, you know. He was seen primarily in light manufacturing and industrial areas."

"He may be involved in some sort of scientific espionage," Tom mused. "Which would certainly tie in with his trailing me!" Inspector Raeburn agreed, and promised to keep Harlan Ames informed of any developments.

Heading toward the docks as the afternoon waned, Tom and Bud made another stop at a place they had visited before—the London Wax Museum.

"Can’t resist seeing yourself in person, huh?" teased Bud. "Neither can I!"

Tom gave a sheepish laugh and said, "Just curious as to how they’ve updated the exhibit, that’s all. A lot has happened since then, you know."

"Right, guv," agreed the dark-haired young pilot. "I’ve had so many near-death experiences the real thing will be a letdown!"

Sure enough, the exhibit had been changed, though the figures of Tom and Bud, molded from life on their previous visit, were the same. But the former outer-space theme had been replaced by a more generic scene—the youths surrounded by a panoply of Swift inventions. An element of drama had also been added in the form of a threatening figure clad in a strange, black uniform.

"The Black Cobra!" Tom gasped. Then he chuckled at his involuntary reaction. "Looks like we’ll never get rid of that guy." He related to Bud how Sandy had mentioned the evildoer just the other night.

"Don’t be so sure he’s dead and gone, Tom," remarked Bud. "I’ve read a lot of comic books!"

As they neared the exit, the youths were startled by the sound of distant sirens, echoed in moments by the distinctive drone of emergency vehicles as they roared past in the street. Rushing outside, they saw a plume of thick smoke rising in the direction they were headed.

"The docks!" Tom cried.

Typically for busy London at quitting time, the streets were choked with cars, and the fire vehicles were struggling to get through. The boys darted through the growing crowd of gawkers and made their way toward the Thames, managing to evade the police who were trying to control the crowd. Tom was frantic—his beloved jetmarine was in danger!

At the marine facility they saw at once that the fire was not in the main part of the facility itself, but in a group of large, looming warehouses abutting the docks. A sheet of flame covered the entire front of one building, and fiery tongues stabbed out of windows in the buildings on either side.

"Looks like it’s spreading," Bud exclaimed tensely. "By the time the fire trucks get in operation, the whole block’ll be half burnt!"

Tom grabbed Bud’s arm. "Let’s make for the Nemo!" Scrambling over a locked gate, they scurried to the jetmarine’s assigned berth, from which security personnel had fled. Unlocking the hatch with his remote tele-key, Tom thrust himself down into the craft, Bud close behind.

"That’s it!" cried Bud as Tom activated the controls. "We’ll be safe out in the river."

They maneuvered away from the docks. But less than one hundred feet out, Tom used the thrust-reversers to bring the Nemo to a halt.

"I don’t think this is a good place to put us on ‘pause,’ Tom," Bud remarked in alarm. ‘Shouldn’t we get out of here?"

"We may be the cause of all this," responded Tom. His expression assumed a look of steel. "I’m not going to turn tail if we can help!"

"Help fight the fire? With a sub?" Bud objected. But his heart beat faster. He knew his pal had come up with a plan!

THE CAPTAIN of the Greater Metropolitan London Fire Department stood and stared at the growing warehouse inferno with the eyes of a veteran firefighter. Those eyes bespoke frustration.

"Not looking positive, sir," said his lieutenant.

"You are a master of understatement, Gunston." The Captain’s voice grew shrill as he shook his head in helpless anger. "Half our crews bollixed-up in the streets! Disaster! I can see the word in tomorrow’s headlines."

But then the men rocked back in astonishment.

A great plume of water, milky with froth, was arcing through the air like a liquid rainbow!

The aerial river splashed down on the central warehouse with thudding force, drenching the flames in a flood of cold Thames water—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gallons per second. The watery column began to waggle slowly from side to side like a gardener’s hose, flooding out the largest fire quickly, then moving on to the adjacent warehouses as a great cheer rose up from the massed London crowds. The angry flames were slowly giving way to white smoke.

"Captain!" yelled a newsman. "What’s happening? What in the name of Her Majesty the Queen is going on?" The Captain had no answer.

Five minutes after it had begun, the jet of water was suddenly choked off. But its work had been done. The fire was extinguished!

"Aye, look there!" cried a loud voice presently. "He’s the one behind it—Tom Swift!"

