Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung - II Appleton Victor (great books of all time .TXT) 📗

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His chum slapped him on the back. "Good going, Tom!"

"Let's fly right over to Fearing and see how it works on a jetmarine!" Tom proposed enthusiastically.

Bud grinned but made no move. He stood looking at Tom, arms folded and feet wide apart.

"Well, let's go, pal!" Tom urged impatiently, puzzled by Bud's lack of response.

"What about the square dance?"

Tom stopped short, feeling like a punctured balloon. He stared in dismay at his smiling, dark-haired copilot. "Good night! I forgot again!"

With a sigh, Tom added, "You're right, of course. We sure can't let the girls down twice. But at least let's get together all the gear we'll need when we do go to Fearing."

"I guess we'll have time for that," Bud conceded with a sympathetic grin.

Tom assembled a mass of electronic equipment and phoned various Enterprises' departments for other items. Bud helped to collect them, and the boys trucked the paraphernalia out to a hangar to be loaded aboard a Whirling Duck. Then they scootered back to the lab for a quick shower and change.

Twenty minutes later, in sport jackets, checked shirts, and slacks, the two chums hopped into Bud's red convertible. They picked up Sandy and Phyl and drove a little way into the country for dinner at a huge old farmhouse restaurant.

"Well, the evening's off to a good start," Sandy said with a happy laugh as they headed back along the lakeshore road to the yacht club.

"Hope I didn't put away too much fried chicken to sashay properly at the square dance," Bud remarked.

Tom chuckled. "Don't worry, pal. You always untangle those feet of yours when the fiddle strikes up!"

The blazing lights of the yacht club were reflected in the blue-black mirror of the boat basin. Bud parked and they went inside.

"Welcome, buckaroos!" Chow Winkler greeted them with an enthusiastic bellow as they entered the dance room.

The old cowpoke was splendidly dressed in a maroon satin shirt and white whipcord breeches tucked into shiny new boots. But instead of his usual sombrero, a chef's cap was perched on his head.

"Chow! You look marvelous!" Sandy said.

The cook blushed with pleasure. "You gals look purty enough to charm a hoot owl right off'n his perch!" he shot back. Both Phyl and Sandy were wearing gay calico dresses that had full swirling skirts.

The room was decked out with colored bunting and twisted crepe-paper streamers. And at one end of the dance room, Chow had rigged up a model of a Western chuck wagon.

"Real atmosphere!" Tom said admiringly. "Chow, you've done us proud!"

"Thanks, boss." The cook, who had asked especially to take charge of the decorations, glowed at the praise. Then he became serious. "But what's keepin' that dad-blamed fiddler?"

The guests soon began to stream in, but half an hour went by, and Lester Morris and his fellow musicians had not arrived.

"I'd better phone his house," Tom decided worriedly.

Mrs. Morris answered. She seemed surprised at Tom's call. "Why, my husband's playing at a party over in Carterton this evening," she said. "Are you sure you engaged him for tonight?"

"I'm positive," Tom replied.

"Just a moment, please. I'll look in his date book to see if there's been a mistake."

A minute later her voice came over the line again. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Swift, but your name isn't listed anywhere on Lester's schedule."

The others saw from Tom's face as he hung up that something was wrong.

"What gives?" Bud asked anxiously.

"No music for one thing." Tom reported what Mrs. Morris had told him.

"But you hired the guy!" Bud protested. "And Sandy and I talked to his agent!"

Tom was already piecing together the mystery. He shook his head thoughtfully. "I'm sure now the whole deal was a hoax, Bud," he declared. "Both the first call that supposedly came from Lester Morris, and the second one asking me to come here and talk things over."

By not responding to the second call in person, Tom went on, he had probably saved himself from being waylaid or kidnaped by his enemies.

"Thank goodness!" Sandy exclaimed. "Still, that creepy Len Unger was trying to get information from us."

"But how did your enemy know about the dance, Tom?" Phyl Newton put in.

Sandy snapped her fingers. "I know! I'll bet it was when we went shopping for our dresses, Phyl, right after the boys invited us! The department store was full of people—almost anyone might have heard us discussing the dance!"

"Especially if he was already trailing you to pick up bits of useful information," Tom agreed.

Bud whipped out a handkerchief and mopped his face nervously. "The question is what do we do now, chums? A roomful of guests and no music!"

"Relax, pardners!" Chow broke in cheerfully. "Just keep things goin' for a spell, an' I'll fix things up pronto!"

Doffing his chef's cap, Chow hustled out to his parked jeep and took off with a roar. Mystified but hopeful, Tom, Bud, and Phyl did their best to entertain the guests. Sandy had rushed to the telephone. In twenty minutes Chow came rushing back.

"Hey! He has a fiddle!" Bud exclaimed.

Mounting the platform, the stout cowpoke raised his hands and shouted for attention.

"Ladies an' gents, we'll start off with that good old dance known as the Texas Star!"

As everyone took his place, Chow tuned up hastily. Then he tucked the fiddle under his chin, stomped out the rhythm, and launched into a lively rendition of "Turkey in the Straw" while he called out the accompaniment:

"Gals to the middle, then back so far!
Gents step up for a clockwise star!
Now shift hands and twirl t'other way,
We'll keep on dancin' till the break o' day...."

The dance number finally ended to thunderous applause. Chow, puffing and red-faced but wreathed in smiles, was soon ready for another. Half an hour later, a dance band of high school boys, hastily summoned by Sandy, arrived to spell the Texan.

