Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts (9 page)

"It’s like it isn’t there," said Bud. Then he added in a tentative voice: "But skipper… something about it seemed kind of familiar."

"Yes, I thought so as well," Felix declared. "I can’t put a finger on it, though."

"I know what it looks like," pronounced Tom decisively. "It looks a lot like that icy mist we ran into near the disappearing iceberg. But I don’t plan to stick around to study and speculate, not with that vulture hanging out there." The phantom rocket was standing-to a couple hundred feet off the
Challenger
’s "front porch" launching deck.

Tom fed a burst of power into the repelatrons that were still facing the earth. There was no response!

"Ain’t we gonna hightail it out, like you said?" asked Chow nervously.

Tom only frowned, eyes fixed to the control readouts. Bud followed his chum’s gaze and said in puzzled tones, "No problem with power—the ’trons are getting a full load. Where’s the hangup, Tom?"

"Near as I can tell," replied the young inventor, "the repelatron waves aren’t penetrating that floating stuff. The field itself may be getting through, but it’s not coherent. Out of focus and not maintaining element configuration."

Hank nodded in grim understanding. "So it’s not reacting against Earth."

"Are you saying, then, that we are adrift?" asked Felix Ming.

"I’m afraid so, for the moment." Trying to remain calm, Tom turned his attention to the communications panel. But repeated attempts to contact either Fearing or the space outpost raised only silence. "Nothing’s getting through. And you know what? Thanks to the particle cloud, I’ll bet the
Challenger
has disappeared from radar, too."

"Good grief!" Bud gulped in dismay. "They’ll thing we blew up or something!"

"Now look, ever’body, jest settle yer blood on down and let Tom think," commanded Chow with authority. "Don’t jostle him. He’ll get us out of this."

Felix gestured toward the viewpanes. "Look, the
Fanshen
is moving." The mystery ship was rotating, turning its nose away from the
Challenger
and revealing its stern propulsion assembly.

Tom’s scientific curiosity couldn’t help but break through. "Funny looking thrust tubes, don’t you think, Hank? Doesn’t look like conventional deflection cowlings."

"But not like ion drive or anything similar, either," commented Arv Hanson. "In any event, they’re leaving the scene of the crime." Powerful rocket blasts, bright as magnesium flares, erupted from the thrust tubes, and the phantom began to accelerate away. In scant minutes it was lost in the glare of the earth.

"I thought they’d try to board us," said Bud, relieved. "Guess I was wrong."

"I suspect we witnessed a combination space-test of their weapon, if that’s what we should call it," Tom commented, "and—a warning!"

Chow Winkler’s gravelly tones broke the silence that ensued. "Okay there, Tom, that’s enough thinking! What do we do?"

Tom grinned. "Bud, you up for a hike?"

"Sure thing!" exclaimed the dark-haired flyer. "Not that I know what you’re talking about. Planning to jog back down to Fearing and get help?"

"No, I don’t think even
your
legs would last for a stroll of 20,000 miles, pal." Tom explained to Bud and the others that he was proposing to fly on ahead to the outpost in space. "All this time the
Challenger
has been coasting along toward the rendezvous point, but we won’t be able to make the final course correction and’ll just continue on into space. Bud and I should be able to cross the last few hundred miles in space suits and micro-rockets. Besides, I’m sure
we’ll
show up on the station’s radar—they’ll come meet us in one of the shuttle capsules."

"But don’t you have your own shuttle vehicles aboard this ship?" asked Felix.

"Yes, the Repelatron Donkeys we use on the moon. But their built-in repelatrons are far too weak to establish a wave-field beam over the thousands of miles to Earth’s surface."

"Wa-aal, I’m a purty good hiker, from all them years out on the prairie," Chow declared. "Whyn’t we all go together?"

Tom smiled at his friend, careful not to hurt his feelings. "Pard, I need you and the others to stay here and defend the ship. Those rustlers could come back any time, you know!"

"Guess that’s so."

Little time passed before two tiny figures, clad in flexible pressure-suits and sporting bubble-shaped transparent helmets, jetted from the ship’s broad launch platform, thrusting through the void under the power of the pinhole rocket jets built into their suits. After a couple minutes, Bud glanced back. Distance had already diminished the huge
Challenger
to the size of a toy!

