Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space (8 page)

"All right," said Sandy. "But can you really get a heavy rocket way up to the stratosphere or something, just by
buoyancy?"

"No you can’t," Tom admitted. "But as I figure it, by having the whole rocket fuselage in rapid vertical motion by the time it breaks the surface of the water, we’ll save a great deal of fuel, as well as the time required to prepare a conventional launch stage. You know, most of the fuel burned on a rocket flight is expended within the first mile of travel—and most of
that
just clearing the top of the gantry!"

Tom was now engaged, excited, and back in his element. After further discussion, he looked at the girls and asked in a sheepish voice, "To really develop this, I’ll need my lab equipment. Don’t you think we’ve had enough—?"

"No!" declared Sandy firmly. Then she softened. "But when Tom Swift wants to go inventing, no one better try to hold him back."

"Tell you what, San. Let’s leave tomorrow afternoon." Then Tom’s face took on a warning look.
"But
—to play safe, let’s all stick around here between now and then!"

Later that afternoon, an unexpectedly warm one, Sandy and Bashalli went down to the beach for a dip. Perhaps inspired by Tom’s illustration, the two girls were tossing a beach ball back and forth before going into the water, when suddenly Bash stopped the game. She came close to Sandy and whispered excitedly: "Look at that man over there—the one with the striped trunks, and—"

"And nothing else!"

"And notice his left foot. It has a short great toe to match that queer print we saw in the sand!"

Sandy stole a second glance in the direction Bashalli had indicated. The man lay stretched out on a big beach towel with a rolled-up T-shirt across his eyes to protect them from the sun.

The girls looked at each other knowingly and studied him for a moment. His black hair was close-cropped above a high forehead, and though his face was partly hidden they judged him to be about thirty years old. Sandy turned to Bash and hurriedly whispered a plan for finding out more about him.

Casually the girls edged their umbrella closer to the spot where the man was lying, then resumed their game of beach ball. Sandy purposely let the ball go past her. It landed several yards away and rolled up to the corner of the towel the man was lying upon. As it hadn’t rolled quite far enough, Bashi carefully strode closer and gave it a nudge—twice—quickly jumping away. At last it bumped up against the man’s legs. He pulled the T-shirt from his eyes and regarded Bash curiously.

Sandy hurried to recover the ball and apologized profusely. "Oh, I’m terribly sorry!" she said. "I missed the ball."

"Not a problem," he said with the hint of a drawl. The man now looked at Sandy with a friendly grin; or at least a grin of some kind or other. It crossed her mind that he certainly did not look like a criminal.
One of the suave variety,
Sandy decided.
Now he’s going to say something charming!

"Actually, I’m glad I was lying in the way," the stranger said pleasantly. Even more than pleasantly.

I was right!
thought Sandy. She cocked her head and assumed a puzzled frown. "Aren’t you the man who lives next door to the Lawsons?" she inquired.

"I’m afraid not." He laughed. "But if that would make us neighbors, I’m all for it."

He
was
smooth—clearly a hard case! Sandy laughed too, reddening a tad beneath her new suntan. She and Bashalli abandoned their game and reclined under the beach umbrella. The conversation with the suspect was resumed.

The stranger told them that he was an ex-Army officer, recently separated from the Signal Corps. He had come to Florida for some sunshine and a much-needed rest.

"By the way," he added. "may I introduce myself? Kenneth Horton."

"Oh, is that your name? Mm, I mean—" She bit her lip.
Oh, is that your name? Ugh!
"I’m Sandra Swift," responded Sandy, "and this is my friend, Bud—er—"

"No," Bash corrected.

"Bash. Bashalli…something."

The man offered his hand. "Hey there, Bash Bashalli Something. You two just meet?"

"Comparatively speaking," Bashalli replied. "My last name is difficult. Foreign, you know."

"Well,
Kenneth
is foreign to me, actually. I’d rather you called me Ken."

Sandy gulped. This mission was not going as planned! "Sure…Ken."

Bashalli spoke up in the brief silence that followed. "Sandy and I are here, here
on this beach,
in
Florida
with our
boyfriends,
Bud and Tom, to vacation. Here. Florida. Which is where we are now."

"With your boyfriends."

"Prexactly. Excisely."

"Who are here."

"Yes."

