Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere

THE TOM SWIFT INVENTION ADVENTURES

TOM SWIFT

AND HIS POLAR-RAY DYNASPHERE

BY VICTOR APPLETON II

This unauthorized tribute is based upon the original TOM SWIFT JR. characters.

As of this printing, copyright to The New TOM SWIFT Jr. Adventures is owned by SIMON & SCHUSTER

This edition privately printed by RUNABOUT © 2011
www.tomswiftlives.com

"SORRY, Tom," came the voice of the Flying Lab’s radioman through Tom Swift’s cellphone. "Don’t want to interrupt. But."

"Problem on the
Sky Queen
, Luke?"

"Not for us, chief—maybe for you. Your Dad’s on the videophone. Says it can’t wait."

Tom Swift grinned. "I’d say the biggest problem around here may be with my traveling companions! I’ll head back now. Give me fifteen."

As Tom clicked off his phone, a pretty raven-haired girl pretended to bury her face in her hands. "Oh no, oh no," she moaned. "Even in
Pakistan
, trouble follows Tom Swift."

The crewcut young inventor’s grin had quickly become a sheepish half-smile of abject apology. Vacationing in Pakistan with his good friend Bashalli Prandit, who had been born there, the relaxing tour of Karachi now faced the kind of interruption that all too often had cut short the young people’s dating life back in Shopton, New York.

Bash’s mother, accompanying them down the modern streets of the new-old city’s tourist district, said something in Urdu, to which her daughter gave a wry response that required no translation for other ears. "Oh yes," commented a blond girl, Tom’s year-younger sister. "It’s fate, absolute
fate
. The stars of the East are against us. Just like the stars over Shopton!"

Bud Barclay, Tom’s best friend, gave Sandra Swift a look of pure skepticism. "C’mon, San. You don’t speak Pakistani any more than I do—‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ ‘how much?,’ ‘does it come with fries?’ "

"My dear Budworth, she does not
have
to know the language," stated Bash. "She knows the gist—by sad and repeated experience."

"Okay, okay," Tom protested. "I’ll try to keep it brief. Go on with your walk-shop. Maybe it’s nothing."

"Ye-aah, an’ mebbe I’m th’ blame Duke o’ Paducah!" snorted the large, rounded, very Texas-like figure of Chow Winkler, professional chef, devoted friend. "Jest
try
not t’get yerself kidnapped, boss."

"Don’t worry, pard. Not my turn!"

Tom headed for the Karachi International Airport in one of the city’s dauntingly risk-taking taxis. Out of sight of his Shopton friends and the Prandit family, the young inventor dropped his humorous pose. Whatever was behind his father’s summons, it was more than likely a serious matter.
I must’ve been dreaming, thinking I could manage to unwind for a couple weeks!
Tom thought ruefully.

A life of danger and challenge—brief though it had been so far—took an inevitable toll. From the moment his giant Flying Lab jetcraft had carried him into deadly intrigue in South America, he had endured the sort of unending excitement that would gray the blond hair of anything less than an extraordinary prodigy, the genius descendant of the first Tom Swift. Tom had already traveled to the remotest corners of Earth—to Antarctica, to the Yucatan jungles, to the steamy marshlands of Africa, even to Trenton, New Jersey. He had plumbed the depths of the sea, the nuclear fires of an antimatter volcano, more than one lost city, and the airless plains of the Moon.

But it was Tom’s most recent exploit, an encounter in space with a nomadic lifeform of frightful power, that had finally led him to the ultimate sacrifice—time off from the demanding art of invention. His 3-D telejector now in the hands of others for whatever further development and commercial manufacture lay ahead, the youth had gladly accepted the invitation extended to Tom and those closest to him to join Bashalli Prandit on one of her visits home to her extended family.

And now, four days in—this.

The silver-white three-deck
Sky Queen
sat grandly in a broad section of the airport that was still under construction. Though it had flown its passengers to the ancient, troubled land in modern comfort and scientific luxury, they had chosen to stay in one of Karachi’s better hotels along with the Prandits, leaving only two crewmen behind on the skyship.

