Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X (12 page)

Tom and Bud planned to spend the night in the guest duplex on the grounds, and Chow had no need to depart quickly, as he lived in a comfortable suite next to his kitchen. "Now what about that there chistening?" he remonstrated.

Then Chow had a troublesome afterthought. He shoved back his hat, squinted frowningly at the brain container, and scratched his bald head. "Fer boat christenings er statue dedications and what not, you break bottles on ’em or cut ribbons or pull a sheet off or somethin’ like that," the cook said. "But how in tarnation do you christen a buckaroo from space who’s made out o’ lightning?"

"Nothing to it, Chow," Tom assured him, still energized with the excitement of the moment. "We’ll do the job up nice and fancy with a display of electricity."

"The guy ought to appreciate that!" Bud laughed. "Maybe it’ll tickle him!"

Tom carefully attached an electrode to each side of the star head, which was well insulated by its sheathing of Tomasite and Inertite. One electrode was safely grounded, the other connected to a Tesla coil. Then, with all lights turned off in the laboratory, Tom threw a switch.

Instantly a dazzling arc of electricity sputtered through the darkness across the creature’s head! The eerie display lit up the room with such impressive effect that both Bud and Chow felt their spines tingle.

Tom motioned Chow over to do the honors. "I christen you Exman!" intoned the big Texan. "Doggone!" he softly muttered to himself, "Meant t’say
thee."

For several moments Tom allowed the fiery arc to continue playing about the star head as each of the watchers stood silently. The mood had abruptly turned sober. This night they had witnessed one of the most important events in the history of mankind!

Choked silent by emotion, Tom cut the power switch and turned the room lights back on.

"Wow! Quite a ceremony," Bud murmured softly.

"After a send-off like that, I’ll be expectin’ the critter to do great things here on this lil ole planet Earth!" Chow declared.

"You could be right," Tom said. "Now, let’s leave him alone." He led his companions out, switching on the room’s security system.

Finally worn out by the tense wait for their visitor from Planet X and the excitement following his arrival, the three went off to their quarters for a well-earned sleep—if possible.

But despite their weariness, sleep proved
not
to be possible. In his guest suite Tom finally rose from bed and threw on some clothes. He had decided to have a peek at Exman.
Nothing wrong with making sure he’s comfortable,
Tom told himself.

As he quietly opened the door, the door to the other half of the duplex swung open simultaneously. Bud appeared. "Oh... hi. Just thought I’d—"

"Me too!" The boys dissolved in laughter.

At the lab Tom deactivated the security system and switched on the overhead lights. A startled yell from him brought Bud rushing to his side. The pilot boggled. "Oh no!
It’s gone!"

The spot at the center of the floor where they had left Exman was now deserted! Frantic, Tom and Bud trotted further into the room—then gave laughing cries of relief.

Ole Think Box had merely moved itself to a far corner, nudging up against the wall! "Guess he was feeling a little restless," Bud said with a chuckle. "Suppose it could be space jet-lag?"

"Let’s leave him where he is," Tom said. "He was probably sending random impulses to the tread motors, as he did before. He’ll learn!"

The young inventor managed a scant few hours sleep, then returned to the security lab to commence the delicate process of activating the sense-perception devices built into Ole Think Box. As they would need to be carefully calibrated and adjusted to the space brain’s awareness, one aspect of the procedure would be to establish communication via the inbuilt translating computer.

Tom worked away, and a sleepy-eyed Chow brought him an early breakfast, greeting Exman with a wave. "Has he started talkin’ yet, boss?"

The scientist-inventor gave a pat to his computer terminal. "We’re about to see if he can." He switched on the terminal, then activated Think Box’s transceiver and translating mechanism. "Here goes, pard! The X-ians told us that feeding modulated impulses into a certain section of the matrix would make the brain energy conscious of the symbols."

As Chow gulped, Tom typed out:
Are you receiving this transmission? Do you understand?

A translated response leapt onto the monitor screen—the space visitor’s first words to Earth!

STATEMENT CONFIRMED.
STATEMENT CONFIRMED.

"Wh-Why’s he sayin’ it twice?" asked Chow.

Tom grinned. "Because it was two questions. Guess I’d better identify myself." He typed:
I am Earth contact Tom Swift.

