Tom Swift and His Flying Lab (4 page)

Roberts thanked his employer and hurried off. Left alone, the others exchanged worried glances.

"I didn’t want to make Mr. Roberts feel any worse," said Tom, "but I think I can guess how the intruder got onto the grounds. He probably hitched a ride inside Roberts’s trunk!"

Bud nodded. "I thought the same thing. We count so much on the radar system to track outsiders that we don’t make too big a deal about controlling entry. And if he had his own radar-trapping device—"

"He’d be home free," finished Tom.

"It’s clear that the intruder—or his employer—is a scientist and a dangerous enemy," said Mr. Swift. "Evidently his antiradar setup was tuned to the master plant radarscope in the airfield tower. He wasn’t prepared for the secondary unit in the hangar, and all he could do was physically disable it. That’s why we see his blip for a few minutes on the time recording."

"Man, would I like to get my hands on that oily-haired sneak!" Bud burst out. The copilot’s big shoulders strained at the seams of his heavy ribbed sweater. "I’d do a job on him!"

"I wouldn’t mind getting a whack at him myself!" Tom’s lean, strong hands clenched unconsciously.

Mr. Swift put a calming hand on his son’s arm.

At this moment the interoffice phone rang. Tom picked it up, on the speaker setting.

"Your sister is at the main gate, Tom," Munford Trent, the Swifts’ private secretary, informed him. "Sandy says something has happened. You’re to come out there at once!"

Bud was out the door almost before Tom was able to set down the phone receiver. Since his arrival in Shopton a few years before from San Francisco, where his parents made their home, Bud Barclay and Sandra Swift had become close friends, making Tom’s younger sister the envy of many in town.

The two boys hurried through the grounds, wondering what Sandy was about to tell them. The attractive blond girl, a year younger than her brother, resembled him in looks and disposition.

The boys found Sandy astride her horse, Jumper. His glossy coat was drenched with sweat from a hard run, and he was prancing about nervously. His owner, too, appeared to be excited. "What’s up?" Tom asked, alarmed.

"Something awful happened a little while ago," Sandy burst out. "I was riding Jumper along Old Mill Pond Road when a copter that looked just like that model you showed me came down right in front of me!"

Tom and Bud looked at each other, speechless. The stolen aircraft!

"The pilot let it roll under some big willow trees," Sandy went on. "and then came tearing out into the middle of the road. He gave me a fearful scare. Ran right up to me and grabbed Jumper’s bridle! But just then a farm truck came along. The pilot pulled out a gun and forced the driver to stop. He yelled to me not to dare tell anyone I’d seen him. I—I think he knew who I was, somehow. Then he climbed into the truck and made the driver start up again."

"He stole that copter from us!" Tom said, and quickly told Sandy the story of the theft. "We’ve got to get over there before they truck it away!"

"And it may have some clues for us," added Bud. "Sandy, are you all right?"

"Oh, I’m fine," she responded. "I’m a Swift! But do be careful," she begged them. "That man has such a wicked face."

"Don’t worry," Tom answered. "But there’s no time to lose, Bud. Come on!"

FIFTEEN MINUTES later, in the fading light of early evening, Tom and Bud pulled up in Bud’s car at the spot where the midget helicopter had been abandoned. It was well screened in a willow grove near a brook.

"No wonder our search planes couldn’t see it from the air," Bud grumbled as he leapt the door. "The way those willow branches hang down, it might as well be draped with curtains."

The boys rolled out the
Skeeter
and Tom climbed in. A few minutes later he called down that apparently the thief had not meddled with the controls.

"I’ll fly it back," he said, gunning the engine. "See you at the plant."

With Bud driving far below, Tom gave the agile little craft a good wringing out to be sure that the strange pilot had not tampered with any part of it. When Tom came down at the main Swift Enterprises helipad, he found Sandy waiting for him.

"I’m so glad you got the copter back from that creepy geek," she said.

"So am I, sis. That squares up one of the thefts. But maybe you shouldn’t ride around alone on country roads any more—Swift or not."

"You bet I won’t," she promised. "At least, not until they catch that two-bit gunslinger!"

Making a quick call to Harlan Ames and then to the local police, Tom was informed by the police captain that he had already heard the story from the driver of the hijacked truck and had sent out an alarm. Tom then televoc’d his father and Bud, who had just arrived back at the plant, relaying the news.

