Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober (3 page)

"Sure the boss didn’t black out or something?" the mechanic asked.

"Get real, Al!" Bud said scornfully. "Even if Tom’s brain was only hitting on half the cylinders, it’d still rev faster than most do at full choke."

Al shrugged. "I thank you, Bud, for explaining that to me in language I understand. Okay, we’ll take the car back to the shop and tear it down. But t’tell you the truth," he went on, "I figure there couldn’t be anything out of kilter, the way Tom takes care of this baby."

Bud scowled. "Yeah. Guess you’re right, Al. We’ve been following the wrong trail."

Without explaining his last remark, Bud rode back to Enterprises, hurrying off to talk to Tom after thanking the mechanic. The two boys discussed the problem over trays of a late supper brought in by a nurse. Tom had already bathed and changed into a fresh blue-striped T-shirt from his office closet.

"You know, Bud, I’ve been thinking," he mused. "Some kind of ray could have been used on my car—a ray which temporarily froze the steering linkages or something. We’ve dealt with beam-weapons before. And that would explain the thing the woman was carrying."

"That’s the scientific part of the mystery, pal," Bud declared warmly, "and that’s your specialty. You can go wild checking out the car—tomorrow!"

"I think we’d better tell Harlan," Tom said grimly.

"Tomorrow!"

Tom chuckled at Bud’s stern expression. "Right, flyboy—tomorrow!"

The next morning the two met at the office of the security chief, Tom having ridden to work with his father. Ames became alarmed, in his stoic way, upon hearing the boys’ story. Picking up the telephone, Ames called Shopton police headquarters. Captain Rock, an old friend of the Swifts, promised to meet them immediately at the scene of the accident.

Shortly after Tom and his two companions arrived, a police car pulled up alongside. The officer listened to an account of what had happened, then turned to Bud.

"What did this figure you saw running away look like?"

"I caught only an eyeblink’s worth," Bud said. "Just somebody slight and thin, dressed in rough clothes. She was sort of crouched over as she darted off into the brush. My impression is she’s dark-haired, a short hairdo."

The sergeant who had accompanied Rock made a note of this. Then Harlan Ames asked, "Can either of you point out exactly where she went?"

Tom shook his head, but Bud answered, "I think so." He led the way toward the spot where the stranger had disappeared into the woods. The trees grew close together near the road, then thinned into a marshy area of low ground. Suddenly Ames gave a cry of excitement and pointed to a series of footprints in the soft muck.

"That’s her trail, I’ll bet!" Bud exclaimed.

Captain Rock bent to examine them and frowned. "Pretty wide shoe prints for a woman," he stated. "Then again, she might have worn hunter’s boots over her own dainty shoes."

"Looks to me like we have more than one set of footprints," Ames declared.

"I agree. Look at ’em!—as many as four people, seems to me." The group followed the trail for a few minutes, but as the ground sloped upward and became more rocky, the prints disappeared.

Meanwhile, Tom had hung back as he pursued a theory of his own. He was hoping to find some scientific clues to the method used in disabling his car. A path of trampled underbrush showed the stranger’s movements before she had fled. "She waited here," he muttered to himself. "But how could she have known to expect me in the first place?"

Tom followed the trail from the edge of the woods to a single huge oak tree standing close to the roadside.
Good place to lie in wait
, he thought—and then his eyes widened in excitement!

The others were returning, and Tom beckoned excitedly. "Come here and take a look at this."

They examined what Tom had discovered—some odd, dark patches on the bark of the tree trunk. "What is it, Tom?" asked Bud. "Scorch marks?"

"It
looks
a lot like charring from heat," the young inventor replied. "But something else can also cause that effect. Namely
intense cold!
"

The sergeant gulped and Captain Rock repeated the word skeptically. "Cold?"

"What’s your theory, Skipper?" Ames asked.

"It’s not exactly a theory yet," responded Tom. "Let’s just call it Swift’s Conjecture." He explained that some features of the markings were too sharply delimited for radiant heat effects. "And also, look at this." He rubbed a finger along the wood at the surface of one of the patches. The wood seemed to disintegrate into a rain of white, ashy powder. "I can tell it isn’t ordinary wood ash, but something more like an instantaneous freeze-dry phenomenon. It may be our lady sniper used a kind of electromagnetic ray projector to ‘freeze’—literally!—some crucial part of the steering mechanism. These marks could be accidental cold-burns from the ray beam, if that’s what we should call it."

