Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster (18 page)

Donning the anti-rad gear and helmets, the youths strolled to the edge of the collector pit. Wisps of steam, born deep within the earth, were rising from the shaft opening. Suddenly, as they stood watching, the rush of vapor began to increase markedly. In the course of one minute it became a whitish jet geysering high into the frigid sky.

"What does it mean, pal?" Bud asked.

"Some sort of deep-earth activity along the shaft," responded the young inventor uncertainly.

They began to feel a vibration in the snow-packed ground upon which they stood.

"Hear that, Bud?" said Tom excitedly. Even through their helmets they could detect a deep rumbling—the groaning of the earth!

"Swift! Barclay!"
came the voice of Harold Voorhees within the stratoship.
"Return immediately! The lithosonde readings—"
The rest of the message was lost to the flood of chaotic sounds around them. The geyser of vapor had become a glowing-hot gas jet roaring skyward with a powerful force, hurling ice and rock fragments upward into a mushroom cloud a mile high.

The two exchanged glances and began to back away from the pit. Suddenly Bud cried out, "Look!
There she blows!"

For miles around neither binoculars nor telescope was needed to see the white-hot geyser of molten iron that shot straight up in the air from the open shaft!

Tom’s heart was hammering wildly. The sudden climax to his long months of work and planning left him breathless and dizzy with excitement. Above the cheers and clamor of the crew ringing in his headset, he could hear Bud shouting again and again: "You’ve done it, Tom! You’ve done it!"

The gushing jet of molten iron made a white-hot arc as it plunged down into the hollowed-out artificial lake.

"What I wanna know is how d’you turn the stuff off, after you’ve got enough?" asked Chow in an awe-stricken voice when Tom and Bud had returned to the ship.

"It ought to stop in a few minutes of its own accord," explained Tom. "As the metal cools, it’ll seal off the hole made by the blaster, by forming a plug of solid iron."

But the flow seemed endless, and the level of metal inside the lake kept rising rapidly. For a time there was fear that Tom’s calculations about the time might be wrong—that the outpour might continue indefinitely. But in twenty minutes the gush of molten iron dwindled and finally stopped, as though it had been choked off by the turning of a giant throttle.

Grabbing a long-handled ladle, Tom hurried to the pit to skim off some of the top layer of the tons of metal that had not yet completely congealed. Then he rushed to his laboratory to analyze the sample.

"It’s the purest sample of iron I’ve ever seen!" reported Tom excitedly, a judgment confirmed by Carol Heiden.

The other men crowded around, clapping the young inventor on the back and congratulating him.

"Well, I didn’t bankrupt Swift Enterprises, after all." Tom grinned. "But, brother, things sure had me worried for a while!"

As the days passed and Camp Pluto was broken down for the flight back, Tom and most of the project team couldn’t resist making frequent trips to admire the artificial lake of cooling iron. The protective suits were no longer needed, as the iron plug seemed to have sealed off the radioactive vapors completely. "Good riddance to them rubber suits, anyhoo!" muttered Chow as he stood next to Tom and Dr. Faber beside the pit. "But boss, we better all hotfoot it back inside afore them reindeers start gallopin’ all over the place!"

"Reindeer?" said Tom. "You’re a little mixed up, Chow. There are no reindeer at the South Pole."

"That’s what you think, son." The cook chuckled. "Figgered you’d fergit—t’night’s Christmas Eve!"

The next day there was a huge feast in the hangar deck, which the crew had decorated with green and red streamers and a tinfoil Christmas tree. Chow had outdone himself. There was roast cold-storage turkey with chestnut dressing, cranberry sauce, and all the traditional trimmings. To top it all off Chow brought on a huge, steaming plum pudding with hard sauce.

After all hands had stuffed themselves till they could hardly move, they joined in singing "Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and other Christmas carols. Then Tom Swift stood and all eyes turned his way.

"I wish I could reward every one of you with a gift that would express my thanks, and my father’s," he said. "But you’ve all been a part of scientific history; and now there’s a little something I’ve saved for today—an unexpected discovery!"