On the other side of the
Queen’s
side-hatch, pilot Luke Tor greeted his young boss. "All ready up above, Tom. Mr. Swift stayed on line for you."

"Good night!" Tom groaned. "No way this isn’t important."

The Swift Enterprises videophone system was a private television network that spanned the world via satellite. In the spacious control cabin at the prow of the ship, the digital flatscreen awaited the young inventor, full of the sober visage of the man who sometimes called himself The
Old
Inventor—Tom’s father Damon Swift, CEO of the family’s Shopton invention factory.

"Believe me, son, I would have done anything to avoid bothering you on your vacation with this," he said. "But― "

"Oh, I know, Dad," Tom reassured him. "Imminent worldwide destruction? Or just a little espionage?"

Mr. Swift smiled. "A scientific puzzle—maybe one should call it a scientific
crisis
—with significant implications. Within the hour I was contacted by NASA, who in turn put me in touch with the head of the GenRev team in Toronto, Professor O’Malan."

Tom’s mind flashed across his mental filing cabinet. "The satellite project developed at the Toronto Institute of Applied Physics."

"Yes—measuring the finer details of Earth’s gravitational field to confirm some predictions from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. The satellite went up on a European booster nine days ago."

"Have they discovered something interesting?"

"The concern is that something may have discovered
them
. Tom, the GenRev satellite has inexplicably gone dead in orbit, as if something attacked it in space!"

Tom gulped. "That’s terrible news. Physicists around the world were hoping the project would go a long way toward discovering how gravity works its wonders—me too. But what happened, exactly? Is the satellite still up there?"

"Yes, according to radar and optical," replied the older scientist. "But it went dead silent without warning. The telemetry didn’t fade out, it was
cut off
in an instant. Yet long range instrumental readings show nothing abnormal in the area—no debris, no radiation, no sign of outgassing from a blown thruster."

"Could a micrometeorite have fouled the solar panel?"

"The satellite has battery backup. In fact, it has a sort of ‘black box’ aboard, as airliners have, with its own power source, which should be automatically reporting some basic information to ground control. But they’re getting nothing at all."

"I see," nodded Tom. "I’m sure you’ve already taken a look with the megascope." The megascope, a remarkable invention of Tom’s, used an electronic principle to create a television-like viewing point at any distance, even in deep space.

"Of course, that was my first response," said his father. "But there was nothing to see—no superficial damage is visible. The satellite is gliding along perfectly, at least as far as I can tell. I’ve sent the viewer images on along to Toronto."

"I take it there were no signs of a missile assault. Or..."

Mr. Swift gave Tom a shrewd look. "No spacecraft—I know what you’re thinking. No sign of the
Fanshen
. If indeed it still exists."

The Swifts had battled the self-styled Black Cobra—a stateless scientific criminal named Li Ching—several times now, in situations that had endangered countless lives. The man’s private spacecraft, the
Fanshen
, had been thought destroyed; but the Cobra had outwitted the death notices, and it was thought his ship had also survived to fight-or-flight another day. "We know the Cobra has been pretty lively recently," Tom pointed out.

"Yet, as the NASA people are saying, there are no signs of the Cobra’s signature weaponry, nor was the satellite snatched out of orbit—not that there’s any reason for Li to want to do so."

"There’s no reason to ruin the experiment, either, Dad!—but
something
wants to," declared the youth. "Are we being asked to do anything? Maybe go up and retrieve the GenRev?"

"Not just yet. They’d prefer to study the tracking data over several days-worth of orbits, so as not to miss any clue to the cause of the aberration. This is a head’s-up about something that might grow large very soon.

"But another problem has cropped up in space, perhaps a more serious one. Though it’s hard to imagine how they could be connected― "

"Right, Dad, we’ve learned to distrust ‘
mere coincidence
’!" Tom half-laughed. "So what’s the second problem?"