Harlan Ames nodded. "Just about the right height."

"But who
was
the dirty ratgirl?" Bud growled. "And why is she out to get you? Think it has something to do with the theft of your plans?"

Tom shrugged ruefully. "Wish I could tell you, chum. My crystal ball is a bit clouded."

Both Rock and Harlan Ames promised to check out every possible lead. Tom, meanwhile, decided to put the whole matter from his mind and turn his thoughts to perfecting his matter translimator. "But
that
invention doesn’t really need much more basic work," he told himself wryly as he rode back to the plant. "I’d better come up with something new to think about pretty quick—to keep the ol’ Swift brain on the level!"

At home that evening, the family supper was interrupted by the soft ring of the telephone. Mr. Swift, being closest, answered. Tom, Sandy, and Mrs. Swift saw a look of excitement flash over his face as he took the message.

"Thank you, Colonel. We’ll be there, of course," Damon Swift said, just before hanging up.

"It must be something important," commented Tom’s mother. "It’s not just anyone who knows our private number."

"Long distance?" Tom asked.

"Yes, son, from Washington. Swifts one and all, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has just invited Tom and myself to attend a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss a manned government space probe to Venus!"

"
Venus?
My goodness!" Sandy leapt to her feet.

Tom’s eyes lit up with thrilled interest as he and his father exchanged glances. Tom had wanted a new challenge—and here was one bigger than he had dreamed!

THE next day Tom ate a hurried breakfast, kissed his mother and Sandy goodbye, and drove to the plant with his father. Both shared a feeling of stifled excitement. If the Swifts were assigned the manned space flight to Venus, it would be the most daring venture they had ever undertaken!

"Of course, the trip itself won’t be a problem," Tom remarked. "We’ve already traveled to the doorstep of Venus in the
Challenger
." The
Challenger
was Tom’s huge repelatron-driven spaceship in which he had crossed interplanetary space to the vicinity of Earth’s cloud-shrouded neighbor, an adventure recounted in
Tom Swift and His Space Solartron
.

"The real challenge will arise if a landing is contemplated," commented Mr. Swift.

"I’ll say! Heat, pressure, a sulphurous atmosphere—we’ll have to come up with an entirely new sort of lander craft, and exploration suits that’ll be more like deep-diver suits."

As they drove through the private executive gate, Damon Swift said, "I wonder why Col. Jessup made a point of asking us to bring Bud along to the meeting?"

"Probably because he’s known as my copilot and overall crony in adventure," speculated Tom. "Guess they’d prefer to brief us both at the same time."

Bud met them on the Enterprises airfield, eager for the trip ahead. A small commuter jet, manufactured by Enterprises’ Shopton affiliate the Swift Construction Company, stood ready for takeoff on the runway.

Bud handled the controls. "Venus!" he whooped in excitement. "Man, this is going to be more fun than flying a monkey to the moon!—which we’ve
already
done, anyway."

Within half an hour they were landing in Washington. A car awaited to take them to NASA headquarters near the national mall.

Dr. Lars Norstrom, a lean man with Viking-blond hair, greeted them warmly. "Good to see you again Damon, Tom. Thanks for coming on such short notice." Dr. Norstrom, project coordinator of the national manned space flight program, was an old friend of the Swifts.

"We’re happy you called on us," said Mr. Swift. "This is Bud Barclay."

Dr. Norstrom beamed at the young flier as he shook his hand. "Of course. Delighted to meet you, Bud. We’re particularly eager to have you at this meeting."

Bud and the Swifts were somewhat mystified at the man’s last remark but made no comment. Norstrom led them to a conference room. Another NASA official awaited them there, Col. Scott Jessup, the former NASA astronaut now in charge of astronaut training.

Two other men were present as well—John Clarke and Arnold Franklin, the president and the chief engineer of the Astro-Dynamics Corporation, well known from their televised testimony before various Congressional committees.

Clarke flashed a friendly smile—in fact, he and his companion were
all
smiles—as he and the guests from Shopton shook hands. "Always a pleasure to see America’s greatest space pioneers again."

This is strange
, Tom thought.
Why are these guys here?