As the team members stirred in puzzlement, Tom continued: "As you know, we detected considerable radiation in the vapors rising up the shaft. I’ve been studying samples of those particles, and I’ve concluded that they represent some unknown kind of thermonuclear fusion going on deep inside the earth!"

Tom’s announcement caused a sensation. "But Tom," Voorhees put in, "you say—
fusion?
Hydrogen fusion, as we find in the sun?"

"That would be incredible enough," he replied. "But this is stranger yet! I see evidence of
higher-element fusion,
self-sustained in some mysterious way. As we continue to probe the earth, we may tease out the secret, tapping a source of clean energy in quantities never imagined!"

"If them terror-noids don’t make a fuss about it!" Chow declared, setting off hearty laughter.

Presently the team members were able to speak to loved ones back in the United States, the hangar intercom having been tied-in to the ship’s radio.

Among the last voices to come on were those of Damon and Mrs. Swift, who sent their loving wishes to the boys and everyone else. "And now the girls have something to say," added Tom’s mother.

"Good gosh! I sure hope Sandy remembered to buy something nice for Bash," Tom whispered to Bud.

"Oh, Tom!" Bashalli’s voice cooed over the loudspeaker. "It is simply beautiful! I never realized you. had such wonderful taste!"

"Well—uh—I thought you might like it," stammered Tom, giving a shrug as Bud chuckled softly.

By way of thanks, Bashalli blew Tom a kiss into the mike, and Sandy did the same for Bud, after thanking him for the silver bracelet and earrings he had given her.

As the party ended, Bud drew Tom aside and led him into the second deck corridor. "I suppose that big brain is already hard at work on the next idea," Bud remarked.

"Well, I
have
been having a few thoughts about
one
idea—building a permanent space station!" replied Tom dreamily. He knew the
Outpost in Space
project would be an even greater challenge than the Antarctic mission!

His pal shuffled his feet. "I know we weren’t supposed to bring ‘unessentials’ along," Bud said quietly. "So plug me with an impulse gun!" He pulled a small wrapped box out of his pocket and handed it to Tom.

"They’ll have to fry us both!" chuckled Tom, pulling out a box of his own. "Merry Christmas, flyboy."

Tom opened his gift first—an expensive watch. Bud explained, "It gives you the date, year, season, barometric pressure, and due-north; and the two hands are antimissile-missiles. Does everything except tell the time!" he joked.

Bud then opened Tom’s gift. It was the same identical watch! The boys leaned on each other, laughing helplessly. Then there was a long deep silence between the two friends.

The door to the command deck slid open. "Tom? I think you’d better look at this!" It was Hank Sterling, his expression unreadable.

Tom and Bud hurried into the compartment. Sterling was holding tapes from the lithosonde triangulation unit. "I printed out the last day’s-worth before starting to pack down the equipment."

"I haven’t looked at it since the gusher gushed," Tom admitted. "Didn’t see a need to."

"What
in
the world is it, Hank? Did we accidentally crack open the globe?" speculated Bud. "Tell me if California’s falling into the Pacific—my folks own good beachfront property in the Mojave Desert!"

Hank wordlessly handed the tapes to Tom, who examined them. "But this—this
can’t
be right. This shows the earth blaster still chugging along down below, as of this morning!"

"I thought the molten iron was supposed to destroy it," observed Bud.

Studying the tapes, Tom said, "Apparently, the gusher came early because a part of the shaft
behind
the blaster caved in, releasing an undetected vein. The shifting pressures closed and sealed the lower shaft, which protected the blaster from the iron—and also diverted its course. It never
did
hit the primary vein, and has been going down ever since!"

"Ever since!" gasped Bud. "Where did it get to?"

"When it finally met its maker, it had descended to a depth of—" Tom gulped in sheer awe. "—of almost three thousand miles! Bud, do you realize what that means? We went right through the mantle—
into the earth’s core!"

Bud clutched his chest and staggered back. "I knew I should have had your watch engraved! Let’s see
—‘Tom Swift, conqueror of air, water, fire, and earth!’
Sounds right!"

"And what would you like for your inscription, Budworth Barclay?" Tom asked softly.

"Easy question!
‘Bud N. Barclay—actor, hero—and you should see him in a towel!’"