The Nemo had surfaced next to a pier, and Tom was standing in the open hatchway on top. The crowd roared, and Tom gave a little shrug and a little wave, acknowledging them. Though he was not always recognized by the public, he had learned to handle the response when he was.

The Captain approached in a trot. "You’re today’s miracle worker, is that it?" he called out over the rush of noise.

"I used the sub’s hydraulic jet," the youth replied. As the official approached, Tom explained that he had wedged the jetmarine’s nose into a space between two pipeline support pylons out in the river, and then angled her tail upward by means of the craft’s supergyros. The powerful atomolecular engine, running at its highest pitch, had done the rest.

"I see, I see—surely most ingenious!" marveled the Captain. "But see here, how in the blithering world did you aim and steer your jet of water from under the Thames like that?"

Tom gave a grin. "You can thank them for that!" He gestured toward the writhing knot of frenzied television reporters, decked out in cameras and microphone booms. "We’re equipped to pick up television signals aboard the jetmarine, even under water. I used the live news pictures to guide the jet from side to side."

"Gorblimey incredible!" exclaimed the Captain.

Tom and Bud spent an hour at the unenviable task of answering questions from city officials and from news personnel. "George Dilling would like the publicity," whispered Tom to his friend. "But if I’d known I was going to be today’s news celebrity, I’d have gotten a haircut!"

Before taking leave for the trip home, Tom asked the fire captain if he knew how the conflagration had started. "Don’t know yet," was the reply. "There will be the usual inquiry. But this old nose of mine suspects arson. And there was a report of a suspicious bloke seen running from the main warehouse."

"A small person?" asked Tom.

The man’s eyebrows raised in surprise. "I should say! Taken for a child at first. How did—?"

"Lucky guess," said Tom. "But Inspector Raeburn at Scotland Yard will be interested in that report, Captain."

Finally the two young Shoptonians were able to break away from the crowd and seal themselves into the Nemo. In mere minutes they had entered the English Channel again for the voyage home.

Seated comfortably in the nose dome, Bud glanced back over his shoulder and asked, "Skipper, what did you mean when you said we might have been the cause of the fire?"

"It’s way too much of a coincidence," the young inventor responded, setting the jetmarine’s guidance controls on automatic. "Especially after the incident last night."

"You think our little friend was out to destroy the Nemo?"

"Don’t you?"

"I suppose I do," Bud admitted. "But he picked a funny way to do it—setting a fire to get at a submarine. And the fire wasn’t even at the docks, just nearby."

They aqua-soared on in thoughtful silence for more than an hour, Bud gazing in fascinated awe at the ever-changing beauty of the underwater world, Tom working in his notebook on the telesphere problem.

Suddenly both boys looked up. The cabin lights had flickered!

"Wonder what that was," commented Bud.

Tom brought up a diagnostic schematic of the jetmarine on the computer screen. "I don’t see anything—" But Tom’s sentence was cut short by a gasp as the cabin lights went out completely, along with the rich, deep drone of the hydrojet engine!

"Tom!" called out Bud, a black silhouette against the faint blue glow seeping in through the viewdome. "You okay?"

"Better than the Nemo," Tom replied. "Everything’s dead—the engine, the computer, even the aqualamp. Hold on!"

"Why?"

As if in answer, the jetmarine began to list over to starboard in a lazy roll.

"No gyros," explained Tom. "We’re not getting even a trickle from the veranium pile." The veranium pile was the Nemo’s atom-energized power source.

As the ship rolled further, both mariners strapped themselves firmly into their contour seats. "How long will we keep coasting on momentum?" Bud asked, an edge to his voice.

"Several minutes at least," said Tom tensely. "Then we’ll start heading toward the bottom. For the moment, the hydrodynamic shape of the hull is giving us a bit of lift, but the Nemo doesn’t have positive buoyancy without blowing the ballast tanks—and we can’t run the pumps."

Bud gulped. "We weren’t going at top speed, were we."

"No—fortunately. If we had been, we’d have started vibrating like a Chinese gong when the hydraulivane went out."

There was a silent moment as the jetmarine speared ahead, now almost completely on its side and slowing with every second.

"What do you want to do?" Bud asked finally. "Hit the Fat Man suits?"

"Not yet, pal," Tom replied, straining to keep his voice even. A cone of bright light abruptly split the darkness of the cabin. "At least we have flashlamps with their own batteries." He played the glow over the instrument panel. "Some of the meters are still working—they switched over to emergency battery power automatically." But the indicators confirmed that the flow of power from the atomic pile had ceased.

