Tom Swift on the Phantom Satellite (18 page)

"Oh no!"
Bud cried desperately.

A minute speck against the indigo sky, the
Titan
roared upward into space!

THE GREAT spaceship rose like a spark, its corona-trail of ionized oxygen glowing brightly and flashing lightning.

"Forget them!" Tom commanded. "We must concentrate on the bomb!"

But Gabe was giving way to despair. "What’s the use? He could send the signal any moment now!"

"No, young man, you are wrong!" gasped Commander Mirov, weak with pain. "I did not make myself clear. The remote signal activates the timer mechanism. There follows another fifteen minutes before detonation." He rose up on one elbow, surveying the crater. "But I see nothing. I think the madman has buried the device."

"But how can we find it, Tom?" asked Bud softly. "Is there anything left to try?"

Tom’s eyebrows flew up as a idea struck him. "Of course there is! How could we have forgotten? We can use the penetradar scanner to find the bomb even if they covered it over!"

Moving like lightning Tom activated the system and swiveled the transmitter-reflector to take in the crater. "There!" he cheered. "Near that outcropping over there!"

They rumbled down the crater wall, sending a huge plume of purple-gray dust floating into the atmosphere. Stopping fifty feet short of where the penetradar showed the bomb to be buried, the Americans piled out of the vehicle. As the deadly clock ticked away, they used shovels to uncover the fiendish device.

"Now what?" panted Bud, eyeing the barrel-sized metal mechanism.

"Commander, do you know how to disarm it?" Tom asked by transiphone.

"It is easy enough," was the answer. "But first you must remove the panel on the side, marked with the sign Theta—the Greek letter!"

They found the metal panel. But there seemed to be no way to open it!

"Bah!" cried Mirov. "He has welded something over the release mechanism! But now, I don’t know what to tell you."

Bud and Gabe looked at Tom, silently awaiting his next move. The young inventor, perspiring and trembling with dread and tension, pushed his fingers through his blond hair. "Only one option left," he said.

"One’s good enough for me," said Bud. "If it works!"

Tom shrugged. "It may. No, better than that—it probably will. But there’s a small chance—"

"What, genius boy?"

Tom looked his best friend in the eye. "It just might detonate the bomb!"

But there was no alternative. Tom had the others follow him back to the tank and enter it for safety. He then pulled on his space helmet and reached down into a thickly shielded locker at the rear of the tank.

When he stood up again he was holding two fist-sized rocks in his hands.

Gabe whistled. "Can you make those things work again?"

"I have no idea," was Tom’s grim reply. "Bud, drive the tank back to the edge of the crater wall. Please."

Bud complied silently.

When the tank was parked, they all watched through the dome as Tom Swift slowly approached the bomb, holding the weird rocks at arm’s length as he had done before. Nothing happened, and he edged closer and closer.

"What is to happen?" breathed Mirov. "There is nothing."

"No!" gasped Bud suddenly.
"There is something!"

The rocks had begun to glow! They grew brighter and brighter still, lighting the whole floor of the crater with an eerie green. Tom squeezed his eyes shut to keep from being blinded.

The next instant the bomb casing was engulfed in a huge, crackling ball of brilliant blue-white fire!
Black smoke billowed up into the sky in a spreading column; and then a roar like thunder jolted the tank.

"He’s done it!" cheered Gabe.

The bomb had completely disintegrated!

Bud couldn’t wait to switch on the tank motors. He came bounding out of the airlock and skidded at top speed across the loose rubble that covered the bottom of the crater, heading for a small figure lying motionless on the ground.

"Tom! Tom!"

But Tom was alive and grinning. "Northrup was right, Bud—it wasn’t a problem after all. But man, it sure was a challenge!"

He gingerly held up the two rocks from the cave. They had turned black as coal, as if some inner energy had been utterly consumed.

Returning to the tank, Tom began trying to make radio contact with the Swift expedition. He no longer was concerned about the possibility that Rotzog might overhear the signal.

Meanwhile Bud explained to Streffan Mirov the full details of Rotzog’s mad program. "Then Tom Swift has saved the entire world!" he exclaimed.

