Tom Swift and His Deep Sea Hydrodome (13 page)

"Including water with some T-9-E mixed in?" Bud inquired pointedly.

"Including that!" declared Tom firmly.

Tom arrived home that evening before his father. Sandy told him that she had taken a message from Admiral Hopkins to call him immediately.

Tom returned the call. "Tom, the news I have is mighty disturbing," the Admiral said. "As you know, we’ve had our undersea patrols on the alert for any sign of more of those caches of chests. That sono-resonance gimmick of yours has been a vital help. Just hours ago, another cache was discovered on the sea floor—four containers this time."

"What was the location, Admiral?" asked the young inventor.

"About eight miles upstream, current-wise, of your base on Fearing Island. Tom, it looks like they intend on wiping out your entire base—down to the last man!"

TOM’S knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone receiver.
"What kind of people are these?"
he demanded. "It’s monstrous!"

"You don’t have to convince me, son," said the Admiral. "Now the question is, where do we go from here? With some difficulty, we could give everyone on Fearing Island an inoculation—"

"I know about the inoculation," Tom interrupted bitterly. "It’s only partially effective, and can cause dangerous side effects—even fatal ones!"

"Still, my friend, it’s something. Without it, T-9-E exposure is invariably fatal within three minutes."

Tom agreed to discuss the matter with his father, and with their many contacts in the fields of medicine and medical research.

Ultimately it was decided to rely, for the time being, on the ability of Swift Enterprises and the U.S. Navy to locate and neutralize the deadly chests before the poison could be released. Using a plausible pretext, the company reduced its work force on Fearing Island to an absolute minimum, telling the truth about the situation to those who volunteered to remain, and swearing them to secrecy to prevent world panic.

The fleet of Enterprises undersea craft—jetmarines and seacopters—was put in service to the Navy, Swift personnel acting as pilots. In days, much of the Atlantic off the southern coast had become a shifting net of submersibles. Yet as the hours ticked off, no further caches were reported.

But Tom decided to focus his search in another part of the Atlantic. He reasoned that the
Mad Moby
would return to the undersea mountain by the helium well. "There sure must’ve been some reason they were there before—and we detected T-9-E in the water." Tom’s father, and Admiral Hopkins, readily agreed with the young inventor’s proposal to survey the mid-ocean area in the
Sea Hound
.

"There’s the undersea peak up ahead," Bud called out as the sleek craft arrowed through the subocean darkness. "No
Moby
s on sonar, though."

"Not so far," said Tom grimly. "Let me check the SRL. It’s running on automatic." As he checked the readout from the sono-resonance locator, he ordered Bud to cruise along the slope of the undersea mountain while one of the crew, Gil Muir, maneuvered the aqualamp search beam. The seacopter was invisible to standard sonar thanks to its coating of Tomasite. To keep it invisible to the eye, Tom had switched off all but the instrument lights, and had put the aqualamp on a frequency mix that rendered it unseeable to external view, though its illumination was brilliantly visible to those inside the cabin.

"Nothing!" declared Tom in disgust as he scanned the SRL. "But if they’ve buried them deeply or stashed them in a cave, the response might fall below the threshold of detection. Keep an eye out for any sort of opening in the mountainside."

The
Hound
continued coiling its way around the squat peak. For over an hour Tom guided the seacopter in first a descending, then an ascending course. The upper slope of the peak proved to have more likely hiding places than the rest of the area.

Bob Anchor, who had asked to accompany Tom, pointed and cried out, "Something coming up over there—a narrow crack in the mountainside."

"Bring the spot over to starboard a little, Gil, and raise it a few degrees," directed Tom, keen eyes straining to pierce the gloom. Bud throttled back on the directional jets, and as the glittering electronic beam stabbed through the murk, it settled on a crag jutting out from the main peak. A small shadowy aperture was visible in the cliff face.

Bud brought the seacopter around and steered in closer. As it approached the cliff, the
Sea Hound
’s probing beam thrust deeply into the high, narrow fissure. It fell upon a cluster of shining metal chests!

"Nice going, Tom!" Bob clapped the scientist-inventor on the back. "This looks as if it’s what we’ve come to get!"

"Look at that stuff!" Bud whistled. "It’d be more than enough to kill off your whole hydrodome operation."

