Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter (8 page)

"Hey, give me some credit!" joked Tom, flicking a switch. Ham gasped in awe as a broad section of the ocean floor became clearly illuminated, as if by strong daylight.

"It’s genius boy’s magic aqualamp," Bud Barclay explained. "Something about penetrating waves of different frequencies, and a coating on the glass plate. The fish tell me they can’t see it at all."

"A submarine sun!" murmured Ham, gazing downward at the floor of the ocean, covered with wrinkled and twisted volcanic rock and overgrown with multicolored subsea forests.

After hovering for a time, Tom opened the throttle and the rotors hummed and picked up speed. Again he shoved the control wheel forward. Like a sinking stone, the seacopter plunged downward into the greenish depths.

Fascinated, Chow watched the schools of fish that flurried past the windows. There were herring, sea bass, and tunny.

"Man oh man, what a sea-food dinner them critters’d make!" Chow muttered.

At ninety-three fathoms down, the seacopter reached the ocean floor. With the vehicle pressed against the bottom by the action of the rotor-prop, Tom extended the caterpillar treads and they began crawling along the sandy, somewhat mucky, terrain. Sea anemones with waving tentacles, grasping sea urchins, and five-pointed serpent stars came into view, as well as many other strange, flowerlike creatures.

For nearly three hours the seacopter roamed the offshore waters, exploring at various depths. Bud asked Tom, "Where are we exactly, skipper?"

"Just west of the East Azores Fracture Zone, and approaching the northward extension of the Horseshoe Seamounts. We’ll start our search on the other side of the peaks, in the Tagus Plain."

Soon after, the powerful aqualamp search beam revealed the first crags and peaks of the Seamounts. "Wow, undersea Alps!" murmured Bud, impressed by their size and grandeur.

"Plato’s account mentions the magnificent mountains surrounding the habitable plain of Atlantis on three sides," Ham Teller commented. "The plain itself lies further south, if our theory’s right."

Crossing the peaks, the
Ocean Arrow
began to descend toward the flat Tagus Plain that bordered the continental slope of Portugal. Now the real search would begin, using a methodical zig-zag pattern that Tom had devised with the help of the two oceanographers, who had already studied the undersea terrain in minute detail. The search area encompassed an oval region 600 miles long by 200 miles broad.

Mr. Swift’s metal detector had been mounted in the bow of the seacopter, with its transmitter-sensor antenna unit protruding through the hull and into the water. The box-shaped Damonscope had been installed in an open space on the deck just back of the detector, its camera lens pointing downward through a small porthole. Tom pushed a button and the Damonscope began to whir softly. Then he switched on the metal detector and carefully adjusted several tuning knobs as Bud and Ham watched with keen interest.

A few seconds later the detector’s audio-alert gave off a faint clicking noise. At the same time, the indicator needle flickered upward into the frequency range that indicated its probing beam was being reflected back by metal.

"Listen to that response!" exclaimed Bud. "Maybe we’ve found the rocket!"

Tom shook his head, smiling at his friend’s excited optimism. "Sorry to disappoint you, but a concentrated mass of metal like a rocket would set off a much louder signal. What we’re getting right now is mostly background noise."

"What’s causing it?" Bud asked.

"Various igneous ores, most likely. This whole volcanic basin is dotted with veins of the stuff."

The detector response continued off and on during most of the day’s search. Tom kept a wary eye on the monitor screen of the Damonscope, but found no trace of the colored fluorescence that would indicate that they had passed over radioactive material. In disappointment, the searchers went back and forth from deep to shallow water without a sign of the rocket.

Though well aware that they were unlikely to find the space vessel on the first day of searching, Tom could not help becoming frustrated. "I’m going to try the detector and the ’scope at a higher power setting," Tom mentioned to Bud. "Maybe I’ve misjudged the absorption characteristics of seawater at this depth."

In Compartment B, which included the ship’s galley equipment, Chow had spent the hours examining and testing the various culinary accoutrements of the
Ocean Arrow
while chatting with George Braun. Using edibles that had been packed on board at Enterprises, the ingenious cook prepared the first meal of the voyage.

"You git to be my guinea pig, George," said Chow. "But don’t worry, I ain’t lost a subject yet!"

