Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober (7 page)

"Like a picture negative, hmm?"

"In a way. And then we read it off, and translate the patterns back into sound." Tom added that each use of the Private Ear unit would render inert a portion of the available particles. "Each particle is ‘one use only’. But remember, they’re super-small, and the number of particles in a cartridge is enormous. It’ll last quite a while."

"Wa-aal, sounds mighty nice t’ these old ears," pronounced the westerner. "Now
that
wasn’t so hard, was it, Tom? I gotta get goin’ now. But I shor did like this here little conversation."

As Chow left, Tom could only shake his head in wonderment.
Well
, he boggled inwardly,
it
was
just a simplified analogy!

Tom worked steadily on his invention in the days that followed, thinking also of the problem of the stolen spy drone. And at the same time, in the back of his mind, he had already begun to toy with a further application of the basic quantum principle—a breakthrough even more revolutionary!

In his personal notebook he scribbled down three words—megascope space prober.

Late one afternoon, Tom was surprised and delighted when Bud dropped by the lab. "Got a couple days off," he explained, "so I choppered over to Fearing Island and grabbed the next jet to Shopton." Fearing was the tiny islet off the coast of Georgia where the Enterprises spaceport was based.

The young inventor gave his pal a warm bearhug. He sensed that Bud was feeling downcast, with something on his mind. But when Tom told the story of how Chow had somehow grasped quantum weirdness without batting an eye, Bud burst out laughing, his good humor restored for the moment.

As they chatted Tom proceeded to hook up a system of tubing from a helium cryostat to one of the two communicator units he was testing. "What’s that for?" Bud asked.

"The matrix ‘readers’ will be scanning such delicate pattern variations that they have to be bathed in liquid helium, to cut down the waste noise in the circuit almost to zero."

"Like you did in your electronic retroscope," the young flier remarked. "I suppose you can get all the helium you want from your hydrodome wells under the ocean."

Tom nodded. "Benefits of ownership! And when I want to liquify it, I use the new translimator in a two-step process, allowing
solid
helium—which is like a metal—to absorb the heat energy from the room-temperature liquid I created in a separate chamber."

"Jetz, solid helium!"

"Unfortunately, it’s only stable, for any length of time, inside the chamber."

Bud’s expression suddenly darkened. "Yeah. I’m starting to think
I
may be that way too, genius boy—temporarily stable. And
my
chamber’s close to springing a leak!"

"Now
that
doesn’t sound so good, flyboy," responded Tom with concern, pulling up a lab stool to sit down next to him. "What’s going on? A problem with the Venus project?"

"You might say that. Tom, I’m thinking of resigning as pilot!"

"RESIGNING?" Tom stared at Bud. "Are you serious?"

"Serious as I’ve ever been," Bud declared as a slight smile flicked across his young face. "Which isn’t saying much, I guess."

"But why?" Tom persisted. "You’ll be the pilot of the first expedition to really study another planet close up! Don’t you realize this is an honor?"

Bud’s answer was a stubborn shrug. He seemed to be groping for words to express whatever was troubling him.

"Bud, it’s not only an honor, it’s a government request," Tom went on. "This isn’t just a private job you’re doing for Astro-Dynamics. It’s a project undertaken in our nation’s interest!"

"You don’t need to slather it on thick, chum. I know all that. I know about the ‘honor’." Bud squirmed uncomfortably on his stool.

"Then what’s your problem?

"My so-called copilot, that’s what!" Bud blurted out in exasperation. "The guy’s an absolute pain!"

Tom shifted his own lanky frame, his forehead wrinkling thoughtfully. He knew Bud was no quitter. If trouble had developed between him and his copilot, it must be near the battling stage for Bud even to think of resigning.

"What’s this guy’s name?" Tom asked.

"Chester Holbrook—but you’re supposed to call him
Chippy
, if you can believe
that
. He was a Navy pilot."

"Never heard of him."

"I wish
I
hadn’t," Bud retorted. "He’s young, but a real hard-nosed type. Worse than what’s-his-name who went with us on the earth blaster trip—Hal Voorhees."

"Does he know his stuff?"

"Sure, he’s a good enough rookie rocketeer," Bud admitted. "He’s done a lot of tuneup flights down at Canaveral. But what a pest to work with! He bugs me practically every hour, on the hour!"

