Tom Swift and His 3-D Telejector (7 page)

"Whoa now, Texan! Is that another ghost?"

Chow whirled with big eyes. "Hunh? Where?"

Linda and Tom were pointing upward—above the cook’s head! He rolled back his shoulders and looked up. With a fearful gulp he staggered backwards and nearly stumbled over his Texas boots.

A ghostlike figure was suspended a few feet above Chow!

It took a moment for Chow’s prairie eyes to make sense of what he was seeing. "B-b-brand my ec-ec-ecter-plazzum! The blame thing’s upside down—walkin’ on th’ ceilin’!"

The eerie figure was big and round and semi-transparent. Though its feet were out of view, it did seem to be walking, without a sound. "It—
it don’t have a head
!" whispered Chow.

"No—it doesn’t have
hair
," Tom corrected him. "You’re seeing the top of his head."

The figure stretched out an arm. In his hand was a phantom sandwich!

"Now wait a blame second!" Chow snapped. "I never heard o’
food
havin’ ghosts!" He lowered his gaze to Tom and Linda. His eyes were full of suspicion. "Yep, another one o’ them tricks. That there’s
me
, iddnit!"

His watchers had dissolved into laughter. "In the flesh—er, kind of," chortled Tom. "We recorded you with my 3-D camera system when you came in, and that’s the playback."

"How do you like seeing the top of your head in 3-D?" asked Linda joshingly. "I think it’s very manly, cowboy."

"Ya do?—aaah, more jokin’!" But he laughed too.

The phone bleeped with an internal call.

"Hi Doc," Tom said into the receiver.

"Tom, I thought I should let you know of something," said Doc Simpson, a strain in his voice. "Maybe it’s nothing, but—it has to do with Arv Hanson."

"Arv?"

Linda Ming looked over in surprise as Tom repeated the name.

"He called me about an hour ago from home—told me he was running a high fever. I’ve called him twice in the last few minutes. He doesn’t answer!"

TOM was instantly concerned—Doc Simpson was not the type to panic. But with a glance at Linda Ming, he responded calmly. "Couldn’t he have just stepped out?—maybe to the drugstore?"

"I called his drugstore just now, Tom. The druggist is a friend of mine. He knows Hanson very well, but says he hasn’t been by today. Look," Doc went on, "I don’t mean to alarm you. When Arv first told me his symptoms this morning, it sounded rather more severe than a headcold, but I didn’t think too much of it—he’s a healthy guy. But now― "

"Okay," Tom said. "No harm in checking it out. Keep calling him, won’t you? Bud’s in Shopton this afternoon—I’ll ask him to drop by."

"That’d be wise, I think."

Bud promised to stop by Hanson’s small lakeside home. After a tense wait, Tom’s cellphone beeped.

"He didn’t answer the front door, but his car was in the driveway, so I went around back," Bud reported.

"The back door was unlocked?"

"It is
now
. Pal, he was lying on his sofa, too weak to speak—he could barely move! Drenched in sweat!"

Tom gasped in quiet dismay. "He should go to an emergency room, Bud!"

"I’ve already called an ambulance. I think I hear the siren now." Bud assured Tom that he would follow Arv to the local hospital, Shopton Memorial, and call back when he had an update.

"Call Doc," Tom urged. "He may want to speak to the attending physician."

Too concerned to resume work, Tom headed for his office in the administration building, promising to call Linda and Chow as soon as he received word on Arv’s condition.

Word arrived in half a long hour. "He seems to be doing fine now," Doc reported. "They tell me the fever is under control, heart and pulse rate strong. He’s pretty weak, but I talked to him for a minute."

"Do you know what he came down with?"

"I’m afraid not. You know, people develop these mysterious fever spikes every now and then, and by the time we medics get into it there isn’t much left to see. We call it things like ‘24 hour flu’. Translation:
who knows?
There are all sorts of viruses drifting around our crowded world, Skipper. Most are harmless, fortunately, but the body still has to deal with them."

Tom was relieved, but asked: "Do you think he’s contagious?"

"Like I said—who knows? But as a doctor I can’t justify any isolation measures at this point. Bed rest, obviously, until he’s back to his robust Swedish self. I’ll take a look at his lab results and bloodwork."

Tom spoke to his father, who was passing through on the way to a meeting, then tried to collect his thoughts. "I guess writing up the telejector test data will clear my mind," he muttered to himself.

