Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express (12 page)

"Oh, incidentally, did you know that that nice big double fence of yours has an employee access gate right next to the Rink?"

"Oh, it—it does?" Langley haltingly responded.

"Mm-hmm. Don’t blame you for forgetting about it. Welded shut. But now it’s got itself
un
welded, somehow."

"I see."

"I’d suggest giving it some securi-cam coverage. And a new welding job."

As Tom and Ames left, Amy said, "Always a pleasure, Tom."

"Save it for Pete, Amy."

On the highway, the sun rising at their backs, Ames told Tom: "I was at the site of the car crash when I got Langley’s call. Our night security team was there in minutes, Radnor too."

"I don’t remember much about it," Tom stated. "I think the car must’ve flipped over..."

"Over completely and back upright—it’s on all fours. They positioned the ploy away from the big trees, thank goodness. After you smashed down you slid off the pavement. You flattened some bushes."

Tom rubbed his forehead. "You know, I have an interior anticrash repelatron system in my car. I shouldn’t have been knocked out—and as a matter of fact, I’m sore and bruised up, but not in bad shape."

"I don’t think the crash knocked you out, Tom—though it knocked your car for a loop," Ames said. "When I got there Rad pointed out a stain on the driver headrest, and there was a funny smell inside. They must have sprayed something in your face when you were lying there stunned."

Tom snorted. "My poor car! But the Tomasite outer shell is mighty tough."

"In this case, the fact that your car is so light in weight added to the problem. They anchored an unbreakable cable on either side of the road and raised it taut, probably when they saw you coming. I can tell that it caught the car just below bumper level."

"And over I went—on my own electric steam! Mom and Dad sounded pretty frantic when I called from Pete’s office."

"We had already launched a major search operation. And note this, boss—whoever set the trap and carted you off must’ve carried a patrolscope transponder. The radar net covers the grounds all the way out to the main highway, but these guys didn’t show up."

"Another big clue that we’re dealing with people with an ‘in’ at Enterprises; Wickliffe Labs as well." Tom’s troubled frown was voiced in a sigh. "Trusted people, Harlan."

"I’m afraid you’re right."

The cosmotron project went forward—and upward. The following afternoon found Tom hurtling through the fringes of Earth’s air into starry space. "Good we postponed liftoff for half a day," remarked Arvid Hanson. "It’d make me nervous if my driver were half asleep!"

"I feel a lot better," Tom said. "I hope we’ll both being feeling good after the test."

The cosmic ray propulsion of Tom’s Space Kite, a midget domed craft no larger than a compact car, produced a steady acceleration. Within an hour the two astronauts had settled into an orbit 130,000 miles from their shrinking blue world.

The sun slipped behind the huge round horizon of Earth. "Good a spot as any," Tom announced, adjusting the gravitex that gave the Kite its "string." "I wanted to get into the ‘shadow’ of the solar wind a bit."

"Right. I understand why," replied Arv. "You want our marbles to float around evenly without being
blown
around."

Tom now ejected a plastic packet from restraining clamps at the bottom of the hull. The packet glided away into the bright blackness until, miles distant, it could no longer be seen.

Tom checked the radarscope. "In position." He touched a button, sending a signal, and the screen showed the packet blooming with a haze of tiny specks—pellets of lead, like birdshot. The cloud expanded slowly until it formed a hazy sphere on the radarscope, several thousand feet in diameter.

"Marbles deployed," grinned Arv. "Let the game begin!"

Tom now launched a second package in the direction of the cloud—the spacedriver test model Arv and Linda had designed. The cosmotron device reached the center of the mass of pellets, and Tom remotely directed its inbuilt ion thrusters to slow it to a stop relative to the cloud. He glanced at his companion excitedly, then shifted his attention to the machine’s actuator, one of his Spektor remote-control units clamped to the Space Kite’s control board. "We’ll start slow."

Radar showed an instant result. The bright green dot representing the cosmotron abruptly slid off the screen! "Wow!" chuckled Arv. "I can’t get used to the lack of acceleration! How fast is she going?"

"300 feet per second."

They both scrutinized the pellet-cloud for ripples—any obvious sign that the distortion of momentum-space had surged beyond its desired bounds. "Nothing," declared Tom in triumph. "We’ve contained the field, at least at minimum power."

"Let’s up it a little, Skipper."