Using an electronic presentation screen, Norstrom outlined the details of the planned Venus flight. There would be no descent to the surface after all, but rather a lengthy and extensive study of the planet from a low orbit. "We have a distinguished team of scientists already selected. Of course we had to limit the roster to those who were physically able to endure the round trip—more than a year in space altogether."

"More than a year?" repeated Mr. Swift in surprise. "Our spaceship already made the journey across in a matter of― " He stopped as he and Tom were suddenly hit by an unexpected realization.

"You see, gentlemen," continued Norstrom, "we’ll be using an Astrodyne-8 booster for the launch from Canaveral. We also like the space vehicle they’ve come up with."

Tom was thunderstruck, however much he tried not to show it on his face. The Astrodyne was a huge rocket manufactured by Astro-Dynamics that had been used for some years to boost satellites into space. Though the rocket was well engineered and reliable, Tom considered it inferior in thrust and refinements to the Swifts’ rockets—and frankly outdated.

"I... I see. Then the contract’s already been awarded?" Mr. Swift asked.

Norstrom nodded. He appeared embarrassed. "Yes. Now I realize this comes as something of a surprise to you, Damon. For various reasons we think Astro-Dynamics is the way to go for this particular job."

Now Col. Jessup spoke up. His tone was witheringly sarcastic. "That’s great diplomacy, Lars, but the Swifts deserve to know what’s really behind the decision. Boys, it’s politics, all politics. To put it bluntly, the Astrodyne is pretty nearly down for the count, but it just
happens
that the state in which it’s manufactured has quite a few electoral votes in play in the next national election. Also true of the state in which the manned craft, the
Highroad
, is being made."

"In other words," pronounced Tom impulsively, "NASA has to play ball with key congressmen if it wants to show up well in the next budget bill."

"What a smart son you have, Damon," snorted Col. Jessup.

"At any rate, the decision is made and final," huffed John Clarke, no longer quite so friendly. "The contracts are signed."

Arnold Franklin spoke, trying to make peace. "You’ll appreciate the
Highroad
when you get to know her. Very advanced. Nuclear powered, with a thrust system using a bank of mega-kick lasers to drive it along."

Tom Swift was intrigued in spite of himself. "Lasers? I know it’s been on the drawing board for years—direct reaction thrust from high-energy photon emission― "

"Perfected in secret as part of the SDI space weaponry program."

"I’m sure Tom and I are duly impressed," said Mr. Swift, "and I congratulate the two of you for your accomplishment. Now please tell us why we’re here."

Dr. Norstrom nodded at Clarke. "Our problem now," said Clarke, "is getting an experienced astronaut for mission pilot. Of course nowadays that means someone from Swift Enterprises. Tom here would be our first choice, but we know he’s too busy—always is. Therefore we’d like to borrow Bud Barclay."

Bud drew in a long breath. He was completely flabbergasted by the offer! Tom, too, was left speechless.

Mr. Swift smiled and looked understandingly at the young flier. "Bud, it’s up to you."

Tom quickly mastered his own disappointment and said gamely, "It’s a terrific challenge, pal! And it’s about time you had your chance to stand in the spotlight."

Bud gulped uncomfortably. "I—I don’t know what to say. I’d like to think it over, sir."

"Take as long as you need," said Dr. Norstrom.

"Just as long as you say yes," added Jessup sourly.

Mr. Swift glanced at his watch. "Suppose we three talk it over at lunch," he suggested. "Bud has the final word, of course."

The others were agreeable, and the meeting adjourned for a two-hour break. As they ate lunch at a hotel restaurant, Bud and the Swifts discussed the situation. "Frankly, I’d rather not take the job," Bud bluntly declared. "I don’t want this. Sure, it’s exciting, but I consider myself a Swift man—first, last, and always."

Tom grinned at him. It wasn’t easy to do. "Thanks, pal. I’m glad you feel that way, but you can’t let it stop you. You’ll
still
be a ‘Swift man’ no matter what, and this would be an honor—a chance for
you
to be called ‘Skipper’ on the greatest space flight so far."

"Tom’s right," added Mr. Swift. "You know how much we appreciate your loyalty, but an active space program is in our nation’s interest, and it mustn’t rest entirely on the shoulders of Swift Enterprises."