Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter (15 page)

Soon the
Ocean Arrow
was again under way with its crew of five. At first the new invention yielded only random background signals. But about fifty miles into the main search area the tone emanating from the sonarphone speakers grew slightly louder. Ham glanced up at Tom with a look of tense interest.

"I think we’ve picked up something!"

"What’s the indicator response?"

"Needle’s way up in the intensity range—a lot higher than before."

Tom grinned. "Keep your fingers crossed. I don’t know about you oceanographers, but I’m starting to feel a little waterlogged!"

The
Ocean Arrow
continued its seaward run. Tom guided the wheel by the response from the locator. Bit by bit the promising signal grew louder as a compass-like dial pointed the way. Finally, in a part of the zone not yet surveyed, a red light flashed on amid the readout monitors and controls.

"We’ve locked on!" exclaimed Tom.

"Sounds like a jackpot!" said Bud.

"An’ that’s about the sweetest sound in this here world!" added Chow Winkler, provoking nods of agreement all around.

Opening the throttle, Tom eased forward on the control wheel. The
Ocean Arrow
plummeted downward under the driving force of its rotor-prop blades. The mariners watched as the turquoise waters once again darkened into inky blackness.

As they touched the ocean floor, Tom flicked on both powerful aqualamps. Their stabbing glare carved perfect pearly cones through the blackness. What the lights revealed made the searchers gasp with excitement. Far ahead loomed a jutting pointed object!

Gripped by suspense, Tom and his friends peered across the ocean floor. George was the first to find his voice. "Tom! Have we found the rocket?"

The young inventor’s heart was pounding, but he managed to give a cool reply. "Could be. Let’s get a closer look."

After jetting to within a hundred feet, Tom pushed the craft to the bottom and pulled a lever to extend the tractor gear, then thumbed a button to start the caterpillar treads running. He wanted to avoid any risk that the wash from the steam jets would harm the rocket. As the
Ocean Arrow
lurched into motion, he swiveled the blades to a shallower pitch.

"How come you’re changing the rotor?" Bud asked.

"Because it will give us extra buoyancy, so we won’t get stuck," Tom explained. "Look how the floor around here is torn up!"

"It must’ve run right into the earth like a cannonball," whispered George Braun, half to himself. "Hard to believe any living thing could survive."

"I don’t think this is a result of impact," remarked Tom. "The propulsion field may have caused the ground to fracture and buckle because of the silicon in the rocks."

Yard by yard, the seacopter crawled forward through the murk and sediment. As they came within closer view of the pointed object, Bud let out a whoop.

"It
is
the space rocket!’’

There was no doubt now—it matched perfectly the object they had photographed over Shopton! Cigar-shaped, it had the same round, cuplike fins running along its length.

"You’ve done it, Tom, you old deep-water sleuth!" Bud went on, throwing an arm around his pal. "I thought it was hopeless, but you’ve beat Wickliffe to the punch!"

Ham and George crowded close to add their own congratulations, clapping Tom on the back and wringing his hand. Tom was filled with elation. His thoughts raced ahead to the contents of the rocket and the valuable secrets they might reveal regarding life on another planet. Outwardly, his only response was a quiet smile of satisfaction.

"There’s still plenty to do. Let’s not forget that hoisting the rocket is going to be a terrific job. And there’s always Wickliffe to interfere."

"What’s our next move?" Ham asked.

"I’d like to take a look inside the rocket with my Eye-Spy camera," Tom replied, and the young inventor explained briefly how it worked. "It’s the new color model."

"Wow! What an eyeful this should be—a full-color view of life on another planet!" Bud exclaimed.

The camera, battened down by clamps in one corner of the cabin, was released. Tom dollied it up to the window, plugged it into a power outlet, and trained the lens on the rocket. Then he switched on the current, and as the set warmed up, began tuning several knobs and dials.

"Here comes the picture!" Ham murmured.

The image that flickered into focus on the screen was both tantalizing and disappointing. It showed the rocket to contain an outer layer of opaque tubes which the camera’s eye could not penetrate. Between these tubes could be glimpsed a transparent inner section containing some kind of weird reddish objects.

The image lasted only a few seconds. Then there was a popping noise and the picture blacked out as a whiff of smoke issued from the camera.

