Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane (16 page)

A weapon of some kind!
Tom concluded silently. At the same moment it flashed through his mind that it must be this man who kept the natives enslaved while looting the secret city. No doubt the object under his arm was the device which he had used to shock his victims into dazed submission whenever they became rebellious.

"Quick! We’ve got to get Bud and Slim out of here!" Tom whispered. Any moment the man could turn and notice them!

Then he remembered Hedron. Turning, he was just in time to see the zoologist raise one arm and shrill out the word:
"Okay!"
He seemed to be speaking to someone just beyond Tom’s line of sight.

The next instant, Hedron started racing at top speed back toward the tunnel that led into the cavern.

Tom whirled back and saw that the sandy-haired white man had been joined by another, a narrow-waisted man with broad muscular shoulders and thinning blond hair, matching Feeney’s description of the man presumed to be Haugen Bartholdis. He carried a rifle, and was staring straight at Tom and Ed! There was no possibility of hiding now!

To Tom’s bewilderment, Bartholdis gave Tom a bland, tight-lipped smile, not even raising his rifle. He said something to the other man, who half-turned and looked at Tom calmly. The man nodded and they both shared a relaxed laugh, as if they had not a care in the world.

In an instant the young inventor knew what their arrogant demeanor was all about. As Tom and Ed tried vainly to back away to safety, the smaller man casually aimed his strange weapon straight at the rescuers.

With an evil leer of triumph, he fired!

AN INSTANT after the unknown man pulled the trigger-switch in the handgrip of his device, a blue-white luminescent corona filled the air around the coils. But Tom had not been idle during those fearful seconds. He had drawn his impulse gun and discharged its stunning electric pulse in the direction of his two enemies.

Feeling no effect on himself from his foes’ weapon, he glanced at his friends while keeping his aim and holding down the button on his i-gun. Ed, Bud, and Slim also seemed to be unaffected.

Ed, relaxing a bit, quavered, "Their machine isn’t working!"

"The antennae probably send out a train of electromagnetic shock waves!" Tom mused. "The pulsations from the i-gun must be scrambling or nullifying them in some way—look at that heat shimmer in the air between us! A lot of energy is being dissipated!" Knowing that Bartholdis would bring his rifle into play as soon as it became obvious that the shock weapon was not affecting Tom and Ed, Tom whispered to Ed to sink down to the pavement as if blacking out. As Ed did this, Tom fell back against the wall next to Bud. But he managed to maintain his aim, and kept firing his gun all the while.

The sandy-haired man appeared satisfied at last, switching off the shock gun. Unconcerned about Tom and Ed, he resumed conversing with his companion.

Tom made use of his hunched-over position to eye the manacles on Bud’s and Slim’s ankles. A single chain of lightweight metal connected the two men, passing through a heavy metal ring set firmly in the pavement. If Tom could sever the chain—!

Whispering his plan to Ed, Tom stealthily adjusted the settings on his i-gun, then brought the emitter-barrel close to the chain and depressed the button. Instantly a brilliant, raging ball of blue-white light encircled the chain, shooting off sparks and smoke in all directions. Tom’s and Bud’s bodies blocked the sight from the view of the enemy.

The chain was beginning to glow red, and the glow was slowly creeping along in both directions, link by link. In moments Bud and Slim would be scorched! Ending his feigned helplessness, Tom brought down his booted heel on the chain where it passed through the ring, slamming down with all his weight and force.

The chain broke apart in a flash of sparks!

Bartholdis and his crony looked up at the clang of the chain segments dragging across the pavement stones. But already Tom and Ed were hastening their friends out of sight as quickly as they could yank them. The two freed captives made no sound, but seemed willing and able to stumble along docilely.

With a snarl of rage, the sandy-haired overseer cried out a blistering stream of oaths, and his face twisted with fury. Then he shrieked fanatically to Bartholdis:
"Run ’em down!"

His cries echoed through the empty boulevards of the dead city. Herding Bud and Slim along, Tom and Ed zigzagged back and forth from one hiding place to another, moving at top speed while striving desperately to remain out of sight. Tom was able to tie the loose ends of the prisoners’ chains to their belt loops, so they would not drag.

