Tom Swift and the Mystery Comet (3 page)

Tom nodded his agreement and picked up another of the sacred texts. "But I think the cover to
Hydrolung
does us more
than
enough justice."

"We should look so good," grinned the San Franciscan. "Still... it’s pretty accurate."

As the two ambled along, a young woman approached them shyly. "You know, I—I just wanted to say—I envy you two so much. It must be so much fun every day, living on that island with all those scientists."

"Well, we don’t
live
on Fearing Island, ma’am. We live in Shopton near Swift Enterprises," replied the young inventor politely.

"Ohhh," she responded, face falling. "Sorry. I thought you were Rick Brant and Scotty. I’m not really into the Tom Swift thing."

Bud snorted. "Man, this really
is
a hero-worship convention."

Eventually they made their way to the lecture hall in which Tom was scheduled to speak, overflowing with an excited crowd. As Bud sat off to the side, the Shoptonian was warmly introduced by Mr. Gozzamash. A riot of cheers filled the air.

"Thanks so much, everybody," Tom said. "This is my first visit to your convention."

He spoke for a short time on the subject of the future of space flight and the role of the individual in the history of science and invention, then began to read questions, which had been written by members of the audience on small bright-yellow index cards. "Let’s see now. ‘
Whatever happened to the dentist guy in the Earth Blaster story?
’ Last I heard he was in a mental institution.

"‘
Is the Black Cobra in the stories a real person?
’ He sure is!" Tom didn’t add the fact—unknown to the general public, at least until the publication of
Subocean Geotron
—that the brilliant international criminal was dead.

"‘
Do you have a secret identity?
’ If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret!"—which drew a big laugh from the crowd.

The scrawl on the next card said: ‘
Please explain why your quantum radio doesn’t violate the fundamental principles of Einsteinian equivalence with respect to causal reversal above velocity C.
’ Tom gulped and said sheepishly: "Mm, can’t make out the handwriting on this one."

The next card passed forward asked several questions about Tom’s contacts with an extraterrestrial civilization. "Well," he said, "as you can imagine the whole thing is very complex. Our first contact came from a meteor-like missile inscribed with―"

"
Bo-rrr-ing!
" came a heckling voice, and Bud half-stood, casting a fierce look at the crowd.

"Anyway," continued the young inventor coolly, "there’s not much we can tell the public about the extraterrestrials beyond what you’ve read in the news and the journal articles. We’ve been asked to refrain from comment on certain things, for national—and actually,
international
—security reasons that make sense to us. And as we’ve tried to make clear, the space beings have provided almost no information about themselves, or their science. You can’t really rely on the fictionalizations, by the way—they sort’ve over-simplify and sensationalize a lot of things. As of now we don’t know a great deal about the Space Friends or the civilization back on their home planet, which we think must be in another solar system. We don’t even know what they look like!"

One elderly woman suddenly bolted to his feet and cried out: "
Isn’t it true that they’re really shape-shifting vampires?
" The crowd seemed embarrassed and
shush
-ed her down.

Tom shook his head. "As I said, we know next to nothing about them. By every indication, though, their motive is scientific, not hostile. By the way—I
doubt
intelligent beings with a completely different biology would get any value out of
human
blood!"

"We’d give ’em heartburn!" muttered someone to a wave of laughter.

"But Tom, what about UFO’s and alien abductions?
That’s
not very ‘friendly’!" a woman called out. "Are these friends of yours behind it? Don’t they travel around in flying saucers?"

Tom puzzled over the question for a moment. "I don’t really know anything about alien abductions, I’m afraid. It’s true that some of the vehicles we’ve seen have a disklike shape―"

"
Of course, of course! The famous alien light-ships!
"

The shrill voice yanked Tom out of his thoughts. A middle-aged man at the periphery had stood up and cocked his chin defiantly in Tom’s direction.

Some members of the audience began to hiss and boo. "Aw, siddown, Doc Soc!"

"Sir, did you have a question?" asked Tom.

"More than a question," huffed the man. "Call it an accusation. I accuse you and your company of perpetrating a hoax on the world, Swift!"

"A
hoax
?" Tom was startled.

The man folded his arms across his chest. "I don’t suppose you happen to know who I am?"

"No, I don’t."

