Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express (19 page)

"I’ve been through it before," stated Damon Swift, awestruck. "When they moved the space outpost to the Venus orbit. The trip is instantaneous."

"Jetz, all that power—just what do the space friends want
us
to do?" Bud asked in a fearful voice.

"Not the space friends," corrected Tom; "there was no ‘we are friends’ opening. It’s their superiors, the authorities on what we call Planet X, somewhere in deep space. As to the purpose," Tom went on, "
there’s
a big clue, everybody."

There was no need to point. What the
Starward
was facing was a great, deep blackness—as if a page had been torn from space itself! "Th-that there’s a
black winder
, all right!" sputtered Chow faintly.

Susan Fresnell pointed off to the side, where the perfectly straight edges of the blackness came to a point. Just beyond the vertex, among the stars, was a particular bright point of light surrounded by a faint, hazy glow, a disklike corona. "What
is
that, Tom? Have we—we haven’t been moved all the way to another solar system, have we?"

The young inventor shook his head. "No, I’m sure we’re parked at the Emma object in our own solar system. That ‘star’ is the sun!—
our
sun. We call the space in the inner solar system a vacuum, but from this distance you can see the glare of the solar wind and space dust against the interstellar background. Human eyes have never seen it!"

"Pardon me, Captain, but maybe we should postpone the star-gazing," urged Bob. "Call her Emma or the Black Window or whatever—she gives me the willies. Blackness—pure absolute
blackness
!"

"Son, let’s pull back a ways and reconnoiter," urged Mr. Swift. "We need to get some idea of the size and layout of the thing." The borders of the Black Window extended far beyond the scope of the viewport on one side.

"You’re right, Dad." Tom worked the controls, but a problem immediately cropped up. "Good night, the repelatrons can’t find anything to push against! Emma just shows up as
nothingness
!"

"Then it’s just as Dr. Jatczak said," noted Arv Hanson. "A massless slice of space reflecting nothing and letting nothing pass through from the other side."

"A perfect absorber, as he told Tom," Emda muttered. "Can we use the spacedriver to move back?"

Tom half-shrugged—but half-nodded. "I don’t see why not. We’ll create a micro-distortion and give ourselves just a touch of motion, 50 MPH or so, aft vector."

The Cosmotron Express backed away. Tom verified its motion, but noted that it seemed to make no difference with respect to the visual size of the Black Window. "Distance and perspective is hard to estimate, so close to such a huge object. It’s like when I was in Pete Langley’s ‘rink.’"

"It’s obviously enormous," said his father. "Perhaps miles in length."

But very slowly, more and more of the featureless gash came into view. And then something that caused the crew to shout, and Tom to instantly shut down the spacedriver. A streamlined, spearlike object, half in darkness, protruded from the Black Window into the dim light of the far-distant sun!

"A spaceship!" gasped Hannah. "The Planet X people?"

"No," stated Andy bluntly. "I recognize it from the early plans. It’s the redesigned
Dyaune
!"

"No sign of the Nestria capsule," Tom said. "But Dr. Wohl must be aboard this ship... if—if she’s—"

"She’s aboard," interrupted Mr. Swift forcefully. "And the signals Henrik picked up were probably from the
Dyaune
, not the capsule."

As if in answer, the space radio crackled with a message, somewhat weak and oddly distorted. "
Tom? Enterprises vehicle? Is that—is that you, Tom?
"

Tom grabbed up the microphone. "Doc Vi!"

"It’s me, Tom. That’s your new spaceship, isn’t it? Oh, Tom... we kept sending out signals hoping someone, somehow could pick them up..."

"It was Henrik, Doc Vi," Tom declared happily. "He’s the one who detected the signal."

"
Henrik
!... oh, he must be... but...

"Tom, this is Prof. Volj’s ship, the
Dyaune
. They’ve been out here for weeks. When we arrived in the N-4 capsule—"

"Did something haul you here, Vi? Another spacecraft?"

"I don’t know, exactly. We were just... here! Prof. Volj says we’re out at the edge of the solar system, according to his instruments. Prof. Volj and his crew have been generous to us, Tom. They allowed us to dock with them and come over—our air supply wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple days."

Another voice cut in, harsh and thickly accented. "Do you hear her, Tom Swift? We have been cooperative. We have shared air and food. We awaited your arrival—do you not always come to the rescue? Now we presume you will take us home."

Tom smiled. "Home to Brungaria, Prof. Volj?"

"
Bah
! What does it matter? Earth, air—that is enough."

"Do you know why you’re here, sir? Has anyone communicated with you?" Tom wondered if the Others might have explained their purpose.

