Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway (14 page)

Suddenly Tom remembered something. "That guest in the skeleton costume! I saw him earlier this evening, but not when I took the nose count! T
hat would make twenty-five people in costume!
"

To be sure he had made no mistake, Tom repeated his circuit of the patio and the first-floor rooms. Mr. Skeleton was nowhere in sight! With growing alarm, Tom slipped upstairs and glanced into room after room. Again he drew a blank.

There was only one place left to look—the basement. Not switching on the lights to avoid alerting the intruder, he darted down the steps, two at a time.

Eyes probing the big room, dimly lit by window-light, he gasped twice: once as he glimpsed the black-and-white skeleton figure hurling himself toward escape through one of the basement windows, a second time in horror as he made out a small plastic packet on the concrete floor, attached by wires to a tiny box the size of a pack of playing cards. A bomb!

Vague, panicky thoughts tumbled over one another.
It could go off at a touch. This isn’t the movies. I have no idea which wire to cut. But he knows! He’d have to have given himself enough time to escape the blast—!

However brief that amount of time, it was all Tom had to catch the bomber and force him to prevent disaster!

BY THE time Tom reached the bottom of the stairs, the costumed man had already flung open the sash and was hoisting himself out.

The young inventor made a wild dash for the window, trying to grab the fugitive’s legs. But the man kicked backward viciously. His heel caught Tom a jarring blow under the chin!

Stunned, Tom reeled backward. By the time he recovered, Mr. Skeleton had wriggled safely out.

"Help! Stop him, someone!" Tom shouted.

His yells were drowned in the throb of music from the patio. Tom hesitated frantically, torn between two choices. Should he go after the fleeing figure without bothering to examine the bomb? But it might be set to explode any moment!

With a groan of effort and uncertainty, Tom followed the fugitive out the window. By now, his quarry was nowhere in sight. A short sprint across a lighted stretch of lawn had carried the "skeleton" safely off into the darkness. From the undisturbed dancing and smooth hum of conversation on the patio, it was evident that none of the guests had even noticed the intruder’s dash to escape.

How many minutes—or seconds!—did Tom have to find the fleeing intruder?

Pure instinct took over. He sprinted across the side lawn, then followed the tall border hedge around toward the front. "Probably has a car parked on the road," he gasped to himself, as if he could force what he was doing to make sense.

Then he saw his quarry!

It seemed that Mr. Skeleton had forgotten that his "bones" had been given an eerie, deathly glow. Tom could see him scrambling along frog-style in the shadows of the cars parked along the curving driveway. Not wasting breath on a shout, Tom catapulted forward—but the intruder had seen him coming and was already up on his feet, cutting across the big curve in the driveway, heading in the direction of the gate.

A long shadow suddenly swung across pursuer and pursued. A bizarre, inhuman silhouette stood backlit in front of one of the lawn floodlights.

The shadow stood immobile in the path of Mr. Skeleton. Light glinted off metal in the figure’s hand—a barrel pointed directly at the costumed intruder! "
Freeze, Earthling, or face the wrath of my death ray!
"

"Bud! Stop him! Catch him!" cried Tom frantically.

Bud the Green Martian realized only then that this was no rough-and-tumble party game. With a grunt he tackled Mr. Skeleton and brought him down hard.

Panting, Tom ran up and yanked the struggling figure to his feet. "We’re going back in there, and you’re going to disarm that bomb!"

"No, no, we have to― "

The man’s fearful protest earned him a violent shove from behind. "Hey—
Mars to Earth!
—get moving!" ordered Bud.

They trotted toward the basement window, the skeleton man a captive between them. Terror had sapped his strength to resist.

In the basement the man worked with hands that trembled fiercely. In seconds the detonator box had been safely disconnected from the packet of explosives. "It—it’s safe now!" he quavered.

"Not just yet," stated Tom grimly. "You’re going to carry this packet to the edge of the property and set it down. Thinking about running? I’ll be walking behind you. Make me mad and I’ll staple that bomb to the seat of your pants!"

When the task was accomplished the boys marched Mr. Skeleton back into the house by way of the kitchen door and tied his hands and feet. Then at last they pulled off the skull-masked black cowl that covered his head. A slightly built man of middle age, with a thick chin, stood blinking in the light.

"Who are you?" demanded Bud.

The man didn’t answer, but Tom said, "I think I recognize him. Airfield maintenance."

