Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway (11 page)

"The chief, who is also the magic-doer among Wanguru," stated Yuta. "The pouch contains his
grigris
—charms and spirit-callers."

There was muted conversation between the chief and the men, which Yuta appeared to be following keenly. The chief stopped in front of Tom, his eyes glittering with menace. The young inventor returned his gaze. Realizing that the man was trying to unnerve him, Tom took the initiative.

"Please ask him why we were brought here, Yuta."

The shaman, who evidently knew some English, broke in sneeringly, "Aiya! You juju man, eh?" he asked Tom.

"Juju man? What’s that?" Bud asked Yuta.

"Magic-doer. From what they talk, they think you come to build highway-road, like those others who came here before."

Tom was startled. "How could he know that?"

"My think? Before you come,
t’bo
drums were telling the news—all across the jungle valley. How other white men wanted to carve the jungle for one of their big trails and could not. But now the O
ba
—the great ruler in the west city—he sends for young white man who make strong juju."

"
Huanye
boy!" spat out the Wanguru shaman-chief. "You!
T’bo
telling how you make great
huanye
machines to do like birds and fish,
huanye
juju to carve ground for your path."

Tom grinned. "You can call it juju here, if you like. In America we call it science."

The young inventor’s smile seemed to enrage the shaman. "
Pfah
science! White juju no good here Wanguru forest!" he ranted. "Uoshu and Sho-sho-go make jungle taboo!"

"We are friends to Uoshu," declared Tom. "We’re here because he allows us to come here to his jungle."

"Uoshu the chief of all bad! Has no friends!"

"He is a friend to those who honor his son." The young inventor reached into his backpack and took out his ivory effigy, holding it up. "Look—the Son of the Father of Crocodiles!"

This seemed to rattle the assembled warriors. They looked at one another, and Tom heard a muttering:
N’ka-Dindo!

Even the old chief seemed grudgingly impressed. "
E’wa.
Uoshu would have given you death by now for having this
ok’na
, this statue, if not so-agree him. May to be, then—you are in his favor,
huanye
boy."

"I like to think so," replied Tom. He wanted very badly to exhale.

The shaman-chief glanced from side to side at his minions. He appeared to be calculating, a canny grass-roots politician. Suddenly his whole expression changed. He lunged forward and embraced Tom. "I, Nkoru!" he exclaimed, pointing to himself.

"And I’m― "

"Wa! Boy-son Tom Swift."

Bud managed a low laugh. "Pal, Dilling really deserves a raise!"

Nkoru nodded gravely. "I once-when was small-boy, to learn your English in Imbolu. Teacher had book for us—
Tom Swift Big Tunnel.
"

"That was a story about my great-grandfather," explained the young inventor with a smile. "Those things happened many years ago, Nkoru."

"Wa, so-is. Paper yellow, all fall apart."

Nkoru asked Tom and his companions to stay in the village, which was called Do Yimbi, and join the Wanguru for a sunset feast in their honor. Seeing Tom hesitate, Yuta answered Nkoru on Tom’s behalf, and the chief nodded. Yuta explained to Tom: "What I tell him, your others wait us, can not stay now." Yuta grinned massively. "Rain check!"

The three made ready to leave, one of the warriors accompanying them as a guide. But as they skirted a lengthy cleared field at one side of the village, Bud drew his chum’s attention to what seemed to be a game or competition going on. A number of youthful Wangurus were clustered together, brandishing spears and talking excitedly—banter often interrupted by laughter and bouts of good-humored shoving. After a moment one of the youths stepped forward and raised his spear, looking intently toward the far-off end of the clearing.

"Stay and see," urged Nkoru, who had approached silently behind them. "This, the
m’dago
—game for boy-sons, show who is best with spear. They fun, also learn better to do. So-see?"

"I understand," Tom said.

"What’s he throwing at?" inquired Bud. "Is there a target, or is it just for distance?"

"Wa! Target already
is
distance." The chief pointed. "You see-no?" Realizing at last that the man was indicating a scarred, scratched trunk that seemed nearly a half-block away, Bud was amazed!

"You mean these guys can throw those big spears that far?"

"Watch see."

