Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X - II Appleton Victor (best novels for teenagers .txt) 📗

Swift nodded as he began work.

Tom watched admiringly as his father reconstructed the radio, coating the entire thing with a Swiftonium compound. He at once placed the set in a small oven which he raised to 50 degrees centigrade.

"When this cools, the set will be stable," Mr. Swift said. "But if you should move any part of it after it cools, all of the organic parts, like the circuit boards, the insulation, the carbon resistors, etc., will oxidize and disappear as gas. You will not even be able to tamper with a single unit."

"Wonderful, Dad," Tom murmured when the device was finished. "I wish I had your know-how in microchemistry."

"And I wish I had yours in electronics!" the elder scientist declared with a chuckle.

After Mr. Swift had installed the device in Exman's star head, Tom used the electronic brain to inform the robot about the whole scheme.

Both Tom Jr. and Tom Sr. were delighted when Exman showed real enthusiasm. It replied via the printed tape on the decoder:

DO NOT WORRY, MY FRIENDS. I WILL NOT RESPOND TO ANY ATTEMPTS BY BRUNGARIAN SCIENTISTS TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. MY PLANET IS WELL AWARE OF THEIR DANGEROUS AIMS. HAVING CONQUERED YOUR WORLD, THEY WOULD NEXT INVADE SPACE.

"Looks as though Exman's got their number, all right!" Tom said with satisfaction.

Early the next morning Mr. Swift drove Tom to the Enterprises airfield to meet his friends. Hank Sterling, Bud, and Chow were already on hand, and Arv Hanson arrived a few moments later. Tom and Bud left the others to bring Exman in a small panel truck.

Soon the space robot was safely loaded aboard a transport helicopter. The others took their places inside the cabin.

"Good luck, son!" Mr. Swift forced a smile as he gave Tom a parting handshake.

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll be back soon!" Tom assured him. The nature of the trip had been described only vaguely to Mrs. Swift and Sandy in order to keep them from worrying.

The short hop overwater to Fearing Island was soon completed. Lying just off the Atlantic coast, Fearing had once been a barren, thumb-shaped expanse of scrubgrass and sand dunes. Now it was the Swifts' top-secret rocket base, tightly guarded by drone planes and radar.

As the helicopter approached its destination, Tom radioed for clearance, then whirred down toward the landing field. The barracks, workshops, and launching area of the base lay spread out in full view. Cargo rockets bristled on their launching pads, along with Tom's spaceships, including the mighty Titan, and the oddly shaped Challenger and Cosmic Sailer.

North and south, the island was fringed with docks. Here the recovery tugs and fuel tankers were moored, as well as the Swifts' fleet of undersea craft.

Tom had chosen a cargo-hauling jetmarine, named the Swiftsure. It was a larger version of his original two-man jet sub, the Ocean Dart. He had given orders the night before to have it ready for sea by morning.

By jeep and truck, Tom's group sped across the island to the dock. Exman was quickly lowered aboard through the sub's hatch. The others followed, the conning-tower hatch was dogged shut, and soon the Swiftsure was gliding off into the shadowy blue-green depths.

"What's your sailing plan, skipper?" Hank Sterling inquired. The quiet-spoken, square-jawed engineer stood beside Tom at the atomic turbine controls and looked out through the transparent nose of the jetmarine.

"Go slow. Give 'em plenty of chance to pick up our trail," Tom replied.

For two hours they cruised at moderate speed. Nothing happened. Disappointed, Tom surfaced and radioed his father for news, after cutting in the automatic scrambling device.

"You're in time for an exciting flash," Mr. Swift reported jubilantly.

"What is it, Dad?"

"An attempt to earthquake New York has just failed!"

Grins broke out on the faces of the crew as they heard Mr. Swift's words come over the loud-speaker. Bud let out a happy whoop.

"That's great, Dad!" Tom said. "Maybe we've got 'em licked on the quake front. No luck so far, though, on our new project."

"Well, keep in touch and let me know at once if anything happens," Mr. Swift urged.

"Right, Dad!" Tom promised.

Again the Swiftsure submerged. This time it was only a few minutes before Arv Hanson gave a cry of warning.

"Something on the sonarscope, skipper!"

Bud, Hank, and Chow hastily gathered around the scope to watch. The blip grew larger rapidly. It was clearly another submarine, closing in on a collision course.

Tom put on a burst of speed, as if attempting to outrace their pursuer. But he was careful to gauge his knots by reports from the sonarscope, in order not to widen the gap between the two craft. There seemed no danger that this would happen, although the Swiftsure raced ahead faster and faster. Still the enemy sub continued to close in like a marauding shark, finally passing Tom's craft.

"Some baby!" Bud muttered respectfully.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a missile streaked across their bow, in plain view through the Swiftsure's transparent nose. Its foaming wake rocked the jetmarine.

"They're attacking us!" Bud cried out.

Tom slammed shut the turbine throttle, bringing his craft to a gliding halt in the water. At the same time, he switched on the sonarphone.

"Orders to Swift sub!" a voice barked over the set. "Surface and heave to! No tricks, or the next missile will not be across your bow!"

Tom blew his tanks and sent the Swiftsure spearing upward. As the conning tower broke water, Tom and his men swarmed up on deck. Seconds later, a sleek gray enemy submarine knifed into view. Its hatch opened and several men climbed out.

To Tom's amazement, their leader was Samson Narko!

Chow let out a yelp of rage. "Why, you sneakin', double-dyed, bushwhackin' polecat!" the old Westerner bellowed. "We shoulda kept you hawg-tied, 'stead o' lettin' you go free!"

