Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule (12 page)

"Now we’ll switch it to time-positive," stated Arv. "We calculated the field would pull any intruding matter into itself, right through the interface. It should pluck the straw right from your grip."

And indeed it did—but in a manner no one could have calculated. As the end of the straw touched the field, it was suddenly
gone
—and an explosive
bang
!, sharp as a knife, powerful as a gun blast, shattered the tense silence of the lab!

THE EXPERIMENTERS were jolted back by a whipcrack of force and a wave of heat. Supplies and equipment rattled throughout the lab, and the entire chronolens apparatus slid several inches across the tabletop in a sudden jerk.

"Everybody still alive?" asked Arv dryly. "I think maybe our advance calculations were a tad miscalculated."

"Ya
think
?" snorted Linda Ming. "What happened to the straw-probe, Tom? I suppose it aged to death like the tongs."

"It was pulled right out of my grip," Tom replied, keen eyes surveying the machine. "The tongs started off partly inside the chronoclast lens-shadow, but the straw was entering from the outside, with forward motion. Whatever happened came just as the end touched the periphery, the ‘time barrier’."

Linda nodded. "So what
did
happen to the straw?"

"It was
explosive
, whatever it was," noted Arv Hanson unnecessarily.

Tom now glanced about the lab—and pointed. "I’d say the straw—whatever’s left of it—is
there
!" The wall of the lab, some forty feet distant, showed a fracture pattern radiating from a common center.

The three approached the wall and examined it. "The cracks all meet
here
," indicated Arv. "But there’s nothing there, no mark."

Tom examined the wall at that point with a special hand-held magnifier. "There
is
something there—look. It’s a tiny pit gouged into the wall like a mini crater." He shone the magnifier’s light into the hole. "Yep. I see a little spot deep down inside. I’m sure it’s the straw." He stood back, rubbing his chin. "It was always a
possible
effect, but I sure underestimated its power!"

Linda brushed back a lock of hair. "It sounds like the little straw turned into a bullet."

"Yes," replied the young inventor. "And
time
served as the gunpowder." He haltingly explained a complicated scenario. "As the straw advanced, the molecules at the very tip penetrated into the field—and suddenly you had, in effect, a constant ‘push’ pressure applied to those molecules for a span of
years
. In other words, years’ worth of pressure acting, from
our
point of view, almost instantaneously."

"In even
more
other words," said Arv, "the energy was super concentrated."

"Fantastically so! Remember, all mechanical motion involves momentum. The slight amount of momentum given the straw by my push was amplified, at its fore-end, by a factor of millions. So the tip shot forward into the field, pulling the rest of the straw with it."

Linda nodded. "I see, chief. But when the straw hit the opposite side of the ‘bubble,’ the reverse should have happened, right? The straw should have been pushed back. It should have come to rest inside the field."

"That’s good reasoning," said Tom; "but it seems the vector geometry took an unexpected
twist
—literally! The momentum-spike was so intense it threw the straw right out the other side at the sort of velocity you’d see in a spacecraft reentry."

Hanson understood immediately. "Shooting it right into the wall—I’ve heard hurricanes can cause straws to get embedded in tree trunks—while generating a shockwave and a blast of heat from the air friction."

Tom had continued to examine the hole and the straw with his magnifier adjusted to various settings. "You’d think the straw would incinerate in midair from frictional heat. But here we’re dealing with
meta-friction
. The velocity was so great that the heat evolved in the air along the surface didn’t have time to penetrate into the material, or even catch up with it. In fact, the ‘Q’ coefficient—the backpressure from ramming through the air—
compressed
the straw along its length. Now it’s more like a pellet—and extremely dense." He smiled. "Sandy and I dealt with metafriction just the other day, when the
Sky Queen
encountered some space ice entering the atmosphere at hypersonic speed."

"I guess when the straw was squeezed out, back into normal time, the recoil made the apparatus slide," mused Arv.

But Tom’s face was clouded with thought. "The recoil—the reaction thrust—should have been far greater. The time-transformer should have taken off like a rocket and rammed the wall behind me. Some sort of additional force was created, a more symmetrical force that balanced out most of the thrust, which was completely directed to one side...

