Tom Swift and His G-Force Inverter (8 page)

"No choice. All we can do is follow the trail. Even if we don’t get our hands on the guy, we could come across a clue as to where he hangs out."

"When he’s not on duty."

The trail took them into the moon-shadows of the ancient, looming structure. They proceeded cautiously, thinking that their presence might be challenged at any moment. But most security seemed to be focused on the modern basilica, where the image was housed.

They came across, and slipped through, chainlink fences with signs:
Zona Construción
. "Rampo did it just like we are," Bud whispered. "No one stopped him."

"Within the last hour, too. The traces are very strong and clear, layered over the trails of the zillions of tourist visitors. Bud—I think he went inside the cathedral."

"Sure. He’s a crook. Maybe he decided to make confession! But how are Swift and Barclay going to get inside?"

"Well, how about the same way Rampo did?" The trail led directly to a service door cut in a temporary plywood barrier. If there had ever been a padlock, there wasn’t one now!

They entered into darkness, but pulling open another plywood door they found themselves in a long corridor braced by two-by-four beams, a dim electric bulb burning at the far end. There were no sounds but their own footsteps crunching on the sawdust and shards of stonework and plaster. Bud asked by televoc, "Know the floorplan—I don’t suppose?"

"What counts is that Rampo did." The scent-trail was clear and confident.

They passed into the main body of the ancient cathedral—huge ornate rooms, long hallways, high windows of stained glass. Most of the furnishings had been removed from this portion of the old basilica, evidently in the middle of a decades-long restoration.

Bud pointed to some discarded styrofoam cups. "I hope they drank their ‘big gulp’ with reverence."

More doors, an arching portico—and suddenly they were in a vast and awesome space lit by slanting beams of moonlight. The floor was covered by row after row of pews. "The nave. This is where they used to display the tilma, I think," Tom murmured into his pal’s auditory nerve. "Looks refurbished, as best I can make out."

"Right. Safe for the tours. But not necessarily safe for us!" Bud added nervously, "Don’t you think some lights should be on in here? They
must
have security guards walking through, even after midnight."

"I agree," Tom pronounced grimly. "Someone killed the lights—and maybe took care of the guard as well."

"Man, I wish I had one of your impulse guns!"

"I’d settle for the sensitector."

They made their way up one of the side aisles as stealthily as possible. There was no sound—and then Bud gave a sudden, stifled grunt! "Tom!" he televoc’d. "Look down here!"

Lying between the pew benches was a limp body!

They approached the unmoving form cautiously. It was a man, lying crumpled face-up. Though his face was hard to make out in the dimness, he didn’t appear to be Mexican and had a short goatee.

Tom felt for a pulse. "Dead. I feel blood—I think he’s been shot."

"It’s not Ociéda," Bud murmured. "No uniform—I don’t think it’s a guard."

Tom stood and fished out a cellphone. "Even if we sneak away, we’ve got to alert the police." In the heat of the moment he spoke aloud—and his voice was heard!

"
Drop it!"
came a sharp command from the dark. "Throw the cell as far as you can! If I don’t hear it hit the wall,
I’ll take you down where you stand!
"

Tom handed the cellphone to Bud, whose muscular arms pitched it across the dark. It clattered against the wall.

"Look," Tom called out, "if you’re the basilica guard, we had nothing to do with whatever happened down here."

"Oh, I know that."

"
You
shot him?"

"No. But I saw the muzzle-flash and heard the running steps—up on the other balcony across from where I am. Gone away now—since he hasn’t shot at you two."

"T—er, Don—it’s Ociéda," said Bud bluntly.

"I saw you two before," said the man in shadows. "Seems to me you want badly to say hello."

"If your name is Rampo Ociéda," Tom said loudly, "we just want to talk to you. We have nothing to do with the law. We... we have a deal to offer."

"Oh? But I already thought I
had
a deal, amigo. The man I came here to meet is surely dead. Maybe someone thought he was me. Makes me nervous, eh?"

"But look, Mr. Ociéda—"

"I’m looking, my friend. No
pistólos
drawn as you poke around. I think you’re unarmed. But safe? Even here in the sight of God and the Holy Virgin, no safety for me, it seems. Still—I’m used to it,
señors
. My life, eh?"

"So who
is
this dead guy, anyway?" yelled Bud.