"Now we know what our shadower was doing," mused Tom. "The fire was a diversion so he could sabotage our—"

Bud interrupted him. "Tom!—he might have planted a bomb on board!"

Tom softly acknowledged the possibility, his tone conveying that they could do nothing about it.

The jetmarine rolled further, woozily. Tom and Bud were now almost upside down, held in their seats by their safety straps alone!

"I don’t want to abandon ship any more than you do, pal," Bud exclaimed urgently, his black hair hanging down like a clump of twisting vines. "But the Fat Men are designed for emergency escapes, not raising the dead!"

"When we rotate upright again, we can unbuckle and head for the suits," conceded Tom with much reluctance. "Give me a few minutes to try to put the diagnostic monitors on battery power."

Bud kept quiet as the moments ticked away. Twisting himself into an awkward position like a circus contortionist, Tom had opened a panel on the control chassis. Bud could hear his pal grunt in frustration as he tried desperately to refashion the circuit connections.

Bud flinched—a sudden flash of light.

"Got a spark at least!" Tom murmured. "Now, if…" Suddenly a multicolored glow suffused the cabin. The computer screen had flickered to life once again!

"All right!" Bud cheered—weakly and worriedly.

"Now we can get down to business," declared Tom Swift. He flashed through a series of schematic representations of the jetmarine’s key systems, halting at one that glared with red. "Here we go. The microsolenoid cluster at junction two—total system failure."

"Can you do anything?"

Tom did not reply.

"Er, Tom—the deck is tilting. We’re starting to nose down!"

The silence was unbroken except for a click—then a second one.

And then the Nemo came back to life with a roar! The cabin lights surged on, blindingly, as the hum of the motors resumed and the craft began to roll back into an upright orientation under the renewed influence of the supergyros.

Bud sighed in gratitude as Tom’s head, drenched in sweat, peeped up over the back of his half-swiveled seat. "Problem solved!" pronounced the young inventor.

His dark-haired co-passenger nodded, unable to speak.

"Just had to do a little emergency rerouting," Tom explained. "Say, you weren’t worried, were you?"

Bud shook his head, bug-eyed.

Tom accessed another sensor system. "If there’s an explosive device on board, the interior indexor-scanner can’t detect it. The guy must have a pretty detailed account of how the jetmarine operates—he’d have to, to be able to sabotage the power core—so he didn’t want to risk planting something that might set off an alarm."

"Good thinking on his part!" Bud remarked wryly.

The fact that no bomb could be detected failed to relieve the youths’ anxiety. It was not until the Nemo was finally parked in its Long Island berth, hours later, that they could breathe a genuine sigh of relief. Tom warned the dock technicians of the possibility of danger and directed that they examine the jetmarine thoroughly.

As it was now the middle of the night, Tom and Bud bunked at the Long Island facility, then rose with dawn and flew back to Enterprises.

"Glad to be back in one piece," declared Bud as he set the jetrocopter down on its reserved pad. "And without having to pick seaweed out of my hair!"

Over a hearty breakfast prepared by Chow’s culinary second-in-command, Boris—for the Texan had been ordered to take several days off to recuperate—Tom and Bud briefed Mr. Swift, Harlan Ames, and Phil Radnor on the events in London and the mid-Atlantic.

"The morning papers are full of your derring-do, boys," said Mr. Swift.

Tom asked whether there had been any new developments in the mystery of the attack on Paul Zarvas. "Nothing to speak of," Ames replied. "But your friend Galbein has confirmed that the returned sample is genuine, and apparently complete. He thinks the container might not even have been opened."

"That’s my idea of not making sense," remarked Bud. "What’s the point of stealing something, not opening it up, and then giving it back?"

"We’ve dealt with lunatics before, guys," Radnor pointed out. "Not just crazed revenge-seekers like that rocket man Rotzog, but also total round-the-bend types like Turnbull."

Tom nodded.

"And then weird mystery characters like the Black Cobra," continued Radnor.

Tom frowned and clanked his spoon into his bowl. "Phil—what made you think of him?"

The security man shrugged. "No special reason. Why?"

Tom hesitated, not sure what he wanted to say. "It’s just that he keeps coming up in one way or another lately. Harlan, there’s no cause to think—"

Ames shook his head reassuringly. "As you know, your ‘Collections’ crew will only communicate with you—though the rest of us pay our taxes like everybody else. But the official security channels all swear our boy gurgled his last when his submarine went down."