UNDERSTOOD.
I AM

Chow put a tense hand on his boss’s shoulder. "Sumpin’ wrong? Why’d he stop?"

"Guess he doesn’t know how to—" But Tom halted his comment as more words suddenly appeared; or rather a series of letters, one by one.

E-X-M-A-N

Tom’s eyes widened.
"How could he do that?"
he gasped. "How in space could he know the name we gave him—and spell it back to us in English?"

"You mean it ain’t translated, like the rest?"

"No! He’s sending pixel data to allow the computer to construct the images of the letters! The space beings have never responded to images before—only code signals corresponding to their symbols!"
How are you able to understand our language and communicate with our visual symbols?

UNABLE TO RESPOND.

Because you can not determine the proper response?

STATEMENT CONFIRMED.
UNABLE TO ANALYZE MODE
OF DATA RECEPTION.

"Wa-aal brand my thesaurus!" Chow muttered. "Guess this is gonna turn into a mystery!"

Tom decided not to send Exman any further messages until he could think about the unexpected development and its implications—which were alarming.
Was it possible that the energy brain from Planet X could detect human thought directly?
Such an entity could be dangerous and completely beyond control!

As Tom worked on the sensory mechanisms after Chow left, his mind was racing. The bleep of the telephone, signaling an internal call, made him jump.

"This—this is Tom."

"I hate to disturb you, Tom," said the familiarly officious voice of Munford Trent. "But it seems I do it quite often, don’t I? A caller is trying to reach you, and I took the liberty of presuming it might be important."

"Why?" asked Tom. "Who is it?"

"Eldrich Oldmother."

Tom snorted, tired, annoyed, and impatient. "Am I supposed to know who that is?"

"Well,
I thought you surely
might.
He’s the founder of Informatics!"

"MR. SWIFT—Tom—this is Eldrich Oldmother," said the voice on the phone. "I trust you know who I am?"

"I certainly know of your organization, Mr. Oldmother," replied the flustered young inventor. "One of your churches is located here in Shopton."

"As well I know. I wonder if I might meet with you, Tom, on a matter of urgent importance. You name the place. It should be rather private, though—my subject is somewhat delicate."

Tom glanced at Exman. How many mysteries could he juggle at one time? Yet Informatics seemed to be tied in with the quake-makers and what appeared to be a plot against the Planet X project. "Very well, sir. When do you plan to be in the area?"

Oldmother gave a throaty laugh. "Yesterday! I’m staying at Fort Shopton. Say the word and I can be there by nine. This must happen as near to immediately as possible."

Tom agreed and provided directions. "Tell you what. I’ll meet you at the smaller conference room in our Visitors Center here at Enterprises, which is just off the main gate. We’ll have privacy there."

"Ah yes," the man responded with more than a trace of sarcasm; "and you’ll be spared having a crazed cult leader careening wildly about your great facility. I’ll see you at nine."

Baffled and wary, Tom informed Harlan Ames of the prospective encounter, then called his father, who had not yet left the house. For some reason Oldmother’s term
careening wildly
stuck in his mind. Did the words have some kind of significance? What sort of memory-bell was it ringing in Tom’s mind?

He arrived at the Visitors Center at ten minutes to the hour—to find the imposing form of Eldrich Oldmother already awaiting him in the lobby. As the man rose from his chair to offer his hand, Tom realized that he had seen his big angular frame and iron-gray hair more than once on television and in the newspapers.

Seated at the table in the conference room, Oldmother said, "I appreciate your seeing me. I believe
you’ll
appreciate
my
seeing you by the time our conversation is concluded. What do you know of me, Tom?"

The young inventor started to shrug, then stopped himself with the thought that it might not be in accord with good etiquette. "Not much at all, sir. I know you founded the Informatics Church some years back. I assume you’re the leader of it."

A smile darted across the man’s broad face, and Tom suddenly realized that his visitor was nervous despite his air of bravado. "They call me
Prophet and Exemplar.
Nice job title, don’t you think?—but I can see I’ve shocked you with my irreverence. I’m not here today as Exemplar. Though perhaps I
am
here as Prophet!"