Holbrook’s usual tactics, Bud said, were to criticize, subtly, his handling of the controls during checkout procedures or simulated flight routines. He was constantly offering suggestions which Bud felt were mainly intended to rattle him—perhaps to the point of his making some mistake which might disqualify him as pilot for the Venus flight, allowing Holbrook to replace him.

"Another stunt he likes to pull," Bud went on, "is to throw a lot of needling questions at me whenever we have a skull session with Clarke or Franklin."

"What sort of questions?" Tom asked.

Bud answered irritably, "Oh, about the photon drive units and stuff like that. He was familiar with the design of the
Highroad
right from the start, mainly because he has an uncle on the Board of Directors of Astro-Dynamics! Real coincidence, huh? So
Chippy
knows it backwards, whereas I’m still pulling all-nighters to catch up. His idea, of course, is to show me up and make me look silly in front of the big brass."

Bud snarled as he went on, clenching his fist and confessing that he and Holbrook had almost come to blows the day before. "I—I think that incident had a little to do with Col. Jessup giving me this two-day vacation."

Tom watched uneasily as his muscular friend stood up and began to pace back and forth. He had rarely seen easygoing Bud Barclay this upset. "What’s behind Holbrook’s attitude?" Tom finally asked.

"He’s jealous. What else?" Bud snapped. "He thinks we’re fighting over our places in the history books. But Tom, I couldn’t care less about that stuff! I just—I just don’t want to let you and Enterprises down by washing out."

Tom got up to throw an arm around Bud’s broad shoulders. "Listen up, pal," he said quietly, "I can see you’re up against a tough problem, all right. That’s the way human problems are. But it could get better with time. You can’t just chuck it all."

Bud sighed unhappily. "I sure don’t want to, but I just don’t see any other way out."

"Look at it this way," Tom said. "Which one of you is better qualified to wrangle that space crate, with all those people’s lives depending on you? You or Chippy Holbrook?"

Bud looked embarrassed. "I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times. Holbrook’s a competent astronaut, but he’s never been outside Earth orbit. Besides, he strikes me as a bit high-strung, you know?"

"In other words—?" Tom’s eyebrows lifted quizzically.

"Okay Tom, I’ll say it. I honestly think I’m a better bet."

"So do I!" Tom clapped his friend on the back. "Holbrook can’t help feeling a little natural competitiveness. But there may be something more, too. You’re the great Bud Barclay, space explorer, Tom Swift’s best friend! He may think
you’re
the one who’s getting the red carpet treatment at NASA."

"Guess I never thought of it that way." Bud’s grim expression slowly relaxed. "You’re right. I’m not gonna let that fresh kid shove aside a real space veteran!"

Suddenly both boys jumped back with startled shouts as a cloud of white steam burst from the top of one of the radio housings! A deadly chill seemed to sweep through the laboratory.

"G-good grief! What happened?" Bud gasped, his teeth chattering. Table tops, file cabinets, and laboratory equipment quickly became rimmed with frost. The two youths shivered violently as Tom rushed to shut off the flow of helium to the communicator unit.

"I just broke Newton’s law of gravity!" Tom said with awe.

"Please. Don’t joke a jokester."

"It’s no joke; it’s a fact." Tom explained that the filler neck connection in the base of the radio had fractured. The liquid helium had instantly crawled
upward
inside the radio housing in order to escape. "There’s a name for it. Liquid helium in a supercooled condition is what’s called a ‘superfluid’. It’s the only substance in the world that can drag itself upward all by itself!"

"Man, now I’ve heard everything," Bud laughed. "Better watch it, Tom. You’ll be a marked man if this Newton guy finds out you broke his law!"

Bud had dinner at the plant, catching up on things with Chow and his many other friends. He finally left to join Sandy and Bashalli at The Glass Cat, the Shopton coffeehouse where the young Pakistani worked when not attending art school.

Next morning Chow appeared at Tom’s lab door, which the young inventor had absent-mindedly left ajar. Barely glancing up from his work, Tom said, "What’s up, Chow? Not time for lunch, is it?"

"At 9:30? Not likely! Naw, jest somethin’ they delivered—left it outside my galley by mistake." The sun-leathered cook jerked a thumb toward the corridor. "Some kinda gas tank, I reckon. Got it right outside."

"Oh, yes, I ordered some extra helium in case I want to use it," said Tom, eyes fixed on a meter. "Bring it in, won’t you, pard?"