"Tom’s just a little freaked because we ran into him in London," Bud teased. He related how the wax museum had placed his replica in their display.

"The public likes a bright clear line between heroes and villains," Mr. Swift observed. "Sometimes I think they secretly root for the villain just to keep the game going!"

These words echoed in Tom’s head for hours as he worked alone in his lab. He seemed unable to set the question aside. At last he said to himself, This is ridiculous!

Switching on his computer terminal, he accessed his daily journal and deliberately lowered the encryption barrier that prevented the mysterious agency from monitoring his input. After a pause, he typed the key phrase that indicated a desire to communicate with the group nicknamed Collections.

The cursor blinked on the screen five times, ten times.

CONSTANTLY

Pleased, Tom’s fingers now charged the keyboard.

HEY WE READ THE PAPERS

Tom moaned inwardly. "Still alive?"

Tom couldn’t help smiling at this indication that Collections was well aware of recent events in Tom’s life. The spy group had nothing to apologize for!

"Thanks," typed the young inventor.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS—but Tom broke the connection before the signoff phrase could be completed. He had work to do, and new worries to occupy his mind.

The afternoon following, Arvid Hanson looked up from his workbench to find Tom Swift standing in the doorway. "Got something new for me, chief?"

"A new telesphere component," replied Tom, entering. "I emmed you the specs and sketches just now, but I thought I’d drop by to discuss some of the trickier aspects."

Hanson printed out the emailed material and examined it, Tom at his elbow. "I see you want a smaller prototype this time."

"Yes—I think we may run into engineering problems when we scale-up to full size, and I want to test out this new aspect beforehand."

"Got it." Hanson continued to examine the plans, and added: "Looks like you’re installing some repelatron circuitry."

Tom explained that this new application of his versatile matter-repeller technology was intended to solve the problem of the displaced air molecules. "A phase-paired repelatron pulse, tuned to the composition of the air, produces an instantaneous low-pressure node inside the arrival telesphere just prior to the transfer, which means fewer air molecules to contend with." To forestall the possibility of an implosion a similar setup, acting in reverse, would ease the vacuum produced in the departure sphere by the transmission of the outbound object.

"I’ll have the proto ready for you by lunch tomorrow," promised the young technician.

Tom took the ridewalk over to the office in the administration building that he shared with his father. Nodding to Trent as he passed the secretary’s desk, he entered the office and found that his father was already there. He looked up at his son, and Tom saw that Damon Swift’s face bore a dark and troubled expression.

"Is something wrong, Dad?"

The elder Swift’s brow was furrowed with thought. "Very wrong, and most disturbing. I’ve just been informed that there is cause to believe that our test of the telesphere was deliberately sabotaged. The suspect is Gustav Armuldsson!"

TOM plopped down in his desk chair, stunned. He could hardly believe his father’s announcement!

"But—Dad, he—"

"I know, Tom," said Mr. Swift. "A brilliant man with a worldwide reputation. Yet—let me explain."

"Please do!"

Mr. Swift related that he had just taken a telephone call from Professor Armuldsson’s university superiors in Stockholm. "As a verification of the contractual elements of our work, they’ve made a practice of examining the technical reports Gustav and I have been independently submitting to them. Their people have concluded that the equation errors that prevented our anticipating the blowup of the receiving sphere were not accidents, but a deliberate alteration of earlier calculations. All of the changes can be traced solely to the portions assigned to Gustav alone. It seems impossible that it could be merely a mistake or an oversight. That’s their conclusion, son, and I have to concur."

"Those errors almost killed Chow!" Tom declared angrily. "But what could be the motive?"

"I’m about to ask that very question," said Mr. Swift. "I just called Gustav at the high-energy lab and asked him to come over to the office to discuss some ‘surprising new data,’ as I termed it."

Tom and his father waited in grim silence, five, ten, fifteen minutes. Then Mr. Swift called the lab again, reaching a technician. "He’s not here, Mr. Swift," said the woman. "He left right after your call."

"Odd," commented Damon Swift. "We’re only two buildings away. Did he seem all right, Karynna?"

"Well…I don’t know," was the hesitant reply. "It seemed to me that he was a bit agitated. When I asked if he would be back shortly he just mumbled something curtly—in Swedish, I suppose—and stalked out the door."

