Tom Swift and His Aquatomic Tracker (7 page)

"
Parakeets
!" squawked Dan Walde.

"Yeah, that’s a ship. Sure is." Ham Teller’s Brooklyn-tinged voice was blasé. An oblong bulge lay inert far below, showing a sweeping edge obviously fashioned by the hand of man, half buried in sand and silt.

It was obviously far too small to be the colossal
Centurion
. "A Viking ship, perhaps," suggested Alix. "They plied these seas for centuries en route to Iceland, Greenland—even North America, before that ‘Columbus’ fellow."

Taking the initiative, Tom jetted downward. He circled the hulk once, closely, then returned.

"Well?" demanded Bud. "What did you see?"

"There were inscriptions on the side."

"What did they look like? Could you make them out?"

"Sure, flyboy—easily. They were in English. ‘
Divers do it deeper
’."

Tom could imagine the expression on his friend’s face. "And
so
!—on we go."

As they split up again, Alix Tuundvar sonophoned a question. "The boy—why did he say
parakeets
? Nothing looked to me like a bird, not a bit."

"It’s an Omaha expression of amazement," George Braun explained. "Like ‘
jetz
’. I’ve gotten used to it."

"Guys, in Nebraska we try to keep it
clean
," declared Dan Walde coolly. He elaborated by running over a list of words he would never say—in Nebraska.

The hydronauts proceeded in their quest. Sonophone conversation fell off. A distance off and feeling alone, Bud amused himself by watching the fish that glided, blinking and gaping, past the diamond beam of his lamp. One that made him gasp was an enormous oval sunfish over seven feet long. "Boy! Chow could feed a ship’s crew on that baby!" Bud said to himself.

Then suddenly the young Californian became tense as a tone erupted inside his mask, whose inner surface functioned as a stereo loud-speaker. He was being automatically alerted to something big and moving that the suit sonarscope had detected. "Tom—guys― "

"I see it on my scope, Bud," came Tom’s reply.

Added Alix, "Approaching from the rear. Shall we scatter?"

"No," decided Tom. "There’s no sign of its being a threat."

"And it may be interesting," remarked Ham Teller.

"Perhaps this ‘Great Orme’ of yours?" Alix speculated.

"Maybe-might. And by the way, it’s
Conqueror Worm
, please."

The hydronauts drew together protectively and proceeded with caution, alert for possible trouble, as the sonar shadow overtook them. Tom breathed a sigh of relief when he made out a blimp-shaped hull, diving planes, and slim, knifelike conning tower.

"Relax, everybody. It’s a U.S. Navy nuke," Tom signaled.

"Wonder where she’s headed?" Bud replied.

Dan Walde asked, "Do you suppose they’ve spotted us yet?"

"Not by sonar they haven’t," stated Tom confidently. "The Antitec-Tomasite coating on the diversuits prevents it. But still, we’re not invisible to sight. It might be best to hail them on standard sonarphone."

"Permit me," Bud volunteered.

Inside the American sub, the communications operator was monitoring the craft’s sensitive hull phones with a puzzled look. "Thought it was a school of porpoises at first, sir," he reported to the skipper, "but that squeal I’m getting now sounds like a regular sonarphone carrier wave."

"And nothing on the scope for miles around. Try the Gertrude," the captain ordered.

The enlisted man switched on the underwater telephone as the captain issued commands to slow the ship for a more intense sonarscope search. Presently all hands stared in amazement, eyes popping, as a voice from outside came over the speaker:

"And now back to
Talking Fishheads
. Today’s panel of experts are debating the probing question,
Should an octopus try to meet a squid in an oyster bar?
You be the judge! Lines are open—first caller, please!"

Red-faced, the captain strode to the underwater telephone and barked into the mike, "Captain Frost speaking. Who’s out there? What’s going on?"

Tom could not help laughing as he visualized the amazed reaction inside the submarine to Bud’s joke. He waved his pal to silence, then replied, "Sorry, sir. I apologize for the nonsense. This is Tom Swift. That Merman Moderator you heard was my, er, research associate, Professor Barclay. We’re a group of divers on a scientific project."

"Oceanographical," added Ham Teller.

"Nonpolitical," superadded Alix Tuundvar.

The response from the sub was a roar of good-natured mirth. "Well! Tom Swift and company, eh? Your merman really had us going for a while," the skipper said. "I’m Captain Frost of the U.S.S.
Disbursement
, out of Norfolk, standard deep aquatic patrol operations, North Sea up. Keeping America safe."

