Tom Swift and His Subocean Geotron (20 page)

His thoughts were interrupted by a gleeful laugh over his suit sonophone. Soaring high up, Bud had attempted to grasp one of the eel-creatures in his mechanical arms. The eel not only ignored him, it passed right
through
the Fat Man’s metal body!

"I don’t think any aquarium’s gonna be able to hold
these
babies," he chortled.

Tom pointed with robotic fingers. "Look over there, flyboy. The fish aren’t just swimming around randomly, they’re bunching together—swarming into that branch cave. Come on!"

Bud landed and they waddled cautiously forward, moving into deep shadow broken by their suit lamps—and by the neon streaks of the ghostly fishes.

"You know—I think they’re guiding us," Bud speculated. "Get it? That must be what they’re for! It’s like an animated signpost for visitors."

"The wheel is the big public sign, the fish are like the circles around a bullseye!"

The swirling mass became denser still as Tom and Bud followed along. And then came the "eye" of the animated hurricane. Scores of the simulated lifeforms, animate images captured long before the first stirrings of
Homo sapiens
, wheeled about an open center, like a spinning disk pieced by a hole. And beneath the open space, alone on the variegated cavern floor, stood a single object!

"
The memory crypt!
" Tom whispered.

TOM AND BUD found themselves approaching almost reverently. The shape of the object eluded any human description. It was vaguely like a vertical block, but bizarrely twisted and stretched, and covered with flat, shiny facets.

"Know what it looks like, Tom?" sonophoned Bud. "A big chunk of quartz crystal."

"That’s not what it’s made of, though," said Tom as he checked his suit telespectrometer. "It’s similar to the beacon objects—patterned calcium carbonate and other substances, but much denser and more complex. In fact..."

He sighed. "What’s wrong?" Bud asked, alarmed.

"This project just turned impossible. According the instruments the crypt weighs
tons
! We won’t be able to budge it, much less carry it away in the
Gee
."

There was silence for a moment. Bud knew his pal was feeling great disappointment and frustration. "Tom, it’s just a postponement. You can come back with more equipment—muscle machines. Maybe the space friends can help."

"Maybe. But..."

Suddenly a new tone entered the voice of the young scientist-inventor. "Good gosh!—what if― "

"More bad human thinking?"

"Maybe some
good
human thinking for a change! Bud, the penetradar shows the object extending down into the cavern floor. It’s not just sitting on top—it’s put down roots!"

"Come on! Now it’s a
plant
?"

"No, it’s still a memory crypt—but
this
object here is only a part of it.
The whole cavern is the memory crypt!
"

"Okay. So it’s a container― "

"You don’t understand!" cried Tom. "The walls keep moving and changing because this central control component is using them for adjunct memory storage! It’s like a peripheral storage device on a computer; but
this
peripheral can grow without limit, and now it’s
thousands
of times bigger than the original unit!"

Tom made a breathless story of his speculations. The original device, whoever its creators, whatever its purpose, had plunged to earth aeons ago with its load of interstellar data. "It protected and preserved itself automatically. But it didn’t cease functioning, Bud! It’s continued to ‘scan’ and learn and memorize—it may contain the entire history of human civilization—even the secrets of human life itself!"

"Jetz! I don’t think
my
brain can get a grip on an idea like that."

"Who knows how much detail it’s absorbed! To contain its memories, it’s been somehow inscribing them into its protective shell, layer upon layer for hundreds of millions of years. Even if we could rip loose this master unit, most of the data the X-ians want would still be down here in these walls."

"Right. For the Others to download, with all those
destructive
consequences! Tom, what can we do? We can’t lug the whole cavern up to the surface!"

"What we can do," pronounced Tom, "is return to the geotron and contact Enterprises. Dad’s our link to the X-ians."

With the phantoms still swirling about them undisturbed, they returned to the
Gee
.

"You disappeared around a corner," complained Ruykendahl over the speaker. "What did you find? I have a right to know."

"We’ll
gladly
tell you as soon as we know ourselves!" snapped Tom into the intercom.

Mr. Swift promised to relay the findings, and Tom’s speculations, to the space beings. The boys waited tensely, but it was a short wait.