Pausing with the others at one of the pedestals, Ed panted, "I think we’ve lost him!"

But Tom’s eyes grew wide as he saw Bartholdis dart into sight around a corner. He was now armed with a submachine gun! As he swung it up into firing position, Tom yelped a warning to his comrade, "Hit the deck!"

Not a split second too soon, they dived headlong for cover behind the broad-based pedestal, pulling Bud and Slim down with them. A spray of bullets from the chattering machine gun whizzed overhead and rattled off the stone wall of a building somewhere behind them.

A choked cry came from Ed Longstreet. Tom’s face went white as he glanced at his cousin. A bullet must have ricocheted and struck him!

"I’m okay," Ed murmured. "Just a nick. But here he comes!"

Putting his i-gun on a diffuse-impulse setting, Tom extended his hand beyond the pedestal and fired in the general direction of Bartholdis. He was rewarded with a grunt of surprise and the sound of the smuggler’s gun clattering down to the pavement.

"Run!"
Tom urged. "He’ll recover in a second!"

The four scrambled down a side street. When they came to an intersection, Ed called out: "Tom, look!" The dust of the avenue to the left was marked and scuffed by many footprints.

"Must lead to another cavern entrance," Tom panted. "Maybe the one Hedron uses."

"But it’ll get us out of this cavern!" exclaimed Ed.

The four made their way along the curving thoroughfare, following the footprints. In minutes they had reached the arching cavern wall. A narrow, shadowed opening loomed in front of them. Pushing Bud and Slim through the portal, Tom and his cousin found themselves in a low-ceilinged corridor lined with uneven rock, its further reaches black with shadow.

Before they had taken five steps down the tunnel, a loud rasping sound made them spin about. They caught a glimpse of a door-sized metal plate sliding into position before all light from the cavern was cut off.

Tom groaned softly, chest heaving from the run. "Trapped! He must’ve been herding us this way all along!"

"You give me too much credit,"
came a hollow voice, Dutch accented. "It was rather a fortuitous coincidence, eh?"

The voice seemed to be coming from above and behind Tom. Stretching his hands upward, he felt along the ceiling and came upon a small round opening, evidently connecting to the cavern and providing the tunnel with ventilation.

"Tom Swift, is it not?" continued the voice of Bartholdis. "But of course, who else? Your wonderful wingless airplane sits outside even now."

"You can’t keep us here, Bartholdis!" Tom shouted.

"Ah, you know my name? Well and good. As to your statement, I cannot think of any good reason why we
can’t
keep you, eh? Do you expect your friends to rescue you? The government? Your mighty army? Long before any such thing, we shall be finished here, I assure you. Then you will either accompany us—or you will not. And I rather think the first alternative would be best for you, all considered."

Tom was silent.

"No comeback? Ah well. As for me, I intend a bold break with tradition. I shall say nothing about insidious plans, infernal inventions, or the combined genius of myself and my partner, Mr. Strang. To ease your curiosity, I shall only remark that this enterprise of ours has the usual human motivations, money and power. Oh yes—and
love!
The basic emotions, eh? And now I must leave you behind this steel door—which, to spare you some wasted effort, is quite impervious."

The silence that followed was broken by the sound of Tom rapping on the metal plate that imprisoned them.

"Can you—?" It was Ed Longstreet’s voice.

"Not a chance," Tom replied. "The i-gun couldn’t burn through this thickness in a year. How are Bud and Slim?"

There was a pause. "They’ve wandered back into the corridor. I’ll grope my way along until I find them."

Tom followed along, bumping into Ed in the dark. "I doubt this is a tunnel—just a long room or cave that they use as a prison. Maybe they kept some of the villagers in here for a while. That would account for all the footprints in the dust."

But Ed noted, "One problem with that theory, cuz. It sure looked to me like those prints were all of people in
shoes."

The two suddenly blundered against a flat wall of stone. Where had their two dazed comrades disappeared to? Groping along, they found that the room continued at right angles.

Suddenly Tom gave a grunt. "Here’s Bud. Slim next to him."

"Great gallopin’ gophers! That’s Tom!"