"Sorry to bother you, sir. We’d come aboard and visit, but we have to complete our mission before we turn back to our base. Incidentally," continued the young inventor, "I don’t suppose you’ve run across any supertankers down here, have you?"

Frost laughed again. "Like the
Centurion
? We’ve been ordered to keep our eyes open. Nothing so far. Well anyway, Tom, you mermen out there—good sailing. That is, swimming."

After an exchange of good wishes, the submarine proceeded on its way north toward the icecap.

"This is
great
," said Dan Walde excitedly. "You never know who you’re going to meet underwater!"

By early afternoon they had passed the rise of the Shetland Islands and the Farroes and were speeding north of west through the Atlantic depths—which had become much deeper. Vegetation disappeared and the sea life seemed far less luxuriant, although the boys frequently sighted schools of fish.

"The Norwegian Basin," announced Braun. "Right smack on the Arctic Circle. When we start seeing mountains ahead, that’s the Jan Meyen Ridge."

"Then we’re not far from Iceland," Dan Walde commented.

Following the trail of current that bore "water X," the team paralleled the sea bottom downward. Even in the glow of the lamps, the water had darkened to a somber gray-green. All hints of sunlight had vanished utterly.

The aquatometer readings had been growing stronger for hours, but Tom knew the team might have to turn homeward before they had found their objective. They were nearing the necessary end of their outbound quest when Tom noticed a sonar reflection which painted almost the whole of his mask-screen with light, a shape that narrowed toward the top.

"What is it? Some sort of geological formation?" Bud queried.

"Must be," Tom guessed, and George Braun added in the tones of an expert, and a teacher, "Probably an underwater volcano or a seamount. Tectonic plates are colliding all over the place here."

Presently, through the greenish murk, a huge dim mass loomed ahead, apparently rearing upward from the ocean floor.

"Hey! Aren’t those lights on top?" Bud signaled.

"Sure looks that way." Tom too could see tiny halos of yellow radiance, but they were too high up and at too great a distance for the hydronauts to make out the source. "Let’s investigate," Tom added cautiously. "But don’t use the visible setting for your aqualamps just yet." All along he had born in mind that "water X" had caused what might well have been an intentional catastrophe, the scheme of a terrorist group. If the mountainous form were its source, the lights could signify enemy action!

The six hydronauts glided forward. Gradually Tom became aware of a strange, tingling sensation. It grew stronger by the moment.

"Anyone else feel that?"

"What concerns me, Tom, is what I’m
seeing
," replied Alix. Suddenly Tom realized that a myriad of coldwater fishes were swarming in the same direction as the divers!—rank upon rank gleaming in the aqualamp beams.

A sense of danger flashed through the young inventor’s mind as he suddenly felt giddy and disoriented. The tingling numbness fogged his brain.

A fearful hunch struck him! With a terrific effort Tom veered his course.

"All of you, stop!" he warned over his sonophone. "Turn aside!
Don’t go any farther or you’ll be electrocuted!"

But not one undersea voice gave a sign of heeding Tom’s warning. He could see his comrades jetting ahead at top speed toward a strange, writhing shadow looming before them, not up from the sea floor below—but down from somewhere high above!

THE symbols marking the blips on Tom’s suit-sonar told him that Bud was leading the others by almost a quarter mile. "Bud!" Tom yelled again into his mask-dome receiver. No use—Bud obviously was too dazed from shock to respond. In seconds he might be beyond help!

Tom hesitated only for an instant. Then, heedless of his own danger, the young inventor speared forward in pursuit. Bud was far ahead by now—perhaps too far to reach in time. Tom gunned his own jet to the limit.

Again Tom felt the strange, tingling sensation, the sizzle in his nerves and muscles of a cascade of tiny shocks. His brain was reeling dizzily—all sense of time and place seemed to be slipping away.

"I mustn’t lose consciousness!" Tom told himself. "If I don’t keep control of my wits, we’re both goners!’’

Tom’s heart sank as he noted that his diverjet seemed suddenly to be sputtering and weakening.
Would he have enough power to catch up to Bud?
Then he realized with a start that he had overtaken his heedless quarry. He was close enough to reach out and grab Bud by the ankle of his sealed boot. The muscular copilot kicked and flailed his arms wildly. The resistance of the water gave a dreamy, slow-motion effect to the struggle.

