Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober (12 page)

"Check. And to that we have to add the aluminum base hoop. Now look at the way it’s anchored," Tom went on, pointing toward the base of the laboratory wall. "Just bolted down to the concrete floor slab."

"But we’ve already found that we can’t loosen the bolts. And even if we could, we’re hardly strong enough to lift the base to squeeze out under it."

Tom winked at his father and whispered, "Dad, who said anything about
loosening
or
lifting
?"

Mr. Swift listened with keen interest as Tom explained his plan. His face broke into a smile.

"Typically unbelievable—and typically terrific, son! Let’s get started!"

The two Swifts set to work like beavers. They continued on through the night and into the next day, breaking only for catnaps and the meals handed to them at gunpoint—no longer by Angela, they noticed.

The igloo lab contained a great panoply of machines and materials that Li Ching and his scientists evidently thought would be necessary in studying and perfecting the Private Ear Radios, and perhaps other pilfered inventions. Of vital interest were three things: a tank of helium, a compression gas liquifier, and the raw materials needed to create a plastic substance called duraflexon, a tough stuff which curled into different shapes upon exposure to electric current. "Once everything is set up and running, Dad, we can turn out a big batch of those vacuspheres you and I were experimenting with at Enterprises," Tom had told his father. These spheres, about the size of golf balls, had a paper-thin shell that weighed very little, enclosing a vacuum which gave the spheres buoyancy like ultra-powerful balloons. "By filling the top of the dome with them, the buoyancy effect will be strong enough to counteract the igloo’s weight. After we detach the base from the concrete slab, we should be able to raise it up a ways by hand. And then, into the woods!"

"Well, Tom, seems to me you’re thinking too small," Damon Swift retorted affectionately. "Here’s another idea!"

While Tom labored hour after hour to carry out the chemical process for producing duraflexon, Mr. Swift constructed an imposing-looking chassis, explaining to the sisters that it was required for certain delicate tests. Much of the time he kept the speaker volume of the two PER units tuned loud, purposely making the signal crackle with static. This not only covered other sounds and gave an impression of concerted activity, but made it extremely unpleasant for their captors to poke their noses into the dome. It was apparent that none of the Women With Issues had any real interest in the Swifts’ science or technology—only in being able to deliver a finished product to Li Ching.

As Julia Pellasen handed them their supper on the second day of captivity, she snapped, "When are you two geniuses going to be done with that blink-blank radio?" She winced as a speaker produced a blast of static.

"Won’t be too long now," was Mr. Swift’s reply.

"By morning we’ll be all set," Tom told her.

Mr. Swift and Tom ate hastily and returned to work. By the middle of the night, Tom activated the duraflexon producer, which fed the raw plastic into a simple fabricating device. Tom scooped piles of the small objects, which at that point resembled pea pods, from the receiving bin. Then Mr. Swift passed them one by one through a brush electrical contact. In the wink of an eye each pod popped into a spherical shape—with sheer nothingness inside!—and shot ceilingward. By the first light of dawn, the upper hollow of the igloo dome was crammed with vacuspheres straining for the sky.

"And now the final step," Tom murmured. He took a long insulated hose, outfitted with a crude nozzle, and approached one of the metal anchoring bolts. He crouched and held the nozzle against the bolt. "Go ahead, Dad."

Mr. Swift twisted a control knob, and liquid helium began to spray explosively from the nozzle, producing a cloud of white condensation.

A moment later Mr. Swift cut off the flow, and Tom poised a heavy wrench above the glistening frost-coated bolt. He struck it a sharp blow, and it shattered like glass!

It took about forty minutes to make a circuit of the perimeter. At last only two bolts remained! The Swifts could now see a crack of morning light under the aluminum coupling hoop.

"Get into place, Dad," Tom whispered. "It’s time!"

The elder Swift nodded vigorously, a smile of tense excitement playing about his lips.

Dad’s actually enjoying this tight spot we’re in!
Tom thought with admiration.
What a Swift!

The young inventor sprayed the bolt next to him, then slid into one of the lightweight plastic chairs that they had carefully tied, by strong power cables, to the base hoop of the igloo using the empty holes left by the bolts. His father was already seated in the other chair on the opposite side of the room.