"Of course not! Too busy inventing—inventing space fantasies!"

Bud Barclay was on his feet and almost pawing the stage like a bull. "Mister, if you don’t
shut down
and
sit up
, I’ll be mailing you your upper plate! Er..."

"Yeah!" barked Mr. Gozzamash. Turning to his guest, he said: "Don’t mind that crank, Tom. He shows up at these conventions all the time—been banned from most of them."

"A few hundred thousand radio listeners call me a scientific truth teller!" the man laughed derisively.

The audience was becoming agitated, but Tom was determined to take command of the situation. "All right, sir. Just who are you?"

"Not surprised you’ve never heard of Doctor Sarcophagus!"

The young inventor nodded slightly. "I haven’t listened to your program, but I’ve read about it. Are you a scientist?"

"Hah!" shouted a woman in the crowd.

"He’s a professional debunker," hissed Gozzamash. "He makes a living stomping on scientific imagination in the name of―"

"In the name of science, Gozzamash!" The man’s retort reminded Tom that his weekly radio program was called In T
he Name of Science
.

Frowning angrily, Tom held up a hand to silence the roiling room. "Okay ‘Doctor,’ I can see you have something to say. Come on up here. Come up on stage with me. Let’s make this interesting."

The watchers protested and Mr. Gozzamash turned red. "A face off?" sneered Dr. Sarcophagus. "I admire your guts." He charged forward up the aisle and in a moment was standing next to Tom at the microphone.

"Now," said Tom, "go ahead and tell me to my face. What are you accusing me of?"

"You, your company, and half the governments on this planet," the man retorted. "I’ve set forth my evidence a hundred times. My listeners can repeat it in their sleep. The organization I head―"

Tom interrupted. "What organization?"

"SCAT!" called out Gozzamash.

"No," Tom said, "I asked him up here."

Dr. Sarcophagus gave the youth a patronizing look. "The Skeptics Committee on Anomalistic Twaddle, commonly and inevitably called S.C.A.T. Know what we do, Tom? We expose cults, popular pseudo-science, fake technologies, paranormal claims, bogus discoveries—and in this case, nonsense about so-called alien life visiting Earth!"

"What are you saying? That you’re skeptical about the extraterrestrials?"

The man laughed. "Skepticism is allowed in this free country, and in this case it’s well justified.

"Some unidentified
something
flies low over Tom Swift’s company town and gets called a ‘space missile from friendly aliens’! Nice cover for a test of a new experimental cruise missile from Swift Enterprises!

"Or some high-speed lighted blob whizzes across the country and ends up in the Atlantic. Lights in the sky!—which is mighty familiar to the folks here in Phoenix, by the by. Space specimens? Or more rationally a satellite-projected hologram designed for use
by our own Defense Department!
"

"You’re nuts!" roared a teenager.

"Yeah, we all want to believe in the extraterrestrial myth, don’t we!—friendly space aliens coming here to save us from ourselves, from the doubts and dangers of modern technology and
real
science. Religion 2.1, and you can
sin
as much as you want! But where’s the evidence? Only the Swifts have ‘permission’ to talk to these angelic space people!

"That’s not science, folks, that’s
fraud
! Science works by sharing data and evidence, replicating results, confirming hypotheses. Here’s one of the most important scientific events in
history
, and no one is allowed to examine it, or even confirm its existence. Great grief, it’s announced to the world at a meeting of a local astronomy club!"

"All you have to do is do what Galileo did and look up in the sky," declared Tom heatedly. "That little moonlet overhead, Nestria, was maneuvered into orbit by the Planet X scientists! Is
that
just some kind of trick of the light?"

Dr. Sarcophagus had clearly anticipated the argument. "Oh yes. Your heroic flight to ‘Little Luna.’ Nice book. Nice TV spectacle. Let me direct you to another volume in the sacred canon, the one where your father tests a device for creating asteroids from space dust. Or how about the recent hullabaloo about some gadget of yours pushing around a space probe orbiting Titan! Maybe we shouldn’t have given such short shrift to old Professor Voort after all. Maybe our second moon really
is
some kind of technological stunt perpetrated by Swift Enterprises for some military purpose—or to give the United States some kind of foreign policy advantage. And the sheeplike public is supposed to swallow it all!"