"It’d be more than enough to wipe out the whole Atlantic seaboard," retorted Tom. "We’ll never get the
Hound,
or even a jetmarine, into that cave, though. It’s a job for the Fat Man."

Turning the controls over to Gil Muir, Tom asked Bud and Bob to go with him. They climbed into the suits and, leaving the seacop, propelled themselves toward the opening, and through it into the cave beyond.

"How about it, skipper—same size and shape as the ones the Navy found?" called Bud on the sonophones.

"Definitely—six of them!" Tom confirmed. "But it’s too dangerous to try stowing them in the seacop hold."

Tom had foreseen the difficulty. "Good plan, having the
Sky Queen
tag along with us," commented Bob Anchor. The great Flying Lab, its onboard hangar-hold outfitted with a Tomasite containment cubicle, hovered somewhere high above them, Hank Sterling and Slim Davis at the controls.

Tom gave the order for the seacopter to surface so Gil could make contact with the plane. "We’ll just hang loose down here until the grappler comes down," added Bob over his sonophone.

Nearly a half-hour passed before Bud, standing at the cave opening, sang out, "Here she comes, Tom!" In the weak and watery glow from Bud’s suit lamp, a round gray shadow, barely distinguishable, had materialized high above. This was the vacuum lifter invented by Tom’s father, slowly descending from the
Sky Queen
on the end of its power cables and pressurization tubes. Attached to the disk-shaped Swift giant magnet, or mega-mag, the vacuum lifter was a clump of hanging, jointed tentacles outfitted with suction pads. It had been known in advance that the metal of the containers would not respond to the magnet itself.

"We’ll guide it into position," Tom sonophoned. "I’m sure we can work some of the tubes into the fissure."

"Where’s the
Sea Hound?"
asked Bud.

"Right over here, Budworth!" crackled the voice of Gil Muir. "You can’t see me, but I can sure see you!"

"And I’m up topside on the controls," came a message from Hank Sterling. The vacuum lifter contained an inbuilt sonophone relay, allowing the Fat Men and the seacopter to communicate directly with the world above.

Tom picked up his suit mike. "You’re right on target, Hank. Cut back on the winch, but keep lowering until you get the contact beep," he ordered. "Current’s running pretty strong near the slope, so we may run into trouble. Don’t switch on power till I give the signal."

"Aye-aye, skipper!" Hank replied.

"He’s in a plane," Bud muttered. "He shoulda said
Roger."

"Hey, what happened to the lifter disk?" Bob exclaimed. "I thought it was right over us."

Tom tilted his head back to look up through the Fat Man’s viewdome. "The current’s probably sweeping it out of range," Tom replied. "Gil, swing the searchlight around," he sonophoned. "Go ahead and put it on its visible setting—we need it."

Gil Muir complied and they finally sighted the apparatus about a hundred yards to port, dangling at the end of its cables like a tuckered-out octopus. A twisting subocean current had swung the disk away like a pendulum.

"Avast on the winch up there!" Tom signaled the Flying Lab. "You have enough cable payed out."

"Are we on target?" Hank responded.

"The disk isn’t, but we’ll attend to that. Just stand by."

Guided by the brilliant glare of the
Sea Hound
’s search beam, the armada of three propelled their steel eggs toward the vacuum machine. The ocean current pressed hard against them and the disk. Bud and Bob, who reached the lifter ahead of Tom, found it awkward to maneuver the device with their mechanical arms.

"The thing’s temperamental." Bud chuckled over his sonophone. "Wants its Uncle Tom!"

"Be right with you, guys," Tom responded.

Between them the three armored aquanauts got a firm grip on the disk. Then, gunning their propulsion air-jets at full force, they managed to push it. Heading across current, they steered toward the cave opening in the cliff face.

As the three moved through the water, the
Sea Hound
swiveled its beam so as to keep them constantly illuminated.

"Now comes the ticklish part," said Tom.

Maneuvering the lifter device up to the edge of the cave entrance, they began to tug the segmented feelers toward the group of containers until they could press the suction grippers firmly against the tops of the chests. Then Tom signaled the
Sky Queen
through the relay. "Okay,
SQ
. We’re all set. Switch on power and hoist away!"