"We’re going pretty fast," he remarked. "Are you sure we’ll have enough air and fuel for the trip, genius boy?"

Tom gave a hesitant nod inside his helmet. "Let’s say I’m ninety percent sure, and willing to risk the other ten. But I’ll be awfully glad if somebody picks us up on the way."

As they travelled, they attempted to contact the space outpost on their suit radios, but there was no response. At first they assumed it was simply a matter of distance, but as they neared the two-hour mark, the youths faced growing worry.

"Why don’t they answer?" Bud fretted. "Come to think of it, why don’t we see them?"

"It could be I miscalculated our probable acceleration and we’re just too far away," Tom mused. "But—"

"Swell. A
‘but’!"

"It’s possible that when we passed through that cloud on our way out, enough of it clung to our suits to affect the navigation sensors in some way. It seems we’ve kept to a straight course. But—"

"And another one!" Bud complained. "So we’re not sure we’re headed on the right course?"

Tom glanced at a small dial on his sleeve, the readout from his suit’s inertial guidance computer. "As nearly as I can figure," he replied, "our present course and velocity
should
carry us up to the space station’s orbit. Let me see if I can verify it by another method."

Tom took his portable stellar sextant out of its case at his waist. This was a miniaturized device with some of the features of the advanced Spacelane Brains used as position finders in Swift space vehicles. As he tuned in for a set of star bearings, Bud allowed his suit to rotate, scanning the inconceivably vast skies all the way around. There was not a trace of anything human in the emptiness.

When Tom spoke, his voice was grave. "We’re off course, all right—about thirty degrees."

"Okay, that’s not so much. Maybe we can risk turning the rockets up higher to make up for lost time."

But when Tom replied, Bud knew instantly that the matter would not be so easily resolved. "Bud, I was able to get the angle of deviation and our radial distance from Earth, but not our orientation value. Basically, I don’t know whether we need to go thirty degrees to the right hand or to the left."

The boys’ eyes met in a worried gaze through their transparent bubble helmets. Tom’s pronouncement chilled Bud. Though the word had been avoided, it came irresistibly—they were
lost!
He tried desperately to keep his tone light and casual. "So we make a choice and trust to Lady Luck. She’s been good to us so far." Suddenly Bud chuckled. "Guess there’s only one solution, pal. How do we flip a coin in space?"

Tom grinned too. "I’m afraid I didn’t bring any ‘mad’ money for a ride back home, flyboy. But I guess we might use a tool from our suit kits." Tom unzipped a pouch on the right leg of his space suit and pulled out a small zero-G wrench of lightweight magtritanium. "Up is your head, down is your feet. ‘Heads’ we take the portside trail. Here—
catch!"

Tom tossed the wrench toward his friend, giving it a slight spin. Bud reached out to grab it. But with velocity in space easy to misjudge, the hammer went whirling past his outstretched gauntlet!

Tom gave a hoot as his pal started away in pursuit of the flying tool. "Busher! You’ll never make the big leagues that way!"

Bud’s chortle came back over the radio. "This is what you call really going
way
out in left field to snag a fly!" The copilot finally overtook the hammer and managed to grab it by its middle.
"Heads
up. Portside it is, pal!" he reported as he zoomed back toward Tom.

They pushed on, cherishing every breath. The compressed air supply was becoming depleted and nearing the danger point. Would they be able to reach their hoped-for destination? Both youths were conscious of an eerie feeling as they trekked on and on through the limitless void of space, seeming to themselves to hang immobile in the vault of stars.

Suddenly Bud burst out, "Skipper, stars don’t twinkle up above the atmosphere, right?"

"Right."

"So what’s up with
that?"
He pointed. A tiny point of silver light was wavering unsteadily far ahead.

Tom yelped with excited relief. "I’ll tell you what that is—a rotating space station!"

High spirits surged through them as the outpost in space presently loomed into view dead ahead. This was mankind’s first space station on the road to the planets. The majestic silver sky wheel had been designed and engineered by Tom. Fourteen gigantic spokes jutted from its central hub. One of the spokes, serving as an astronomical observatory, bore a spidery latticework telescope. Another—Tom’s solar-battery "factory"—carried huge mirrors for reflecting sunlight onto the battery-charging production lines. The communication department’s spoke bristled with antennas and radar scanners, while in other spokes were the crew’s quarters, Tom’s private laboratory, and station workshops.