The man paused and Tom said forcefully. "I’m sorry to be rude, but that’s just
insane
!" The audience, who clearly
wanted to believe
, burst into applause. "You’re asking people to accept that thousands of people—employees, astronauts, scientists, military and government people, members of the news media—are engaged in some kind of massive conspiracy―"

"Or perhaps they themselves have been hoaxed by a small coterie of insiders."

"But—but you can’t―"

"I can and I do," Sarcophagus cut in, "every Friday night at 10:30! Look, consult any reputable scientific work published before that big announcement of yours. Even the wild-eyed exobiologists agreed that advanced alien life would be exceedingly rare and scattered throughout the universe. As to what we call
intelligent
life, it’s most likely a fluke of evolutionary adaptation. At this point in the history of the universe, we’re probably the only technological civilization within a million light years. How could any conceivable civilization conquer the absolute speed limit, the speed of light, and come trooping halfway across the cosmos just to schmooze with a celebrity father-son team of tinkerers? What kind of rational sense does
that
make?"

"But—why in the world would anyone want to perpetrate a hoax like that?" the young inventor asked, anger turning to amazement.

"The government—many governments—and the military have what they think are adequate reasons for whatever they choose to do. Even scientists—
para
-scientists!—have a motive for fakery. Namely funding!

"And you Swifts have another interest in all this, don’t you? Your revered great-grandpa disgraced himself by claiming to have found indications of intelligent life on Mars—no evidence, just his word of honor. This ‘space friend’ garbage is a mighty nice way to get control of the history books and clear his name!"

Gozzamash jumped to his feet. "This is over!" He switched off the microphone.

But if the mike was dead, Dr. Sarcophagus was still alive. "
Put up or shut up, Tom Swift! I’m challenging you! In the name of science
―"

Then security guards ushered him off the stage and out of the room.

Tom stood stunned. Then he quietly asked that the microphone be switched back on. "Ladies and gentlemen, I... well, I guess I don’t know what to say. But let’s not let it stop what we’re doing."

The audience applauded. Tom took the next written card and responded, then answered a few more.

But just as the young inventor had begun to get his wind back, he pulled out a card that knocked it right out of him!

TOM SWIFT
DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH FENG.
THIS IS NOT YOUR CONCERN
AND COULD COST YOU YOUR LIFE!

TOM silently read the scrawled note a second time, then half-crumpled it without comment and took up another. As he answered the question he carefully set the crumpled card aside, then slipped it into his pocket.

His appearance finally concluded, Tom dealt with autograph seekers and the gushing gratitude of Mr. Gozzamash. Leaving the room by the rear door he motioned Bud aside and showed him the cryptic note.

"Good night, Skipper!" the black-haired pilot muttered. "What the heck is
feng
? Something they sell on the internet? One of those Chinese things where you stand on one leg and let your brain go blank?"

"Beats me," replied Tom. "Maybe just schizo nut-sense from one of these ‘fan’ people. Or maybe a joke."

"Threatening your life? Somebody out there has a funny
un
funny sense of humor!"

Tom nodded slightly but his face was shadowed. "Threats are a dime a dozen, pal, but after dealing with that Sarcophagus character—well, he seemed to be taking his ‘mission’ pretty seriously."

"I was thinking the same thing. He probably wrote it to get your attention."

"Yes, or maybe one of his followers. I’ll keep it for Security to look over back at the plant. But I’d sure like to know what ‘feng’ means."

"Let’s wander around in the dealers room," urged Bud. "Maybe we’ll see it on a sign. Or if we’re lucky someone’ll shoot a ray gun at us—big clue!"

They spent an hour trickling their way through the oozing crowd in the big hall of hawkers and dickerers. It turned out that Tom Swift was not the only inventor-hero with a loyal following, though he was one of the very few nonfictitious—or
semi
-fictitious—ones. There were tables devoted to Jules Verne protagonists, Wells, Conan Doyle, and the techno-thrillers Mr. Swift had mentioned. There were Tesla-ites, superhero acolytes, walking and bleeping robots, complex devices for kitchen use, and unconvincing photos of unidentified flying objects. One woman sat next to a sign that said:
Ask me about my trip to Venus
. And another table sold bumper stickers reading: