Tom Swift and His Deep Sea Hydrodome (3 page)

"Up
there?"
She had pointed out the window. At the end of a canyon of tall buildings, a bright bead of light was illuminating the darkening sky. "Some day, when I have grandchildren, I’ll tell ’em that when old Grandma was a little girl there was only
one
moon in the sky. They probably won’t believe me."

"Uh-huh. I
was
on the Nestria expedition, actually," was Bud’s suave reply.
The boasting lamp is on,
he thought.

"You know," she had said after a pause, "this may be fate working its wonders. I was planning a move to the east coast. I’m not satisfied with my work here at the U.S. Attorney’s office. Do you suppose Swift Enterprises would be interested in a lawyer with a background in patent law and commercial contracts?"

"I don’t know," Bud had said. "I don’t think I’ve ever met the Enterprises lawyer, but I know he has a staff working under him. If you’d like, I’d be glad to—"

But she already had a card in her hand, which she had pressed into Bud’s. "You’ll pass this along, won’t you, little boy?"

"I promised her I would, Tom," Bud concluded.

"I’ll give her card to Willis Rodellin," Tom said, holding out his hand. Glancing at the name on the card, he frowned.

"Something wrong, skipper?" Bud asked.

After a thoughtful silence, Tom shrugged. "No. It’s just that her name kind of rings a bell. I don’t know why. Maybe I read about one of her court cases somewhere. I guess that’s not too unlikely, if she deals in patents and the like."

"Well," said Bud, "if it’s her last name that’s got your attention, I asked her if she had any relatives in the instant-coffee business—but it’s the wrong spelling."

"I’ll pass along the card," Tom promised. But his face still wore a thoughtful expression as he set the card down on his desk, face up. The card read:

AMELIA K. FOGER, ESQ.

This was one time Tom Swift would have done well to have recalled some details of Swift family history!

WHEN TOM returned home for dinner that evening, he was pleased to see that his father was up and around. Except for a couple ugly bruises peeping out from behind the bandages on the scientist’s face, he was every bit his usual energetic self.

Awaiting supper, the two sat in the den and spoke of the events of the last couple days. "I’m afraid this fouls up our trip to the city of gold, son," Mr. Swift said with a wry smile.

"Never mind that, Dad," Tom replied. "The important thing is that you’re all right. And as far as science is concerned, finding a major new source of helium is more than enough!"

"You’ve tested the sample?" asked Mr. Swift eagerly.

"Yes, and the Swift Spectroscope confirms it."

"Fine, fine," his father said. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, then added, "Tom, we’d better notify the government of this at once. It’s too important to keep to ourselves."

"I certainly agree," Tom replied with earnest enthusiasm. "Whom should I contact?"

"Bronson at the Bureau of Mines. He’s in charge of all helium production. I’ve dealt with him before. Enterprises, and the Swift Construction Company, have a history with that office that goes back to your great-grandfather’s time." Mr. Swift was referring to Tom’s famous namesake, the first Tom Swift.

"I’ll call him first thing in the morning, Dad," Tom promised.

The next day found Tom in the Enterprises teleconference room, sitting across a table from the televised image of Assistant Director Leo Bronson. When Tom reported the undersea discovery, the gray-haired government official was very enthusiastic. "If everything pans out, this find of yours could be significant indeed, along the lines of your discoveries in Antarctica, Africa, and the rare-earths mine in New Guinea. You gentlemen certainly are keeping us busy! If we could organize production on a large scale, it would revolutionize half a dozen fields of research and development! For example, cargo-carrying balloons would be much cheaper than the present system of freight-carrying planes, and they could make use of the jetstream—so I’m told. And besides the obvious technological uses to which helium might be put, it would really expedite our space-flight program!" Bronson declared.

"The space program?" Tom puckered his brow. "What’s the connection, sir? Is the government planning to use helium balloons?" Remembering Bud’s comment about party-balloons, the young inventor smiled.

Bronson’s image nodded. "Not such a far-fetched idea, Tom—you yourself make use of buoyancy in your underwater launch system in—what’s that island called?"

"Loonaui, sir." Swift Enterprises used an aquatic lift stage to launch spacecraft to the orbiting Enterprises space station from a base in the mid-Pacific.

"On some of the future rocket and satellite launchings, we think helium balloons will be used as a booster stage. In other words, the launching platform will be raised to the outer limits of the atmosphere by means of these balloons. Gets us above the thick part of the air, you know."

"That will save fuel," Tom agreed, "but it will take immense quantities of helium if the method is widely used."

"That’s just it!" Bronson said. "We need a new source of helium in a hurry and this undersea bed could be the answer. Listen, Tom, let’s all work hand-in-glove on this. I’ll have some of our deep-sea Navy boys look the site over and do their own analysis—just a formality, you understand. Meanwhile, I’ll put together a liaison team to keep Enterprises connected to us. They’ll work with you directly and report to my office. Sound good?"

Tom groaned inwardly but replied, "That’s fine, sir." Swift Enterprises had not always had a positive experience working "hand-in-glove" with government agencies and officials.

During the ensuing week Tom applied himself to several scientific projects. The preeminent task was to adapt his hydrodome design to the necessities of longterm work at a much greater depth than anticipated. The sturdy material he had intended to use, a lightweight combination of Tomasite plastic sandwiched between layers of magtritanium alloy, proved too weak to withstand the terrific pressures found at the base of the undersea mountain.
Extended
over that many square yards, the dome would crumple at a touch,
Tom thought glumly.
But what can we use?
He experimented with Tomaquartz for a time, but found that the substance could not be manufactured in the large sheets required.
Guess I’ll have to rethink the overall configuration of the dome,
he concluded.

To give his mind a break from the immediate problem, the young inventor turned his attention to the data he had collected on the satellite Nestria during his recent trip there in his rocket ship the
Star Spear.
Enjoying the freedom of movement guaranteed by his atmosphere-making machine, which had produced a livable earthlike environment on the tiny asteroid, Tom had spent several days in a cave studying the artifacts left there for him by his mysterious space friends, extraterrestrials who communicated with Earth via deep-space radio.

The main subject of Tom’s studies was a cube-shaped device of peculiar composition which appeared to function as the key component of a "gravity concentrator" affecting the entire moonlet. The cube was fastened to the cave floor by some unknown means and could not be moved; furthermore, it was impervious to x-rays and other such instrumental probing. Yet Tom had been able to study the energies that flowed around it, energies which also coursed through the veins of bright crystal that suffused the crust of Nestria. Tom had named this strange semi-metallic substance Lunite, in recognition of the satellite’s original nickname, Little Luna.

One afternoon Tom, joined by Bud, was hard at work in one of Enterprises’ shielded high-energy lab chambers, setting up a sample of Lunite in a strong viselike clamp. Above, attached to a wall, was a spherical device, black in color.

"You sure you want to do this, genius boy?" Bud asked nervously. "Last time you tried that generex machine on stuff from space, we just about dissolved like a cold remedy in a glass of water!"

"Pal, that window pane is made of ten layers of Tomaquartz with sheets of Inertite sandwiched between. I can’t believe anything could get through it!" Then Tom chuckled. "Besides, I’m holding the cut-off button in my hand. If you feel anything vital melting, let me know!"

"I’ll do that," replied the young pilot. "My signal will be a high-pitched shriek."

Sealing the test chamber the youths withdrew to positions in front of the observation window and Tom activated the all-frequency wave generator at its lowest power setting. There was no detectable response from the Lunite sample. After examining some monitoring instruments, he began to gradually increase the generex output, upping the power click by click.

"Tom, d-do you feel something?" Bud asked. "Kind of a tickling sensation?"

"No I don’t," replied the scientist-inventor absently, deeply concentrating on his work. "But the polarization scanners are showing some kind of field activity in the air around the rock sample. This could be an important clue to how that gravity device works, Bud." He touched a control knob. "Hmm! Getting a big response to slight frequency changes… and the field seems to be expanding."

He touched the knob again.

Suddenly a sharp, distant sound caused both Bud and Tom to look behind them, toward the locked laboratory door. "What was that?" Bud demanded. "You heard it too!"

Tom nodded. "Sounds like someone talking loud, Bud, that’s all. Nothing to worry about." But at Bud’s nervous urging Tom shut down the generex and took a look out into the hall.

"I mighta knowed!"
exclaimed a foghorn voice. "You’re at one o’ them experiments o’ yours agin, sure as shootin’!"