"I just had an alarming thought, guys. The scientist-advisers were worrying about some kind of ripple effect in spacetime. I dismissed it, but..."

"But maybe we should do a little more testing," Linda stated. "And
stand back!
"

At home that night, the usual discussions of the Swift family were muted and strained—the topic of Bud Barclay was carefully avoided. Instead, Tom and his father speculated, as two scientist-inventors, about the lab phenomenon.

"You’re probably right, son," pronounced Damon Swift. "Relativity explores the effects of velocities as they approach the speed of light, and has identified phenomena involving the acceleration of large masses—such as the circular acceleration of rotating planets or stars."

"Which creates ‘frame drag’—a distortion in spacetime," nodded Tom. "In this case—"

"In this case you had a truly fantastic acceleration of mass, attaining multi-mach speed in the smallest fraction of a second."

"From our external point of view, it was all but instantaneous," Tom noted. "In other words, there was an off-the-charts jump in momentum energy concentrated initially in a very small volume of space. It must have caused some sort of ‘momentum wake’ that surged outward in all directions like a tidal wave, transferring momentum to everything it encountered."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Swift. "Not exactly a ‘push,’ not in the usual sense, but a direct and immediate change in the object’s state of motion due to a change in the symmetry of spacetime. This could be an epochal discovery, son, once we get a handle on how it works. But we can’t be
surprised to be surprised
as we probe into the underlying fabric of space and time."

Sandy, listening, said: "You could use the ‘straw effect’ for space propulsion, couldn’t you? Spray something through the time zone, and when it comes super-speeding out the other side, that’s your reaction thrust."

"True," Tom replied. "But we may be making that kind of engine
obsolete
even before we build it! What if we tried to harness the momentum-wave effect—to drive a vehicle forward by literally
moving the space around it...?
"

"Tomonomo—you’re already working on your next invention!"

Hours later, as Tom prepared for bed and restless sleep, his mother knocked. "Dear, there’s a call for you on the house phone—the operator said it was routed through the Enterprises switchboard."

"Walt’s on tonight. He wouldn’t disturb us unless it seemed important, Mom," said the youth nervously. "I’ll pick it up in here."

The ultimate end of the phone line proved to be Gabriel Knorff! "Tom, I know it’s late there, but—I just got a call myself. Mina Finch! She’s frantic. She just had a run-in with someone who broke into her house!"

"Good night! Is she okay?"

"Yes, but mighty shook-up. The police drove her to a neighbor’s house to stay while they keep watch on the farm." At Tom’s urging Gabe explained that a noise had awakened Miss Finch. When she investigated her flashlight had pinned a prowler near the doorway to the basement room. "Where the safe is, Tom—and the box!"

"Did he attack her? Pull a gun?"

"No, thank God. He ran at her and pushed her aside, then escaped the same way he got in, through a window he’d forced open. The cops say he’d killed the security system some way or other. Man, those things aren’t worth the bucks people pump into ’em, you know?"

Tom breathed easier, but still was concerned. "Was anything stolen, Gabe?"

"She called me even before the police—good choice!—and said she’d checked the safe; the box was still there. Guess she caught him before he’d gone down the stairs."

"It was the kind of attempt I’d been expecting," Tom stated. "Eckdal must be behind it. I’ve been surprised he didn’t try it earlier. Did Mina have much of a description of the guy?"

"Only a vague one—a slender young guy in what she called a burglar cap. The officers are dusting for prints, of course."

"It’d be a break if they found any—but I imagine the intruder was smart enough to wear gloves," Tom noted wryly. "Wish she had more of a description."

Tom could almost hear Gabe grin in response. "Hey, Mr. Science, the best description is a photograph! And I have a pretty good rep as far as gettin’ ’em, don’t I?"

The young inventor was amazed! "What do you mean? Don’t tell me you snapped a picture of the burglar!"

"Doubt me not!" chuckled the red-headed photo-journalist. "Or my ingenuity, at least. I was expecting a break-in too—which is why I set a photo trap! You can do a lot with these new pic-cellphones, Tom, including attach ’em to plug-in motion sensors!"