"We have seen nothing, heard nothing! We float here at the edge of blackness, unable to leave. But now—who else do I see through that nice big window of yours?"

"Hello, Nattan," said Andor Emda into the mike. "Long time, no spy."

"Traitor!"

"Maybe, great leader. But guess what, I’m over
here
, and you—
aren’t
!" Emda added a few words in Brungarian, which seemed to reduce Volj to rage, then silence.

Tom took back the microphone. "Prof. Volj, you said you were unable to leave. What do you mean?"

"Even in your English, I speak clearly, Swift!" snapped the man. "Something holds us here. Neither the Swift capsule nor the
Dyaune
could move more than a few meters before being pulled backwards. We experimented, attempting to free the capsule from the region. When we undocked it and sent it forward, at the highest power by remote control, it barely reached the sunlight—then it snapped backwards in an elastic manner and vanished into the darkness. It could not be seen, not even by radar. The black is like a fog that nothing can penetrate—and yet it is entirely immaterial, without mass." Then Volj’s voice had lost its bravado. "What is this place that holds us, Swift?" The man was afraid.

"We’re trying to find out, sir. We intend to take all of you back to Earth, but remember, we’re as much at risk as you are. It may be that my space contacts, the X-ians, can free us, now that we’re able to provide them an additional source of energy. It’s the Planet X people who brought us here." Tom added sarcastically, "But they’re
your
friends too, Prof. Volj. Have you spoken to them lately?"

"They do not answer," he replied sullenly. "No doubt your ‘Exman’ visitor turned them against us upon his return. Mere prejudice and misunderstanding."

"No doubt," Tom said with an ironic glance at Bud and Mr. Swift. "I’m signing off for the moment. I’ll contact them right now and see what the next move is."

Tom now accessed the deep-space communications antenna by means of which he had communicated with the aliens minutes before. But Hank Sterling suddenly held up a hand. "Skipper... maybe you’d better switch over to the transmitron feed."

The youth studied the board. "I didn’t bother to de-orient it when I gave up my attempt before. The computer automatically relocated Deimos and aimed the antenna at it when we arrived... here."

"Then it must be the Space Friends—the ones we usually talk to—who are trying to contact us," Hank said. "It’s a radio signal. How they get it across more than a couple light-days of distance in less than an hour, I can’t imagine."

Tom corrected him. "We don’t really know how long the trip here took in ‘exterior time.’ Hours, days..."

"Or years—or
centuries
, Tom!" the engineer added pointedly.

Not replying, Tom accessed the incoming space signal and sent it through the translating computer.

TO TOM SWIFT. WE ARE FRIENDS. WE HAVE BEEN PREVENTED FROM CONTACTING YOU BY SPACE CONDITIONS AND BY THOSE WHO HAVE POWER OVER US. THIS FOCUSED TRANSMISSION METHOD YOU HAVE INITIATED MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO DO SO WITHOUT DETECTION.

IT IS THE MASTERS THEMSELVES WHO CREATED THE RIFT-NODE TO GAIN ACCESS TO A DIFFERENT LOCUS
[translation approximate]
OF THE PHYSICAL CONTINUUM. THEY DID NOT ANTICIPATE ITS DISRUPTIVE EFFECTS AND HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO PROCEED WITH THEIR STUDIES. IT IS THEY WHO HAVE TAKEN YOUR FELLOW BEINGS TO YOUR PRESENT LOCATION WITHOUT CONSENT. YOU ARE TO BE UTILIZED TO PENETRATE THE RIFT-NODE AND REGISTER CHANGES TO YOUR BIO-FORM PATTERNS THAT CAN NOT BE STUDIED BY OTHER MEANS. YOU WILL BE COMPELLED TO SERVE THIS PURPOSE. ONCE TRAVERSE HAS TAKEN PLACE IT IS NOT PROBABLE THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PASS A SECOND TIME THROUGH THE RIFT-NODE TO FREE YOURSELVES.

WE SPACE FRIENDS DO NOT APPROVE OF THE CONDUCT OF OUR MASTERS BUT CAN DO NOTHING BUT WARN YOU.

There was nothing further. Tom Swift carefully switched off the console and turned to his friends, bunched together behind him and reading the message with fear and anger. "Then that’s it," Tom said. "The X-ians were behind it, all of it. An experiment that went wrong. Unforeseen consequences. And they plan to use us, human beings, as
living test probes
—scientific instruments. At whatever cost to us!"

THE AIR simmered. It was Andor Emda who spoke first. "Chow, amigo, would you like to ‘brand’ something?"