Chow hurried through the door, then returned wheeling an orange-banded tank on a hand truck.

"Where do you want ’er, boss?"

"Over there by the wall for now, thanks," Tom murmured. "Better leave it on the truck so I can move it later."

The Texan parked his heavy load but seemed reluctant to leave. He stood staring at the tank for a moment scratching his double chin, then cleared his throat loudly.

"Ahem! Brand my spectroscope," he mused aloud, "that sure is a purty orange color—jest like my shirt."

"Hm?" Tom glanced up. "Oh, you mean the orange color on the tank. That shows it contains helium. Different colors are used for different gases," he added.

"Oh, so that’s what it’s fer, huh?" The grizzled westerner sounded faintly disappointed.

Tom looked at him, puzzled. Suddenly a great light dawned. "
Hey!
Where’d you get that great little number you’re wearing, cowpoke?" he exclaimed.

"Whatzat? You mean
this
li’l old thing?" Chow’s fondness for loud haberdashery, especially in shirts, was a standing joke around Enterprises. It was a whim that gave the cook endless pleasure. He boasted that he owned the choicest wardrobe of cowboy shirts east of the Pecos, and his closet contained a peacocklike assortment in every color of the rainbow—and a few colors the rainbow never knew about!

But the present number topped them all, Tom thought, almost wincing at the glare in the lab lamps. The shirt was not only a dazzling tangerine orange in color—it was trimmed in glittery sequins! "Kinda eye-catchin’ at that, doncha think?" Chow beamed. "I picked it up fer only a fraction of its value."

"It was a steal, all right," Tom agreed politely, thinking with an inward chuckle that Chow had been the victim at any price!

Catching something in his boss’s tone, the cook gave Tom a dark look. "I could get you one jest like it, boss, next time I go by the store," Chow offered.

"Oh, well, don’t bother." Tom added hastily: "I mean, I wouldn’t want to cut in on your—
uniqueness
, pardner."

Chow smiled a bit sourly as he turned to leave. "Yoo-niqueness, huh. Now
thet’s
one I
never
woulda thought of."

Tom had made some short range tests of his Private Ear Radio, with promising results.
Now to try for distance,
he thought. And then his thoughts added:
And if it’s distance I’m after, why skimp on it?

After some planning, Tom rang up Hank Sterling in the engineering shop. "Hi, Hank. I’ve got a notion to put my quantum communicator to a real test."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Well, how’d you feel about a little jaunt to the moon?"

Hank burst out laughing. "
Little
jaunt? Fine! When do we leave for Fearing?"

"There’s no need for that," replied Tom. "I thought we’d take the Space Kite, now that it’s hangared here at Enterprises. Round trip to Luna—back in time for dinner!"

The Space Kite was a remarkable vehicle, a midget two-person spacecraft driven aloft by the steady wind of cosmic particles streaming through space from all directions—even up through the body of the earth itself.

Tom had the vehicle prepped and made ready, its oval cabin dome gleaming in the sunlight in front of the five-sided cosmic reactor that turned the cosmic particles into propulsive force. Tom and Hank sat side by side, and the young inventor adjusted the walls of the reactor cells to bring them into play. The Space Kite lifted off from the Enterprises airfield, gaining speed and altitude smoothly, if very slowly.

The sky around them darkened and became starry as they left the atmosphere behind and sped moonward through the void of space.

"If you’ll keep an eye on those readouts, Hank, I’ll make the first test," Tom said presently. He lifted the Private Ear Radio—about the size and shape of an old-fashioned walkie-talkie—to his mouth. "Swift to Hanson! Can you hear me, Arv?"

A crystal-clear answer came back instantly. "
Sure can, boss! ‘What hath God wrought!
’," the modelmaker quoted.

After checking various figures, Tom pronounced himself satisfied. "Talk to you in 173 minutes, Earthling," Tom radioed.

"Roger! You and Sterling can spend the time on something useful—talk over that ‘window on the universe’ idea of yours!"

As Tom switched off the PER, Hank gave him a quizzical smile. "What’s the Big Swede talking about, Tom? A new project?"

"An idea for an invention," replied Tom excitedly. "If you thought my quantum communicator pushed the physics envelope, wait’ll you hear about this! I’ve been assured that my inventions are violating Einstein’s Theory of Relativity!"