Braun sniffed at the meat, which was enclosed in frankfurter rolls. "I’m honored, but what
is
this stuff?" he demanded with mock concern. "Sure is no regulation weenie!"

"Taste it an’ find out," Chow dared him. "You scientists like to experiment, don’t you?"

Frowning, the oceanographer chewed a small mouthful. His face relaxed. "Mm, not bad," he admitted. "Matter of fact, Chow m’man, it’s delicious. There—I’m on record. Now what is it?"

"Whale steak, shrimp, and crab meat stuffed in a sausage skin—my own special recipe. Stead of a frankfurter, I call it a deep-sea ’furter!"

"You should open up a submarine refreshment stand," suggested George. "Probably clean up a fortune selling red-hot sea dogs and whaleburgers!"

"I might jest do that!" Chow grinned smugly, pleased at the success of his first "deep-sea special."

At that moment the cabin lights dimmed slightly.

George glanced up at the lights. "Wonder what that was."

"Prob’ly nuthin’," the Texan responded. But as the minutes passed, the incident stuck in his mind, and the chef began to worry. "Mebbe I’d better call Tom an’ Bud an’ find out what’s-what over there."

Switching on the intercom, he called Tom’s name. But there was no response. He called louder. Still no answer.

"Something wrong, Chow?" asked George, noting the worried expression on the cook’s face.

"By jingies, that’s jest what I’m wonderin’! Tom an’ Bud don’t answer! The way th’ lights flickered, you don’t s’pose—mebbe one o’ them detector thingums blew up!"

George Braun stared at Chow in alarm. "They don’t answer? Something serious may have happened to them!"

"That’s what I’m thinkin’!"

"And the ship is running itself?" George asked in awe.

Chow snapped off the intercom. "Reckon we’d better find out pronto!"

HASTILY OPENING the watertight door, Chow scrambled through the narrow passage which doubled as an airlock, passing one of the
Arrow’s
two underwater hatches. George Braun followed close behind. Panting from the effort of restraining his ample spread, the cook emerged into Compartment A.
"Wa-al, I’ll be a three-horned toad!"
Chow exclaimed.

Tom and Bud were conversing calmly at the controls, as Ham Teller studied the Damonscope screen.

"Why the delegation?" Tom asked, turning around. "Catch a whale back there, Chow?"

"Must be George’s idea," remarked Ham. "He can’t stand to be apart from me for too long."

The cook scratched his bald head in perplexity. "We thought somethin’ was wrong with you two! How come you don’t answer ole Chow when he phones up on that there inner-com?"

"What!" Tom was amazed to learn that the communication system that linked the compartments was out of order. Asking Bud to take over the controls, and grabbing a tool kit from one of the lockers, he quickly checked the system.

"Here’s the trouble," he said presently. "A short in this coil. I’ll bet when I upped the power to the detectors, it caused a fluctuation that the circuits couldn’t handle." In a few moments he had it repaired.

With the entire party momentarily united in Compartment A, Tom reported on the search’s lack of result thus far.

"Are you surprised?" asked George. "After all, you’re looking for a pretty small needle in an underwater haystack thousands of square miles wide."

Tom gave a wry smile. "You’re right. I’m just worried about the possibility of that rocket falling into the hands of men like Wickliffe and his two stooges." Sandy and Bashalli had provided Tom and Bud with a vivid portrait of their disastrous date.

"If’n you want to get some shut-eye, I reckon I can watch these here dials as well as the next man," Chow offered.

"Thanks, pard," said Tom with affection. "But maybe we should move on to our next port of call and batten down for the night."

"You mean Madeira Island?" Bud asked.

Tom replied, "That’s the plan, flyboy. But instead of docking at Funchal, the capital, I think we should detour over to—"

His pal finished for him. "Porto do Moniz! Maybe our friendly local weatherman can tell us something about the Wickliffe boys."

The seacopter surfaced for the first time in many hours and headed south on its cushion of air. The sun was a huge orange ball dipping low in the west when they finally came in sight of Madiera. Tom cruised in a wide arc at some distance from the shore until he had made arrangements with the authorities to land near the town of Porto do Moniz. Finally he received approval to dock in a small cove outside the city limits, where the
Ocean Arrow
would be somewhat hidden from public view.

"Let’s put in there for the night, and sleep aboard the ship as a safety measure," he suggested. "Though it looks fairly deserted."