Damon Swift paused, pulling out a drawing to place before the eye of the videophone’s camera. "You know what this is, don’t you?"

Tom frowned. "Well... maybe. Another satellite?"

"Exactly so," nodded Mr. Swift. "I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t recognize it right off, son. It’s been a good ten years or so since Canaveral sent it up."

"Oh, of course," exclaimed the youth. "I’ve read the journal articles, the reports of its findings. I just forgot how it looks. The Kronus 3—the Titan orbiter." His mind leapt back to the exciting images the NASA space probe had sent back in the years when Tom’s megascope was less than a dream. Radar-scanning the shrouded surface of Titan, distant Saturn’s giant moon, the satellite had launched a score of atmosphere-penetrating offspring which had returned a torrent of images of the eerie world beneath its deck of methane clouds. "Has something happened to the Kronus as well?"

"Yes—something quite different but equally hard to explain. The details are complex. Rather than go into it now, I’ll digitransmit the report to you. Perhaps it’s just Swiftian imagination, but I thought the double-problem in space was worth an early alert. As a matter of fact, for reasons that will become clear to you, the Kronus matter may well require some fast action. Probably a new invention, I’d say."

"Hey, Dad, it’s what we do. I’ll look for the report and read through it tonight—bedtime reading!"

Puzzled, concerned and somewhat at angry odds with inconsiderate Fate, Tom called a cab and rode back into town. To ascertain his party’s location, he dialed Bud’s cellphone. Receiving no response, he tried Sandy—again, nothing.
Aw, good grief
, he grumbled inwardly.
Can’t leave ’em alone for a second
. But then he added a rueful concession:
Me neither, I guess.

Finally Tom tried the number he had been given for the cellphone of Ulnash Prandit, Bashalli’s father. To his surprise, it was Chow Winkler who answered! "Chow! What in the gosh-darned world is going on? Where are you?"

"Huh? That you, Tom? I ’as
jest
answerin’ the phone, cause ever’body’s all—oh, son, it’s jest like you said!"

"Just like I
said
? What did I say, pardner?"

"About gettin’ kidnapped! That there Bashalli’s gone an’ disappeared!"

MR. AND MRS. Prandit and the Shopton travelers—Bud, Sandy, and Chow—rushed up to Tom as he jumped out of the cab at the police precinct station nearest the department store from which Bashalli had vanished. Five voices overlapped, trying to tell Tom what had transpired within the hour.

"Wait,
wait
!" demanded the young man, fear mounting. "Please, just one of you tell me."

"Then
I
will tell," declared Mr. Prandit, who spoke English, if somewhat haltingly.

He explained that the group had decided to visit a large, well-known department store, Mo’urdass, that catered to tourists. Inside they had separated, Sandy accompanying the Prandits to the section devoted to women’s fashion, Bud and Chow to the toy section.

"Never seen sech toys, boss!" Chow blurted. "Wind-up, plug-in, all manner o’ them little video― "

"
Chow
—let’s let Mr. Prandit continue."

"Yes, for I am the father," harrumphed the gray-haired Pakistani. "My little honey-heart, I see her walking down a further aisle, where there are scarves. She waves, I wave kisses to her. You see?" He pantomimed.

Tom nodded impatiently.

"Then she turns her head, as if—well, maybe I think somebody has called her, from just around a corner. She walks away. I no longer can see her." The man’s broad face assumed an expression of dignified anguish. "When we look to find her, she is nowhere. All over the emporium, out to the streets—nowhere is she! And so at last we demand of the manageress that she call the
Sur’muq’a
, the civil policemen. They come, we tell the story, they tell us to come here to tell it again, and to wait."

"We are here," put in Mrs. Prandit. "But where is Bashalli,
where
?"

"Do the police have a theory, ma’am?" Tom asked.

It was Bud who answered, hotly. "These guys? Forget it! They don’t give a hoot about Bash or any of us. They just tell us to wait out here cooling our heels."