His accessed his personal scientific journal on his personal computer. As always, he did so with a slight twinge of anticipation. And sometimes, as on this occasion, the twinge was rewarded.

YOU GUESSED IT
ITS GOOD OLD ME
CHECK YOUR HOME VOICEMAIL
FOR AN IMPORTANT LETTER

Tom didn’t bother puzzling over the
non
sequitur. The cryptic comments had a familiar tone. On several occasions Tom had communicated in this way with a severely secret agency of the U.S. government which he had come to refer to as Collections. On matters of world affairs and espionage activity—no longer the sole province of governments—they seemed to know a great deal that few had a right or reason to know. And that included how to cut in on Tom’s protected and encrypted computer system.

"
Back from vacation?
" Tom typed, hoping his sarcasm came through clearly. "
We could have used your help in dealing with the sunken tanker.
"

SEEMS YOU DID OKAY ON YOUR OWN
STILL BREATHING I TRUST
I HAVE INFO FOR YOU

"
About the Green Orb?
"

SORRY
WE DONT DO ORBS
THIS IS ABOUT THAT TANKER

Tom was intrigued but wary. The recent foundering of a supertanker, the
Centurion
, had prompted Tom to use his aquatomic tracker to seek its subocean location. It developed that the ship had been converted to a hidden underwater base run by a European scientist named Vaxilis who was attempting to extract a valuable substance from the sea bottom. Captured, Tom and Bud had managed to escape the base. Later Tom had been informed by the CIA that the ship had been flooded, drowning Vaxilis and his followers to the last man.

That had seemed the final word. Could there be more? "
Is Vaxilis alive?
" he typed.

NO
STILL DEAD
AH BUT WAIT!
WASNT THERE SOMETHING ABOUT
HIS MAKING A LAST MINUTE SWITCH
TO A NEW PATRON?

"
I reported to John Thurston what he said. Vaxilis thought he’d found a better deal than Kranjovia was offering.
"

BETRAY A FINE DICTATORSHIP
>LIKE KRANJOVIA?
>WHAT A JERK

"
How about telling me what you have?
"

THE NEW IMPROVED PATRON
SNAKEMAN

Tom felt a choking sensation as he typed, fingers trembling. The snakeman! "
Li Ching is dead!
"

YOU FORGOT THE QUESTION MARK
THIS ONE
IS NOT STILL DEAD

Comrade-General Li Ching, an expatriot Chinese national, had become known to the world intelligence community as the Black Cobra. A chillingly conscience-free master strategist who traded in technological secrets, he had pursued Tom murderously, and had nearly exterminated the scientific community on tiny Nestria. "
How could he have escaped the disintegration of his spacecraft?
"

THE BIG BLOWUP WAS FAKED
NICE SPECIAL EFFECTS
THURSTONS MEN FOUND EVIDENCE
IN THE TANKER THAT VAXILIS
WAS UPGRADING VILLAINS
WHICH IS WHY
A KRANJOVIAN PATRIOT ABOARD
SCUTTLED THE WHOLE THING

"
Thurston didn’t tell us
."

COURSE NOT
ALREADY EMBARRASSED
GETTING HELP FROM A KID
LOOKS BAD AT BUDGET TIME

"
Why are you telling me this now?
"

IS THAT A CUE?

The young inventor knew what would come next—the catchphrase that had given Collections, and Tom’s contact the Taxman—their colorful monikers.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

There would be nothing more from the Taxman. Not that day.

Apparently Tom was to check his home voicemail for
an important letter
. "Makes no sense," he told himself; "which fits in well with everything else!"

Only a few trusted individuals had been given the youth’s residential number. It rarely held any unexpected news. But this time—it did. "Hi, Tom—recognize my voice? This is Eldrich Oldmother, still using the name, yep. Look, I picked up a little something over my higher-plane mental radio. I think you’ll be interested, my friend. Seven tonight, that burger joint on the lake’s recreation pier. Should be safe enough for a quick meet. In’n out, eh?"

Tom clicked off his handset.
It’s a wonder I ever have time to do any inventing,
he thought wryly.
I’ll have to ask Pete Langley how he handles it.