"Gabe that’s—I mean—
jetz
!"

"Uh-huh. Hung one up near the ceiling, watching the basement doorway—told Mina how to keep from setting it off. Light-amp lensing, by the way; I got a lot of money from my articles on my trip to Little Luna. Of course I blew it on equipment like the idiot I am...

"But anyway, the phone automatically uploaded the photo sequence to the net, to my private ‘secure stash’ on my website. Care to see it?"

"What’s your fee?" Tom joked.

"For you, nothin’. Of course, I own the copyright—and all subsidiary rights."

Continuing to hold the phone, Tom strode over to his laptop. In seconds he was scrutinizing Gabe’s photo-capture. The image was perfectly clear, and the angle had been, by chance, a good one.
This’ll sure make a great wanted poster!
he thought.

The burglar was as Miss Finch had described—young, slim. His tight jeans showed muscular legs. A scraggly goatee waved from the point of his chin, and strands of long hair, looking greasy and blond, draped down from the eyebrow-level rim of his woven cloth cap. "The ‘skate’ look," Tom muttered. "But who in space is he?"

"THE SWIFT search engine matrix is pretty spectacular, Tom," said Harlan Ames briskly. "Ah, technology. We’re confident of what the facial-recognition software came up with, too—forty-four percent confidence isn’t bad."

Night had passed, and most of the next morning. Tom sat in the office of Enterprises Security facing the security chief. "Lucky he was in the system."

"Lucky—but probable," replied the ex-Secret Service man. "Unless they’re stupid or have terrible luck, burglars ply their trade for years, with some jail time along the way. Plenty of occasion to get their mug shots circulated—sometimes from security cameras during the actual event. I expect to see ‘reality’ burglary shows in real time any day now on the net."

"And he’s more than a burglar, you said," Tom prompted.

"As a new hire at Waukegan Psychiatric, he had a pic taken. Also a background check—obviously a cursory one.

"So. Mr. Garton Lou Baxx of Des Moines, Iowa. Age 27. A semi-pro at the crime game. But all fairly minor stuff—local burglaries, bar fights, ripping off a cab driver. His ex-wife has a restraining order against him. His costume must be sentimental for him: he was a local skateboard champ in high school."

Tom smiled. "Must be a help in making quick getaways. Was the psych job his most recent?"

"Far as we can tell. My sources don’t know the reason he was fired. Confidential."

"But how would he know about the black box in the safe?" mused the young inventor. "The legal fight was in the local news, of course..."

"He may have made the logical assumption that that’s where the container would be," Ames responded. "Logical if you’re determined to be illogical, that is. A wiser little old lady would have used a safe deposit box."

"So you don’t think Baxx is connected to Torr Eckdal?"

"I didn’t say that, boss. Only that we can’t make that assumption right off. Even with the fences and security systems, it’s an old, isolated farmhouse. He may have picked it as easy to burgle. Maybe he wanted some practice—keep his edge. That’s what champs
do
."

Tom shrugged. "I don’t know, Harlan. Did he really roam around the house randomly for a time, trying the doors one after another? Gabe’s camera caught him because he was near the door to the most valuable room in the house."

"As if he’d headed there directly. True." Ames shifted subjects. "As your dad said, Swift Enterprises is only peripherally involved in this business with Miss Finch and her inheritance. If you want me to provide some site security—"

"No," Tom said. "I’m concerned about Mina’s safety, of course, but she needs to explore her own options. Clearly the box should be put elsewhere, and she herself should move to safer surroundings. In any event, Dad’s right. Enterprises isn’t in the rent-a-cop business."

"We have some other morsels on our plate right now."

"The dyna-4 project in Nevada."

"Actually," Ames said meaningfully, "I was thinking of something else."

Tom was stone-faced and answered quietly. "If you’re asking what
I
want, Harlan, I haven’t changed my mind. I’m going to respect Bud’s wishes and leave it to him to handle in his own way."

"Mm-hmm. ‘His own way’ is sometimes an impulsive way—to the point of harebrained."

"He has good instincts."

"For a guy who sometimes winds up hanging from a monorail track over the Grand Canyon."

"She’s his girlfriend."