The first young warrior-in-training reared back like a supple tree in a hurricane, and his spear arm suddenly blurred with motion like a fan blade. A shadow flicked down the field and a loud
thunk!
announced that the spearpoint had found its way to the target. They could see the spear protruding from the trunk at a straight angle, as if deeply buried. "
Good night!
" Bud burbled disbelievingly. "A winner first time up!"

But the chief waggled a hand dismissively. "Winner not yet made. Others try."

The game became ever more astonishing. Each successive participant not only hit the distant target—but sliced right into the tail of the spear ahead of it, lodging there firmly. The composite spear shaft was growing like a branch! Finally, contestant eight split the target shaft, and the pieces whirled aside.

"Winner," announced the chief laconically.

"I don’t think anyone in our country could even come close to doing that," Tom declared. "Your young men must make you very proud, Nkoru."

He shrugged. "They are learning. More better when they get older."

"How old are they?"

"Most twelve year. Some younger."

Bud was reduced to a sputter.

Guided by the Wanguru, Tom, Bud, and Yuta returned to the village trail, then the jungle beyond. At last their guide pointed. "
Toh!
"

"He says, there it is," translated Yuta. Through a gap in the trees they could make out tiny figures still quite a distance away —including the less-tiny figure of Chow.

"Please tell him thank-you, and that― " Tom stopped in mid-sentence. The Wanguru had already disappeared, noiselessly.

They trekked forward toward the safari camp. Though the sun was still high in the sky, the thick leafy canopy made some swaths of ground almost as dark as a cave.

It was Bud, rushing ahead jauntily, who first saw the Thing. He froze in his tracks, unable to make a sound. Tom started to join his pal, then felt Yuta’s hand clamp down on his shoulder, pulling him back.

Some instinct warned the young inventor to remain dead silent. Electrified with sudden fear, he shifted his gaze sideways, to where Bud and Yuta were staring.

Deep in the black shadows was a blacker shadow, a rounded hump as big as a garage door—a moving, breathing thing with machete-teeth as big as Tom’s forearm!

TOM had reached a point well beyond fear. His mute thoughts instantly took on the form of scientific curiosity. Here was the mammoth original of which his ivory statue was the crude copy.
The Son of the Father of Crocodiles!

The creature was half-imagination—it could barely be made out. A faint glimmer of teeth, a slivered gleam of what might have been a gargantuan eye, a silhouette of fleshy folds and wattles—that was all. That, and the impossibly deep whoosh of the breath of a giant!

Bud began to back up toward Tom. One glacial step—two—

The blackness moved! With a sound of shattering branches and ripping vines, the teeth and eyes angled away and swung about among the trees, which whipped wildly aside. The thick mat of vegetation, the muddy earth beneath, shuddered massively. Outlined in bits of sunlight, something like a titanic dump-truck of greenish black flesh struggled away between the trees, sending panicked birds into screeching flight.

In seconds it was gone.

As the three staggered toward the safari, Hank, Chow, and little Akomo came trotting up to meet them. "Wa-aal, boys, get any good pitchers o’ that turkey-bird?" asked Chow. "Got me thinkin’ about how t’ cook ’er up right― "

"
Tom!
" gasped Hank, seeing his young boss’s expression. "What’s― "

"
I
know what. He has seen the monster," stated Akomo without hesitation.

Tom nodded. He and Bud sat with lowered heads for a minute before either could speak. Together they forced out a sketchy account. "It was huge, Hank!"

"Did it look like your statue?"

"We couldn’t see it whole," Bud answered. "That’s how big it was."

"The skin and teeth seemed reptilian," continued Tom. "As to its shape... ask Yuta." Yuta stared down at the youth impassively. "You’ve seen it before, haven’t you, Yuta?"

The Ulsusu nodded. "Many time."

"Why didn’t you tell us?"

Yuta shrugged. "Was shape important? No one knows where they live. Just in the jungle near to swamp."

"You said—
they
?"

"There are many, not all alike, some bigger, some smaller. Crocodile heads on bodies like—like ivory you have. Heads up in trees, all big like houses in Imbolu. Roar sometimes. Mostly hiss. One these, saw once him eating
it-k’ra
—elephant."

Akomo bobbled his head vigorously. "All is true, sir-sir.
N’ka-Dindo!
"

"Tom, it’s like you said before," Bud murmured. "It’s a dinosaur, a tyrannosaurus!"

