Tom Swift and His Aquatomic Tracker (6 page)

"You fellows may not even have to wait. The trail could lead us anywhere. Where exactly, George?"

"Neighborhood of Iceland."

"Iceland!—we just flew over it the other day. But what’s the mystery in Iceland? Another sunken city?"

"Old hat. You seen one city o’ gold, you seen ’em all," gibed the oceanographer. "No, Tom, this one’s much weirder. Think
monster sea snakes
!"

Tom laughed—in amazement. "Like a sea serpent?"

"Ah, but
this
one is
real
. Ham thinks so, and he just might be right. For a change."

George Braun narrated the story with dramatic flair. A Canadian vessel engaged in surveying the ocean bottom with a high-resolution sonar imaging system had detected peculiar "tracks"—long, shallow grooves—running along mile after mile, finally becoming undetectable as the seafloor changed to a rockier composition. Later inspection by submarine had confirmed the findings, retrieving detailed photographs from the dark depths but no clue as to the cause.

Tom asked if the tracks were thought to have been left in primordial times by some extinct sea creature. He could almost feel his friend’s eyes twinkling at the far end of their radiocom link! "What a great theory, sport! Except for one thing. Over a few weeks,
new tracks have appeared
!"

"That does present a difficulty! So what
are
people thinking?"

"Oh, I’m sure you can predict it—the usual range of opinion—giant mutated atomic lobsters, a few flying saucers tossed into the mix! The ‘respectable’ theory is that it’s some kind of unclassified, but nonetheless boring, geophysical phenomenon."

"But I know I can count on you two being anything
but
respectable," Tom needled him.

"Now now.
I’m
entirely respectable, modest, conservative," retorted the oceanographer. "But Ham Teller naturally has this
lunatic
theory about some kind of supersized aquatic snake, or eel, or even—ready, Tom?—worm!"

"You’re kidding!"

"Me? Anyway, Teller, with his usual puckish insouciance, insists on calling the thing
The Conqueror Worm
!—from a poem by old Edgar Allan Poe."

"
That
makes sense, anyway," the youth noted, grinning. "At any rate, worms or no—having you and Ham along will be a big help to me in running this search I’m putting together." They made arrangements for Enterprises to pick up the pair of scientists in Omaha and fly them to the
Sea Charger
as soon as Tom had determined where the search was to start from—for the trail from the carcass of the SubMoBahn had grown cold.

After some thought Tom decided a team of six divers would be most efficient.
Which means turning out six working, portable aquatometer trackers in just a few days,
he thought wryly. He finally PER’ed Swift Enterprises and spoke to Arvid Hanson, a good friend and the plant’s chief maker of models and test prototypes.

"I’d be happy to join you on the
Charger
, boss," he declared. "And I’ll be
overjoyed
if you’ll grant a special request." Hanson explained that his elderly parents, who had been born in Sweden, had long wanted their son to pay a visit to the small town of their birth. "And since you’ll be right there—!"

"Request granted! But fly out as soon as you can, Arv, and bring all your super-tech tools."

"Okay! See you in, oh—eight hours?"

"Great!"

As it ended up, the
Sky Queen
played ferry, returning to the U.S. and strato-jetting Braun, Teller, and Hanson to the mammoth research vessel, even as it proceeded with its port calls along the Swedish coast.

With Arv’s help the six tracker units, which resembled compact attaché cases, albeit with "crystal balls" as well as handles, were assembled and tested in a single day of strenuous work.

At a late, relaxing workout in the ship’s gym, Tom and Bud discussed the plan for the search. "You said a total of six divers, but I count five," Bud pointed out between weight thrusts.

Tom nodded. "I haven’t picked the sixth. I had planned to ask Dick Hampton, but the doctor thinks it would be unwise so soon after the accident. Maybe one of the Swedish workers would be― "

"Tom, you need seek no further!" piped up Alix Tuundvar from the flexmonster.

"You’re interested?"

"Yes, very much so indeed. Maybe it will make me look better to my employers—for I fear my reputation with Lor-Sofviio Teknos is now darkened a bit." He added quickly: "Not that I blame you, Tom, surely."

Bud leaned close and whispered slyly, "And
also
maybe, if they decide on canning him, it’ll help him get a job at Enterprises!"