"You must’ve walked by me a hundred times, ‘boss’!" snarled the man. "You never asked me my name
then
."

"You never tried to blow up my house ‘
then
’!" the young inventor snapped back. "And if we’re playing who’s-the-boss, where’s
your
boss?—Inbimah, the man you kept hidden at Enterprises!"

"Talk to my lawyer."

Bud held up a muscular hand. Four fingers and a thumb curled into a fist. "Let me introduce you to my law firm!" But a look from his best friend cooled Bud down.

Still shaken and angry, Tom telephoned Ames and filled him in. "Please call whoever you think should take him into custody, Harlan," Tom said. "It’s pretty clear he’s the guy on the inside who was helping Inbimah. He may know where Inbimah is now—and the real Mr. Kwanu."

"Assuming the real Mr. Kwanu still exists. Did the guy arrive in a car?" Ames asked.

"I don’t know. He may be parked somewhere down the road, out of sight in the woods."

"Okay, Tom—glad no one got hurt. And I’ll send someone around for that bomb assembly and the blast-pack."

"Thanks, Harlan!" After hanging up, Tom rejoined the festivities. The party continued gaily with no one but Tom and Bud—and a skeleton in the closet—aware of their narrow escape.

Early next day Bud went to scout up Tom at his office. "He’s not here," reported Munford Trent, recovered and back at his post. "Bashalli Prandit came by, and they went down to the lab next to the
Sky Queen
."

"The underground one? Thanks."

Bud strolled into the lab, stopped, and tried to stifle a laugh—the back half, at least. "Well, hey Tom! I take it you’ve decided to give up the invention bit and join a motorcycle gang."

Looking somewhat embarrassed, the young inventor was decked out in what appeared to be a black leather motorcycle jacket. Bashalli had been eyeing him critically as Bud entered.

"Now Bud, knowing that you represent the general public in that you lack fashion sense—what do you think?" asked Bash.

The young pilot circled his friend as Tom reddened. "Hmm, I dunno. It’s a look that
works
—maybe. Might be a tad warm in the summer... "

Tom chuckled. "Warm? Watch."

He reached inside the jacket, as if into an inner pocket. In moments Bud gaped in disbelief as a faint coating of white began to form on the front of the garment. Frost!

"Man, I can feel it from here—like an open refrigerator!"

"D-demonstration over," Tom proclaimed, shivering. He pulled off the jacket and said to Bud, "Remember that ‘personal heat-shield’ idea I mentioned, flyboy? Here it is."

"It is called the thermodulator," put in Bashalli with a certain tone of superiority; "and it is I who provided Thomas with the sketches for styling design. Otherwise it would have looked like some sort of armored spacesuit, no doubt."

With a grin, Tom replied to the quizzical look on his friend’s face: "It uses the kind of flexible microcircuits we developed for the hydrolung diversuits, as well as a few concepts from the new repelatron transmitters. A mild, low-power repulsion field extends outward from the surface of the jacket a few inches into the surrounding air... "

"I see. Making the wearer a human vacuum bottle. An instant asphyxiation jacket."

"Oh
hush
!" remonstrated Bashalli, her dark eyes merry. "The explanation is most interesting. I have had it twice now."

"To resume," said Tom, "the idea
isn’t
to produce a vacuum, but to counteract molecular motion—which is what heat
is
, really."

"It’s all Doppler Effect," stated Bash. "Air molecules are bouncing around in all directions. The ones coming toward the jacket have their, er, wavelengths shortened. By Doppler. You see?"

"And those are the ones that feel the repulsion, during that segment of their random movements. It’s like slowing a swing by pushing against it until it stops."

"Okay, I see," Bud said, slightly chastened. "You slow ’em down, and they cool off."

"That’s it, basically. The field conveys the heat energy into a sort of ‘energy sink’, and the air near the suit gets cool." Tom added that he planned to try out the jacket in Ngombia. "If it works as expected, we’ll issue one to the entire work team."

Bud laughed. "Don’t stop there!—put that guy-with-the-hat TSE logo on the back and sell ’em to the public!"

Tom laughed too. "It’s in the works. George Dilling thinks we should market it as the CoolJack!"

"
Do
be sure to put my own signature on the lapel," sniffed Bashalli.