At 7:10 the young inventor was sitting at a woodless table, sharing french fries with a gray-haired man who had once been well known as a prophet. "Man, am I ever glad we folded the church," declared Oldmother. "The old head’s a lot clearer without that Informatics stuff."

"Clear enough to pick up one of your psychic messages, I take it."

"Naturally. Once you’re up on the higher plane, you’re attuned to the universe for life. Habit forming. Nowadays, though," he went on soberly, "it’s not such a good thing, being known as a psychic. That’s one of our subjects here, friend."

Tom’s eyebrows arrowed up. "What do you mean?"

"You don’t read
Mind-Body-Spirit Times?
Big article last week."

"My subscription’s lapsed."

"Bad timing. This could have to do with both of us, Tom—if what I found on my bedside notepad this morning is the warning I think it is."

"A warning?" Tom regarded the man skeptically. Though Oldmother had proven himself a source of accurate information during Tom’s exploit with the visitor from Planet X, Tom had never been entirely sure how to regard the ex-prophet’s claims of psychic powers.

Oldmother leaned forward over the table. "It’s a warning to me, and to you as well—I
sense
it. It consisted of a single letter.
Q
!"

TOM found himself smiling into the gravely serious face of Eldrich Oldmother. "I guess that explains a mysterious message I received this afternoon from my
own
unearthly contact—about a ‘letter’ waiting for me. So what’s ‘Q’ supposed to signify?"

Oldmother shrugged eloquently and took a moment to examine a fry. "Crinkle cut, Tom. A metaphor for life.

"You remember how it works, don’t you? I don’t read minds or foresee the future. It’s a kind of subliminal clairvoyance, bubbling up out of my subconscious depths in symbolic form. I wrote it on the pad in my sleep. That’s why I have that notebook next to the bed at all times. I don’t know what would happen if my pen went dry."

"I’d suggest getting a roller-ball marker," commented the young inventor dryly. "So is ‘Q’ the first letter of a word? What starts with Q? Quantum? Quark? Quip?"

"You’d take this more seriously if you knew what’s been happening," Oldmother retorted brusquely. "A lot of people with The Gift think that green weenie up in the sky is a sign from high beings."

"End times, maybe?"

"Scoff scoff. Now try this on: for months now, well known psychic types the world over have gone missing!"

Now Tom
was
more serious. "Are you saying they’ve been kidnapped, sir?"

"I’m telling you, no one knows where they are. No ransom demands, so signs of violent abduction. Not even a UFO sighting. But it’s happened in France, England, Romania, Russia, Thailand—and four known adepts have disappeared here in the U.S.!"

"The police― "

The man looked contemptuous. "Right. The police. ‘
I’d like to report a missing mindreader, officer.
’ They’d tell me to consult a Ouija board.

"Like I said, there are no signs of a crime. Far as I know, spouses and friends haven’t raised much fuss yet. Most of these people are loner types. They meditate, go off in the woods—vision-quest stuff. But you can see why I’m a little nervous, Tom. I’m a biggie."

"That’s true, Mr. Oldmother," Tom agreed. "But what does this have to do with me—and ‘Q’? It’s a symbol used in electronics and pressure dynamics, but I don’t see any connection to either of us."

The older man rubbed hand over fist. "I can’t explain how these brain-signals of mine work. But as I looked at that letter on the paper, it was as if I half-remembered something. Whatever it stands for, it’s about something that has
power
. I was being warned to watch my backside, and I had the impression you were also a target in some way."

"I’ve run up against some other odd incidents lately," admitted Tom thoughtfully. "Some of them happened in space, near the Green Orb—which is a pretty eerie object in itself. But other things have happened here on Earth." He smiled slightly. "Even a sort of ghost."

"Don’t expect
me
to tie it all together. I’m just the telephone, you know, not the answer machine. But after I drive off tonight I plan to spend a few months
way
out of sight. Until this thing stops." He added bluntly: "Maybe you should do the same, Tom."

As Tom drove home, he thought:
maybe I should
. Knowing all along that he wouldn’t.

Late the following morning the Swifts’ receptionist and secretary, Munford Trent, flustered his way into the office a few steps behind an unexpected visitor who evidently cared little about being expected. "Morning, Swiftosphere," said Peter Langley with tight-faced courtesy.

"Tom, he just― "

"It’s all right, Trent," said the young inventor, rising from his office chair. "Pete’s always welcome here at Enterprises."