Narko ignored the outburst and raised a megaphone to his lips. "Hand over your cargo and do it quickly!"

"What cargo?" Tom snapped back. "And what's the meaning of this outrage? You realize this is piracy?"

"I realize you will wind up on the bottom at the slightest show of resistance!" Narko warned menacingly. "You know very well what cargo I refer to! Now do not try our patience!"

Tom and his crew pretended to put up a blustering, indignant front. Chow was especially convincing, with a blistering torrent of salty Texas invectives.

(a submarine attacks the Swiftsure)

Narko's only response was a barked-out order to his men in Brungarian. Quickly the enemy submarine maneuvered closer until the two craft were almost chockablock. Narko and his men then leaped aboard the Swiftsure, armed with sub-machine guns and automatics.

"I'm warning you, Narko—" Tom began angrily. But Narko cut the young inventor short by a poke in his ribs with the gun muzzle, then issued orders to two of his men to go below.

Moments later, Exman was being hauled up through the hatch and transferred aboard the raider. The Americans glared in angry silence.

"Thanks so much, my stupid friends!" Narko taunted them with a jeering laugh. Then he followed his crewmen as the last one scrambled back to the enemy submarine.

With laughs and waves, they disappeared into its conning tower. The hatch was clamped shut and the raider promptly submerged.

Tom and his men were amazed, but delighted at not having been taken prisoner along with Exman. All of them broke into happy chuckles of relief.

"Wow! That's what I call fast service!" Bud exclaimed.

"It was sure a blamed sight easier'n I expected," Chow said. "Thought fer a while we might end up feedin' the fishes!"

"You put on a real act, Chow!" Tom said, clapping the stout old cook on the back. "Well, they've taken the bait. Now let's hope it pays off—for us!"

The Americans swarmed below again, closed the hatch, and submerged. Tom took his time in bringing the jet pumps up to speed. "Wonder if we should pretend to proceed on course, or turn around and head for home?" he murmured to Hank.

Hank's reply was cut short by a yell from Hanson at the sonarphone.

"Missile coming, skipper! Straight at us!"

CHAPTER XVI A UNIQUE EXPERIMENT

"Bearing?" Tom cried.

"One-seven-five!" Arv Hanson sang out.

Tom gunned his port jet turbine and swung the Swiftsure hard right. The abrupt turn at high speed sent the craft sideslipping crazily like a skidding race boat.

"Here she comes, skipper!" Bud yelled. He had rushed to the sonarscope with the other members of the crew.

Tom's maneuver had carried them a good hundred yards off the missile's course. Now he yanked a lever, pulling the cadmium rods still farther from the atomic pile, in order to increase power and jet-blast their sub still farther out of range.

But suddenly the men at the scope blanched. "The missile's turning too!" Hank cried. "It's homing in on us!"

Unlike most Swift craft used on scientific expeditions, the cargo sub's hull had not been coated with Tomasite. This would have insulated it from all magnetic effects or any form of pulse detection. Tom had chosen the Swiftsure partly for this very reason, so that the Brungarian rebels could easily pick up its trail after leaving Fearing.

How ironic if his choice should prove fatal! As the thought flashed through Tom's brain, the missile came streaking into view through the sub's transparent nose.

By this time, Tom had flipped up the Swiftsure's diving planes. The craft plummeted deeper into the ocean depths.

"Brand my whale blubber, she's turnin' again!" Chow gulped. The missile's arc, as it veered around to follow, painted a streak of light on the sonarscope.

Anxious moments raced by while Tom steered their craft in a deadly game of tag with the sub-killer. Gradually the missile appeared to be losing momentum.

"It's slowing down, all right!" Arv called out.

In a few minutes the missile had lost so much way that Tom was easily able to outdistance it. The crew crowded to the scope, heaving sighs of relief. The missile, its velocity spent, sank harmlessly toward the bottom.

"Boy, what a close call!" Bud gasped weakly. "You played that thing like a toreador sidestepping a bull, Tom! Nice going!"

The others echoed Bud's sentiments, with fervent handshakes and backslaps for Tom's skillful evasive action.

"Jest the same," said Chow, "I'd sure like to make Narko an' them Brungarian hoss thieves dance a Texas jig with a little hot lead sprayed around their boot heels! Sneakin' bushwhackers! It's jest like I told Hank about his airplane scheme—they'd try to gun us down, like as not, soon as they got their hands on Exman!"

"I guess you had them figured right, Chow," Tom agreed wryly. "Well, at least we've lost their sub!"

The Brungarian raider was no longer visible even as a faint blip on their radarscope. Evidently Narko had thought the jetmarine a sure victim and headed back to his own base.

Nevertheless, Tom steered a wary zigzag course back to Fearing. When they arrived at the island, he immediately telephoned Bernt Ahlgren and Wes Norris in Washington to report the hijacking of the space brain. Both men praised the young inventor for his daring scheme to outwit the ruthless Brungarian rebel clique.

"If your idea pays off, Tom, we should be able to checkmate every move those phonies and their allies make!" Norris declared.

"I'm hoping we can do even better than that," Tom replied. "Part of my plan is to help the Brungarian loyalists through Exman's tip-offs. With some smart quarterbacking, we might be able to rally the rightful government before all resistance is crushed out."

"Terrific!" Norris exclaimed. "Let's hope your scheme works!"

Tom had ordered the space oscilloscopes to be manned constantly, both at Fearing and at Enterprises, in case of a flash from Exman. But no word had yet been received when Tom and his companions arrived at the mainland