Composure regained, Tom stood. "We don’t know just
what
it is, Bud, not yet."

"Should we chase after it?" asked Hank.

Tom barely paused, though Chow’s white waiting face advertised the answer
he
preferred. "No," decided the young inventor. "We’re just not equipped for it. We’ll come back to investigate. But now, let’s keep going."

"We can reach the side of the swamp, last dry ground, in two, maybe three hours," Yuta advised him. "But we should go, now."

Collecting wits, courage, and equipment, the group trekked on as planned, Tom using the PER to report the fantastic experience to the
Sky Queen
. Bill Bennings promised to radio the account to Tom’s father in Shopton.

The last part of the journey was down a long narrow promontory of gravelly earth with dank mud on either side, choked with reed and tall-grass. Finally they stood on a slight rise overlooking the eerie marshland. In front of them it appeared to be several miles wide. To their right and left, it stretched all the way to the horizon.

"Holy moe! I wouldn’t be surprised at
anything
that came crawling up out of that glop!" declared Hank. The mud, black beneath a thin sheet of water, was constantly churning and bubbling. Streamers of slate-blue vapor rolled across the swamp.

"Say there, Tom," muttered Chow. "You think that gassy stuff is okay t’ breathe?"

Tom nodded. "It’s pretty dilute. We’ve already analyzed the telespec readings from the overflight. Argon, sulfur compounds, hydrocarbons—smog!—with unusually high proportions of radon and radon flouride. Traces of Niobium, of course. Mostly steam, though. The infrared profile says that black mud is hot!"

"‘
Swift Sulfur Springs
’," Bud mused. "Great for your health if you can stand the dinosaurs."

"
We
can’t stand this close for very long," cautioned Hank. "Radiation levels are tolerable, but a little worrisome."

Akomo laughed derisively. "
I
am not worried, never never! Not way!"

Tom began to unpack some sampling equipment. "It makes sense that we’d find radon and radiation together—both are byproducts of atomic reactions. Hank, this may be another case of that deep-earth nuclear activity we detected in Antarctica."

"Bet you’re right, Skipper. This whole swamp may be just filler for a crack that goes down—well, who
knows
how far!"

"Fer me, I don’t much
need
t’know!" pronounced Chow.

An ominous presence hung over the Shoptonians as they worked, a feeling of danger that compelled them to work all the faster. All the cries of birds were distant—the swamp was silent.

With the help of Bud and Yuta, Tom and Hank pulled out bunches of the reeds and other plantlife, skimmed off shards of floating moss, and captured mud and water. Thin slabs of the shoreline were carefully lifted and deposited in flats of wood reinforced with Tomasite. Tiny insects and fish were also extracted or trapped in containers.

At last, with a glance at the sun, Tom Swift called a halt. "We have what we came for," he pronounced. "Let’s pitch camp for the night a little further from the swamp."

"Tomorrow we are back at the boats," said Yuta. "Next day, the big plane."

"With not one person eaten," Akomo added. "I myself am like a charm of good luck!"

No one was eaten during the trip back to Imbolu either. They arrived safely at the
Sky Queen
, stowed their valuable takings, and—after warmly thanking Yuta and his men—slept the sleep of the bedraggled.

Akomo had spent the night. The next morning he sought out Tom. "Sir of sirs, I have a plan that― "

Tom knew precisely what the boy was about to ask. "Sorry, Ako. We can’t fly you back to America with us."

"No what? Outrageous! I am not afraid and full of vital information, a natural resource!"

Tom grinned. "I believe you, pal. But it’s against the laws of both countries. Besides, what would your parents say?"

"Parents? What I said― "

"I know what you said, Ako. And I also know what Chief-Lieutenant Fokguomo told me when we were making arrangements for the boats."

"Um, um, um! Whatever it was, it was a lie!"

"You’re not a homeless street urchin, just a typical Huttangdala kid who likes to run free while school’s out," stated the young inventor. "Mr. Fokguomo checked it out with the authorities in Huttangdala, including your school. They all know you mighty well."

"Lie, lie, lie!" protested the boy desperately.

"Akomo... I spoke to your parents."

The protest became a toothy grin. "That’s different. You are almost as clever as a Ghiddua, sir-sir. So now you know—Mom and Dad gave the big okay before I flew."