Tom frowned. "I don’t mean to be discourteous, Mr. Oldmother, but I’m afraid I don’t have time for word games. I’m involved it a vital scientific project."

Oldmother nodded. "Don’t worry about offending me, Tom. I’m much too enlightened to be offended, floating here on the Higher Plane. Let me tell you a few things.

"My name is not Eldrich Oldmother. That’s my brand name, you might say. My birth name is Bob Broggan. As a young man I served in the Navy. When I got out I tried my hand at a variety of demeaning little jobs. I finally wound up as—ready?—a stand-up comedian in Butte, Montana."

"I’m surprised."

"Butte wasn’t even
amused,"
Oldmother declared. "Ever been to Butte? No one else has either. Well, my comedy wasn’t so good, but I found along the way that I possessed a bit of a gift. Not only could I speak with great persuasity and earnestness, but I was—let’s call it
intuitive.
Strikingly so. Uncannily so!"

Tom asked what the man was referring to.

"I refer to what are usually called
psychic abilities.
No, I can’t read your mind—" The strange coincidence with Tom’s puzzle about Exman made Tom shift in his chair. "—but on occasion I know things without knowing just
how
I know them. The information presents itself to consciousness in a disguised, symbolic way, rather like a code or cryptogram. Sometimes images drift into my mind, surrealistic combinations of things."

Mind reading. Consciousness. Symbolic. Code. Cryptogram. Images.
Though he remained still and silent, Tom was increasingly unnerved by the fact that Prophet Oldmother was dredging up words and concepts that had clear relevance to current events in the life of Tom Swift!

"I called myself a prophet, but I never could foresee the future, not in any kind of ESP sense," the man continued. "But sometimes I seemed able to tune in on
current events.
My intuitions have given me a certain view of life and humanity, and I thought perhaps the world ought to know about it. So I founded a spiritual movement. The fact that I wasn’t getting anywhere in the field of stand-up comedy provided extra motivation. The Highest Orb works in unexpected ways!—one of our precepts."

"Mr. Oldmother, you really don’t need to go into all this," Tom stated. "Are you here because of the suspected involvement of Speaker Anderman in criminal activity?"

Oldmother did what Tom had chosen not to do. He shrugged. "You say
‘suspected’?
Anderman is a
crook!
I’ve been sure of that for some time. And not by prophetic intuition. He’s the one who came up with that idiotic ‘prime movers’ rubbish. You won’t find it in any of
my
sacred writings!" He chuckled. "But alas, the Church of Informatics Soul Science operates like a corporation, with a Board of Directors and an overabundance of power-plays and internal connivery. Anderman weaseled his way into effective control years ago. I’m a figurehead. Well compensated. But without temporal authority."

"Then I gather you’re saying that you had nothing to do with any questionable activities by the Church you founded," offered Tom with his own dollop of sarcasm.

"White as snow! White as the robes of truth, or knowledge, or whatever cloying term Anderman likes to use. Whenever a new ‘fort’ is dedicated, he comes in to lead the flock for a year or so, doing his mischief. Then he moves on to the next, careful to cover his tracks and leave others to take the fall. Robes!—Anderman, and Informatics, have become most adept at pulling the ‘robe of innocence’ over themselves."

"What he’s been doing here isn’t what I’d call
mischief,
Mr. Oldmother. There’s not only something like a blackmail ring, but we think he and his associates are tied in with a foreign group targeting U.S. defense research and technology."

"Really? Andy-bear’s soul enlightenment is certainly growing by leaps and bounds, eh?" The prophet winked. "Howsomever. I’m not here to discuss all that, Tom. I only wished, no doubt vainly, to engender the
possibility
of trust by addressing Fort Shopton’s alleged activities. What I have to say now is more important."

"You have my attention," said Tom. He had taken out his notebook and a pen.

Oldmother abruptly leaned forward across the table, eyes alive with some intense self-radiation. "When I heard what had happened here the other day, my thoughts turned to you, Tom. And then, as sometimes happens, I began to have my flashes of celestial wisdom. You speak of a foreign group. I sense their existence. Somewhere, in another country, those very people you speak of, wait. They hold destruction in their hands—lightning! I can almost smell it. They want badly to shake the earth under our feet, but cannot accomplish it by themselves. Someone helps them."