Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere (18 page)

"I get it now," Bud said. "Phu would also have known."

"Phudrim or General Utrong’j, unless you want to get into the royals. Either was a viable suspect. But without asking outright, because honesty is a lousy policy in the security business, I ended up finding that the owner of that shop in Chullagar could have been snatched away without Utrong’j’s prior knowledge after all—namely by some of the Palace Guards who are effectively under the control of Minister Phudrim, the King’s chief advisor."

"But," Tom noted grimly, "I’m sure
he’s
under the control of someone else."

Bud grinned. "Yeah. Old Phu doesn’t strike me as the kinda guy who could throw lightning bolts on his own."

They were driven back to the palace, the cause of the terrible event still a mystery. But Bud had a final thought for his friend to chew over before turning off the light. "I’m sure you’ve already been hit by this, Tom. What happened to all those villagers—it’s a lot like what happened to the two pilots in the India jetliner!"

"Yep. And the pilots are still unconscious, too. It may be quite awhile before anyone can tell what happened."

A short night of sleep led to a long morning of shuteye. It was nearing noon when the bleep of the PER unit roused Tom from his sleep. "H-hello?"

"I’m sorry, Tom."

"It’s okay, Dad," said the youth groggily. "What’s up? I know it’s late over there."

"I just took an emergency call from NASA. The Kronus team says the satellite has taken a sudden turn for the worse! The orbit parameters have shifted greatly in the last few hours, and they think she’ll start clipping the Titan atmosphere very soon—today, probably."

Tom took in and let out a deep breath. "I’d hoped to run a few more simulations on the
Queen’s
computers, Dad—but we’ll have to make the attempt ‘b’guess and b’gosh’."

"I know how terrifically difficult this will be," Mr. Swift declared. "As we’ve discussed, we’re ready to help you at our end, just as much as possible."

"We’ll win this thing as a team—Mr. Swift!"

"Indeed we shall, Mr. Swift."

Before noon struck Tom and Hank Sterling were once again airborne in the
Dyna Ranger
. "No need to tempt the lightning boys this time," Tom muttered. "Head us west, Hank."

"Roger."

They slowly accelerated up and out through Earth’s blanket of air, Tom maintaining close contact with his father at Enterprises via the Private Ear Radio. Finally the young scientist-inventor was able to announce that the spacecraft had attained its chosen position, 350 miles out from Earth, high above the Sahara. The
Dyna Ranger
was not in orbit, but was hovering on its repelatron beams and gravitex anchors, parked on the invisible line-of-sight that connected the planet below with far-distant Titan and its stricken companion. "How much longer for the megascope picture, Dad?" Tom radioed.

"I began transmitting the conveyor beam before calling you," came the instant response. "Let’s see—the image terminal should be established near the probe in about 40 minutes. Then I’ll start sending you the picture feed, by our videophone satellites."

"With the parameters shifting so radically, the megascope image is about the only quick way to get good positioning info," commented Tom. "And even then it’d be another 120-some minutes for the redirected dyna-field beam to reach Kronus."

"They ought to make the speed of light—velocity C—a
tad
faster in emergencies! But at any rate, I have the megascope antenna constantly microshifting in anticipation, according to our best estimates, so the beam terminal should track the movements of the Kronus to some extent, at least."

As Tom clicked off, Hank said wryly, "All this fuss and tension—and it looks like we’ll have a couple hours to kill up here."

"I’ll use it as thinking time."

Presently Tom was moved to contact Harlan Ames, the
Dyna’s
radiocom call relayed to Ames’s personal cellphone. "We didn’t have a chance to connect before I left, Harlan," Tom said. "Now that we know Phudrim’s involved, I wondered if there might be any news on the Benni Susak case and the whole Mocking Buddha business."

"Well, boss, there
is
quite a bit of news this morning," Ames confirmed. "I’m told that our Buddha kid Rakshi has decided to start negotiating on the subject of his future. He’s still holding his cards tight for now, but the basics have started coming out nicely." The security chief crisply summarized the emerging plot outline.