Tom kicked the bolt with the heel of his shoe. As it disintegrated, the entire dome suddenly wrenched upward on Tom’s side. The levered strength of the lift was sufficient to snap the remaining bolt, just as they had calculated.

What happened then was like something in a dream.
The entire igloo went soaring aloft like a free balloon!
The two Swifts rose with it, clinging to their chairs as they swayed violently back and forth.

"We’re off!" Tom yelled joyfully.

Below lay the concrete floor slab with its bare ribbing struts, and all the laboratory equipment. Two of their captors, Lana and Big Bertha, came trotting from the shed. They gaped up at them, open-mouthed in sheer disbelief.

"
So long!
" Tom shouted down at the two Women With Issues as their faces turned into pale dots. "Give our regards to your boss!"

"It’s magic!" Lana Pellasen cried, a look of terror on her face.

"Jules" was the first to collect her wits. "Knock it off!" she snarled. "Shoot em’ down!" They both whipped out automatics and poured a volley of shots skyward. But by this time the flying igloo and its two gleeful passengers were well out of gun range.

"I’ll bet we shocked ’em out of a year’s growth!" Tom called to his father. "Imagine Li Ching’s face when they tell him
this
story!"

Mr. Swift’s answering chuckle drifted back on the wind. "He won’t believe it!"

"
I don’t even believe it, Dad!
"

The laboratory site lay far below now, and the figures of the two guards had dwindled to mere specks. A stiff dawntime breeze was carrying the igloo toward a nearby range of hills.

"How are you holding up, son?" Mr. Swift called.

They were both clenching themselves tightly to the chairs as they swayed and bounced. "Muscles getting a bit stiff and strained, but I can hang on," Tom replied. "How about you, Dad?"

"Perfectly okay. I suggest we hang on until we’re floating over this ridge we’re coming to, then drop off. It’ll give us less of a jolt—looks like we might scrape it."

Tom gazed at the countryside below as a southeast wind bore them along through the dimness of early morning. There were no towns or crossroad villages in sight, and the nearest highway he could make out seemed to lie miles away.

They drifted closer to the ridge—and then the wind changed, carrying them northward.

"Nice up here," Mr. Swift called across, "but I’m getting a bit tired of the scenery. Any thoughts, Tom?"

"Give me a minute." Tom finally yelled out: "Dad, we’ve got to tip the dome and release some of the vacuspheres."

"Son, I’d call that an accurate observation—
not
an idea. How do you propose our doing it?"

"Don’t watch!"

Over Damon Swifts protests, and with thudding heart, Tom edged his way out of his plastic chair, half-standing to grasp the dome’s base-hoop, which was fairly thick but fortunately was topped by a protruding flange. Tom was trim and strong, but he was no Bud Barclay. His hand and arm muscles were already worn and aching.
Would they hold him?

"W-well," he muttered to himself, "that’s
one
good way to shift the weight balance of the igloo—by falling off!"

Tom wrenched himself upward, for one dizzying moment hanging free in space. Then another agonizing pull and a crunch-swing from the waist, and he was able to clomp one heel, then the other, onto the top ridge of the aluminum tube. He managed to pull himself up closer, then began to shinny along the metal beam. He slowly approached his father—whose heart wasn’t so much thudding as lodged somewhere in his throat!

As Tom wormed his way along, the igloo dome began to list over to one side. As the tilt became greater and greater, the mob of vacuspheres shifted, the leading edge of the cluster approaching the bottom of the curved wall, which now was nearly above them. Another tilt—and a flock of the spheres began to spill out, falling
upwards
into the sky!

A firm hand grasped Tom’s sleeve. "Steady, son. I’ve got you. Brace against my knee." Grateful, the young inventor swung down with a groan.

The flying igloo began sinking gently toward a grassy hilltop as more and more of the tiny spheres escaped into the heavens. Within moments the remarkable fliers were nearing the ground.

"
Jump!
" Tom cried, and then took his own advice. Mr. Swift landed deftly with a gentle bump. Tom let his knees go soft and rolled as he hit, but was uninjured.

As to the igloo, it responded to the sudden loss of weight by righting itself and making for the sky again.

"Are you all right, Tom?" Mr. Swift asked as he hurried to join the younger inventor.