A quavering, whining sound suddenly reached their headsets. They managed to make out the words behind it. "Outpost Sky Haven to approaching spacemen. You are nearing United States territory without authorization. Report, please!"

Tom and Bud answered the challenge together, their happy voices overlapping. The outpost replied: "This is Ken Horton, you two. We can barely make out your voices."

"Meet you at the front door, Ken!" Tom replied.

Finally they were admitted through the space wheel’s airlock in the hub section. "Are you two all right?" Kenneth Horton, the station commander, greeted the boys anxiously as they removed their space helmets. A handsome, slender man of about thirty with dark, close-cropped hair, he was an ex-Army major. He had been one of Tom’s first space trainees and had helped build the outpost.

"We are now," Tom replied with a grin. "But flying up here alone was a little nerve-wracking."

Ken shook hands with both boys warmly. "Sure gave us a start when our radarman first spotted you. Of course we’ve been expecting you for hours now, but—didn’t you forget something? Like maybe your
spaceship?"

"Details, details!" Bud reproved. "We misplaced it along the way, with our luggage."

"You didn’t pick up our calls?" asked Tom curiously. "We’ve been signaling all along the route."

Horton shook his head. "Radar and radio’s in bad shape right now because of the weather—major sunspot activity."

Tom clapped himself on the forehead. "Good night, I forgot all about that! This is the solar maximum! Must’ve affected the positioning calculators, too." Ken noted that the space conditions had also prevented any communications with the earth, and that they had assumed that the ship had merely been delayed.

Tom explained the problem at the
Challenger.
"No way we can blame
that
on the weather!" declared Horton. "I’ll send a shuttle to pick up your crew."

But a rescue mission proved unnecessary. The shuttle capsule was met halfway by the
Challenger,
again fully operational. At the outpost Hank Sterling explained that the cloud of particles had ultimately dissipated on its own, freeing them.

"It may not have been
supposed
to break up, though," Tom observed. "The solar bursts may have helped erode it away."

The visitors from the
Challenger
ate and eventually slept. The following space-day, Tom supervised the installation of his midget cosmic reactor, affixing it to the hull at the end of his lab spoke. The test device was a square chassis four feet to a side and about ten inches thick.

"Your gizmo looks like a big waffle iron to me, Tom," joked the technician who had assisted in the work. One side of the reactor was completely covered with rows of the small cells, squarish depressions open to space on the outward side.

Before beginning his test series, Tom relaxed for a time from his zero-gravity labors in the lounge of the space station, joining Bud and a half-dozen other members of the outpost team. Chow, meanwhile, had taken over the galley and served Tom’s group steaming cups of hot cocoa.

"Boy, this stuff sure restores the circulation, Chow!" Tom said with a grateful grin.

He was just drinking the last mouthful when an alarm bell shrilled in the compartment. An instant later Tom and the others felt a slight jerk and the cocoa in their cups took on a slant—then sloshed out over the rim.

"What’s going on?" cried one of the communications relay crew, Beryl Onslow. She began to slide and stumble helplessly across the deck, falling against a bulkhead, then sinking down to the room’s circular, carpeted floor.

Tom felt a sense of oppressive weight dragging him down. Suddenly he realized what was happening!

"Hang on, everybody!" Tom cried. "The outpost’s spinning out of control!"

THE MAMMOTH wheel was spinning faster by the moment, centrifugal force pressing the occupants away from the hub and against the floors of the spoke-modules. Bud and two crewmen, caught by surprise, were thrown from their seats as the chairlegs crumpled beneath them. The cocoa mugs had been wrenched from the men’s hands, splashing hot liquid in all directions. Chow hit the deck with a resounding thump and lay, loudly, spread-eagled on his back. Tom grabbed onto a bulkhead fitting just in time to keep himself from collapsing. As he tried to hold himself erect, he could feel the blood draining from his head and unconsciousness approaching.

"T-Tom!"
Bud choked out.
"Tell me what to do!"
He hoped his athlete’s muscles would be equal to the fight against the terrific pressure of rotation.