Mr. Swift hung up with a glance at Tom. After waiting another ten minutes, he contacted plant security, asking that Gustav Armuldsson be located immediately and escorted to the Swifts’ office.

Within minutes the telephone bleeped. "He must have got wind of what was coming down," said Harlan Ames. "He drove out through service gate B just minutes after leaving the lab, and he’s not answering his cellphone. Shall I inform Shopton PD?"

Damon Swift sighed. "Yes, I suppose that would be best. But please tell Captain Rock that he is to be treated in a respectful manner. It’s still possible this is all just a misunderstanding of some sort."

Tom asked if his father were certain that the original telephone call had been authentic. "I am," replied the older man. "I’m acquainted with Dr. Heggstrom, who placed the call, and we chatted for a moment before he came to the point."

After putting out an all-points bulletin, a Shopton police squad car, siren kept silent, was dispatched to the elegant Sun Shore Hotel in Sandport at the southern tip of Lake Carlopa, where the professor had been staying for the duration of his visit. Soon the police officer was on the phone with frustrating news.

"He was here all right," said the officer, who identified himself as Lt. Parmerniew. "We just missed him. He settled up his bill and practically ran out the door with a suitcase in his hand."

"Just one suitcase?" asked Tom over the open receiver-speaker.

"Apparently. He left most of his clothes and personal items behind. And here’s the real killer—he left his rented car parked in the hotel lot!"

"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Mr. Swift. "How did he get away?"

"That’s the question, hmm?" responded the policeman. "Seems he had an accomplice waiting for him."

Tom and Mr. Swift discussed these upsetting developments for some time. They felt a sense of personal hurt and betrayal, as well as indignation that a man of science could be tempted to unworthy ends. But ultimately the grim discussion passed on to other subjects.

"You know, Dr. Galbein has been trying to get me to commit to meeting with him in Alaska to look over the ice cave," Tom said. "I’ll have to do it eventually if I’m to take on his project."

"He helicoptered to the site last night," Mr. Swift commented. "He phoned me from there via satellite relay."

"I’m thinking of flying up there in the Queen right away today. The prototype of the new telesphere won’t be ready until tomorrow anyway, and—"

"And twiddling your thumbs for even an hour is sheer torture!" chuckled Tom’s father.

"Rumor has it impatience is a Swift family trait," laughed the young inventor. "Or so I hear!"

Tom put together a small flight crew to join him in the Sky Queen, which was so extensively automated that it could be flown by a single individual if necessary. Bud would join him, as always.

"And I’ve also asked Diana Mulvey and Duncan Lawrence," Tom told Bud when they met in the underground hangar.

Bud winced in mock horror. "Oh no! Not the tall-tale contingent! I’ve heard them spend hours batting around urban legends and off-the-wall plot ideas for books."

Tom grinned. "Let’s just call them dedicated storytellers! Anyway, I’m having Diana pilot the Queen this time around—no offense, flyboy. She’s been asking for more realtime experience, and this’ll be an easy flight."

"And of course the two are boyfriend and girlfriend," added Bud. "Alaska—how romantic! Shall we ask Sandy and Bash along this time, too?"

Sandy and Bashalli Prandit, the family friend who was Tom’s customary date at functions formal and informal, had accompanied the boys on their most recent trip to Alaska in the Flying Lab, just prior to their departure to the South Pole region with Tom’s atomic earth blaster.

"Not this time," Tom replied. "It’d be short notice for them, and frankly I don’t want to delay."

"Understood, skipper!" Bud saluted his pal. "Let’s go scare some clouds!"

Soon the great stratoship was underway at supersonic speed with its crew of four. The North American continent fled beneath them as the Sky Queen streaked obliquely northwest. They passed high above the broad sunlit farmlands of southern Ontario, then the cooler deep-green of the great timber forests of central Canada, finally arcing above the rugged Canadian Rockies and the snow-dappled Yukon Territory bordering Alaska. As predicted Diana and Duncan, in the control cabin, spent the hours in earnest conversation on obscure topics. Tom answered emails from around the world, as he strove to do when he had a moment’s time; and Bud watched television in the top-deck lounge.

Dr. Galbein’s careful directions led the Flying Lab at last to his tiny encampment amid the snow and ice of the Cape Halkett region of the Arctic Sea coastline, north of Teshekpuk Lake and east of the Ikpikpuk River. Well north of the Arctic Circle, the land was almost entirely devoid of permanent settlements; the nearest town, Atquasuk, was more than 150 miles distant.

