Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts (15 page)

The Alaska rendezvous took place as scheduled. Tom was overjoyed to hear that the sheathing of the Kite had been completed without a hitch. "And we’ve tested it out, skipper," announced Sterling. "As far as radar and sonar go, it’s just not there!"

"Fantastic work, everyone." But Tom Swift’s voice was hushed with tension. Even the hazards of the Kite’s space test paled before what he and Bud were about to attempt!

THE great
Sky Queen
ascended to 20,000 feet. The Space Kite glided smoothly from the Flying Lab’s vehicular platform, lowered like an elevator from the bottom of the hull, and gained altitude as quickly as possible. Soon enough the tiny craft had crossed the edge of the atmosphere and entered the void of space.

"How’s she holding up?" Bud asked Tom. "I’m not nervous, but—
how’s she holding up?"

Tom checked the instruments. "On course. Velocity nominal. No sign of instability."

"No subtrino squalls?"

Tom shook his head. "Nope. Dr. MacIllheny’s cosmic weather report was right on the mark. The storm has abated for now, just like the solar flare-up did."

Instead of space suits, Tom and his pal wore gray, fleece-lined outfits with jackets and hoods to keep out the icy Arctic cold blowing across the deck of the
Sea Charger
—for Tom’s plan was to secretly make a landing directly on the ship’s deck runway. "Things look about as good as we could expect," he told Bud. "Night, overcast, and some mist in the air. From my eavesdropping it sounds like Li Ching has only about a dozen of his underlings aboard the ship right now. I don’t imagine he’d see a need to keep any of them stationed up on deck, given the limited visibility and cold."

"He doesn’t know we can sneak right through his radar," Bud declared. "And the Space Kite is so itty-bitty, we won’t even be seen if the fog clears out—if luck stays with us."

"That’s the idea. This jalopy is smaller than the cycloplane, smaller than microjets like the
Kangaroo Kub
or the paraplane, even smaller than a Pigeon Special."

"Yeah—smaller than all of ’em put together!" Bud joked. "You could make it an advertising pitch:
Space Kites, a great way to get the drop on the bad guys!"

The Kite did not enter into Earth orbit, but followed a hairpin suborbital trajectory to maximize speed, looping back down into the air as they neared the position of the
Sea Charger
. They dropped fast, paying for it with a queasy feeling in their stomachs.

Tom’s voice fell into an involuntary whisper.
"There she is!"
A huge shadowy form had appeared far below!

"You’re sure, pal?" Bud asked. "Looks like they’re still doing the iceberg routine."

"Remember, it’s just layers of open netting sprayed with the anti-energy paint," Tom reminded his chum. "That’s what Whaley says, anyway. But it makes sense. The water would flood right through it when they want to submerge, and up in the light the refraction effect looks like the gleam of ice. It’s no wonder the search planes and satellites couldn’t find her."

They slowed and dropped down to the ocean surface, hovering just above the waves less than a mile from their objective. Then they inched forward as quickly as they dared. No lights shown on the ship through the semi-transparent netting. There was no hint that anyone had detected them.

Tom adjusted the cosmic reactor and re-angled the gravitex, and the craft arced up smoothly. Sharp blade-edged vanes had been attached to the forward side of the Kite to allow it to slice through the netting, and it presented no difficulties—the fibers turned out to be as thin as sewing threads, though densely packed together like gauze. They rose over the
Charger
’s gunwales, just clearing them, landing almost noiselessly at the edge of the deck runway. "Hold on to your i-gun," Tom whispered. He and Bud were equipped with Swift Enterprises’ electric impulse pistols, which could stun or, in dire situations, kill. Tom hoped the situation wouldn’t become dire.

Opening the viewdome, the youths stole out onto the open deck. In the freezing air, all was silent and dark—but not quite all: one window in the control tower showed a dim light.
They don’t want to be seen any more than we do,
Tom told himself. He glanced behind him and was satisfied that the parked Space Kite was lost in the darkness, at least from the point of view of the
Charger
’s tower.

The young inventor strode over to the edge of the deck and paused for a moment, taking in his hands the protective netting that was draped everywhere and examining it curiously. Eyebrows raised, he gave his companion a nod. Then he and Bud scrambled silently forward, toward a dark, streamlined bulk sitting on the deck. "Must be their escape jet," Bud whispered. Tom nodded his agreement.