The young inventor "gunned the engine" and the green dot abruptly flicked off the edge of the screen, leaving the cloud of test-marbles behind. "The pellets are still floating steady," Tom announced. "No swirl or backwash. Arv, I think we’ve got ’er licked!"

Hanson chuckled. "But of course. Don’t make me pretend to be surprised, boss! By the way," added the big Swede, "where’s ‘cosmo’ got to?"

"Let’s see." Tom expanded the radar sweep one, two, three orders of magnitude. "There she is."

"Really scooting along!"

"Pretty nice scooting. The unit is surfing through space at, oh,
four thousand miles per second!
"

The modelmaker’s mouth dropped open, then clomped shut. "I—I can hardly believe it!"

"Let’s really open her up!"

Tom sent the signal, and again the radarscope required adjustment. "Look at those Doppler figures, Arv—the spacedriver unit is travelling at point-zero-five C—five percent of the speed of light!"

Awe radiated from the older man’s face. "Nine-thousand miles per second! No manmade machine has ever moved that fast, Skipper!"

Tom’s own face became thoughtful. "No
earthman
-made machine, anyway." Arv understood immediately. The Space Friends, the never-seen extraterrestrials who had established radio contact with the Swifts, had also made contact another way, by fantastic vehicles that seemed able to defy the laws of nature—including the speed-of-light limit to motion.

Arv said, "I wonder if the Space Friends are monitoring all this."

"Probably. We’ve barely heard from them since the Pacific mission. They haven’t replied to our inquiries about the space disappearances—which could mean they’re afraid those space enemies of theirs are monitoring their communications."

As the Space Kite moved serenely along its elongated orbit, Tom directed the spacedriver model in other feats of speed and maneuvering, finally sending it in the direction of the sun. But only seconds after leaving the earth’s orbit for the inner solar system, Hanson reported that its velocity was wavering. "As expected," nodded Tom as they left Earth’s shadow and the rays of the sun suddenly flooded the dome. "Additional structural stress, too. The gravity gradient nearer the sun changes too acutely for the field to remain flat. Until we engineer-out that instability, the
Starward
will have to stick to the outer solar system."

"Shall we reel the spacedriver back in, Tom?"

The young inventor nodded. "Go ahead. I’ll stabilize us in position." But he had barely transmitted the commands to the drone when a peculiar sound erupted inside the Space Kite cockpit. "What’s that?" Arv asked nervously. "An alarm?"

Tom checked the instruments. "No. I have no idea what’s—" His reply broke off as the sound redoubled—a shrill buzzing that throbbed in an irregular rhythm. On a hunch Tom half-rose from his seat and stretched has gauntleted hand toward the surface of the viewdome.

He yelped and drew back his hand. "It’s vibrating! Good night, what’s going on?"

"Some effect from the cosmotron?" suggested Arv.

Tom adjusted the controls, but the vibrations continued—and seemed to be increasing. The entire Space Kite was beginning to swing back and forth, as if struggling in the grip of something unseen!

"It’s not the cosmotron," Tom declared. His deep-set blue eyes met Arv’s as both astronauts shared the same ominous thought.

Could this be the same space phenomenon that had attacked the
Dyaune
and the Nestria capsule? Was the Space Kite about to disappear?

Or disintegrate?

"I CAN’T tell where it’s coming from," said Tom breathlessly, fighting the board for control. "It’s not a problem with the subtrino ‘wind’—the cosmic reactor is producing a steady thrust."

"Something from
out there
," gulped Arv. "Maybe from a ‘cloaked’ spacecraft—the
Dyaune
!"

"Or the
Fanshen
, the Cobra group’s ship. Whatever it is, it seems to be fumbling, like it can’t quite get a grip on the Kite." The young spaceman threw a fierce look at his friend. "That means we have a chance to fight it!"

To Hanson’s surprise, Tom suddenly yanked the mechanical lever that dis-aligned the shutters on the grille-like cosmic reactor that formed the rear face of the hull. The G-force of acceleration dropped away instantly, and as it did, Tom reoriented the gravitex directional cone and threw it into its highest power. "Focusing on the moon’s grav field," he murmured tensely.

The two were thrown forward against the safety restraints of their seats as the gravitex effect took hold. The gravity-amplifying device was now "falling" moonward, yanking the entire Space Kite, facing backward, along with it.