"Hey, what happened?"

Tom opened a small door at the rear of the camera housing. "The beam projectors blew out."

Luckily, he had brought a set of replacements, which he quickly installed. But precisely the same thing happened again—the image lasted only a few seconds, then the bulbs failed again!

"What’s causing it?" George asked.

"Must be something unusual about the substance of the rocket—probably whatever’s in those long tubes," Tom deduced. "It affects the electronic beam, I think, and that in turn overloads the circuits."

"What interested me," said Ham, "were those reddish things inside. What were they?"

"The billion-dollar question!" Tom grinned. Then he sobered. "Anyhow, we’ll soon find out."

"What do you mean?" Bud queried.

"I intend to try moving the rocket right now."

Before Tom could explain his plans, a buzzer sounded on the control board. "The scope is picking up something," Bud said. "But where is it?"

Chow craned his neck, looking out the viewpane. "Don’t see a thing!" he reported.

Tom swiveled the sonar sounders, puzzled. "It’s not all that far away from us," he noted. "And it’s not small, either! I’d say about seven feet across."

"Maybe it’s interference from the rocket," George suggested.

"No, I—" Abruptly Tom’s eyes widened as the solution presented itself. "Good night, it’s over our heads!"

Bud squirmed into the space under the curved quartz panes and twisted his head upward. "A big round metal thing." Getting back on his feet, he looked at Tom soberly. "It’s a diving bell, pal."

"Munson Wickliffe!" grated Tom.

THE SHIPMATES were outraged and alarmed.

"If that coot thinks he’s a-goin’ to rustle away your prize—" Chow began furiously.

"Let’s not worry about what he thinks!" Tom declared. "I’m more concerned with what he does."

"Should we alert the authorities?" Ham inquired.

"Wickliffe hasn’t broken the law yet," was Tom’s reluctant answer. "At least, we’re not sure he has. Besides, he could cause a lot of trouble down here before anyone reached his boat up on the surface."

"Okay. So what do you want to do?" demanded Bud.

"Let me think." After a moment Tom turned to the ship’s controls. He lessened the blade-pitch, and after the
Ocean Arrow
had ascended away from the vicinity of the half-buried space vessel he cautiously activated the jets. The seacopter inched forward through the water. Tom swung her about in a wide arc and approached the spherical diving bell, which hung in the aqualamp beam like a bloated spider.

Dangling from thick cables, the diving bell sported four round portholes spaced around its periphery, each one bulging out like a dome to allow a downward view. A dim light streamed from these windows, and behind one the oceannauts could make out a figure in silhouette. "There he is!" growled Bud, his muscles tensing unconsciously. "Wickliffe."

"Some’n else in there too," Chow said. "Must be that Professor hombre."

"What’s Wickliffe up to?" murmured George, puzzled.

Wickliffe had leaned forward into the porthole dome, showing his face clearly in the light from the seacopter. He made a series of choppy gestures.

"Telling us to get lost," Bud said. "I’ve got a few gestures for him!"

But now Dr. Wickliffe leaned even closer to the glass, his breath fogging it and obscuring the view.

"Guess he don’t wanna be seen!"

"Wait, Chow," Tom cautioned. "Look what he’s doing." With the tip of his finger the scientist was writing a message on the fogged glass—backwards to him, but readable by the seacopter crew.

HELD CAPTIVE IN BELL. 3 IN BOAT W. GUNS. O-2 CUT OFF. HELP US!

"Tom, you’re not going to fall for that, I hope!" urged Bud heatedly.

"I believe him," Tom replied simply. "There’s a limit to what I’ll believe of an eminent scientist like Munson Wickliffe—and we’ve seen what sort of men the others are."

Ham Teller laid a hand on the young inventor’s shoulder. "We owe it to you to trust your instincts, Tom. But what do you plan to do?"

"If the
Sky Queen
were still shadowing us, it’d be over pretty quick," Bud remarked sourly.

"But she isn’t," was Tom’s response. Then he flashed Bud a grin, and Bud knew that his pal had come up with a plan!

Above, Professor Taclos’s square-built research vessel bobbed in the gentle waves. Ferd Acton lounged on a deck chair in the sun, a straw hat pulled down over his eyes, inert as a century-old tortoise.