"It’s a black and white world down there," murmured Bud to Tom. The four were now gathered together in the control compartment, gazing through its downsweeping viewpanes.

Diana Mulvey, eyes fixed to the instruments, spoke up. "Tom, maybe you know this—if you were to put a fresh corpse in a microwave oven, how long before it explodes?"

Tom shook his head. "Afraid that’s not my field. Right now I’m more concerned about preserving a corpse—a great big one!"

Duncan leaned close to Tom and whispered. "She’s a little fluttery—we just got engaged." Tom congratulated him. Bud refrained from comment, but smiled.

Diana landed the Sky Queen on a stretch of bedrock near Galbein’s camp, its jet lifters turning the blanket of snow to spouting steam. Several parka-clad figures came trotting over from the camp, which consisted of three quonset huts, two big snowcats, and a jet-assisted helicopter. Descending through the Flying Lab’s belly hatch, Tom and Bud noted that the welcoming party was comprised of three Alaska natives and one caucasian, a thirtyish young man with a lock of sandy hair splaying out carelessly from beneath his hood.

"I’m Tom Swift," said Tom, offering his hand to each of the group in turn. "I imagine Dr. Galbein is down in the ice cave."

"No, no," said the blond-haired man. "I’m Galbein." Tom couldn’t keep a look of surprise off his face, and the man laughed. "Expecting someone a bit more venerable? Happens all the time—I’m told I have the voice of an elderly pedant."

Bud shook Galbein’s hand. "Just as long as you’re younger than that ice-bound ape of yours!" he quipped.

Galbein laughed again, his puff of breath a white cloud. "A bit younger—by tens of thousands of years."

While Diana and Duncan remained aboard the Sky Queen, Tom and Bud lunched on soup and sandwiches in one of the aluminum huts, where they were introduced to the other four members of Galbein’s team. They were all rather older than the paleontologist, and appeared entirely personable and professional.

Hard to believe any one of them could have planned a mugging, Tom thought. A glance in Bud’s direction told Tom that the young pilot shared his feelings.

Presently Tom politely pointed out that the time he had reserved for this visit was limited, and he was anxious to take a look at the ice cave. "Yes, of course," said Galbein. "I hope your parkas and jackets will keep you warm enough down there."

"Oh, they will," Bud observed. "They’re packed with heating coils. You could fry an egg on the sleeves if you turned up the power."

The boys and the five scientists trekked across the snowfield to a low ridge about one hundred yards distant. Galbein pointed to a narrow, jagged crevice and explained that this was where the ice had collapsed, revealing the route downward. The floor of this cave had subsequently been covered with tarps to prevent slipping.

They hiked down into the ground for about sixty steps, the floor lit by the flashlamps they carried, the opening to the sky closing up above them.

"We’re about forty-five feet below the surface here," Galbein noted. "Of course the ridge gives a bit of additional elevation."

Passing a narrow point, the tunnel suddenly widened out, and there was a feeling of space in the darkness. Dr. Galbein flipped a switch, activating a battery of floodlights and an air-circulating system.

"Gentlemen," exclaimed Galbein like a showman, "I give you—Gigans!"

Tom and Bud were speechless with amazement!

THE GIANT reclined in the glare of the floodlights as if he had lain down only moments before. He seemed more shadow than substance, his form partly masked by the thick, hazy layers of ice surrounding him on all sides. But Gigans’s publicity had not misrepresented him! He was a formidable mass of stringy, bunched fur—dark in some places, but chestnut-brown, even auburn, in others.

Tom poked Bud in the side and pointed wordlessly. Through one clear patch in the ice a single huge eye could be seen, half-open and regarding them with calm aloofness.

After waiting politely for Bud to make a wisecrack, Tom turned toward Dr. Galbein. "This is an incredible sight!"

The paleontologist beamed with pleasure. "Yes, I’m rather proud of my boy."

"He looks—almost—" Bud lost his voice for a moment. "But he isn’t—is he? This isn’t one of those prehistoric guys who comes back to life when he gets hit by lightning?"

One of the scientists, who had been introduced as Nathan Del Rogio, gave a loud laugh. "Dear Gigans is much much too delicate to play with lightning! You see, his cellular structure and gross anatomy—they are in good shape. But alas, his bones are like chalk, and his muscles just cords of frayed rope."