In a moment the vacuum lifter gave off a loud, whooshing noise and the loose tentacles seemed to clamp firmly onto the chests in a convulsive motion. The cables started reeling in.

As the first of the chests was dragged out of the cave, it scraped against the rock, knocking loose one of the tentacles. "Can’t let the container drop," Tom cautioned. "Not with what’s inside!"

"I’ll fix it!" Bob Anchor signaled. Jetting closer, he reached out his robotic arm to pull the lifter tube back in secure position.

A second later he let out a gasp! "Help! I can’t get loose!"

Dangling from the lifter tube, Bob was swinging back and forth in his metal egg, powerless to move. The chemist was being dragged upward along with the chest!

"Good night, his arm coupling could fail! Avast heaving!" Tom shouted into his sonophone, and the
Sky Queen
responded instantly.

Slowly the cables were payed out again, and after much maneuvering the unwieldy load was deposited on the lip of the cave. Then the power was turned off so Bob could free himself.

"What was that about hanging around?" quipped Tom.

"It’s my one-arm trapeze act!" Bob replied. "Next time I’ll charge admission!"

Once again the power was switched on. This time the load was hoisted up through the water without incident. The whole operation seemed painfully slow, but at long last Hank signaled that the containers had been sealed inside the cubicle.

The aquanauts re-entered the seacopter, and fifteen minutes later the
Sea Hound
was zooming south over the waves toward a rendezvous with the
Sky Queen
on Fearing Island.

On the island the cube-shaped containment module enclosing the six chests was carefully transported to a lead-lined, Tomasite-sealed concrete bunker at the edge of the airfield.

By the time Tom and his companions had arrived, Hank Sterling was able to report that the chests had been examined by the penetrating beam of Tom’s Eye-Spy camera. "Looks like pressurized cylinders, all right," declared the young engineer. "If they contain the poison like the others, we’re ready for it." He nodded toward several Navy men who were clad in bulky protective suits.

"Save a suit for me," Tom said. "I want to take a close-up look."

Inside the bunker, the crew began to use special tools to force open the chests. The first two contained only the tanks, as expected. But as Tom pried up the lid of the next one, his face blanched.

"Get back, everybody!"
he yelled.
"This may explode!"
Swinging open the lid had caused a cardboard sign to slide down into view.

WHOEVER OPENED THIS CHEST,
YOU HAVE NOT LONG TO LIVE!

"What’s he doing?" Bud cried in alarm, gazing into the bunker through the thick observation window. "He’s got to get out of there!"

Meanwhile the young inventor, unconsciously holding his breath, was trying to carefully close up the lid of the chest. "Probably activated a chemical fuse when I opened it," Tom reflected tensely. "That sure looks like an explosive squib attached to the tank valve."
If the valve were blown loose, the deadly, highly pressurized T-9-E could spray into the air with such force that the suits could be breached!
"First step—get this thing sealed up again, and fast!" Putting on the muscle he tried to slam the lid shut again. It wouldn’t budge!

The other men were in a panic, trying desperately to force open the vaultlike door hatch of the bunker. But the ponderous door mechanism worked slowly. "Tom’s trying to save them all," muttered Bud. Then suddenly he choked out an exclamation of disbelief.
"Jetz—he’s gone crazy!"

The young inventor was unzipping and removing his protective suit, as the deadly chest sat not two feet away from him!

HANK STERLING lay a reassuring hand on Bud’s shoulder. "Tom knows what he’s doing."

Working with cool precision Tom stripped off the thick, bulky material that comprised his suit, stepping out of it through the now-unzipped flap in front and holding the suit in his hands, the attached helmet flopping down to one side. Then, acting with as much haste as he dared, he draped the open suit on the bunker floor next to the chest. "Help me, somebody!" he called out in a hoarse voice. One of the men at the hatchway saw his intention and trotted over to assist him. With shaking hands the two managed to work the open chest into the body of the suit. Then they struggled to zip the suit closed with the chest inside it.

By the time the suit was zipped tight and the deadly chest sealed off from the rest of the bunker, Tom and his helper were panting.

"That should do it," Tom gasped, heaving a sigh of relief.

Before the other could reply, the protective suit seemed suddenly to come to fitful life! As a sharp retort echoed through the bunker, the suit’s arms and legs were flung wide and its helmet-head jerked upright.