But the arrival of the strange-shaped, crimson craft was evidently seen by some of the inhabitants of nearby farms and plantations. Several islanders came strolling down the hillside to investigate. Flashing white-toothed grins, they began to chatter excitedly in a mixture of Portuguese and island dialects.

Tom eyed them with a rueful smile. "I hate to be unfriendly, but I’d just as soon they don’t come poking around our seacopter."

He talked to them—partly in elementary Portuguese and partly in sign language—and after handing out a few coins and posing for photos with various children, finally persuaded them to leave.

The voyagers spent what was left of the daylight in exercising, strolling about, and enjoying the fresh air. At suppertime, to their amazement, the native men returned, carrying armloads of bananas, melons, and vegetables which they forced on the visitors.

"Thanks, er—mucho!" murmured the young inventor, smiling warmly and nodding. "Bless ‘em," he chuckled as the Madierans backed away, bowing and grinning. "This will be a real treat for supper."

"I’ll do ’em up nice, with a hot seafood chowder," Chow promised, and he was as good as his word.

The next morning Ham and George volunteered to remain with the
Ocean Arrow
while Tom, Bud, and Chow hiked into town. Tom had received the address of Professor Taclos’s home from Ames. It proved to be beyond the town in the opposite direction.

The pale light of dawn quickly turned golden. Despite the early hour, the streets of Porto do Moniz were rapidly filling with natives, tourists, and automobiles of every possible make and vintage, from the era of the Model-T to the current year’s trendiest sportscar. There were also a good many bicycles and motor-scooters darting about, which made their trek through the streets an exercise in nimble footwork.

Chow pointed at a man on horseback. "Now
there’s
a poke with the best idea!"

Even Tom found the relaxed atmosphere enticing. The three ambled along ever more slowly, taking in the sights.

"I think we’ve turned into tourists!" Bud muttered. "Next thing you know, Chow’s going to start looking for one of his shirts."

They stopped for coffee and pastries in a small café. As they left they sauntered past the open-air stalls that lined the street. Some displayed fresh beef and vegetables; others offered purplish drinks and ice cream made from the fruit of the assai palm, imported from the Cape Verde Islands to the south.

Suddenly Bud, in the lead, stopped before a stand where a fat woman in island garb was selling hand-woven baskets, painted gourds, and other local curios. He pointed to a curious green stone carved in the shape of a turtle which lay on the counter.

"I believe that’s jade, Chow. What a present to take home to Sandy!" Bud turned to the Madieran woman. "Do you speak English?"

She nodded.
"Sim,
Senhor—a little."

"How much for that green carving?"

"Ah, the
piedra verde.
Alas, is not for sale."

Bud frowned. "Why not? You can make another one, can’t you?"

"You do not understand, Senhor," she replied. "I do not make this—it is very, very old. It belong to the warrior women many years ago, when the world was young. This special green stone is now found only under the sea."

Chow’s eyes popped open. "Warrior women! What is she talkin’ about?"

"The old Greeks talked about a tribe of fierce fighting women," explained Bud. "The story’s come down to us as the legend of the Amazons. Come to think of it, Ham Teller said some scholars connect it to the Atlantis myth."

"Ah,
sim,
Senhor—Atalantee!" said the old woman emphatically, looking up.

"Do you know the story, ma’am?" Tom asked.

"I will tell you what my mother told me, as it was passed down to her. She was Basque, from the Pyrenees." When Tom nodded his understanding, she continued: "Turtles like this are in honor of the Great Sea Turtle, who once lived out there." She gestured vaguely in the direction of the ocean. "He floated on the waves. On his back was the stone tower of Yonahbol, the witch-woman, who lived there with her thousand slaves, all of them strong, beautiful men." She cast a meaningful look in Chow’s direction, and the westerner reddened. "She was vain and ate too much, and became so heavy the Great Sea Turtle sank beneath the waves forever. But he cannot die, no more than she, so they live there still. The name of the turtle is Ybalon-tquie, or as they say it now, Atalantee. That is the true story."

Bud dug in his pocket and pulled out some coins. Kneeling down, he spread them out on the wooden plank that she had across her knees. "Your story makes me want the turtle all the more," he said. "Will you take this much money for it?"