The voice issued from the generously sized mouth and double-chinned throat of Chow Winkler, a hefty older man who was not only chef to Tom and the rest of the Enterprises senior staff, but a close personal friend who never failed to lift the young inventor’s spirits.

"What’s wrong, Chow?" Tom called to the ex-Texan, who stood several doors down in the building hallway, a tray in hand.

"Brand my jumpin’ beans, why ast me?" grumped the cook. "Not like I know anythin’ about this here scientistical foolishness." He strode closer to Tom and Bud on his high-heeled western boots, and held out his tray for them to examine. "Look’t that salt-shaker! Whatter y’see, boys?"

A large glass salt shaker stood in the middle of the tray. "I, er, don’t see anything, Chow," Bud said. Tom nodded his agreement, eyebrows raised.

"Durn straight, a-cause they’s nothin’ to see! Here I am, walkin’ along, bringin’ a nice little afternoon snack t’ Franzenberg and his gang, when all of a sudden blame if’n my salt shaker don’t decide to jump up in the air like a hop-toad!"

"Jump in the air? What do you mean?" Tom asked.

"Mean what I say, boss. Jumped right up off’n the tray. If’n I warn’t so quick on the draw, she’d o’ shot right acrosst into the wall. But I snagged her with m’ right hand."

"Well, pard," said Tom soothingly, "maybe you just took a misstep, or bumped against—"

"Nawp!" Chow insisted. "Nothin’ like that—jest took off on its own. And then when I grabbed it, all th’ dang salt went flyin’ away!"

Bud gave a half-shrug. "Too bad. Got all over the floor, hm?"

The westerner’s face turned almost as red as the scarf around his neck. "Buddy boy, yew jest don’t get it! I didn’t say
fallin’,
I said
flyin’!
Tom, that there salt sprayed right through them little holes like they’s jet-propelled, ever’ bit of it! An’ that’s the last I saw of it!"

Tom took a moment to examine the floor and walls of the hallway, rubbing a wetted finger along them.

Bud asked, "Anything there? Ghostly ectoplasm, maybe?"

Tom gave a tentative shake of his head, but frowned thoughtfully. "If there’s any salt here, it’s not a shaker-full—just a few grains here and there."

"No surprise," Chow pronounced. "That salt was flyin’ like no tomorrow. Must be half-way down th’ hall and out the door!"

Tom had no answer to the mystery. "I don’t see how my running tests on Lunite could have affected your salt shaker, Chow. Or even just the salt."

Just then Tom’s pocket cellphone bleeped, its rhythm indicating an interoffice call from within Enterprises. "This is George Dilling, Tom," came the familiar voice of the plant’s office of communications and public interest. "The airfield tower asked me to contact you. That jet flight you’ve been expecting has just landed."

Tom replied, "I’ll meet them in the office; Dad’s already there. Have Security check their ID’s and show them the way, won’t you, George?" Apologizing to Chow and promising to investigate further, Tom headed for the nearest ridewalk, Bud following at Tom’s invitation.

In the Swifts’ shared office in the ultramodern administration building, Tom and his father shook hands with their two visitors, Leo Bronson’s appointed liaisons for the helium operation. One was a rugged, balding man of about fifty with a tanned, weather-beaten face. The other, in his late twenties, was dark-haired and wiry in build. Wary at first, some instinct told Tom he could trust them.

The older man, Dr. Arthur Clisby, was a well-known Bureau chemist whom Mr. Swift had met before. "And this is my associate, Bob Anchor," Dr. Clisby said crisply, introducing his companion.

"Glad to know you," said Tom, shaking hands. "And this is Bud Barclay. Would you like to have a look at that helium sample right away?"

To Tom’s surprise Dr. Clisby shook his head negatively. "That won’t be necessary, Tom. Bob and I have examined the spectroscopic data you transmitted to the Bureau, as well as a fresh sample taken by the Navy sub team."

He frowned unexpectedly, and a moment of ominous silence followed.

"Is something wrong with the sample, Arthur?" Mr. Swift asked.

Bob Anchor answered the inquiry. "I’d say so. Your sample doesn’t match the one the Navy acquired. There’s not a trace of helium coming from that site you marked!"

"What!"
gasped Tom unbelievingly. "That’s not possible!"