Another day, another night, and the team was trained, outfitted, and ready. Five of the divers—Bud, Dan Walde, George, Ham, and Alix—lolled near Sealock Two in their hydrolung suits.

"So where’s our crewcutted leader?" asked Ham Teller. "My morning eggs are settling. And that ocean out there won’t be gettin’ any wetter."

"Some last-minute detail, probably," Bud answered. But he was also feeling impatient.

At last Tom arrived, clad in diversuit and carrying aquatometer.

Bud studied his pal’s face. "Everything okay, Skipper?"

"Oh, sure," was the reply. But his thoughtful voice bore a frown.

"Perhaps something we ought to know?" asked Alix. "Before it happens to us?"

Tom shrugged. "Nothing to do with the search—not this one, at least. But I was just speaking with John Thurston." He gave a brief, and carefully worded, recap of the circumstances that had led to consultation between the CIA and Swift Enterprises. "As I say, there’s international concern that some secret organization might have targeted that ship that went down, the
Centurion
."

"Has something new turned up?" George inquired.

"It’s more about something that
didn’t
turn up. The ship seems to have gone missing!"

"Missing? Bah! Norwegian waters, of
all
places to sink," harrumphed Alix Tuundvar. "I am not surprised if it can’t be located, not if the Norwegians are looking for it."

Bud held up a hand, cutting him off. Dan Walde said, "I don’t see how
anybody
could lose a supertanker!"

"Have you ever
met
a Norwegian?" challenged Alix.

"It has to do with that big storm that’s sprung up over the Norwegian Sea," Tom continued, as he made a final check of his diversuit equipment. "It made for problems with the rescue when the
Centurion
first foundered, and it’s gotten much worse. It was too dangerous to send seacraft into the area to do a sonar scan from the surface. They finally went in with one of those drone mini-subs."

Alix commented with pride, "My country is world’s-best in their manufacture."

"Well, what the drone found was a lot of nothing. They studied the currents, looked for oil residue, extended the search area wider and wider― "

"And still nothing," Bud finished for him. "So Dan’s question stands. Just how
do
you lose a supertanker?"

Tom reply was grim-faced. "You
don’t
. Which is not to say you can’t steal one!"

THERE was a moment of disbelieving silence. "That sounds more like something Ham would come up with," joked George Braun. "Are you really thinking that some evil genius could make off with a waterlogged ship blocks long and as deep as a sports stadium?"

"The Omaha kid lacks imagination," snorted Teller. "There must be a hundred ways to pull it off. Or at least one or two."

The young inventor put a stop to the banter. "Let’s not deal with it right now, fellows. We’ve got to hit the water before time and tide erases our trail completely."

The six hydronauts exited through the subsurface sealock into cold blue water. The
Sea Charger
had "let anchor"—the
highest
-tech anchor possible, Tom’s gravitex device—in Alands Bay north of Stockholm, Sweden, where the Baltic Sea joined hands with the Gulf of Bothnia. The Shoptonian had reasoned that "water X" could have been carried southward along the eastern coast and around the southern cape to the SMB.

The possibility faded instantly. "Not a trace on the aquatometers," Tom reported, scanning transmitted readouts from all six units on his master output screen. "But let’s fan out and head north for a while."

The hydronauts spread over the space of a mile or so, each aquatometer acting as a separate "sensor" for Tom’s unit—distant eyes. But after forty minutes, Tom called the others back in by sonophone.

"Nowhere fast, Skipper," Bud commented.

"I know, pal," replied the young inventor. "Rather than keep on northward, let’s jet south around the cape and head west. The current may have come from the other direction."

"Someone’s getting hungry for results," Ham Teller remarked Brooklynishly.

Retorted Alix Swedishly, "Who can blame?"

The ion-drive diverjets affixed to the backs of their suits allowed the team to zoom through the depths at torpedo speed, their depths maintained by electronic buoyancy-control units inside the stanchion that supported the jet.

"Slide-press the third circle from the end of your arm gauntlet," Tom directed them. "We’ll let the localculators guide us."

"The name rings a bell, Tom," muttered Dan Walde. "But I’m not sure Mr. Cox—Zimby—really explained it."

Bud uttered a sonophonic chuckle. "Genius boy likes to slip in new inventions on the sly. Gives him a chance to show off."