The irrepressible chef, however, continued to call out most of the numbers and proved to be the hero of the evening. He gained even more acclaim for his delicious French fried potatoes and "steerburgers" served during the pause for refreshments.

"Oh, Chow! What would we ever do without you?" Sandy said, and the cook beamed.

Suddenly, in the midst of the lively chatter and laughter, the dance floor was plunged into total darkness!

Phyl clung fearfully to her escort. "Tom!" she gasped. "This is another trick of your enemy's to harm you!"

CHAPTER XII

DETECTION TEST

"Don't worry, Phyl. It may be only a blown fuse," Tom tried to assure the fearful girl.

But Tom was worried himself. Not only might he be in danger, but it could involve his friends!

Nevertheless, he raised his voice above the excited babble. "Please be calm, everyone! We'll have the lights on again in a jiffy!"

Taking Phyl by the hand, Tom groped his way toward the main door.

"Let's check the switch," he murmured, and ran his hand over the wall near the door. He located the metal plate and flipped the switch.

The lights went on! Good-natured cheers arose. Bud, grinning but puzzled, left Sandy's side long enough to come over and speak to Tom.

"What happened?"

"I guess some practical joker clicked off the switch."

Bud suddenly caught sight of a stout youth in a plaid shirt and blue jeans, who was standing in a nearby corner. He was shaking all over with half-stifled merriment.

"There's the wise guy! Rock Harriman!"

Rock, an all-star tackle on the Shopton High football team, was well known for his pranks and practical jokes. Bud rushed over.

"Okay! Confess!" the husky young flier roared in a jokingly ferocious tone.

"Don't get sore!" Rock gasped between chuckles. "I couldn't resist. Boy, did you hear everyone squeal when the lights went out?"

Tom grinned in relief. "How about another dance, Phyl?"

As the music struck up again, he squeezed Phyl's hand. "I sure appreciate your concern, even if I didn't rate it."

Phyl blushed as she returned the squeeze. "You rate with me," she confided shyly.

The festivities finally ended after a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Both Sandy and Phyl declared to their dates that it more than made up for the forgotten beach party.

"But let's not wait too long for the next date," Sandy warned playfully.

"Okay, that's a deal," Bud promised.

The next morning at the plant Tom called on Harlan Ames. He told of the sinister hoax by the caller who had passed himself off as Lester Morris. The security chief promised to investigate.

"I'll tip off the police about Len Unger," Ames added. "If they can find him, we may be able to crack this case wide open."

Tom telephoned Bud, Hank Sterling, and Arv Hanson to meet him at the helijet hangar. The four took off in one of the Swifts' Whirling Ducks, which was standing by loaded and ready. Soon they landed on Fearing Island, where Tom would try out his antidetection invention.

"What'll we use for a test sub, skipper?" Hank asked as they drove toward the docks.

"A jetmarine," Tom replied.

A truck with engineers and technicians was following the jeep. It carried the equipment which Tom and Bud had assembled the previous day.

When they arrived at the docks, Tom gathered the men in a loading shed. He showed them his drawings and explained how his "sonar-blinding" setup would operate.

"Don't let the diagrams fool you. The basic idea is very simple. We absorb all sonar impulses that hit the ship and transmit them out the opposite side of the hull, instead of letting a ping bounce back and show up on the sonarscope of any hostile sub on the lookout for us."

Most of the job, he went on, would be tedious detail work. It would consist of attaching hundreds of mikes and speakers all over the hull to pick up and transmit the sonar pulses. The mikes would be receiving transducers and the speakers would be transmitting transducers.

"The leads from them," Tom ended, "will be centralized in a single electronic control unit inside the ship. I'll handle that part of it."

"Great idea, Tom!" Arv Hanson said admiringly.

"But what a job it'll be rigging those transducers," put in one of the technicians.

Tom nodded wryly. "You're right, Danny. If this experiment works out, though, I think I can lick that problem on future installations."

The young inventor explained that he hoped to find a way to mold the transducers into a continuous plastic sheet. This could be applied to the hull of a submarine in a single operation.

"But this time we'll have to do it the hard way," Tom added with an apologetic grin.

A jetmarine was hoisted into drydock and the work crew swarmed over it, rigging the transducers. Would his experiment succeed? Tom wondered. Hopefully, he set to work assembling the electronic control unit.

Bud helped the men on the hull for a while, then descended through the hatch to see how Tom was progressing.

experiment

"I'd go gaga trying to keep track of those circuits," Bud said, as he watched Tom installing the delicate transistors and other components with an electric soldering gun.

The young inventor grinned. "It'll be simple enough when the control unit's all put together," he replied. "Just a single on-off switch and one test circuit."

By noon, after working at a frenzied pace, the job was done. Tom thanked each one of the men personally. Then everyone went to eat lunch.

After the meal, Hank Sterling asked, "How about a detection test to see how she works?"

"Coming right up," Tom said. "Want to skipper the jetmarine, Bud?"

"Sure do!"

"Okay. Pick out a couple of men for a crew and take her down." Tom produced a hydrographic chart of the waters around Fearing and marked out a test area. "Cruise around there for an hour and we'll try to spot you in the Sea Hound."

"Hide and seek, eh?" Bud grinned and snapped a salute, then left to supervise the relaunching of the jetmarine.

For his crew, Bud chose Mel Flagler and another man. Mel was an experienced jetmariner who had gone on the Swift expedition to Aurum City, the underwater ruins of a lost civilization. Here Tom had used his spectromarine selector to restore the ancient buildings.

Tom, Hank, and Arv went back to the airfield and