Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway (9 page)

Unimpressed, Bud tugged on Tom’s elbow. "C’mon, Skipper."

Tom held back. "Wait. Akomo—where do you live? Nearby? With your parents?"

The boy chortled with glee. "Parents? No parents! Akomo sleeps where he wants, eats what he wants. Some day—Cal Tech!"

Tom laughed. "Tell you what. My friends and I are about to leave on a flight across The V’moda, then on into East Ngombia. We may need to ask some questions of the people who live on that side. As you’re an expert in just about everything, Akomo― "

"Hah ah!—you have heard of me already!" he shouted. "Yes, many yesses. Take me to your
Sky Queen
, Tom Swift!"

"How did you― "

"Akomo knows all things."

"Don’t tell me you really plan to trust this kid, Tom!" Bud protested in a whisper.

"Hey!" exclaimed the boy. "I am historically trustworthy and honest, a joy to be with, and a good friend to my friends."

"What are you to your enemies?" Tom asked.

"I have none," was the reply. "They are all dead!"

Bud groaned. "
Trouble
!"

Within the hour the mighty
Sky Queen
levitated on its lifters and began the flight across The V’moda—slow and low, deliberately. Huttangdala vanished below the horizon behind them, and soon its skirt of small villages gave way to mountains.

"We call them ‘the cradle’," said Akomo, gazing through the lounge viewports as if jet flight were the oldest of old hats. "Two sides. And inside the cradle is The V’moda. Trees, trees everywhere. And then the savages!—all over the place."

"Are these savages Ghiddua or Ulsusu?" Ted Spring asked dryly.

"Not either! Um, um, um. They are called Wangurus."

Tom sat across from the conversation. "Do these Wangurus recognize the laws of the central government?" he inquired.

Akomo gave a yip of derision. "Wangurus don’t recognize anything, sir of sirs. Not at all never! If you go into The V’moda, you will be lucky to get out with your skull still inside your skin!"

THE FLYING LAB topped the mountains, and Tom and his crew got their first look at The V’moda. A carpet of every imaginable shade of green choked the broad valley all the way to the distant horizon, where the other side of "the cradle" could be made out, a dim silhouette in the steamy haze. "Lookit all them colors!" enthused Chow. "Reminds me—I don’t wear green near enough."

"It’s strange," murmured Ted Spring. "Exotic."

"You do not recognize it?" asked Akomo.

"Should I?"

"Ancestral memory!—I saw the words on television."

The engineer and astronaut snorted. "My memories are mostly running around Shopton after a little tow-head named Tom Swift!"

While Bud guided the
Sky Queen
according to the map Mr. Jombilabu had given them, Tom headed down to a small compartment on the bottom deck, just in front of the hangar-hold. After intercomming Bud to inch along at minimum speed on the jet lifters, he began to scan the terrain below with a variety of special instruments. His penetradar probed the ground to a depth of twenty feet, while a more advanced device, called the LRGM, used gravitational variations to create a profile of the underlying rock strata. He also made use of a telespectrometer and a radiation sensor, the Damonscope. Television cameras craned their extensible necks from the underhull, creating a digital record of the visible lay of the land.

"Coming up on the swamp, Skipper," Bud commed presently. Tom brought the video image up on a monitor screen and studied it intently. The great V’moda swamp looked like an oil-soaked rag of greenish-brown, dappled with deep shadows and criss-crossed by veins of water that flickered with sun-diamonds as the skyship passed over them. Crossing the center—the low point of the rift valley—Tom made out segments of a sluggish river gleaming here and there between the trees. "Good grief," he muttered to himself, "no wonder Burlow’s men were discouraged. And this is what they thought would be the
easiest
route!"

The moving shadow of the
Sky Queen
sent flocks of colorful birds up into view. The young inventor made out what appeared to be crocodiles. Once he saw a hippo crash through the shallow water and into the underbrush. And once—

No
, he thought.
Just eyestrain.

There was no trace of man.

Hours later, after several back-and-forth traverses, Tom came up to the command compartment. "We’re done, flyboy," he told Bud. "Take her on over the mountains to Imbolu." The only real city in eastern Ngombia, Imbolu was the regional capital. The central government had arranged a place for the
Queen
to set down.

The city was very small and very old, lying at the end of a long pass through the mountains that gave The V’moda a tentative fingerhold in the eastern province.