"I think it’s time you three went home for some supper," suggested Mr. Swift. "It’s been an incredibly eventful day. Some of Ames’s men will follow behind you to make sure you get there all right, and I’ve already had some plainclothes guards posted around the house."

"How about you, Dad?"

"Oh, I’ll be along. I’ve been fielding inquiries from the news media about the ‘meteor’ that struck Swift Enterprises. After what happened to your great-grandfather, I think I owe it to the family to be a little cautious about releasing news that the public might find too sensational."

"But I know you don’t want to lie," Tom commented.

"No indeed," agreed Mr. Swift. "But listen, Tom, our first analysis indicates that the projectile is composed of some unknown silicate composite, not metal."

"Silicate?
Like rock?"

"Precisely. So my press release will state that ‘a rocklike mass traveling at unusually high speed impacted within the grounds of Swift Enterprises. Swift scientists are now studying it to determine its specific composition.’"

Tom laughed heartily. "And that’s no lie!"

Several days went by and still there was no trace of the thief. Tom had plunged into work on the Flying Lab, overseeing countless precision jobs on which the crew’s lives would depend once they were airborne. This did not keep him from pulling out of his pocket many times a day a copy of the symbols inscribed on the strange missile that bad fallen from the sky. Solving the mysterious message it seemed to convey had become a game between Tom and his father, both of them aided at times by Enterprises mathematicians who assumed a new security encryption system was being tested. At dinner each evening they would compare notes about the results of their calculations.

"Any progress, Tom?" Mr. Swift finally asked one night, enjoying their friendly contest. Just that day Tom had computed the ratio of the diameters of two oval symbols, one smaller than the other, and concluded that the larger oval was meant to be Earth, the smaller one her neighboring planet Mars. The message could be from Martian scientists!

"Yes, Dad, I have one theory," Tom replied. "Those two overlapping circular shapes—they work out mathematically to represent this planet and Mars, encoding the difference between the polar and equatorial diameters."

"I came to the same conclusion through an entirely different chain of reasoning. At least we know that ‘somebody up there’ is trying to get an important message across to us." Mr. Swift laughed. "Well, we’re still running neck and neck in our race."

"I wish I had more time to work on the symbols," Tom continued. "But I’ll keep at them until we take off for the ionosphere."

Late one morning, after Tom had finished stowing some delicate instruments aboard the
Sky Queen,
he decided to check the blueprint of the gyrostabilizer caissons. He hurried down to the office and studied the detailed sheet a few moments. Some wiring would have to be changed to avert risk of fire.

As Tom came from the office, he stopped short. Looking up, be was horrified to see wisps of smoke curling from the air vents of the Flying Lab, just as he had imagined! Visions of disaster flashed through his mind.

"But it’s coming from the third deck," he observed. "It
can’t
be
that
wiring." Grabbing a fire extinguisher, Tom leaped up the interior stairway of the plane. He ran head-on into a wide figure racing downward.

"Chow! What’s on fire?" The chef was coughing and choking as he tried to find his way down the steps, his eyes streaming with tears from the smoke.

"Lemme out!"

"Is it the galley?"

"Galley? Naw, boss, th’ galley’s not on fire. It’s jest my Texas spinach omelet. Consarn, with all them microwave ovens an’ induction thingums it’s a wonder I kin find my skillet!" Chow was obviously perturbed—and more than a little embarrassed.

"I know it’s a little different," Tom said sympathetically, trying hard not to laugh. "But you know, we can’t exactly have an open campfire on the Flying Lab, not with the oxygen-rich air we’ll be breathing onboard when we’re cruising the upper atmosphere."

"Waal, if you say so," returned the cook. "But don’t come complainin’ if’n your bacon strips look more like brown shoelaces!"

Tom gave Chow’s shoulder a squeeze. "If anyone can tame that loco galley, it’s you, Chow."

At this Chow gave the inventor a determined look, still coughing because of the smoke in his lungs. "I broke tougher broncos n’that, I guess," he declared. "I was goin’ to surprise you for lunch, but I’ll fix somethin’ else."

"A he-man steakburger, please," Tom begged. "And easy on the surprises."