"Despite his remarkable good looks, he is quite desiccated," added another team member, Constance Branche.

Bud managed a smile. "Well—at least he must’ve been in good enough shape to tell you his name!"

The group chuckled and Galbein said, "The word ‘gigans’ derives from the ancient Greek word for giant, of course."

"Of course," Bud said.

Tom had moved closer to the ice-bound figure and was examining the substance in which he was encased, using a pocket magnifying glass equipped with a special built-in illuminator designed to throw whatever came beneath it into sharp relief. Not looking up, he said to Dr. Galbein, "What is this icy stuff, Doctor? It has a greenish tinge."

"Another mystery, young man," he replied. "Admittedly a much more modest one. James here is our chemist and mineralogist—he is working on the problem."

"It’s ice," grunted James Farelly. "Frozen water."

"What makes it green, though?"

"Aaa, who knows?—spores."

Tom looked back. "Plant spores?"

"Is there another kind?" Farelly was obviously not a very inviting conversationalist.

"They’re microscopic, like a fine dust," said Constance Branche. "We have yet to identify the species. The theory is that it leeched oxygen and other dissolved gases out of the water as the water froze, giving the ice unusual preservative properties." She explained that the anthropoidal creature had probably slipped and fallen roughly on the ice-laden surface of a lake, his body breaking through the ice, which had frozen over almost immediately under a dry polar wind. "The poor fellow must’ve become embedded between several loose blocks of ice at the bottom of the lake, which ultimately solidified around him and carried him, as a glacier does, some distance into the ground over the course of many centuries."

Tom nodded but said, "Ice at the bottom…Then part of the mystery is to determine why this form of ice doesn’t expand like normal ice and rise to the surface of the water."

"We don’t know why it collected at the bottom of the lake in frozen form," observed Galbein. "Not yet. But James is hot on the trail."

Farelly said nothing.

Tom rejoined the others and said, "I have a few ideas about how to proceed, Doctor. But it’s going to require quite a bit of scientific equipment and a large, protected space to work in, near to Gigans."

"I’m sure we can arrange for another hut to be constructed near the cave opening," responded Galbein. But Tom shook his head.

"I’d like to have the equipment on the same level as the ape."

Del Rogio looked surprised. "You mean here in the cave? Is that safe—for Gigans, that is?"

"No, not in the cave," Tom said. "I have a digging machine that works with a minimum of vibration. I can use it to hollow-out a space in the bedrock next to the cave—an underground workshop and storage room about 100 feet square, let’s say, with an elevator shaft and its own power supply. The equipment and materials I’ll need can all be carried here in my Flying Lab."

The scientists were electrified by Tom’s plan, even the sullen Farelly. They discussed the details with growing excitement as they made their way back above ground.

Soon Tom bid them farewell. Dr. Galbein walked with Tom and Bud back to the Sky Queen, then paused with them at the hatch ladder. "I didn’t want to bring the matter up in front of the others," the scientist said, "but naturally I’d like to know if anything has been uncovered in the affair of the robbery."

"We may have some leads," Tom replied. "I’d prefer not to go into them at this point—they may not amount to anything. But there is something I’d like to mention, Dr. Galbein."

"Yes?"

"You originally told me only the five of you knew of your discovery."

The paleontologist looked puzzled. "Yes, that’s right. You’ve now met the entire project team."

Tom smiled. "But there are several others here—your Inuit assistants."

"The workers? But—" Galbein’s mouth fell open. "Great day! They’re only in camp now and then, to assist with construction work. I don’t consider them a part of the project at all. But you’re absolutely right, Tom. Though they’ve never been taken down into the ice cave, they have certainly seen us entering it…"

Tom was amused at Galbein’s rather scatterbrained naivete. "Sir, it’s possible that one of them is being paid to monitor your operations. He could have tipped off someone when you sent me that packet."

Galbein reddened with embarrassment. "I—I’m afraid the truth is even worse than that. You see, I didn’t actually take the container packet to Fairbanks myself, for air shipping. I—well—"

Bud grunted disbelievingly. "You mean you had one of those workers do it for you?"

The man sighed. "Obviously, I should have told you. I’ve come to trust these people, who are all of the same extended family. They’ve never shown the slightest curiosity about the project and its purpose. The detail slipped my mind entirely."