"I—I get the plan," said Arv.

"If we’re caught in some kind of beam, or focused field, it may be interacting with our reactor drive cells. Using the gravitex alone could give us more muscle to break free!"

The craft accelerated toward Luna at several times the normal acceleration of Earth’s gravity, 9.8 meters per second squared. They felt every squared second, travelling aft-forward. "
Yolff yeerie!
" grunted the full-blooded Swede. "S-Skipper, the straps are biting into my—"

"I can’t tell if we’ve broken free," gasped Tom. "The acceleration is masking the effect. I’ll... have to risk..."

Then, suddenly, their acceleration ceased. Tom had switched off the gravitex. They arrowed along serenely on their accumulated velocity, as if suspended motionless in the vault of stars. "Whatever was trying to grab us has given up," panted the youth. "Or maybe the earth, or the moon, got in the way of the beam as the angles changed."

"Do we dare put about and head for home?"

"I intend to try, Arv—in a little while!"

"Right. Let’s just drift. Very relaxing."

But the worrisome journey encountered no further challenges. Reactivating the cosmic reactor and gravitex, Tom was able to rendezvous with the cosmotron model and bring it back aboard. "If they plotted all this in order to steal the machine, they’re out of luck."

Hanson grinned. "I’d say they were out of luck the moment they decided to take on Tom Swift!" He added nervously. "Whoever
they
might be."

Foreseeing the possibility that something might yet interfere with the Space Kite, Tom contacted his father via the craft’s Private Ear Radio and provided a summary report. "I’ll keep an eye on you with the megascope, son," Mr. Swift promised. "And I’ll alert Fearing to have the
Challenger
ready in case a rescue is necessary."

After the long, slow atmospheric descent, the craft landed at Swift Enterprises. While Arv carted away the cosmotron unit, Tom met up with Bud. "Another space adventure!" exclaimed the black-haired pilot. "Maybe we should just stay on the ground."

"Coming from you, flyboy, I know that’s not a serious suggestion!" joked Tom. "As you said—we’ve got to find out what’s
out there.
"

"Right. Before
it
finds
us
!"

The two pals elevatored up to the office Tom shared with his father. "He’s waiting for you," announced Munford Trent from his desk in the reception lobby. "And Mr. Thurston will be calling around seven."

"Thanks, Trent. Ask Chow to bring over some supper, will you?"

Inside, as Bud lounged in a chair listening, Tom discussed the space phenomenon with his father. "Worrisome," said the elder Swift. "It reminds me of the repelatron interference effect caused by the neutron star fragment."

"But Dad, this effect didn’t involve repelatrons at all," his son reminded him. "The Space Kite uses an entirely unrelated propulsion principle, the transit capsule was just coasting along on a transfer orbit, and I’m sure the
Dyaune
was using some kind of souped-up version of its original nuclear-ion system."

"But you really don’t know that what just happened has anything to do with the disappearances," Bud pointed out, half-eyeing the door for Chow and food. His muscular body could be demanding.

"You’re right," said Tom. "I’ve wondered..."

Damon Swift smiled. "I think we’re both wondering the same thing, son. This may not involve a neutron star, but it could nonetheless be a natural phenomenon—and we do have a possible culprit out there."

"Emma," declared Tom with a nod.

"Emma?" asked Bud. "Who’s she?"

"The anomalous G-wave source I’ve mentioned. The readings from the propagation analyzer have confirmed that it—whatever the
heck
it is—er, sorry—is in the outer fringes of the Kuiper Belt," explained the young inventor.

"Jetz!—way beyond the ‘former planet’ known as Pluto."

"I intend to try finding Emma on the Grand Tour flight," Tom noted. "But Dad, Bud... whatever this ‘space rumble’ was, it’s not a gravitational phenomenon. It has no relation to the anomalous G-waves Emma produces. The instruments on the Kite showed that."

"Then
what
?" asked Bud.

"Well, here’s an unpleasant possibility," Mr. Swift put in. "As you know, we’ve been asking the space friends about the Emma object for quite some time, as well as the
Dyaune
disappearance, and now the disappearance of the capsule from Nestria."

"But Tom says they haven’t responded," noted Bud.

"We’ve had very little contact with them since the business of the ‘memory crypt’ that you two visited in the geotron," Damon Swift said. "Just perfunctory responses. Nothing at all for months, in fact."