Tom Swift and His Flying Lab (9 page)

Then, as if by the flip of a switch, all sounds ceased. Tom and Hank waited tensely, five, ten minutes.

"Maybe the good guys won," said Hank hopefully.

"Then why haven’t they released us? That trap door wasn’t hidden," Tom pointed out.

The silence continued unbroken. Finally Tom said, "I’ve had enough of this. Shall we escape?"

"Hey, I’m all for it. What do you have in mind?"

Tom pointed up at the underside of the trap door. "It seems to me the bolt on that door was just a simple slide-bolt, loosely fitting with no place to hook-in a padlock. By jiggling the door from underneath, we just might be able to work it loose."

Hank nodded. "Great plan. Are you wearing special Swift elevator shoes? The ceiling is quite a bit out of reach."

Tom grinned. "Not if one of us stands on
your
big broad shoulders, Mr. Sterling!"

Hank hoisted Tom up on his shoulders, where the young inventor precariously rose to his feet. He found that he could maintain his balance by pushing upward against the ceiling, which was now within reach. After a last moment of listening, Tom began pressing on the trap door. To his amazement it swung readily upward with no effort at all!

Springing up from Hank’s shoulders like a jack-in-the-box, Tom was able to grab the edge of the opening and work his way up. All was dark and silent. Finding the ladder resting along the wall nearby, Tom lowered it through the door. In a moment Hank was standing beside him.

"Hank, we
heard
them bolt that door," observed Tom, puzzled. "Which means someone unbolted it for us during the gun battle."

They went out into the main room, which was strewn with broken glass, overturned furniture, and shredded sofa cushions.

Hank pointed. "Look there, by the window." In the wan moonlight, Tom could see a slumped figure. He stepped closer, cautiously. It was Miguel.

"He’s gone," Tom said. "Looks like he took a bullet."

They made a cursory search of the farmhouse. There were no other bodies. Nor was there a telephone. "But we can use the radio in the plane," Tom declared. "Unless they’ve disabled it."

Unfortunately that was exactly the case—the radio had been smashed, and the plane’s fuel line cut. "Well, maybe I could pound on my stomach in morse code!" Hank joked.

Checking the big shed, they discovered that the Renshaw was gone.

"But look here," cried Tom, pointing down at the ground, which was somewhat soft and muddy. "Tire tracks on top of our own footprints! Someone came through here and left again."

"The newcomers may have overcome the kidnappers after a fight," Hank mused. "Then they split into two groups, one for the plane and the other for the vehicle."

Tom’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. What sort of danger was he—and his friends and family—facing?

Suddenly a roar of engines broke the eerie silence!

A half-dozen offroad motorbikes burst from the woods into the open meadow. The vehicles converged on Tom and Hank as dark-jacketed men, silhouettes in the bikes’ headlight beams, leapt to the ground and trotted forward, guns drawn. As Tom’s eyes darted right and left, seeking an opening for escape, a new sound reached his ears—the rhythmic
whomp-whomp
of helicopter blades cleaving the air above. And Tom recognized the sound!

"It’s the
Skeeter!"
he cried, as a spotlight jabbed down and swung across the meadow to where Tom and Hank were standing, pinning them in its bright glare.

One of the approaching men yelled out, "It’s them!" The others came to a halt, lowering their weapons, as the speaker stepped forward.

"Hal Brenner, FBI." The man flashed his identification in front of Tom. "Everything clear here?"

"I think so," Tom responded. "That is, as far as we can tell. One of our abductors is dead." He motioned toward the farmhouse.

"Uh-huh. How many were there?"

Hank answered. "There were six originally."

Brenner shook his head brusquely. "Nosir. Three more at the tanker truck, plus one on a hill near the old bridge with binocs and a cellphone. All in custody, in various states of health."

The
Skeeter
had landed a hundred feet away. As the door popped open, a familiar figure gave a jaunty wave. "Tom! Hank!"

"Bud!" Tom yelled back in reply.

Agent Brenner took lengthy statements from Tom and Hank while his men scoured the farmhouse property from one end to the other. After a considerable time, one of the men came back to Brenner and conversed with him in low tones.