"Should we pull them up now, my friend?" came the nervous voice of Raca. "The air must be very bad."

"Pull them up? I think not," replied Acton lazily. "The bad air will clear their heads." He slid back his hat and threw a harsh stare at Raca. "Let’s not forget that Wickliffe and your boss have some unrealistic views on what to do with this treasure ship we’ve found."

Raca shifted uncomfortably. "Really, senhor, the Professor only wanted to share the scientific data with the world."

"Well, the world will have to pay a price if we have something it wants," declared Acton. "It’s only fair. Kelt and I worked at the lab for years at a salary far below the going rate. We have the right to some compensation."

"That’s right, Ferd," called Kelton Price from the cabin. "Wickliffe was getting a little ornery. Good thing you pulled a gun on him."

Raca looked out to sea. "I wish to have nothing to do with murder."

"Murder!" snorted Acton. "Who’s talking about that, hmm? Our aquatic prisoners are fine. Or at least they were an hour ago. If some unanticipated failure in the oxygen delivery line should have regrettable consequences, that’s not my—"

"Senhor!"
interrupted Raca. "Something is happening!"

Acton scrambled to his feet, and he and Price joined Raca at the deck rail. The water around the craft seemed to be bubbling and frothing. "It’s those Swift people!" Kelt Price cried.

"They must be trying to steal our rocket," observed Acton, an edge of anxiety in his voice. "And we can’t have that, can we, fellows?"

Beneath the cover of the waves, twenty feet under the shallow keel of the boat, the
Ocean Arrow
hung suspended at a constant level. The rotor blades were churning rapidly, throwing a powerful rush of water toward the surface while the lateral jets, angled downward, kept the seacopter from being forced lower.

"I
like
this way of sending a message!" Bud chortled.

"Sure beats writing on a window," agreed Tom.

After a minute Tom edged away, allowing the diving bell cables and oxygen tubes, which the
Arrow
had pushed aside, to become vertical again. "That unnerved them a little, I’d say," Tom declared. "If we surface next to them, I expect them to start waving the white flag."

Ham Teller was gazing upward at the underside of the boat. "One of those funny portholes built in to the bottom just swung open," he reported. "They’re dropping something, but it doesn’t look much like a white flag."

A small drum-shaped object fell slowly through the aqualamp beam and past the viewpane, followed by several more.

"Good night!" Bud choked.
"Depth charges!"

Even as Bud uttered the exclamation point, a deep
boom!
echoed through the cabin, and the
Ocean Arrow
bucked and wavered violently.

"They’ll destroy the rocket!" Tom cried.

"And the diving bell!" exclaimed George.

"And
us!"
added Chow, eyes wide.

Tom’s eyes darted over the control panel, his fingers following almost as rapidly. He swiveled the jets and swung about, then gunned the throttle.

Bud warned, "Skipper, you’re going to hit the—"

"Exactly!"

The fore-edge of the diving seacopter now pushed into the cables that linked the diving bell to the boat above. As more depth charges exploded, Tom drove the
Arrow
forward until he was certain that the cables had become snared in the seacop’s curving prow vanes. Then, with a look of steely determination, he threw atom power into the steam jets. The subcraft began to move—
really
move!

Chow cheered, reaching up for a hat to toss, then remembering that his was lost. "Tha’s it, boss! We’re draggin’ those varmints right through th’ waves!"

It was as if Taclos’s boat had unwittingly caught a whale on a fishing line. The
Ocean Arrow
dragged the ship along for mile after mile, in what Tom knew would be a rough and choppy ride for both the boat above and the diving bell below. The mariners could see chairs, boxes, and all sorts of loose equipments scattering down into the sea from the bouncing deck above. Then, for a finale, the young inventor turned the nose of his craft downward. Yanked toward the bottom, Taclos’s boat was almost completely swamped before Tom relented.

"Hold her steady in the water, Bud," Tom directed. "Let’s see how things are going up above." He cranked the Eye-Spy camera into a steep upward angle so that it focused through the underside of the boat and into the main cabin. Despite the distorted perspective, the import of the scene was perfectly clear.

"Sickest bunch o’ seamen I ever did see!" gloated Chow. "Bet they don’t even have the mojo t’ pull the trigger, if’n they haven’t lost the gun."