"So where are they?"

"Well, ah, they’re…elsewhere."
A curse upon this American hunk-lizard!
was the phrase that came to Bashalli’s mind, unbidden.

"We ought to get together," Horton said. "That is, the five of us—if I’ve kept track."

"Oh, absolutely and
look what time it’s getting to be!"
Sandy cried with a glance at her wrist.

Horton raised an eyebrow. "You’re not wearing a wristwatch."

"No," said Sandy earnestly. "No, in fact, I’m not. Do you wear one?"

He held up both bare arms. "See one?"

"We must run," Bashalli said.
"Really
we must." She looked at Sandy, who looked back helplessly. "Really we
must! Run!"

"Later," waved Ken Horton.

The girls grabbed their things in a flustered flurry and trotted away across the sand. "That went well," Sandy murmured.

As they arrived inside the Lawsons’ house, where Bud and Tom were relaxing, Bashalli was speaking to Sandy in a tone of disgust. "Sandra, to
swoon
is not the act of a modern woman!"

"Well, I’m
not
a modern woman; I’m a modern teenage girl. At least that’s how I feel right now," she pouted. "And look who’s talking, little miss
‘excisely’
!"

Both girls gave themselves over to the very traditional act of giggling.

"What’s up, you two?" asked Bud.

"Ah,
very
much
way
up!" Bashalli declared. "The small-toed enemy reclines even now upon the beach!"

Tom jumped to his feet. "What!"

"Oh, no, no," objected Sandy hastily. "It was just sort of a mistake. His toe wasn’t all
that
short, really…you know."

Bud stood and pounded a fist into his open palm. "I think I wanna meet that guy!"

"Oh, now,
Bud,"
fretted Sandy. "He’s not a criminal or a spy. He’s very nice—an Army veteran."

Bud snorted. "Yeah? Of
which country?"

Tom tried to calm the proceedings. "Look, we won’t take a swing at him. But there’s no harm in running whatever we know past Harlan Ames and his various connections." He pulled out his ever-present notebook. "Just tell me what you learned about him. Did you get a name?"

"Of course we did!" Bashalli pronounced. "It is Kenneth Horton, of the Army Signal Corps."

"But he goes by Ken," Sandy corrected. "Probably Kenny."

"Uh-huh. What about his age?"

Bash looked scornful. "As if we would ask such a question of a total stranger!"

"About thirty," Sandy blurted out. "A young thirty, very masculine."

"Be sure to note that down, Tom," Bud quipped.

"Description?"

"Blue eyes, maybe with a little violet," said Tom’s sister. "Sort of sparkling, with kind of a
come-to-me
gleam. White teeth,
all
there, no bad breath. Well, I think he likes potato chips, but potato chip breath isn’t what I’d call
bad,
would you, Bashi? Nice rounded muscles, here and here and, er—you know. Flat stomach,
totally
broad shoulders. One of those—I’d call it a
creamy-dreamy
tan. Kenny is pretty much your average cute, complete utter babe. Oh, Tom, his voice! Just like Addison Grimes."

Tom looked thoroughly lost. "Who’s Addison Grimes?"

"You know, Tom," Bud said wryly. "On the soap opera!"

Tom sighed, wrinkling his forehead. "Can
you
tell me any more, Bash?"

She shook her head. "No, a major
cute.
I must agree."

"How about his hair?"

"Oh,
right!"
Sandy cried. "Dark, curly, narrow right up the center lane, then going wide at—or did you mean the hair on his head?"

The young inventor set down his notebook and glanced at Bud. "At least we have a name."

Bud gave a thoughtful nod. "He does sound cute."

"Bud!"

"Well, I can see how the
girls
might find someone like that, er, that."

Abandoning for the moment their debriefing of Sandy and Bashalli, the boys promptly raced toward the beach for a look at Horton. He was still in place, and fairly recognizable.

"So he’s the one who slipped you that bug!" Bud whispered, doubling his fists. "Well, let’s find out how big he talks, face to face—him and his potato-chip breath!"

But Tom held his friend back by the arm. "Take it easy, pal. We’ve got our look. We’ll notify Ames and let him inform the authorities and run the databases." He paused and added with irony, "He’s probably coded under
cute,
huh?"

"Ya think?"