They set down in a bare, rocky field that drifted down to the edge of a jungle river where there was a long, dilapidated pier with many small boats of shallow draft.

As the crew climbed down from the belly hatch, a police officer in a white uniform dashed across to greet Tom and his companions. Another man, a white man with thinning reddish hair wearing neatly-pressed trek linens, trotted along beside him. After saluting smartly, the officer offered his hand. "Welcome to East Ngombia, Tom Swift!" The uniformed man shook hands with the young inventor in African fashion, slapping palms together lightly. "I trust none of your men were kidnapped during your flight from Huttangdala?" he added with a chuckle.

Tom flushed. "No indeed, sir. I, er, guess you’ve been briefed on what happened to Mr. Kwanu in my country."

He nodded. "I meant no offense. We are humorous speakers, you know, we Ghiddua. I am Chief-Lieutenant Ata Fokguomo, of the—well, it is called the Imbolu Peace and Loyalty Corps."

"City police force," said the other man. "Keep the Ulsusu away from bad influences, if you see, hmm?" He stuck out a hand. "Pieter Zerth, Mr. Swift. My friend Ata thought you might like to make the acquaintance of a fellow
huanye
here in town."

"That word refers to European-Americans," explained Fokguomo.

"
Whites
, in other words," added Zerth blandly. "I’m Dutch, myself. Not so much accent left, eh? The east province is where I do my business."

Tom ventured a guess. "Afro-Metals, Ltd.?"

Zerth laughed heartily. "Aha, reputation is everything! Yes indeed, we do much work for the new Ngombia, in these mountains and on the other side, in the jungle."

After introducing his companions and chatting aimlessly a bit, Tom asked Fokguomo and Zerth if they would care to join them for supper aboard the
Sky Queen
. "Our chef here had mentioned that his recipe made too much for just our small crew."

"Right," Chow confirmed. "Don’t like leftovers. It ain’t per-fessional."

At dinner, the Dutchman proved himself a persistent raconteur, a blunt-spoken one. Chief-Lieutenant Fokguomo told some stories of childhood in western Ngombia under the dictatorship, concluding with a few harrowing anecdotes of life in Imbolu. Tom had wondered if either man would mention the subversive R’na Inbimah, the man who had replaced Mr. Kwanu and then vanished. But it became apparent that the government had circulated a cover story about the incident without detail, and Tom decided it might be wisest not to go further—or to question Mr. Zerth about how an experimental Afro-Metals alloy had wound up on the tip of a deadly spear!

"Our friend Akomo here thinks we should be on the lookout for some characters called Wangurus," remarked Ted Spring. His words were casual enough; but Tom noticed a penetrating expression on his face. He seemed to be studying the two guests, discreetly.

"The Wanguru—yes, a problem," conceded Fokguomo. "Even worse than the Ulsusu when it comes to becoming modern and leaving the old ways behind."

Zerth made a condescending noise. "Backwards folk, every one. Look at them crosseyed and they go for their spears. Won’t get with the program—won’t join the New Progressive Ngombia." He spat out a couple of syllables in Dutch. "That’s what we call them—it means ‘the Reticents’."

"Worse than that," muttered Akomo.

Zerth reacted with sneering indignation. "I see the boy is picking up the modern attitude fast! The Wangurus are the same race as the Ulsusu, their country cousins left behind in the swamp. I’d advise all of you to dispense with your chic liberalisms, your American ‘political correctness’. Here in Ngombia it gets you nothing, nothing but a sneak attack in the night. And your nice white heads up on a pole!"

Chow’s gulp was almost loud enough to echo off the bulkheads. Tom’s eyes locked on Pieter Zerth’s. He held up a hand. "I’d describe it as pinkish-brown rather than
white
, Mr. Zerth. But thanks for the warning."

And Ted added, "And me, I don’t even come close. Guess they’d just throw me back, huh?"

"Perhaps I should apologize for offending anyone’s enlightened all-men-are-brothers sensibilities," grated the Dutchman. "I suppose I’ve rather lost touch with civilized custom, living here. So easy to degenerate into crudeness." Looking down at his dinner plate, he resumed eating.

Bud broke the awkward silence. "Tom and I were told of monsters running around in the V’moda swamp."

"Silliness," snorted Fokguomo, "spread by enemies of the New Progressive Ngombia to frighten away development. There are those who will profit and gain power if the two provinces remain separated."

Tom left the table for a moment, returning with the ivory figure he had purchased. "Either of you know what this is supposed to be? I think it’s newly carved."