In part the Ngombia project had already commenced. Already the huge research ship
Sea Charger
was rounding the southern cape of Africa bearing tons of modular equipment for use in the construction of the repelatron transmitter towers, some of which would be turned out by factories in West Ngombia. Battened down on the craft’s broad flat deck, big as that of an aircraft carrier, was Tom’s Workchopper, which was to play a central role in the construction of the skyway. It turned out to be quicker and easier to transport the helicraft on the
Sea Charger
than to fly it halfway around the world to Ngombia.

Next morning the Swift and Sterling families, Ted Spring’s mother and little brother, and many friends of the team from Enterprises, drove to the Enterprises airfield to watch the expedition’s departure. After receiving the Sterlings’ good wishes, Tom got a quick kiss each from Sandy and Bashalli and embraced his mother. Then Damon Swift gripped his son’s hand warmly.

"It’s a big undertaking, son," Mr. Swift murmured. "I’m confident you can handle it in a way that will bring credit to America."

"I’ll try, Dad. Thanks—and so long!"

Minutes later, the
Sky Queen
zoomed aloft and seaward. Then three big cargo jets took off from the Swift Construction Company in her wake, bearing more workers and equipment.

As Tom streaked over the South Atlantic, a PER call came in from Harlan Ames. "We now know a great deal about our skeletal friend. It seems he was stealthily contacted months ago by the Ngombian subversive group that’s been working diligently to undermine the new Ghiddua government. They knew, somehow, that the government planned to continue the Burlow operation using Swift Enterprises—and that an
enterprising
employee by name of Willie Jarvel had been mouthing off in bars about some beef against TSE management. He was more than willing to help the group’s point man, R’na Inbimah."

"Was he involved in putting together the kidnapping of the real Mr. Kwanu?"

"No—Inbimah has cronies in D.C., including the guy who was serving as Kwanu’s regular driver. Jarvel claims he has no idea where Kwanu is—nor Inbimah. But he cops to most of the Shopton stuff."

"Like hiding Inbimah at the plant, and launching that packet of foil birds?"

Tom could "hear" Ames nod. "He also drove the car Inbimah stood on when he tossed that spear your way. Says his pal up and disappeared after providing good ol’ Willie with the time bomb and the party costume. Oh—Jarvel also made a point of hanging around the security-scan lab that morning when the package from the Ngombian Embassy arrived. Turns out he was the one who offered to drop it by your office. Didn’t mention that he planned to switch pens, though. Just being helpful, hmm?"

"A model employee," gibed Tom sourly. "Did he give a specific reason for all this?"

"Not much of one. It’s all about wrecking the jungle operation. I gather the warnings and attacks were either supposed to take you out personally, or at least to drive home the point that your family was as much endangered as you yourself."

"Blowing up the house would have made the point
very
well driven!" pronounced the young inventor.

Before local noon, after dropping Bud off at the coastal city where the
Sea Charger
was soon to dock, the air convoy landed in Ngombia. A car was waiting to whisk Tom to the Ministry of Patriotic Progress. Here, Mr. Jombilabu informed him that native work gangs had already been organized and were standing by at Imbolu and at Copperville, a western Ngombia industrial center where the repelatron transmitters were to be assembled.

"I have assigned Dalo Kiuma to assist you," Jombilabu went on. "He will help you deal with those jungle tribesmen and will direct our armed officers, who will accompany your work crews to protect them from animal attack. Or― " He laughed. "Dinosaur attack! Hah-heh."

"Thanks. We can use him," Tom said with a thin smile. Mr. Kiuma’s presence evoked no enthusiasm.

Returning to the airport, Tom found that Mr. Kiuma had unexpectedly taken onto himself some additional tasks. Members of the local and international press had gathered near the
Sky Queen
for a press conference, apparently announced to everyone but its subject, Tom Swift! Standing on a platform beside Kiuma, with several others providing translations from, and into, Dutch, French, and the Ngombian dialects, Tom uncomfortably fielded question after question.

"Do we understand that this flying road will be laid in the
air
, Mr. Swift?"

"That’s right," Tom replied. "First, two big construction teams, headed by myself and my key engineer Mr. Sterling, will set up a series of modular repelatron towers, starting simultaneously from the opposite ends of the route and meeting in the middle. Then, starting off from Huttangdala, I will use my special helicopter, which I call the Workchopper, to generate the first half of the skyway in midair, supported by the repulsion beams. Then the other half, starting at Imbolu."