Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space (7 page)

Tom had quickly divined the lay of the circuitry, almost in a glance. He used the screwdriver to force an unintended cross-connection inside the device. The others were looking in three different directions along the beach, trying to cover the small transmission radius of the mechanism.
"Okay!"
he hissed, pushing home the connection.

"Nothing," said Bashalli.

"Me too," Bud reported.

Sandy shook her head in disappointment.

Tom sighed, frustrated. "Well, it
might
have worked. My connection should have caused the receiver to give off quite a screech in somebody’s ear."

"Not a wince in sight, pal," Bud said.

"The listener must be hiding behind something," Bashalli commented. "Or perhaps the signal goes to a tape recorder, not an ear."

"Still, there’s no reason for panic. One thing is certain—an enemy is within reach and may be still nearby on the beach."

Bashalli looked incredulous.
"That
is your idea of
not
a reason to panic?"

Tom shook his head. "If we could only lay our hands on him!"

"Which may not be so easy," commented Bud, looking around. The area was dotted with people. Some were stretched out on the sand, sun-bathing with their eyes protected by dark glasses. Others were chatting or playing cards under beach umbrellas. Tom casually questioned several persons. None had noticed anyone suspicious.

"It’s hopeless!" Sandy groaned. "How can you
possibly
identify the person who stuck that thing in the basket?"

Frowning, Tom studied the maze of footprints in the sand all around their umbrella. "It doesn’t look as though these tracks will do us much good either. Except where the cola spilled, the sand is just too soft." Most of the footprints were little more than vague blurs. But that one print of a bare foot, the one that had first attracted their attention, was fairly sharp. Tom and the others crouched down to examine it. At first glance the print seemed perfectly ordinary. Then Sandy exclaimed, "Look! Isn’t this toe mark shorter than it should be?"

She pointed to the print of the great toe on the footprint, which was of a man’s left foot.

"Good for you, Sandy!" Tom said.

"But I still don’t see how it’s going to help us," Bud muttered.

Bashalli smiled and said, "Why not? All you have to do is go around like the prince’s messenger in the Cinderella story and ask every man you meet to take off his shoes!"

The others burst out laughing, and for the time being the search was postponed. None of the young people forgot the incident, however.

During the next two days, Tom’s mysterious enemies made no further moves and the searchers got no additional clues. Not even one bather with a short toe appeared on the beach. All that was accomplished by their efforts at surreptitious foot scrutiny was to give the Lawsons’ guests a peculiar reputation!

On the third day the sky was slightly overcast—for Florida—and the Shopton four decided to take a tour of Everglades National Park. The elaborate tour, by air-conditioned swamp boat, lasted all morning and continued, after a break for lunch, for another hour into the afternoon.

At the conclusion Bashalli mentioned how much she had enjoyed the tour. Sandy gave a wan smile and said, "I think I’ve seen about enough of alligators and weeping willows and floating moss for awhile."

"Then I have an idea!" announced Bud with enthusiasm. "Let’s rent some swamp-kickers and take our own tour!"

"Swamp-kickers?" repeated Tom.

"Didn’t you see the sign? They’re like—" Bud searched for words. "Well, it’s a kind of platform that you strap your feet onto, with handlebars."

"I do not understand the customs of the American South," said Bash dubiously. "Of what use are handlebars for the feet?" Then she laughed to reassure everyone that she was only joking.

"Oh, they’re like jet-skis," Sandy explained.

Bashalli wrinkled up her forehead. "It sounds like quite a lovely way to break a leg or two."

"It’s fun, and you can learn how to use it in minutes," Bud insisted. "That is—if Tom—"

Tom managed a faint grin. "I’m doing fine. Let’s give it a try. If I end up sitting it out, I’ll just pull out my pocket magnifying glass and study, er—floating moss."

After renting the swamp-kickers and practicing in some shallow channels under the eye of trained instructors—who seemed years younger than the foursome—they were each given a map of the areas open to public recreation and turned loose.

"Best ya keep puttin’ on your skeeter lotion thick as can. But don’ let them Swamp Rangers catch you over th’ line, you guys," drawled one boy. "They’s a might stingin’ fine t’ pay!"