Minutes later they paused at an access hatch, one which Tom knew opened into a freight hold with a door to the crew-quarters corridor. He knelt down and used his i-gun on low power to disable the hatch door’s electronic lock. Then he heaved it open.

Tom and Bud climbed down into the blackness of the hold. "I’ll lead," Tom whispered. "Keep a finger on the back of my jacket. The corridor door is just ahead."

He reached the door, clicked the latch, and stepped forward into the darkened corridor that linked a row of crew cabins, Bud following. The long hallway was lit by a single low-wattage emergency bulb at the far end. "Which cabin first?" asked the flyer softly. "Or do we hit ’em in the control room?"

"We’ll stick to plan," Tom replied. "Free a half-dozen or so of the crew to back us up—then onward."

Disabling the lock, he swung open the door to the nearest cabin and briefly flicked on the light. It was empty. "Next one," Tom whispered.

He opened the next door. The room light was already on, four silent, despondent men sitting upright on their bunks. One of them rose and gasped in disbelief.
"It’s Tom Swift!"

Tom held a finger to his lips and motioned for the men to follow him out.

Tom, Bud, and the four scuffed off to the left down the corridor, toward the emergency light. Tom gave instructions in a whisper as they went along. "There’s a hydraulics shaft running right up next to the command deck bulkhead," he said briskly. "Follow behind me single file. We’ll drop whoever’s up there, then take over the main override system. They’ve planted a bomb on the hull, men, and plan—"

"Gentlemen,"
said a voice behind them, clear but not loud.

Tom and Bud’s i-guns dropped to the floor.

Then Tom and Bud dropped to the floor.

THERE were five men, Tom saw as he rose from his stunned state to full consciousness. They were all Asians. Two of them carried Swift i-guns which they kept trained upon the fallen party, Tom, Bud, and the rescued crew members. Two others had stepped forward to collect Tom’s and Bud’s dropped guns. Tom recognized the fifth man.

"I’ve seen your photograph, Comrade-General," said the young inventor coolly as he struggled unsteadily to his feet.

Li Ching stretched out a hand and took an i-gun from his underling—Bud’s gun. He looked at it critically for a moment. "I appreciate the opportunity to examine an original," he said, voice smooth, accent clipped. "The documents we stole, whereby we constructed these replicas of ours, described an earlier model. We should no more be relying on these than riding the roads in your great-grandfather’s electric runabout."

Li Ching, the snakeman, was surprisingly tall and powerfully built, dressed in a jet-black military style uniform with brass buttons. Tom thought he had once seen something like it in a book—the uniform of a general in the army of China, in the early years of the twentieth century. Li’s head seemed oddly narrow, shave-skulled but for a high-mounted ponytail that draped down his back. His lips were pale and thin, somewhat pursed. The effect was bizarre, but not as disturbing as the man’s cold, metallic eyes—snake eyes.

Yet if you could get behind those eyes, the man seemed almost jovial. Or at least mockingly gleeful. "Each compartment door is electronically monitored. You disabled the lock mechanism, yes; but not before it could cry for help. How did you get aboard this vessel, might I ask?"

Tom said nothing.

"Oh come now, satisfy my curiosity. By sea? By air? I wish to be further impressed. You see, I greatly admire you, Tom Swift."

"The
Sky Queen
’s on its way right now," Bud snarled. "Fifty armed men are aboard. They tracked us here."

"Really, Bud? Then perhaps my associates and I should be going."

Tom broke his silence. "Killing us and sinking this ship won’t do you any good."

The Chinese smiled. "But it won’t do me any
harm,
and like you, I choose to go beyond the logical point of view now and then. One cannot divorce genius from intuition. You know that, of course. It is how you invent."

"It depends on the accuracy of the facts in hand," Tom said. "You don’t seem to realize that you have a traitor in your midst. Someone tipped us off about your agent in Shopton."

Li Ching muttered something to the man standing next to him, who wore a military jacket of lesser rank. The man smiled, though Li Ching only looked hard and unruffled. "You refer to Mr. Hobell. Tom, I myself called that message in to your switchboard."