Tom chuckled in sympathy, giving a farewell handshake. "It happens, sir. But you might take some extra security precautions. Feel free to contact Harlan Ames if you’d care to consult with him."

As the Flying Lab jet-lifted into the chill Arctic air, Bud let out a snort. "I can’t believe that guy!"

"He must be a real prodigy, to be so absent-minded already at such a young age!" Tom joked. "But I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions, Bud. It’s a long way from some local Inuit settlement to Newfoundland."

The young pilot nodded. "Guess you’re right. So—back to Shopton?"

Tom was silent for a moment, and Diana Mulvey, at the controls, turned his way, curious.

"By the time we get home it’ll be late at night anyway," Tom observed thoughtfully. "What say we park the Queen and sleep over in Canada? That is, if Diana and Duncan don’t mind."

The two expressed agreement, but Bud gave his friend a sharp look. "Sleep over in Canada, huh. Shall I pick the spot? How about—Newfoundland!"

Tom laughed. "Now that you mention it—!"

The Sky Queen banked gracefully and headed east.

Some hours later they were above the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the great island of Newfoundland rising ahead on the horizon. The skyship passed over the town of Channel-Port aux Basques on the Cabot Strait, a cluster of glittering lights, then turned northward. Table Mount was visible in the distance to the west, gray-white in the brilliant moonlight. In minutes they were hovering high above their destination. The Pietrie Valley turned out to be a valley by courtesy only, a small, shallow crescent-shaped depression bordered by low rounded hills. It seemed to be mostly pale pasture land, criss-crossed with streams. Streaks of snow were dimly visible on the northern hills.

"Do you know where the Szelgar compound is located?" Bud asked.

"Harlan gave me the information," Tom answered. "It’s right in the northwestern point of the valley. Look, I think you can see the lights."

Diana asked if Tom wanted her to set the ship down near the estate.

"I don’t plan to intrude," Tom responded. "There a small settlement a few miles away—post office, general store, and so on. Maybe we can ask a few questions tomorrow morning." He directed Diana to bring the ship in low so as to attract a minimum of attention. During the cross-continent flight, Tom had located a somewhat secluded area of the valley to land in, and had secured permission to do so.

They landed and had a light supper aboard, missing Chow Winkler with every bite.

The next morning, the valley still in cold shadow, a segment of the hangar deck lowered to ground level like the floor of an elevator, revealing a pair of helmeted and jacketed figures astride sleek, compact motorcycle-like vehicles. These were new electric zoomcycles, as they were called—gyrostabilized motorbikes constructed of Tomasite plastic, neo-aurium metal, and other tough, lightweight materials. Manufactured by Enterprises’s Swift Construction Company affiliate, each zoomcycle drew its power from a single Swift solar battery.

"Think we’ve had enough practice on these, flyboy?" Tom asked through his helmet transiphone.

"Absolutely!" Bud exclaimed. "Man, these are great—I’d say the days of the horse are numbered!"

They gunned the miniature electrokinetic engines, tucked away in the hubs of the wheels, and sped away from the Sky Queen like a pair of hunting hounds turned loose after a rabbit. Except for the whoosh of the air, the cycles zoomed along in eerie silence. The boys could hear the crowing of roosters from nearby farms.

Tom switched on his periscan radar mapping system, which generated a see-through schematic image of the surrounding area on the inside of his helmet visor. "Coming up to a paved road," he signaled Bud.

As the road appeared ahead, Bud asked which direction they should take. "Left. The settlement’s about three miles down, at the crossroads."

In minutes they had coasted to a stop at the unnamed crossroads settlement, which consisted of a small diner, a hardware store, a market with a post office, and a gas station. Despite the early hour, the locals were up and about, and breakfast was already in full swing in Melba’s Place, the diner. The boys received many a curious stare through the window as they pulled up and dismounted. The stares grew wide-eyed as the handlebars of the zoomcycles folded down and the front and rear sections of the frame slid into one another, the vehicles metamorphosing into compact metallic cocoons no bigger than small suitcases.

"You gonna jest leave ’em sittin’ there?" asked a young blond boy in bib overalls. "Haincha gonna lock ’em up?"

Tom grinned. "Think somebody might steal ’em? Go on, see if you can move one."

The boy walked over and tugged on one. It wouldn’t budge an inch, and couldn’t be lifted off the ground nor dragged across it. He looked at Tom with a questioning frown.