Soon the four were laughing and cheering as they wove their ways through the dredged backwaters of the swamp. The swamp-kickers were hardly traveling fast at all, yet the experience was so novel that they felt as if they were soaring along in mini-jets. They played a kind of aquatic hide-and-seek, the girls against the boys, and Bud performed a few daredevil stunts that probably were not covered by the rental company’s liability insurance.

"Why do boys just
have
to show off?" called out Sandy sarcastically.

"Why do girls wear skimpy swimsuits?" retorted Bud with a laugh.

As their paid-for time neared its limit, Bud and Sandy decided to race Tom and Bash back to the dock. The two teams took different routes, and Bud and Sandy arrived back first. But as the ensuing minutes ticked by, there was no sign of the others.

"Must be a-tryin’ to run out th’ clock," said the rental manager.

Bud nodded, trying to put up a confident front for Sandy. But each knew the thought paramount in the other’s mind. What if Tom and Bashalli had run into an unexpected danger?

And that was indeed the case! At that very moment the Shopton youths were engaged in a high-speed chase in which they were the prey, splashing through ponds and channels willy-nilly and sometimes skidding across mud, their throttles turned up to top pitch.

"Are they still there, Tom?" cried Bashalli.

Tom nodded, leaning forward on the handlebars of his swamp-kicker. Somewhere behind them was a pair of powerful motorboats, each flat-bottomed and driven by a duct-fan. The first had come darting out of nowhere directly in their paths, the mottled sunlight between the arching trees flashing across a leering gorilla-like face.

They had veered off and fled immediately. Seconds later a backward glance had revealed that a second boat had joined the Gorilla, taking the lead. In the second boat were two men, one carrying a shotgun!

Though the boats were momentarily out of sight, Tom could hear the burr of the engines over the sound of their own. He motioned for Bashalli to pull closer and hissed, "I’m sure they’re only after me! You can get under cover and—"

But Bash shook her head, determination in her eyes. "Absolutely not, my dear Swift!"

Tom frowned but nodded back at her. At that moment the boat with the two men—and the gun—came charging into sight behind them.
"Come on!"
Tom shouted, and gunned the throttle.

They were speeding along much faster than was safe, given the danger of underwater obstructions and submerged wildlife with sawtooth jaws. Like water skiers they leaned into their sharp turns, sending a rainbow spray of water over the rotting logs and luxuriant foliage. But for all their speed, the leading boat was gaining on them. Tom flinched as a shot cracked out—then another! But the bullets had not yet found their mark.

In fear of their lives, Tom settled on a desperate plan. Trying to speak as quietly as possible over the roar of multiple motors, he barked out directions to Bash, concluding with: "Try to keep even with me if you can!"

As the stalking boat bore down on them, Tom and Bashalli leaned forward against the handlebars of their swamp-kickers, shifting their weight.
"That one!"
Tom cried, nodding toward a dark shape low in the water far ahead.

They cut back on their throttles for a few moments. The chasing boat immediately gave a roar of increased speed, as if snapping up an opportunity. In his mind Tom could visualize the gunman taking aim, the crosshairs of the gunsight centered on his back!

"Ohhh-kaaay!"
breathed Bashalli, an exclamation ending in a little scream as the pair pushed themselves upward, as if jumping into the air from their platforms. But, feet strapped in place, the result was to swing the platforms up and forward beneath them, almost out of the water. And at that moment, the undersides of the swamp-kickers thwacked against the submerged log!

The jolt would have been deadly if Tom and Bash had not anticipated it. Like aquabatic performers they bounded up over the log, splashing down cleanly on the other side and regaining their balance immediately. They veered off into a side-channel to the left.

The pursuing boat could neither stop, nor turn, nor hurdle the log. The prow rammed into it full-force, sending boat and boatmen twisting and thrashing through the air.

Tom and Bashalli did not choose to linger.

Minutes later the bedraggled pair came splashing up to the recreation dock, where Bud held up his forearm, displaying his watch. "Eight minutes over!" he called. "You two come by way of Tahiti?"

The story was told in choking breaths, and the rental owner immediately called the swamp patrol, who flashed by the dock moments later as a police helicopter beat the air overhead.