"Should I tell you, if you don’t already know? Like a smart man with a romantic rendezvous, I look over my evening’s date from hiding before showing myself. I saw him enter, but before I could make out his face—
bang bang
. Shot while I was up here, before even a
buenas nóches
. I assumed it was Tezler who entered, the man I was to meet. But now... perhaps Tezler was dead first, somewhere, and now this man who shot him is the same. Too much for me, friends."

"Please listen to us, sir," pleaded Tom. "You picked up something by accident that—it’s
already
putting your life in danger! Look, it won’t do you any good. It’s unique—it would be impossible to fence it."

"To ‘fence’? Well! A fellow professional, I take it! But am I likely to take the word of a stranger?"

"If you—" began Tom—interrupted by the
crack
! of a gun!—not from Rampo Ociéda in the balcony, but from the shadowed altar at the front.

"
Down
!" Bud commanded, yanking his chum to the floor. There were two more flashes from the front, but no answering gunfire from above, only the sharp sound of splintering wood and plaster.

"You okay?" Tom televoc’d.

"Yeah. Let’s worm our way out of here, Skipper. Think we dare cross the plaza?"

"I doubt they’d risk shooting us in the open like that," Tom replied. "Anyway, it seems they’re more interested in Ociéda right now."

After a hidden wait of ten minutes he boys returned to their scooters without incident and sped back to the hotel, stopping en route to make an anonymous telephone call to the
polícia
.

As they parked the scooters at the hotel and dismounted, Bud suddenly hissed out. "Hey, look at this!" He had noticed a slip of paper tightly wrapped around a wire strut at the back of the scooter seat. "This wasn’t here before, Tom."

Tom plucked it off and cautiously unfolded it. The message was crudely scrawled in pen.

PERHAPS, SEÑORS, WE SHALL SPEAK AGAIN—R.O.

"Well," Tom said dryly, "I guess we’ve established diplomatic relations."

"Want to try tracking him further?"

Tom shook his head. "He’s going to run, if he’s smart—and I think he is. We can’t trail him halfway across Mexico."

"What, then? Leave it in Asa Pike’s hands?"

The young inventor stared musingly at the note in his hand. "Bud... for all we know, the other gunman
was
Asa Pike! You know how much I don’t like giving up, flyboy, but whatever The Picasso might be—I’m not willing to set the GDI project aside to stumble around in this rat’s-maze!"

Bud winced with regret but said, "Guess I agree. Shall we fly back right away? It’s already tomorrow!"

"One thing to do before we leave," pronounced the crewcut youth. As daybreak became morning, he placed an advertisement in the capital’s newspaper, in English and Spanish, to run for a week.

R.O. SO NICE TO MEET YOU. CONTINUE OUR DISCUSSION BY CALLING ME IN U.S. — ASK TO SPEAK TO DON STURDY. MUST GET YOUR REPLY IMMEDIATELY OR NO DEAL.

"What’s the phone number you gave?" Bud asked. "That’s not a Shopton area code."

"It’s Graham Kaye’s number at the Key West station," was the reply. "I’ll alert him to be ready to relay the call to me directly, to my cellphone." He added wryly: "My
new
cellphone."

They were back in Shopton that evening, for dinner and a good night’s sleep. In the morning, after reporting to his father and to Ames and Radnor, Tom placed another notice—this time in a box beneath the masthead of
ForeSite
.

THE OZONE LAYER WAS THICK IN MEXICO CITY. INTERACTION BUT NO SOLUTION. NEWSPAPER REPORTS DAMAGE TO OLD BASILICA FROM OZONE CONTACT. NO FURTHER DATA. BASIC SITUATION UNCHANGED.

Guess I owe Asa at least that much of a lead
, Tom thought. Yet, strangely, he found himself half-hoping that Rampo Ociéda would elude him.

Walking down the hall to the repaired high-energy lab, a familiar gravel-toned voice hailed Tom. "Hey there, boss! Back from yer spy trip, hunh?"

"Hi, Chow!" greeted Tom with a broad grin. "I’ll tell you all about it. I’m afraid Bud and I didn’t accomplish our secret mission. But it was the right idea, pardner."

"All ya kin do is try, son."

The rotund ex-Texan walked along with his beloved boss to the lab, where Rafael Franzenberg awaited them.

"One scientific savant, one representative of the masses!" he semi-boomed. "Appropriate for this historic moment."