It appeared that an international gang was engaged in moving some kind of lucrative contraband from Tibet into the United States. "He claims not to know what it is—technical secrets, weaponry, gemstones, maybe even archaeological treasures of some kind. The pipeline starts somewhere in Vishnapur, and evidently some part of the operation is being run right out of the Sacred Palace. Rakshi refuses to name who’s involved, but we can assume Phudrim was up to his turban in it.

"The shipments evidently are passed along on a sort of ‘trade route’ linking various small shops, like that one in Chullagar, to places like Mukerji’s in Mumbai, and finally to America."

"Mr. Singh’s shop, in other words."

"Right. But that needn’t mean Singh himself knew about it—it could have been Susak’s secret responsibility. Which got him killed by someone, somehow. Anyway, that’s Rakshi’s tale so far, chapter one. He won’t explain why he was using those doctored statues to put Vusungira under suspicion, or why the Crown Prince was double-attacked in Mumbai."

There was a pause, and Tom’s next words seemed to Ames like a
non sequitur.
"You didn’t get Rakshi’s tale by way of Agent Martin, though."

"Well, no, actually. Agent Martin was out of his office when I called. It filtered out from some of my other contacts. But how did you know that, boss? Are you thinking something might have happened to him?"

"Thinking? I’ve been doing a
lot
of thinking up here, Harlan!" Tom replied. "I remembered a point Bud had raised—why do these guys attract attention by leaving ‘calling cards,’ such as the tattoo on Susak? They went to some real effort to put it on his neck after they’d killed him.
Why
?"

"They could be fanatics or cultists of some kind. I took it as a warning—you know, ‘
Don’t let this happen to you
’!"

"Sure," Tom agreed. "A really dramatic, attention-getting warning or message. But to whom? Wouldn’t these international ‘businessmen’ know that a detail like the tattoo would be held back by the authorities until the close of the case?—which they
must
hope won’t happen any time soon!"

"That’s true, Tom. I suppose it might’ve been intended for one of the dockworkers who found the body."

"And
I
suppose it was aimed in the direction of
Agent Martin!
"

After a startled silence, Ames whistled. "Boss, that’s—good lord! It makes sense, ‘flipping’ the person most likely to go after the gang at some point, and then providing him with a timely advisory on the virtue of loyalty that only
he
would understand or know about."

"As you said, Harlan—‘
Don’t let this happen to you!
’ I’ll bet the guy’s skipped town."

"You can bet I’ll be on it as quick as it takes to hang up the phone!"

Presently Tom began to receive image data from the megascope, relayed from Enterprises to the
Dyna Ranger
and displayed on the small viewscreen on Tom’s versatile Spektor unit. Although the glittering speck that was the Kronus satellite wavered and drifted on the screen as the megascope’s viewing point executed its predetermined maneuvers, Tom was able to take sightings against the background stars and use the spacecraft’s computer to determine how to aim the dynasphere’s linear-field beam.

The crystal sphere burned brilliantly against the endless night. "Okay, the dyna-field’s on its way," muttered Hank. "All we can do now is wait for it to get there."

"At least we’ll see the result instantaneously when it does, thanks to the megascope." The quantum link used by Tom’s invention conveyed its data timelessly once the beam terminus had been established.

Hank shrugged slightly. "Uh-huh. But if the push isn’t on the nose..." The young engineer didn’t need to finish the thought. Traveling at light speed, any adjustments to the dynasphere beam would lag some two hours behind ever-changing reality. There was no possibility of any on-the-spot fine tuning: by the time the recalibration could reach the neighborhood of Titan, the Kronus would be well beyond any hope of rescue. If the pre-calculated sequence transmitted through space were flawed, the effect might not only fail to save the probe, but could even shove it the wrong way—to destruction!

Hank Sterling switched off the dynasphere without comment. The rescue of the Titan probe was now out of the hands of Planet Earth. The astronauts now could only watch the monitor and hope the fabled
devis
of starry space would be with them!

TOM SWIFT did his best to keep his thoughts keen and clear as the two hours passed, but the tension in the
Dyna Ranger
’s cockpit was almost unbearable.

"Just about time," said Hank in a dry whisper.