Brenner turned to Tom and Hank. "Besides the man you call Miguel, there’s another one lying in the weeds next to the shed. We need you to identify him." He led the two to a crumpled figure spread flat in the mud, face down. Brenner briefly lifted the man’s head so his face was visible.

"One of the kidnappers?"

Tom shook his head. "Not one that we saw, anyway."

"All right," said Brenner. "You can go, Mr. Swift, Mr. Sterling. Barclay over there said he’d fly you back to Shopton."

As the jetrocopter whirled through the night air, Tom and Hank recounted their experience a second time for Bud’s benefit.

"Wish I’d been there!" he exclaimed. "After we got your last message, Tom, your Dad decided it would be better not to go in with a chopper, so’s not to provoke any craziness. We tried approaching by the main road, but—"

"We know, Bud."

After landing at Enterprises, Tom, Bud, and Hank went their separate ways. When Tom finally arrived home, he was met with relieved embraces by his mother, father, and sister.

"Your father tried to make light of the situation," said Mrs. Swift, "but I must say he’s not a very convincing actor. I was so worried!"

"We all were, Tom," added his father.

"So there were two mystery gangs involved in this!" Sandy mused.

"Yes," said Tom wearily. "And both of them used guns and ammo, not alien disintegrator-rays."

Sandy stamped her foot indignantly. "You just won’t listen! Once a big brother, always a big brother."

Tom couldn’t repress a yawn. "This big brother is dragging himself off to bed."

The next day was occupied in preparation for the first aerial test of the
Sky Queen,
which was to happen the day following. Word of the imminent flight had somehow gotten out to the press, and Enterprises was besieged by inquiries, not only by telephone but at the main gate as well. Harlan Ames ordered extra round-the-clock security. Meanwhile, Tom supervised the installation of the completed model of his Damonscope onto the Flying Lab, as well as the securing of the Skeeter and Kangaroo Kub in the ship’s hangar deck.

At four in the afternoon, the telephone rang at The Glass Cat in Shopton. Bashalli answered, and a nervous voice said: "Hi, Bashalli? This is… um…"

She heard a voice in the background whisper,
"Tom."

"Tom…" the first voice continued.

"Swift!"
whispered the other voice.

"I know!," hissed Tom under his breath to Bud.

"Hello, young Mr. Swift," said Bashalli. "And to you also, Bud."

Tom cleared his throat. "Bud, er, seems to think I need to relax a little before some important work we’ll be doing tomorrow. I wondered—would you care to drop by and let me show you some of our points of interest here at the plant?"

"Ah," she responded. "The Swift museum! But you realize, Thomas, that before I can be so long in your presence, I must have the approval of my oldest living relative. It is our custom."

"Oh, really?" answered Tom, disappointed.

"Yes, Great-Uncle Sabhi, 103 years of age. He is away on an elephant hunt at the moment, but is expected back before the new year." After a silence, she added: "Tom, for a genius you are
very
gullible, I think."

"Oh, I knew you were kidding!" retorted Tom indignantly.

An hour later, Tom and Bud were escorting Bashalli through the Swift Enterprises visitors center, which featured a variety of displays, photographs, and models.

"Here’s a picture of the first Tom Swift with his first airship, the
Red Cloud,"
said Tom.

"Ah yes, but this interests me more," remarked Bashalli. She pointed at a newspaper article and photograph displayed behind plexiglass. Dated July 20, 1969, the article was from the
Shopton Evening Bulletin
and bore the headline:

TOM SWIFT CONGRATULATES MOON-LANDING PIONEERS

Beneath the headline was a smaller sub-headline,
"Wish I’d Got There First," Says Inventor.
The photograph showed the first Tom Swift, slender and white-haired, holding a globe of the moon.

"At least he lived long enough to see it," she commented.

"Yes," Tom said wistfully. "At least
that
. You know, he had proposed a moon-landing project to Swift Enterprises back in 1958, but his own son, who was running the place, turned him down. Grandpa Swift thought Great-Grandpa Swift was—unreliable."

Bashalli raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Do the Swifts not always stick together, through thin and thickness?"

"Not in this case," Tom responded. "But it wasn’t just George Swift who let Tom down—it was the whole world, almost."

"Tell me about this drama," begged Bashalli. Tom looked at her with gratitude, and she sensed his need to talk.