The next afternoon, Kenneth Horton having made no further appearances, the young people took off for home, landing at Shopton in time for a relaxed mid-evening meal in town. Immediately after dinner Tom emailed an abbreviated report to Harlan Ames, then returned to his lab to plunge into some late-night work on the preliminary design of his buoyancy-lifted rocket idea. It was after eleven when the young inventor finally arrived home for a night’s sleep.

The next morning was Saturday. Tom, first to be up and dressed, was just heading downstairs to fix himself a quick breakfast when a loud buzzing growl sounded through the house.

The alarm system!
Tom thought anxiously, rushing to switch it off before the others were disturbed. But the family’s dogs, Caesar and Brutus, were already barking, and a glance showed Tom’s mother in her nightgown at the top of the stairs, a look of fright on her face.

"What is it, Tom?" she whispered.

"We’ll soon know," said Tom grimly, approaching the front door. "It may be just an innocent caller," he added, seeing her look of concern. But Tom’s own thoughts were less sanguine. He had taken note of the warning dial above the front door. The needle had swung around violently, indicating that the visitor carried metal—possibly a weapon!

As Tom strode to the door, steps sounded on the porch and the doorbell rang.
At least they’re not trying to sneak up on us,
he thought. Tom pressed a light switch—it was still early on a clouded winter morning, and the sun had barely touched the sky—and peered into the security eyepiece at the side of the door, which connected to an optical-fiber periscope. In the yellow glow of light outside stood a uniformed policeman—Greg Norcall of the Shopton PD.

Relieved, Tom opened the door. He started to greet the officer pleasantly but was tersely interrupted.

"Are you Tom Swift?"

"You
know
I am, Officer Norcall. What is—"

"Then please accept this official court document."

He thrust a grave-looking document into Tom’s hand. "It’s an emergency summons ordering you to appear before Judge Grover on the twenty-seventh of this month to answer charges of malicious destruction of property!"

THE NEWS about the summons served on Tom Swift appeared in the morning edition of the town newspaper, as if it had been leaked to the press in advance. The local superior court, at which the lawsuit had been filed, was packed on the date of the scheduled hearing. The Swift family, Bud Barclay, and Bashalli Prandit arrived to the sizzle of electronic photo-lamps and the loud jostling of a throng of excited television reporters armed with deadly-looking microphone booms. Waiting inside the courtroom was Chow Winkler, who, like Bud and the others, had also received a summons; for the lawsuit involved the destruction of
"certain high-altitude balloons and other property of the Quik Battery Corporation"—
a reference to the balloon Tom, Bud, and Chow had observed from the
Sky Queen
on the day of Tom’s fall through the stratosphere.

Tom and the others declined to make a statement to inquiring reporters as they entered, except to mutter confidently that the matter involved an obvious misunderstanding.

Although the case was scheduled for one thirty, the court docket was so crowded that by mid-afternoon the case still had not been called. Tom fumed. He had been unable to learn any details of the charges against him and his friends, other than those buried in legalese in the summons itself.

Bud squirmed and fidgeted. Under his breath he muttered to Tom, "Boy, this is worse than standing by for a rocket take-off!"

Finally Judge Grover intoned, "Case of the Quik Battery Corporation versus Tom Swift,
et cetera, et al,
and various subsidiary parties as stipulated. Will the parties please step forward?"

As Tom rose from his seat, a stranger came bustling up the aisle. He was a stocky man, with a florid complexion and bulging eyes that made him look like a bad-tempered bullfrog. "Fine," whispered Bud under his breath. "We’re fighting a real zoo—gorillas and frogs." Tom responded with a wary chuckle.

"You are the complainant?" inquired Judge Grover, addressing the red-faced man.

"That is correct, Your Honor. I am Jaston York, president of the Quik Battery Corporation. As an attorney and member of the Bar Association of this State, I will represent my own company in these proceedings."

The judge turned to Tom. "And you are the primary named defendant, Thomas Edison Swift, resident of the municipality of Shopton, a single man and prior emancipated minor, eighteen years of age?"

"Yes, sir."

The judge nodded. "Of course I already
know
who you are, Mr. Swift, as I am not a dat-rang’d fool; but the legal profession requires that you endure these procedures."

"Say, I like this hombre," Chow murmured.