After lunch aboard the
Sky Queen,
Tom ridewalked over to the office which he and Mr. Swift shared in the main building. His father was there and said, "Roberts just had a message from his son’s wife, via the secure link from the US Embassy in Lima, Peru. Young Roberts has gone into the mountains by helicopter on anexpedition with a group of Hemispak scientists. He left several weeks ago, and she doesn’t expect to hear from him until he returns. I hope nothing happens to him."

Mr. Swift had barely conveyed this news when the intercom phone buzzed. "There is someone at the gate to see you and your son," said Trent.

"We’re very busy," answered Tom’s father, somewhat annoyed. "You know when I’m—"

"I’m sorry, Mr. Swift. But I believe you’ll want see this man right away. He says he’s from the Hemispak Scientific Society!" Across the office, Tom and his father looked at each other in amazement. From Hemispak! Could this be the same man who attacked Roberts? Would he dare take the chance to come here again? "Bring him in!" Mr. Swift told the secretary.

Before the visitor arrived, Tom pushed a button and the broad workbench, covered with plans and gadgets, slid into the wall out of sight. "We’d better watch him, Dad! Even if he isn’t the same man, he may be a crony of his. I think we’d better keep him between us while he’s in here."

"Good idea, Tom," said Damon Swift. "And we can also have plant security listening-in by means of your televoc pin."

"Señor Carlos Rigoledo," Mr. Trent announced presently, ushering the caller in. Tom knew at once that he was not the man who Bud had described. The caller was much older and less agile-looking.

"May I present my credentials, gentlemen?" the stranger said after the Swifts had introduced themselves. "Although the selection has not yet been released to the press, I am the newly chosen president of the Hemispak Scientific Society." He pulled out a membership card and letters from a pocket to support his claim. The Swifts examined them and felt satisfied.

"We have heard a great deal about Swift Enterprises," Señor Rigoledo began. "Hemispak hopes to work side by side with you two famous Swifts."

"If Hemispak is all we’ve heard it is," Mr. Swift replied, "that would be a distinct privilege for us." His suspicions, as well as Tom’s, had been completely dispelled by the stranger’s straightforward manner.

"We have a great deal of work to do," went on Señor Rigoledo, "but if we can maintain our ideals of cooperative scientific work in behalf of the northern and southern continents of America, the western hemisphere should benefit greatly."

The trio now relaxed in friendly, companionable conversation.

"Some day I’d like to visit South America again," Tom remarked. He did not say so, but in his mind he finished: "—and in the
Sky Queen
would be the perfect way to do it!"

"That may be sooner than you think," was the surprising answer. "Your reputation, for one so young, is already widely known among our people through the scientific and engineering journals. And that is part of my reason for coming to Swift Enterprises today."

Tom sat up expectantly.

"I must now acquaint you with certain facts," Señor Rigoledo remarked, "facts that you may be somewhat familiar with through the news reports. I am the Deputy Minister of the Interior of my country, Montaguaya. Perhaps you know that we have been having trouble with a certain group of our people, the Puyachay. They are an ancient indigenous people who live, for the most part, in one area of the eastern Andes mountains and the jungles beyond, the province of Veranos-Estrella. The Puyachay are a very stubborn people, one might say, and do not care to change their ancient ways. Verano, as they call it, is really a splinter state, run by rebels who broke away from the mother country. They carry out continual guerrilla warfare against us."

Verano, Señor Rigoledo revealed, was a stumbling block to the work of Hemispak.

"Why is that?" Tom asked.

"I will explain. As you know, the United Nations has imposed certain restrictions on the mining and export of fissile radioactive ores—materials used in the production of nuclear reaction. If a nation appears to be engaged in undisclosed mining operations or illegal trafficking, various sanctions are imposed," he went on. "Regrettably, my country of Montaguaya is now subject to those sanctions, because we cannot guarantee that the Verano rebels are not engaged in these prohibited operations."

Mr. Swift looked at Rigoledo thoughtfully. "I take it you have reason to believe that the rebels are dealing in ore?"

"Si,
Mr. Swift. From a clue given by a defector from the rebel forces, we believe that there is valuable radioactive material within the borders of Verano. We think some exploratory mining has been done, and that they are using small samples to seek covert funding for a larger operation. But such materials must never fall into the hands of these rebels!"