"They responded almost instantly," reported Tom’s father. "In fact, most of the time has been spent on translating their message."

"What’s the gist of it, Dad?"

"Evidently they understand your notions, Tom, and concur that moving the central unit alone is pointless—even if you could manage to do it. They’ve provided new instructions.

"Now they say:
Do not attempt relocation of object to planet surface. Place small transmitters in vicinity and depart to safe radius. We will undertake further action directed at entire structure complex.
"

"I understand," Tom said into the PER. "But—I don’t get it. If they have the ability to raise the entire cavern-shell from where it sits down here, why did they want us to bring the crypt up to the surface in the first place?"

"I have no idea, son," was the reply from Shopton. "But we’ve known all along that they can transport enormous masses through space. They moved the Nestria satellite into orbit, and transferred the entire space outpost to Venus."

"All we can do is follow their directions," said Tom. "And then keep ourselves from getting caught up in their net!"

Tom and Bud placed the beacons near the space-cache pylon, taking a long final look at the treasure they had sought. "Earth’s biological history’s in there," mused Tom. "Maybe the secrets of the universe! And pretty soon it’ll be
way
out of reach."

"Maybe the planet guys will be in a mood to share," Bud said. "For a change!"

Returning to the
Gee
Tom and Bud entered the opposite-end control cabin, as the craft would now be reversing direction. "Y’see, Nee, it’s just as I said," Bud remarked. "Now you get to ride up front."

The adventurer was not placated. "Yes, but what of the space treasure? Abandoned!"

"We have no choice," stated Tom as he reactivated the control system.

"No choice. And no photos of Ruykendahl beside the space cache—Ruykendahl the discoverer! Why did I bother to assist you, eh?"

Bud smiled blandly. "For the science?"

"
Pfah
to the science. You boys are leaving the science behind. So many wonderful questions left unanswered!"

"I wouldn’t worry, Nee," muttered Tom quietly. "I’d say there are still some questions to be answered back on the
Charger
before you head off to your next adventure."

It was much easier to exit the cavern than it had been to enter. The geotron pulled forward into the "open" ground, and the repelascope showed the cavern walls squeezing closed behind it. "It might be more than just the pressure that’s closing the hole," observed Bud.

Ruykendahl frowned sulkily. "And what is
that
supposed to mean?"

"I mean it may be healing itself."

"Fine. Don’t answer Ruykendahl."

Tom was anxious to get the vehicle to a safe distance. Knowing they could travel much faster in the water they "surfaced" into the vastness of the ocean that lay upon the Basin.

They surfaced into danger! Almost before they could react, dark silhouettes, black lines that criss-crossed, shot across the cabin viewport.

"
Cables
!" Tom yelped. "
A net
!"

The tapelike cables proved themselves to be unbreakable, and they seemed to have minds of their own. The exterior camera showed that the ends of the cables had rocketed deeply into the seafloor like a hundred anchors, pulling taut the netting that now held the
Gee!-Oh!
fast in place, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

"Your repelatrons, Swift!" rasped Nee Ruykendahl. "Use their power to free us!"

Tom shook his head. "I can’t tune them to the cable material—the telespectrometers can’t get a fix."

"The Cobra’s anti-energy crystals!" exclaimed Bud furiously.

The all-channel sub-communicator now buzzed to life. "Have I succeeded in surprising you, young Tom?" came the familiar reptilian tones of Comrade-General Li Ching. "But I cannot take complete credit. My craft eludes ordinary detection, but is hardly invisible to the eye. We have been tracking you from a bit of a distance for some time. Perhaps an alert sentinel in your aft cabin could have raised an alarm."

"I was watching the screen, of course," protested Nee sullenly. "Not gazing out the window."

"I hear that. Hello to you, Mr. Ruykendahl! By sad happenstance you will now have a final incident to round off your biography."

"All right, sir, you’ve got us trapped," said Tom into the microphone. "You can skip the usual ‘resistance is futile’ and get right to the bottom line."

The Black Cobra uttered his cold equivalent of laughter. "The bottom line? As it has been from the start, the recovery of the buried object my current clients desire most desperately to possess. Thank you for leading us to it. Now we have the space cache, and you too, Tom Swift!"