"More o’ that there
history
, hunh?" said Chow doubtfully. "Seems plain t’ me that
history
mostly means somebody gets in trouble."

"Don’t be a prairie cynic, friend Winkler. This is fun." Franzenberg held out his two meaty hands, a small metal ball, like a marble, in each one. "Weights. Here, Tom, take this one—keep a good grip on it."

Tom took the weight and hefted it. "Heavy. Is it lead?"

"It is."

"Okay, so what’s th’ other one?" asked Chow suspiciously.

"Also lead. Here, see for yourself."

Franzenberg shoved the metal ball into Chow’s waiting hand, not letting loose until the cook’s fingers closed about it.

Instantly Chow squawked—in Texas-wide-eyed alarm!

"WHAT is it, Chow?" exclaimed Tom.

"Th—this thing—it’s
wrist-wrasslin
’ with me!" gulped the westerner. "Tryin’ t’ snake its way out o’ my blame fingers!"

"Don’t be alarmed," soothed Rafe Franzenberg in a smug tone. "It’s only science."

Calming himself, Chow cautiously held out his hand, palm downward, and opened his fingers. The ball remained suspended beneath his hand, pressing upward against his skin. "Like a balloon," breathed the former chuck-wagon cook. "But brand my helium!—I sure never ran across a balloon so small that pushed up so strong!"

Tom turned his stare from Chow’s metal weight to Dr. Franzenberg’s smile. "Rafe—is it—it
can’t
be!"

"History sneaks in on little cat feet, chief," replied the physicist. "Even
I
didn’t anticipate a breakthrough at such an early stage."

"But we assumed—"

"Indeed we did. Molecule by molecule, mere milligrams per hour. And so it was at first. But when I verifed that the air pressure at the top of the columnar collection tube was beginning to exceed that at the bottom—unprecedented!—I knew my initial rotation of air molecules through the G-dimension had been a complete success. I then proceeded with a rather daring reconfiguration of the field and learned the secret to efficiently rotating appreciable masses. Tiny lead pellets, actually, which I melted together to form Chow’s weight—that is, his
anti-weight!
"

"That’s just—"

"Aw now, jest hang on," groused Chow. "What’re yew two talkin’ about?"

Tom was grinning excitedly. "Pardner, that little ball is made of
ingravitized lead!
It’s the world’s first sample of solid matter that falls upward!"

"With the precise same degree of upward push that Tom’s conformist bit of lead has in the customary downward direction," added Rafe. "The two are identical lead weights—but for one small detail, eh?"

"H-here. Take it back," Chow said nervously. "Don’t seem right natural."

"It’s the first sample I made," continued Franzenberg, "but not the only one. I now have a small collection of ingravitized weights inside the observatory dome."

"Why there?" Tom asked.

"Because of the high roof. I’ve been running tests on their upward acceleration. So far the results are exactly as predicted—1-G, vertically. No deviation. For these wondrous little slugs, Earth’s force of gravitation has been perfectly inverted. The tyranny of G has been overturned!"

With these rringing words Chow returned to his duties suffused by a sense of wonder and a twinge of worried awe. Dr. Franzenberg showed Tom the modified G-force inverter, demonstrating his method of using a microrepelatron to "spray" minute metal globules through the crux of the rotation field, capturing them as they exited. "Of course the actual rotation is more or less instantaneous. Like turning your shirt inside-out as you whip it off."

"Good night, what a fantastic step forward!" Tom exulted with gratitude. "We’ll have to announce this result to the public immediately—and to the world scientific community, of course. And it also means we can move forward on formally submitting the Monoswift demonstration project to the Department of the Interior."

Rafe nodded. "Mmm yes, your ‘flying locomotive.’ Rather a banal use for the reversal of a fundamental force of nature, one of the Top Four. But these are banal times, I suppose."

Under George Dilling, the company’s office of Communications and Public Interest performed with its usual efficiency. A brief media release was flung before an astounded world, and a technical account appeared on
ForeSite
.

For a time the affairs of Asa Pike and a Mexican crook named Rampo were forgotten.

The project proposal by Tom Swift Enterprises was quickly lodged among several others on the list of government grantees. Mr. Swift told Tom: "They’ve given the green light to several first-phase demonstration projects—small-scale, low-commitment projects to make an initial determination of feasibility. It’ll all play out over several years, of course."