"That? Nothing—imagination," pronounced the Chief-Lieutenant all too quickly.

"Oh now, come come, Ata!" Zerth remonstrated. "Boys, what you have represents N’ka-Dindo, the Son of the Father of Crocodiles."

"Mighty fancy name," Chow noted faintly, with no enthusiasm.

"Uoshu is the Father of Crocodiles," piped Akomo excitedly, "yes yes indeed! This is his son!"

Fokguomo spoke more grudgingly. "Uoshu is the devil in the old tribal religions, like your ‘Satan’. He is the father of all evil beasts."

"But that particular evil beast is the very worst," continued Zerth. "Not a mere croc, but an offspring of the Father himself, rather a crown prince,
hie
? Bigger than a tree, ferocious like a lion, able to rear up like a snake—as you see."

Bud spoke hopefully. "But... it’s just an old story."

"I have seen him!" exclaimed Akomo.

Tom smiled. "Really? Where?"

"With my eyes!"

"You’re saying you actually saw this crocodile guy?" demanded Bill Bennings.

"Of course! I have seen everything." Then Akomo noticed Tom’s reproving eyes, and made a slight amendment. "I mean, with my own eyes in
here
," he said, pointing at his skull, "when the ones outside are closed."

Tom asked about the missing scientist, Eldreth. Pieter Zerth was silent. Chief-Lieutenant Fokguomo responded, "Oh, yes, that old case. Never a clue anywhere. Perhaps the Wanguru know."

"Consider it fortunate that you’ll be coming no closer to them than a thousand feet up," Zerth said.

But then a new voice was heard, from the stairwell leading down to the middle deck. "If that’s your idea of fortunate, Mr. Zerth, I’m afraid our luck may be about to change." Hank Sterling entered the compartment. He had excused himself from dinner in order to study the data from the overflight.

"What’s up, Hank?" asked Tom.

"I know!" cried little Akomo. "He looked at the video and saw giant monsters down below!"

Sterling responded soberly. "Not quite. But according to the instruments, there’s something going on in that swamp that we need to take a look at—something strange!"

"IF IT is something unusual, Mr. Sterling, perhaps it falls under my duties," stated Chief-Lieutenant Fokguomo.

"Not in this case," was Hank’s response. "I think Mr. Zerth might be interested, though. Has Tom told you about the Niobium compound?"

"Eldreth’s theory?" asked Zerth.

Suddenly suspicious, Tom thought:
So, Mr. Zerth—you know about Eldreth after all!

"I had to do quite a bit of ‘data-mining’ of the digital recordings," Hank said. "There are very weak, but definite, traces of anomalous radioactivity in the central swamp. The telespectrometer shows more than a thousand times as much Niobium as one would expect to find. I don’t know if it’s locked inside plant and animal tissue as Eldreth thought. But it’s sure there someplace or other."

"So what about it, Mr. Zerth?" Ted Spring asked in a challenging tone.

"What about what?"

"
Are
you interested in Niobium?"

Abruptly Zerth stood up, smiling. "No, not inordinately. You say it’s in the swamp—my men do not go there. Too much danger, what with the... wildlife."

"He means N’ka-Dindo," muttered Akomo under his breath.

"No," said Tom in a voice that was not hushed and barely polite, "I believe he means the Wangurus."

"Do you now plan a trip into the interior of The V’moda to investigate these things?" inquired Chief-Lieutenant Fokguomo. "Whatever you may think of how it is said, the danger is real, Tom."

The young inventor responded thoughtfully. "The main danger on my mind is danger to any work team we might send in—from radioactive toxins. We need to analyze samples from several places before making the final decision to accept the project contract.

"Very well. I understand," nodded Fokguomo. "I will arrange for some experienced Ulsusu canoemen and guides. Tomorrow morning, then?" Tom agreed, and a time was set.

After the two visitors had left—Pieter Zerth with a smirk across his tanned face—Ted asked his younger friend if Tom planned for him to go along on the brief safari. "Do you want to?" asked Tom.

"Not especially. I’d rather stay here in Imbolu and go souvenir hunting with Bill."

"And don’t worry—no more pets!" promised Bill Bennings sheepishly.

At sunrise, as the Americans climbed down from their plane, they were greeted by a tall native of the town. He wore tattered khaki shorts, a stained T-shirt, and a flower-printed pillbox cap.