An hour later the shaken foursome were making a statement to the state police. "You recognized the one guy?" the sheriff asked Tom.

"I recognized his description," he replied. "Did you catch up with him?"

The sheriff shook his head. "Naw. Not a trace. The other two are in intensive care with a few dozen broken bones. They were able to haul themselves out of the water—lucky for them. But no identification, fingerprints unknown; and I don’t guess they’ll be talkin’ much for quite a while."

"I don’t know who they are, or what they want." Tom explained how he had discovered the hidden listening device, and Bud spoke up:

"Those two goons are probably just underlings. The Gorilla’s the guy you want. He’s some kind of electronics genius!"

"You don’t say," responded Sheriff Olmenez. He turned back to Tom. "And I
guess
I’m convinced you really are
the
Tom Swift. I hear wherever you folks go, wildness an’ weirdness follers you like a shadow. Spies, kidnappers, mad scientists, bank robbers—lemme ask you somethin’, young fella."

"Yes?"

"Ever considered maybe just
stayin’ home?"

Tom gave a laugh in spite of himself.

As the four left to drive back to the Lawsons’, Tom asked Sandy if she had had enough vacation yet.

"No," she replied with a stubborn, but discouraged, look on her face. "I
refuse
to let that
swamp of doom
be my last memory of this trip! We haven’t had enough vacation, have we, Bashi?"

"Well, as a matter of—"

"There, you see, Tom?" Sandy interrupted. "You and Bashalli haven’t fully recharged your batteries yet!"

"And besides," Bud put in tentatively, "we still haven’t found the man who planted that bug. It obviously wasn’t the Gorilla, and the sheriff said those other two had regular-size toes."

Tom reluctantly agreed to another few days.

Despite the frightening event, Tom was able to enjoy the remainder of his vacation and spent most of the time loafing in the sun. The bruise on his shoulder was fading nicely. Yet his inventive mind was never inactive. One morning he seemed to be dozing on the sand next to Bud when the others saw him suddenly stir and snap his fingers.

"What gives?" Bud asked, looking up from a trivia-quiz game he was playing with the girls.

Tom raised himself on one elbow, an excited glint in his eye. "I’ve got the answer to how to get going with the outpost in space!"

"You do?" boggled Sandy.

"Yep!" grinned Tom. "And you won’t believe it!"

"THEN TELL
ME,
Thomas," demanded Bashalli. "I can believe a lot of things with ease!"

"Hot rockets!" Bud grinned back at his pal. "Don’t you ever stop inventing?"

Tom ignored the gibe. "Look at that kid over there." He tilted his head toward the surf, where a young boy was playing with an inflated beachball. The boy was having a high time pushing the ball under the water and letting it bound up into the air.

"What about him?" Sandy asked.

"It suddenly struck me that there might be a way to save fuel by launching our supply rockets
under water!"

There was silence as Bud, Bashalli, and Sandy traded glances, trying to absorb Tom’s peculiar idea. "Well, skipper, I know they launch Polaris missiles from submarines..." Bud murmured.

"Is that what you mean?" Bashalli asked. "To set off your big rockets from submarines?"

"Nope!" The young inventor shook his head, beaming. "I’m thinking that we could anchor the rockets to the sea floor as part of a sort of buoyant carrying vehicle, which would effectively replace the first stage of the rockets." He began to diagram his idea in the sand. "Think of something like a narrow cylinder a couple hundred feet long or so, made of some strong and lightweight material—maybe reinforced Tomasite plastic. It would really be just a big, streamlined tank full of air."

"Like that beach ball!" Sandy contributed.

"Exactly, but shaped like a spear pointing upward. Attached to it, or maybe enclosed inside it, will be a pared-down version of the Workhorse rocket Swift Construction Company makes. It’ll have just two stages. The lower segment will carry it into orbit, and then will be converted into one of the modular ‘spokes’ for the space station. The small top stage will hold the construction crew, and will carry them back through the atmosphere when the project is over."

"Sort of a quick-and-dirty version," remarked Bud. "But I don’t see the advantage of launching under the ocean like that."

Bashalli brightened. "Ah, but
I
see! It is the buoyancy! Like that beachball, the rocket pops up into the air without burning fuel, and is on its way."