Tom began to explain that the memory crypt had been left behind, but the Cobra instantly cut him off. "Enough. I shall save what you call my
ranting
for later in the day.

"I know your hatch-airlock is amidships. I will open a gap in this controllable netting of mine—you saw another example of the technology up above your Shopton lake, Tom—and extend a pressurized passage from my submersible to yours. And mine, incidentally, is bigger."

Li’s submersible, made dim by its anti-energy coating, now swam closer. It was shaped like a tortoise shell, flat bottomed, slightly curved on top, with four distinct corners that projected outward from the main hull. Tom noticed metal tubes at the tips of each projection. "Hydrojets," he murmured.

The underwater passage turned out to be an air bubble lying across the intervening seafloor. "Kind of an insult," said Bud, "using your own water-repelatron technology against you!"

Gunmen exited into the bubble and shepherded the three across the sand drifts and gritty blanket of shells. Li Ching, in his customary Imperial China military regalia, awaited them, a skinny snakelike form rearing up ramrod straight. "My, look who it is! ‘I’ve seen your picture, Tom Swift!’ With perpetual companion Bud. This time, boys, you’ll find no windows to leap through to escape me."

"You can’t get away with imprisoning
me
, whoever you are, sir!" grumbled Ruykendahl. "I am an international celebrity."

"I, sir, am a bigger one," smiled Li Ching. He gestured at the armed men standing next to him. "And as you see, I have retained my fans. Unlike the great Ruykendahl."

They were led down a corridor. A bulkhead hatch was unlocked and opened. Tom, entering first, exclaimed in amazement—

"Good night!
Ona Matopoeia!
"

Nee Ruykendahl entered. He froze. "What! What is this?"

Miss Matopoeia sneered. "The great man is almost speechless—not
quite
, of course. Never that."

Nee looked at the boys accusingly. "All along!—
she
was involved in this."

Tom shrugged. "Your nemesis from ZandinAlfaGiovo. Your employers don’t trust you, Nee."

"My employers! ZAG has nothing to do with this." The adventurer commenced a snarl. "She has reason enough on her own, in the sick recesses of her vengeful mind."

"I take it you’ve met," commented Bud dryly.

"Don’t pretend you didn’t know!" snapped Nee. "Ona Matopoeia—
my wife!
"

"Ex-wife, darling," corrected the woman.

"And fellow prisoner," added the Black Cobra, clearly much amused at the situation. "Shall I use this convenient moment to tell you fellows how it all worked? How my—heh!—
space friends
communicated their obscure object of desire, some sort of data storage device, to be located by means of signalers that had, it appeared, suddenly come to brief life in the South Pacific?"

Tom nodded. "But you didn’t know where they were, or who had possession of them. I suppose that’s when you recruited Ona."

"No," she spoke up. "It was I who initiated the contact, after learning of the Helmsman’s need through his discreet ‘advertising.’" She turned upon her boggling ex-husband and spoke with fierce contempt. "The house—
our
house, Nee!—was full of listening devices even before our divorce, the cruel selfish settlement you and your lawyers imposed on me. I knew you’d hidden your assets, the wealth of your celebrated career—I had no doubt! And so I listened, year upon year, even before I worked my way into ZAG as an investigator."

"She has stalked and harassed me worldwide," Ruykendahl said to Tom. "Lawsuits, innuendos, all forms of bile. And you know what? We were man and wife for a grand total of
eight
months!"

"Ah, love and bitterness, ever wedded," pronounced the Cobra. "Useful, though, as are most human frailties and foibles. The spurned woman discovered that her obsession had in his home one of the very objects I sought—and that there existed a second such artifact with—of all people!—the cousin of Tom Swift."

"And then the lab boys gave you a call," declared Bud.

"Indeed so. And then—well, I’d imagine you’ve put together the remainder, Tom. False messages to bring our Mr. Ruykendahl into proximity with Mr. Longstreet at the time of my choosing;
control
is everything, as in a science experiment. The extraterrestrials assured me that it was unnecessary to physically join the fragments, only to bring the corresponding units near to one another. Transmission would occur spontaneously if they were within a few miles of one another."