"Way back in the 30’s, my great-grandfather left on an expedition to South America," Tom began. "There, in a secluded region, he discovered an ancient meteorite that contained traces of life—
life from outer space!"

Bashalli nodded. "I remember when those scientists found a meteor in Antarctica that had fossils in it, maybe from Mars. But that was not so many years ago."

"This wasn’t fossils, Bash," Bud broke in.

"The meteorite contained
seeds,
which Tom planted and tended until some flowers were grown unlike anything ever seen on this earth!" continued Tom with growing excitement. "The flowers had miraculous medicinal properties, too. He submitted a preliminary report to the scientific journals, but before he could bring in other scientists to verify his findings, his ‘greenhouse’ burnt to the ground in a mysterious fire. Everything was lost."

"But still, he was the famous scientist-inventor," remarked Bashalli. "Surely he was thought believable."

"Sure, he pretty much got the benefit of the doubt from the scientific community, although the discovery was never really publicized. And then—the second thing happened."

"What?"

"A few years later, Tom Swift designed a giant telescope with enormous magnifying power. Do you know what astronomers mean when they talk about a ‘moment of clear seeing,’ Bashalli?"

She smiled. "I suppose it means the obvious."

"It means that for the briefest time the normal turbulence of our atmosphere calms down, allowing light rays to reach the ground without the usual distortion. Well, on that one night there must have been a freak condition, because for just an instant his instrument was able to bring in an image of the surface of Mars, as if he were only a few thousand feet above it. And he saw a
city!—
buildings, aircraft, living beings moving around."

"Incredible! But I can not believe it."

"Old Tom wasn’t alone," Bud interjected defensively. "His father, Barton Swift, saw it too. You know what he said?"

Tom completed the thought for Bud.
"‘Tom, my son, you have performed the greatest miracle of the age!’
"

Bashalli saw a trace of tears in the young inventor’s eyes. "Yet this is another miracle we have heard nothing about," she commented sympathetically.

"The moment of clear seeing never came again, and no one would believe them."

"Ned Newton believed them," Bud said in steely tones. "But when Tom’s son took over running the show a few years later, he discouraged all talk about it. It became a forbidden subject! So Ned quit his position at the Swift Construction Company, and there was bad blood between the two families. That’s why my mother’s family moved to San Francisco. The Newtons and the Swifts didn’t really reconnect until a few years ago."

Bashalli nodded understandingly. But Tom and Bud shared a glance that acknowledged that part of the story had not been told. It was because of the hurtful public reaction to the first Tom Swift’s extraterrestrial discovery that Tom and his father had withheld making an announcement about the missile and the space symbols.
And maybe going back to South America will somehow bring things to closure for the family,
Tom thought.

"And now the scientists have sent cameras to Mars," said Bashalli, carefully. "But they haven’t found any trace of life, have they?"

"My Dad was involved in those projects," Tom answered, his tone defensive. "That’s what made it doubly painful. But Dad and I will always believe that there
was
a city up there, which was abandoned in the decades that followed and buried under the dust that’s always blowing around on the Martian surface."

Feeling a need to change the subject and the mood, Tom and Bud led Bashalli to Tom’s private laboratory-workshop, where he had models of his current invention projects, including the Flying Lab. The model of the
Sky Queen
was two feet in length and made of lightweight plastic. Richly detailed, it showed that the super-plane would be slope-sided and snub-nosed, and more or less flat on top and bottom.

"The hull—yes, I know, the
fuselage
—is much like the American space shuttle, isn’t it?" Bashalli commented, holding the model in her hand. "Except, you know, it looks upside down to me."

"That’s because the cockpit viewport is underneath the nose instead of on top," said Bud, proud to show off his knowledge. "Makes it easier to get a view of the ground."

Bashalli turned the model over and indicated sixteen oval depressions in the underside, arranged in linear groups of four. "Those are the famous jet lifters, I take it."

"That’s right—Bash," Tom answered. "Powerful enough to hold the ship in midair, like a balloon. And there at the rear of the bottom deck is the entrance to the hangar for the two small craft we’ll be carrying with us. You can see how part of the underside of the fuselage slides downward like an elevator as the hatchway panel pivots upward." He demonstrated this with the model.