But Tom glanced over his shoulder and shook his head. "I might’ve kept Little Luna safe in its orbit, but I don’t think Rotzog’s plan would have worked in any event. You see, playing billiards with satellites is a pretty precise game, and its much easier to miss the target than to hit it. Without complete data, the odds are that Little Luna’s new trajectory would have missed the earth entirely."

"How do you know he didn’t have all the data?" demanded Gabe Knorff.

"Because we had something he didn’t have," grinned Tom. "Namely a brilliant man named Henrick Jatczak, who was able to figure out that Little Luna has a wobble!"

"Amazing!" Gabe commented. "Want to know another amazing thing?"

"What?"

"All that drama between you and the bomb—
and I forgot to get any photos!"

At first there was no response to Tom’s repeated transiphone signals. But as the tank mounted a ridge near the north polar base, a whirring buzz suddenly erupted from the speaker.

"Sure sounds like Chow!" cracked Bud as Tom tried to improve the reception.

The responder proved to be Rafe Franzenberg, who had worked up an experimental device to diminish the interference produced by Little Luna.

"Tom, we’ve linked up with the Brungarians!" he reported. "Now that the bomb business is over, shall we return to the
Titan?"

Tom winced. He explained sadly, haltingly, that there was no
Titan
to return to.

"But I have a proposal," offered Mirov. "Now that we are all friends, come join us at our own base. We have much room there. Perhaps your people can continue their experiments while we work out a means to regain contact with the earth."

Tom gratefully accepted the offer.

By the time ten days had passed, many things had happened on Little Luna, and life had become very different. The equipment from the north pole base—all but the atmos-maker, which continued to spin away automatically—was moved in stages to the Brungarian encampment, which had been nicknamed Astra-Volkon, and which now had the flags of two proud nations flying above it.

With the aid of the saucer-copter, found abandoned at the U. S. base, much of the satellite was explored from the air, in an atmosphere ever growing deeper and richer.

The American expedition found a comfortable home in the Brungarian habitat, and were fascinated to learn the details of its design and engineering. But for Tom the most intriguing aspect was being able to tour the Brungarian spaceship, known simply as the
Gamma-4.
Though containing a small atomic reactor for electrical power, the airliner-sized craft used conventional chemical rockets for space propulsion—though with modifications that gave them unusual force and maneuverability.

Streffan Mirov admitted, with wry humor but without apology, that Dr. Kutan’s surmise had been correct. The
Gamma-4
had not landed on Little Luna before the
Titan,
but days after. "Ah, what does it matter?" laughed Mirov. "Like little schoolchildren, we have learned to share."

Jason Graves overheard the comment. "Big of you to admit it, Mirov," he said. "Of course we Americans are big on sharing—long as you respect our property rights, of course." Mirov only smiled.

It took several days, and much work by Tom, Franzenberg, and their Brungarian counterparts, to finally reestablish radio contact with the frantic world 53,000 miles distant. When they did so, Tom’s father had dramatic and unexpected news.

"It’s a tragedy, yet also a relief, in a way," said Mr. Swift. "I’m afraid the
Titan
is destroyed."

Tom was shocked. "What happened?"

Damon Swift explained that the craft had been tracked on an approach to the earth’s atmosphere when suddenly it began to spin wildly, completely out of control. "She finally split in two. The nuclear reactor was thrown into a high orbit, thank heavens, where we should be able to recover it. But the entire passenger module went spiralling into the atmosphere and disintegrated. There were no survivors."

When Mirov was informed of this development, he said, "I know what must have transpired. I saw how Rotzog and your Colonel Northrup hated and distrusted one another, as traitors do. I believe they fought for command of the spaceship; perhaps Northrup fancied he could murder the others and again assume the pose of a hero. Yes, they fought—and in doing so, somehow they ruined the control mechanisms."

Tom nodded soberly, adding, "Rotzog managed to duck one fiery finish, but the fates wouldn’t let it happen twice."

The most pleasing news for all the space pioneers was Tom’s discovery of the cause of the
Gamma-4
’s disability. "It was an ingenious act of sabotage," he said admiringly. "I’m sure I can reverse it, though." In days he was able to announce, to great jubilation, that the Brungarian ship would be able to carry them all back to Earth.