"Bud—stop it—help me!
Or it’ll kill me too
!" This seemed to penetrate Bud’s frazzled consciousness. The athletic youth’s muscles went limp for a moment.

Tom’s ion hydrojet seemed to have conked out completely, but he managed to swing himself and Bud around so that they were aimed in a safe direction away from the danger zone. He clung doggedly to his chum as he forced his fingers to manipulate his suit controls. Now unable to jet away, he had seen one route to safety. There was a long gap between the bottom of the weird swirling mass that loomed ahead and above, and the dark seafloor far beneath them. By switching off his buoyancy unit and bringing his personal buoyancy to zero, he began to plunge downward away from the phenomenon. "Can you hear me, everyone?" he sonophoned. "Shut down your buoyancy controllers completely—head for the bottom as fast as you can." He calculated that if other jets were also being affected, this would be the best way to quickly put some distance between the team and the
thing
.

It seemed that Bud had zeroed-out his buoyancy too, and the two friends plummeted together. Presently the tingling sensation in Tom’s brain faded. As he softly thudded down on the bottom, he was overjoyed to hear Bud mumble, "Uhh—what’s goin’ on? Hunh?"

Aching from the struggle, Tom was too dazed and drained to reply, but strong arms suddenly latched onto his own, and other arms took Bud. "Th-thanks Alix... Ham..." he managed to gasp.

"Come," said Alix gently. "But we’ll have to walk, I’m afraid—real sea legs! All of our suit jets seem now to be on the proverbial
fritz
." Tom noticed for the first time that Bud’s diverjet had also cut off.

Trudging with no lift and a feeling of dead heaviness, Tom, Bud, and the two rescuers caught up with Dan and George, who had retreated to a safe distance. "Great Scott, what
is
that thing?" gulped George. "Look at it!"

Tom swiveled his head and looked upwards. The huge object was conical, like a shadowy ice cream cone hanging upside down from above, its broad gaping mouth waggling back and forth.

Bud had recovered his voice. "Jetz!
It’s a cyclone made out of fish
!"

"Look at them all!—millions!" exclaimed Alix Tuundvar.

"But what’d it do to us? Was I having raptures of the deep or something?" Bud demanded woozily.

"You’d have been playing a harp in another minute or so," Tom told him. "And we’d all have been right up there with you! You were heading straight into water with enough electrical current to knock a whale silly!"

The young inventor pointed toward the huge seafloor formation that the hydronauts had been approaching. It was now partly hidden from view by swarming fish of all sizes—mostly herring and cod, but also mackerel, tunny, salmon, even a few dolphins and sharks. All were swimming frantically in the same direction, moving gradually upward as if into a narrowing, invisible funnel.

"I d-don’t get it," Bud stammered in confusion. "It’s some kinda flipped-over waterspout—an
underwater
waterspout!"

Dan Walde spoke up. "We studied it in school. There’s an electric deep-sea fishing rig suspended way up there in the water somewhere—it’s the only answer," he said. "I don’t think that type of fishing is legal these days, but― "

"But it’s hard to stop," Teller stated.

George Braun completed the account. "The fish are drawn helplessly to the electrode by a process called electrotaxis. When they get close enough, they’re electrocuted—like bugs hitting one of those bug-burner lamps—and get sucked up through a pipe to the fishing vessel."

"Do you mean to tell us we’d have gone up the spout with the fish?" asked Alix.

Tom shrugged. "Probably—I’m glad we didn’t find out. Our jets might have carried us within the pull of the intake suction."

"S-s-sufferin’ seals!" Bud shuddered at the thought of their narrow escape. "I was dazed enough. If it hadn’t been for you, pal, I’ll bet that trawler would have landed its first California pilot fish by now!"

"What a fish story that would have made," Tom remarked with a grin.

"
Jetz
! I’ll say."

"And what
of
the ‘jetz,’ eh?" Alix pointed out grimly. "They don’t work, none of them."

"Did the electricity short ’em out, Tom?" asked Dan.

The young inventor’s puzzled frown showed through his facemask. "Electricity in the water shouldn’t have affected us at all," he replied; "not inside these sealed, insulated suits. But if they’re using a different kind of setup—maybe inducing electrotaxis by electromag-flux pulsations..." Suddenly his eyes sifted and he exclaimed, "
Hey
! Those lights on the seamount have vanished!"