Tom nodded. "And
about
time!—the star sightings I’m looking at tell me the Kronus is drifting off course faster than Dad anticipated. Within ten minutes I’m afraid the sequence will be useless!"

"Jim-danged Alfven waves!"

A timer beeped. "
Whew
!" Tom gasped. "The dynasphere beam’s reached the vicinity of the satellite—not as on-target as we’d hoped, but not too bad."

But there was only more waiting, more apprehension. The spacemen could almost
feel
themselves straining to reach through space to grasp the Kronus and carry her to safety.

At last the results begin to come in. "She’s on the move, all right!" Tom breathed. "You can see it on the screen."

"Tossed on the winds of Sol! The direction’s right, isn’t it."

The young inventor was finally able to grin. "Yes—at least so far. But the Alfven effect is complex, Hank. The Kronus could go spinning out of control at almost any point."

There came a sudden bad moment—the image of the satellite abruptly darted off the screen! "
Dad
!" Tom cried into the PER, "What’s going on with― "

"It’s all right, son," came the reassuring voice. "I realized after I’d sent it on its way that I’d made a momentary bad adjustment to the megascope beam headings. I corrected it in seconds—keep watching." As predicted, the Kronus reappeared.

"It’s working, Tom!" Hank declared happily. "Look at that baby move!"

Tom agreed, first with crossed-fingered caution, then with real conviction. At last he PERed Enterprises:

"
To Damon Swift, Shopton, from Thomas Swift, outer space—mission accomplished!
"

Tom’s father was elated. "Now I can start breathing again, son!"

"The Kronus team must be on pins and needles."

"Not any more—can’t you hear the cheering from the speaker phone? I’ve kept the line open from the start!"

The last megascope readings confirmed that the goal of the rescue procedure had been attained. The Titan probe was now stabilized in a much higher, circular orbit. The change would provide the mission team with a window of months to devise an approach that would permit the probe to resume its work safely—perhaps with occasional helpful taps from Tom’s polar-ray dynasphere.

"For a humble ‘test instrument,’ my electro-dyna-whatsis turned out to be pretty useful," Tom laughed. "It’s sure proved out Clarke MacIllheny’s theories."

The
Dyna Ranger
made its long, slow sweep back to Chullagar, its landing in the courtyard greeted with shouts of a triumph that many felt an emotional share in. Bud and the Shopton guests were in the crowd, as were the
Sky Queen
crew.

As Tom modestly acknowledged the acclaim along with Hank, Bud pointed out in low tones that there were some notable absences. "Namely the royal types—both princes, and King Glaudiunda and Queen Aju."

Tom nodded. "Something tells me they’re all a little shaken up after last night."

"And not
just
the crossroads incident, Skipper."

As General Utrong’j joined the crowd and offered a congratulatory hand, Tom inquired with concern about the victims of the night’s calamity. "Most of the survivors remain unconscious," he replied. "A few have regained—ah, perhaps I shall say that they are now
semi
-conscious."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"The doctors tell me that they are in a strange state. They can give no coherent account of what happened. They seem to be suffering from distressing delusions."

Tom nodded his understanding. "For example—delusions that
it was they themselves who attacked one another?
"

The man’s eyes widened in surprise. "But how could you know this, Master Swift?"

"I put it together piece by piece," stated the youth grimly. "Nothing could have attacked those two jetliner pilots in their sealed cockpit. The only answer is that they must have
turned on each other
suddenly, with so much violence that they knocked one another out—which is lucky, because if the fight had gone on much longer, I think whoever got the advantage would have killed the other with his bare hands!"

"
H’n Chogyalu
, I do see that the airplane incident bears similarity to what happened last night. But what were the pilots fighting over? What could motivate such terrible violence? If your theory is true, these friendly villagers were literally attempting to tear one another to pieces!"

"That’s right, sir," Tom said; "going after each other tooth and claw like trapped animals. General, I think we’re dealing with some sort of drug or toxic contaminant! It must suppress the higher brain functions and unleash primitive-level reactions of paranoia, blind fear, and berserk, aggressive self-protection. It’s the fight-or-flight instinct of an animal—but with the
flight
left out!"

"Then the two airmen had the delusion that they were mortal enemies? And so also the villagers?"