"Never!" laughed Tom. "Dan, it’s a computerized guidance device that not only automatically steers you around obstructions, but gives a precise three-dimensional reading as to your location."

"Inertial guidance?" asked George. "In other words, a gyroscope?"

"I really think Tom knows what ‘inertial guidance’ means, Brauny," Teller reproved teasingly.

"Now stop fighting, boys, or back you go! But George is right, in a way. The ‘Loki’ makes us of a property of subatomic particles called
spin
. It’s not the sort of mechanical spinning used in gyroscopes, but when virtual particles are exchanged in― "

"Perhaps that is enough of an answer," interrupted Alix. "But pardon me. There is some justice in the reputation we Swedes have for dourness and brusqueness."

"And the heavy drinking?" Ham Teller challenged.

"A myth. Yet true."

They passed over the sad remains of the dark, ruined SubMoBahn—passed over them in silence. Crossing the strait called Skagerrak that divided Swede from Dane, the hydronauts entered the North Sea. Once again the six fanned out wide. No longer able to see one another in the tranquil dimness, only their sonophone communicators testified to their continued existence.

"We’re sure making great time," Bud remarked. "And I’m not even thirsty or tired."

"Those ‘aquadapticum’ pills Doc Simpson came up with really do the trick," Tom agreed. "He thinks divers could keep going for more than 24 hours underwater, given sufficient oxygen and a source of nutrition."

"I didn’t think we’d be out so long on the first trek," said Dan Walde doubtfully from somewhere far away.

"We won’t, Dan. A few more hours out, then back to the
Charger
."

"Like I said—
hungry
," noted Teller.

Gunning their jets, the armada of fish-men speared through the water at multi-fish velocity—Shark Five. Minutes and miles sped by. Tom watched raptly the greenish panorama of sea life all around him as his exterior sound monitor filled the dome of his facemask with crackling noise from the green-blue world. Now and then he pressed a spot on his sleeve-gauntlet and slid his fingers along, adjusting the buoyancy device and descending in a swoop. He swept the lower depths with a tiny, penetrating lamp attached to his left forearm, his aqualamp. Flashing across the electronic beam, coldwater fish swarmed through the jungles of seaweed and underwater vegetation. The bottom, glimpsed dimly below, was carpeted with sea anemones, urchins, finger sponges, and mollusks.

"Watch yourself, genius boy—everybody!" came Bud Barclay’s warning voice. "I just spotted a Portuguese man-of-war."

"Those tentacles can sting a guy pretty bad," Dan commented. To which Alix added:

"Very much, but I have survived it."

As they cruised westward above the sloping shelf of the North Sea, Tom felt himself becoming increasingly discouraged and impatient.
Good night, I thought we’d trip over at least a smidge of ‘water X’ by now
, he thought. And even as the echo of the thought faded came George Braun’s voice:

"Got it, Tom! Pings on my detector!"

The young inventor checked the master readout with growing excitement. "At last! And there!—Alix’s aquatometer is starting to pick it up too!"

"So where too?" sonophoned Bud.

"George and Alix are both north of the rest of us," Tom answered. "Let’s veer a little northward. I’ll send the heading to your Loki’s."

The aquatometer readings, now coming from all six trackers, revealed that the traces angled downward with the current that was carrying it from its unknown source. The hydronauts began a mass descent to a depth of 190 fathoms. When Ham Teller noted the depth, Alix added a verbal footnote. "You might wish to know, sea chums, that ‘
fathom
’ comes from an old Norse word, ‘
fathm’r
,’ the measure of the outstretched arm."

This brought no comment from the others. But moments later Bud suddenly yelped out: "Jetz! Something’s down there—big!"

"Can you tell what it is?" Tom sonophoned.

"Looks like—a ship!"

Tom gulped.
Could it be?
By some bizarre coincidence had the sea searchers run across the lost supertanker, the
Centurion
?

"Everyone! Head toward Bud!"

THE sophisticated sonarscope system built into each diversuit allowed the five to converge rapidly on the sixth, Bud. "Get a load of
that
!" he exclaimed, circling slowly.

"I don’t see anything, pal," Tom declared.

"Huh? Oh, right—I’m using the ‘for my eyes only’ lamp setting." Bud altered the aqualamp’s frequency mix, so that its luminance wouldn’t be restricted to the view through the youth’s own treated mask-visor. "There!" All eyes followed the beam downward.