"Time to start packing!" he laughed.

"Amen an’ holler-loolee t’that!" was Chow’s comment.

There was, inevitably, a final celebration on Little Luna on the evening before liftoff. Though much of the exotic meal was prepared by Brungarian cooks, Chow was enjoying himself as much as his mates. "Brand my kippered herring," he remarked between mouthfuls, "if I don’t watch that chef what’s-his-name over there, I’m goin’ to be out of a job around here fer sure!"

"Some of it’s pretty spicy, Chow," whispered Gabe.

"Ain’t nothin’ to an old Texas chili-cooker!"

Violet Wohl asked, "But how did you find the
moofta?"

"Warn’t no problem," replied the cook. "Jest lifted up th’ lid an’ there she was!"

Suddenly Tom stopped short in surprise as Ron Corey handed him a small dish of fresh, tiny-leafed spinach. "Say, where did this come from?"

Corey doffed an imaginary hat and took a bow.

"Little Luna’s wonder," said Ron. "Forced plant growth in the exhilarating atmosphere you have created here."

As everyone else’s jaw dropped open, he went on, "Yes, indeed, the product of earth’s new moon!"

Tom tasted the greens which he declared to be delicious, then congratulated the botanist. "Half the plaudits go to Jim down at Enterprises," Ron noted modestly. "He’s been working right along with me in the lab down there, based on my reports. Thanks to you Swifts and your company, he had the resources to pursue some experimental notions that I never could have put together here in space. It helped me avoid a lot of dead-ends, I can tell you!"

Ron glowed with pride as their mess-mates of both countries slapped them on the back. After supper, everyone trooped outside the Astra-Volkon dome for a look at the satellite garden Ron had created.

The vegetable plot consisted of a small patch of soil, not far from the big dome but carefully concealed by rocks. Although after sundown, there was still enough light from an orange sunset for the expeditioners to see neat rows of sprouting green vegetables interspersed with cactus to keep water evaporation loss to the minimum. The tiny, low-growing plants seemed to be thriving.

Tom marveled. "But this is unbelievable! All these came up in just the last
week?"

Corey laughed. "Last six days, actually!"

"Think of it, Tom!" said Hank Sterling enthusiastically. "With your atmosphere machines, space colonists could be self-sustaining in a matter of months, even on the asteroids!"

Much later that night, their last on Little Luna, Tom stood alone just inside the dome, gazing out moodily at the slate-dark landscape and sparkling stars. The earth had not yet risen, and Tom felt strangely alone with his thoughts.

The scuff of a shoe behind him made him turn around.

"Hello, Doc Vi. You getting a last look, too?"

Dr. Wohl approached and flashed him a tight smile. "Actually, Tom, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about." She cleared her throat, and Tom knew something important was on her mind.

"Tom—when you leave for Earth tomorrow, I—
I want you to leave me behind on Little Luna!"

TOM’S FACE registered his shocked surprise. "Leave you behind! Are you joking?"

"I’m very serious," she said. "My experiments with my rats have had some very striking results, and I can’t bear to abandon the project now. But there’s another reason, a more important one."

Tom waited for her to continue.

"It’s Dr. Jatczak, Tom. He’s dying!"

"Oh
no!"

"It’s his heart," she said quietly. "He knows about it—has known for months. Back home he’s not likely to last out the year. And that’s the point!" she continued forcefully. "Here on the satellite Henrick has shown a remarkable improvement—something to do with the reduced gravitation, I’m sure. If he could remain up here to continue his researches, with me looking after him, who knows how many more wonderful things he could accomplish before his time finally comes."

Tom asked gently, "Is that what
he
wants, Violet?"

"It’s what we both want," she answered simply.

"I suppose there’s a lot to be said for the idea," Tom mused. "The two atmos-makers need very little attention… you’ll have a garden for food, plentiful supplies, this big dome to live in…"

"And the high adventure to sustain us!"

Tom smiled in understanding.
"Done!
I just wish I could stay here myself, to continue investigating that cave."

Tom parted from Dr. Wohl and entered the spaceship. In the communications compartment he put through a promised call to his father on Fearing Island, where it was then mid-afternoon.