"Right as rain, Dad. And glad to be down." The two scanned the local country from their slight elevation. The rise was entirely surrounded by thick woodlands. "Now the problem is to find our way out of these woods. If we can only reach a house or roadside service station, we can phone the local police to pick up our lively ladies before they run off."

"I have no doubt they’ve
already
run off," Mr. Swift commented. "And as for a roadside service station― "

"I know, Dad. First we have to find a road!"

Damon Swift nodded, smiling. "I’m afraid we’re in for a long hike."

They picked their way down the hillside and plunged into the tangled woodland underbrush.

"Let’s head away from our line of flight," Tom urged. "If what Julia Pellasen said wasn’t just a bluff, Li Ching, or his employees, may be tracking the lab shell on radar from up above."

Mr. Swift agreed, but added: "Even if they saw the dome take wing, I’m hoping they didn’t have a chance to bring in the Eyeballer to chase after it."

"They must not have, or they’d have used the freeze-beam on us," Tom pointed out. "There’s just one drone, and it’s probably several states distant right now."

They began trudging in the direction of the climbing sun. The morning passed slowly as they pushed on through woods and brush. The sun was at noon height as Tom and his father finally sighted a farmhouse next to a narrow dirt road. An old battered pickup—a proverbial rustbucket—lay in front, as if in a coma.

Weary and disheveled, the Swifts tramped up to the back door and knocked several knocks. A grizzled man in shirt sleeves opened the door.

He looked the dirty, unshaven strangers up and down. "What d’ye want?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Mind if we use your phone?" asked Tom’s father.

"My phone? Why for? Who’d you plan on callin’?"

"Our—our business office."

"What
kind
o’ business?"

"Manufacturing."

"Nothin’ like that around t’here!" grumped the man. "Where is it?"

"Shopton, New York."

"Oh now, swell and fine! I’m s’posed to let you two total strangers make a long distance call on my dime, that it? Tell me another!"

Mr. Swift felt his charm and patience ebbing away. "Now look... sir," he said. "We’re lost. Would you be kind enough to help us?"

"
Lost?
Y’mean yer car broke down?"

"No, our igloo!" Tom snapped. "We had a brush with some criminals. They were holding us captive but we got away. We’ve been walking through these woods for hours.’’

The expression on the man’s face suggested to Tom that he might have been unwise to mention the igloo. He refrained from telling the whole story for fear the man would think they were escaped mental patients!

But to the Swifts’ surprise the man said, "Yeah, I saw that igloo thing floatin’ around in the sky with my own two eyes, one o’ which is still pretty good. Mebbe ye’re tellin’ the truth fer a fact. And mebbe y’ ain’t. But I ain’t takin’ no chances by lettin’ you inside. I came here to the country to avoid stress, and you two’re stressin’ me out! Got enough o’ that before I retired from my job."

"Yes, sir, I understand." Tom tried to be friendly. "What sort of job was it?"

"Restaurant reviewer, Channel 5 news. Nowadays I sell old books t’ collectors, mail order. And you know what? I’m
still
stressed!"

"Then would you at least call the State Police?" Mr. Swift pleaded.

"Yep. Reckon I can. Local call. Jest stay right there."

The door slammed in their faces. Father and son looked at each other and nearly burst out laughing. They sat themselves down on the porch steps, weary.

Within twenty minutes a police car with two State troopers in it arrived at the farmhouse. They introduced themselves as Callan and Jensen. The latter recognized the Swifts as soon as Tom and his father identified themselves. "How on earth did you get into a fix like this?" he asked. "Half the State’s been trying to find you two!"

Mr. Swift gave a quick account of their capture and imprisonment at the laboratory. When Tom described the escape of the two scientists in the flying igloo, the troopers gave a whistle of surprise and looked at each other.

"So
that’s
what started all the excitement!" Callan exclaimed. "Our post has had a flock of calls from people who sighted some unidentified flying object up in the sky this morning!"

"We reported it to the Army," Jensen said.

Tom asked, "What did the Army say?"

"To report it to the Air Force."

"Were they skeptical?"

"Kid, you can’t imagine."

Officer Jensen jotted down the information which Tom and his father provided about the location of the laboratory site. "Our dispatcher will contact the Feds and your people in New York," he promised, "and we’ll rush a squad car out to that lab—or what’s left of it."