"Why? What’s the game?" Tom demanded.

"Perhaps curiosity. As a scientist, you surely realize its importance." He paused and stared at the Shopton youth. "I am quite sincere when I speak of my admiration, Tom. You and I run in parallel lines, in a way. It pleases me to think that by exposing your weaknesses, your methods, the capabilities of your organization and its employees, I can learn to make myself less vulnerable to error. For error must be eliminated."

"Error can never be eliminated," Tom stated.

Li shrugged slightly. "One comes as close as one can. I didn’t mind sacrificing, earlier than scheduled, a few employees in my experiments with you. Hobell was an incipient alcoholic, poor Lathron, now deceased, a practicing drunk. I cannot tolerate such vices among those in my employ. It increases their tendency to error. A man named Cleggman—I believe you’ve encountered the name—fell victim to the vice of gambling. I will not put up with such things."

One of the men standing behind Tom spoke up. "General, I am a colonel in the United States Air Force. There are other military men here. We were observing the
Sea Charger
’s maiden voyage. Keep us as hostages. We’re valuable commodities in the long run. Tom Swift and the others—let them go. Put them off in the liferafts."

"There are some good points in your suggestion, Colonel Praggler, to be sure," replied Li. "And to send this young genius to his death, what a waste. Some future discovery, some future invention—might it not benefit me as much as anyone? And so it was worth my time to consider sparing him. If I ended by rejecting the option, it was because I have great hopes of another and superior source of inventive knowledge. Tom, perhaps it will comfort you to know that our world has a great future ahead of it."

"I presume
you
are the future, Comrade-General," said Tom mockingly.

"What a wonderful motto! I shall remember it always." Li spoke in Chinese to the military man, whom Tom guessed to be the man named Yao, apparently Li’s second in command.

"Sir, I—I have a family," quavered one of the young crewmen.

Li looked up. "Good for you. I myself have several. Now then, Captain Yao and I have a plane to catch on the upper deck. These other men here with me..." He took a step closer to Tom. "As they speak no English, I will tell you an amusing secret, Tom. They are in the doghouse with me, as you say. They believe they will be joining me and the others in the jet, but I am playing a trick on them. I have told them to see you all back to your quarters and secure them, then come up on deck. Won’t they be surprised to find that I have barred the deck hatchway behind me! And the door by which you two boys entered has been sealed from the other side by a technician of mine, even as we stand amusing one another."

"Why kill them, Li?" Tom demanded in contempt.

"Efficiency. I don’t need them. Nor do I require the ship’s captive crew any further. From high above I will send the signal. One touch of a little button, and an explosive device at the weak spot of this mighty hull will end the brief career of the
Sea Charger
. For I no longer need the ship, either."

Nodding a curt farewell in Tom’s direction, Li Ching turned smartly and led Captain Yao up the corridor to the hatchway ladder, along with Yao’s assistant. In a moment Tom and the others heard the hatch clang shut. Then came the unmistakable sound of its being bolted from above.

Li’s remaining two minions looked at each other with wide eyes. Calling out in dismay, they raced to the ladder and pounded on the hatch, throwing down their impulse pistols.

"Tom," murmured the Swift Enterprises employee who had recognized him, "for all the awfulness of this—it’s an honor to be here with you."

"Thanks," nodded Tom. "Guys, help me free the others from their compartments."

"Why? What do we have, three minutes before he sets off the bomb?" The speaker was the young man with the family. "I know the design of the ship. I know the weak point he must be talking about. There’s no possible way to get to the bomb in time to cut the wires or defuse it. When it blows, the cowling will rip loose all along its length. We’ll be scraping the bottom in ten minutes."

"Man, you’re really bringing me down," reproved Bud with the twitch of a smile. "Look at me. I’ve been up to my neck more times that I can count, and do I look dead? Huh?"

The two Chinese came back to the others, waving their arms in a panic. Tom motioned for them to calm themselves, asking Bud to go retrieve the discarded i-guns.

"It’s been three minutes," said Col. Praggler. "More than three minutes. Where’s the bang? We should at least feel the jolt."

Tom nodded. "Good point, Colonel. Tell you what. Let’s go open a few doors, and I’ll do some explaining."