"Shor would!" spat out the ex-Texan. "
Their ding-blang green scaly feathered Planet-X space hides!
"

"I’m afraid I—I don’t understand all this," quavered Susan Fresnell. "Are these, these aliens... D-do they plan to
sacrifice
us for some kind of experimental purpose?"

Tom’s voice was edged with bitterness. "Oh, I’m sure they have good, scientifically valid reasons for what they plan to do!

"They’ve always had their reasons, ever since the meteor-missile. It seems they want to ‘understand’ us. That’s what we’re supposed to assume. But they—I mean the ones on Planet X—have minds that work according to very different rules. They’ve never explained why they established a base in our solar system, the Deimos installation. But it’s pretty clear they attach more importance to ‘intelligence’—pure knowledge—than to intelligent
life
!"

"Yet they’re far ahead of us in acquiring that knowledge," noted Mr. Swift. "And they apply it to a technology well beyond our mortal comprehension. What they choose to do may seem indifferent—unconscionable!—to us, but are we really equipped to judge them? They know many, many things we don’t know."

"But maybe
vice-versa
, too!" his son insisted. "I don’t agree with you, Dad, not this time. Whatever the X-ians are trying to achieve—"

"Er—excuse me!" Bud broke in. "How about we philosophize back in Shopton?—Shopton, USA,
Earth
!"

The two Swifts nodded, sheepishly. "You’re right, Bud," said Damon Swift. "Even
they
can’t expect us to cooperate in an experiment without consent or explanation. They should know enough about humans by now to understand
that
!"

"Mebbe you should jest
ask
’em what the Rio Grande they’re after," suggested Chow, forcing himself to be calm and reasonably reasonable.

Tom moved to the communications panel and composed a blunt message.

TOM SWIFT TO SPACE BEINGS. WE HAVE DETERMINED THAT YOUR SEIZURE OF EARTH SPACECRAFT WAS DELIBERATE. WE CAN NOT COOPERATE WITH YOUR EFFORT UNLESS WE KNOW ITS PURPOSE AND WHAT YOU WISH US TO DO. IT IS A NECESSARY CHARACTERISTIC OF LIFE FORMS OF OUR KIND THAT WE WILL DESTROY OURSELVES RATHER THAN SUBMIT TO IMPOSED CONTROL.

"That might be putting it just a
tad
forcefully, Skipper," gulped Bob Jeffers. "But—go ahead."

Tom transmitted the message, sending it through the main antenna. He received a response almost immediately.

LIKE YOU, TOM SWIFT, WE SEEK KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT. WE CREATED THE RIFT-NODE FOR STUDY BY OUR
[term untranslatable]
ESTABLISHED IN YOUR PLANETARY SYSTEM. THIS APPROACH WAS WITHOUT RESULT. YOUR BIOLOGICAL PATTERN-FORMS
[translation approximate]
HAVE PREVIOUSLY BEEN REGISTERED AND INTERPRETED. AS YOU PENETRATE THE RIFT-NODE WE WILL MONITOR CHANGES IN BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION OUTPUT AT MICRO-ORGANIC LEVEL TO DETERMINE INFLUENCE PARAMETERS OF LOCUS-PLANE
[translation approximate]
TO UNDERSTAND THE POSSIBILITY OF USE.

There was a pause. "We can get the details later," muttered Tom, composing a response.

WHAT ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS TO US? WE WILL NOT CONSENT TO ANY EXPERIMENT THAT WILL IMPEDE OUR LIFE FUNCTIONS.

The message back had a mocking tone.

YOU ARE NOT CONSISTENT AS TO THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR SURVIVAL.

There was nothing further. After a futile reply and a minute’s wait, Tom turned away from the board. "Guess they called my bluff."

"Looks like they plan to remotely monitor our cellular functions—maybe our neural systems and cortical processes," Hank suggested. "Nice sophisticated test probes made of meat."

"But why exactly did they start by kidnapping Volj’s people and the transit capsule?" wondered Hannah. "To lure us here?"

Frowning, Tom began a list. "Nattan Volj. Violet Wohl. Arv Hanson. Hank Sterling. Chow Winkler. Bud Barclay. Tom Swift. And you, Andy. What do these people have in common?
When was the last time we were all together in one place?
"

"Good grief—
on the Space Ark!
" Bud exclaimed.

"Yes, of course!" Emda burst out. "We constitute almost all the people who went aboard the animal saucer!"

"Lacking Glennon and Faber, maybe a couple of the Brungarians. But that’s right," nodded the young inventor. "They must have ‘scanned’ our cellular structure at one point—maybe when they transported us through the hull—and now they can use that recorded data as a baseline to track any effects of going into the Black Window.