The new voice in the darkness startled and overjoyed the young inventor!

"Chow!
You’re in here too?"

"We’re
all
here, Tom," came another voice, which Tom immediately recognized as Sam Barker’s. Other voices now piped up. It developed that both the rescue trekkers and the crew left at the
Sky Queen
had been made captive!

"Where are you, exactly?" Ed Longstreet called. "Your voices sound distant."

It was Hank Sterling who answered. "We’re on a lower level. You must be at the metal grating that serves as our jail bars. Just beyond is an open stairwell with stone steps. We’re at the bottom in a big chamber with no other exit."

Tom groped forward past Bud and found the metal bars, which he rattled. "These bars aren’t very thick. Guys, I think I might be able to melt through them with my impulse gun!" He asked his cousin to move Bud and Slim out of the way. Finding the hinges that anchored the grating to the wall, Tom brought the gun close and activated it. The tunnel lit up in its electric flare.

The first hinge fell to Tom’s power quickly. But as he began working on the second hinge, the flare began to waver. "The emitter element is decaying from all this heavy use," he said. "We’ll have to finish the job with your gun, Ed."

Finally the job was done, and the door was pulled aside. In moments they had clattered down the steps and joined the crowded chamber below, to muted cheers and many slaps on the back.

"Brand my blackout cake, Boss, don’t you have a flashlight with you?" Chow demanded.

Tom confessed that the flashlight had been dropped somewhere during their scramble through the streets of the lost city. "Tell you what, though—we’ll use our remaining i-gun to make an electric glow. The emitter’s too weak now to use it for much else."

The electrical flare was small as a pinpoint. Nevertheless, its illumination was more than sufficient. Tom surveyed his weary, dirty crewmen with grim satisfaction. "At least you’re all here, and alive!"

"All except George Hedron," said Doc Simpson in disgust. "He’s wandered off again."

"Well, he turned up." Tom briefly described the events in the village of huts and the underground city, including the encounter with Hedron. Then the others told their stories—how the sandy-haired man, Strang, had ambushed the overland party in the jungle with the warrior band, forced-marching them into the cavern at gunpoint and spearpoint; and how a machine-gun and grenade barrage by Haugen Bartholdis had compelled the
Sky Queen
crew to surrender only hours before. They had been flown to the volcano area in a small helicopter, which had landed in a camouflaged clearing nearby.

"And Tom, blame-me and brand me if those cusses cain’t turn that there storm on and off like a dang electric light!" Chow exclaimed.

Though the men had seen the dazed villagers and warriors, they were horrified at the condition of Bud Barclay and Slim Davis. "What does that weapon
do
to people?" asked John Yarborough in dismay.

"It’s as if the victims are lobotomized," Doc commented. "But without surgery."

"I can only guess that a focused electromagnetic flux causes a disruption in some part of the central nervous system, just as an electric shock can stun muscles for a time," Tom said, gazing at Bud’s blank, disinterested face. "The victims can’t seem to think or initiate action, but they can still move around and perform tasks. It must make them submissive to the will of others."

"Zombies!" pronounced Arv Hanson with a gulp.

Chow Winkler approached Bud hesitantly. "Buddy boy, you kin hear ole Chow, cain’t you? Give me a word, buckaroo—just one—
any
one!"

"He can’t," came a weak, raspy voice. "B-but I can!"

"Slim!"
Tom exclaimed, delighted. "You’ve come out of it!" The others hooted and cheered.

Slim was trembling, and Doc Simpson helped him sit down without falling. "I—I’ve been aware of you all for several minutes, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to speak. But Bud—"

"What happened?" Tom asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"The storm got us. The instruments went bad, and we clipped the volcano. I think one of the engines pulled loose. We pancaked down hard, and skidded. Guess you saw the plane out there."

Tom nodded.

"When we were pulling ourselves out, the little guy, Strang, came up with a rifle. He said we would be held for a while—
insurance,
he called us. We were kept prisoner in a hut with reinforced sides, for days. A couple tribesmen guarded us. We escaped once, but they hauled us back."

"I found Bud’s note," Tom said with a glance at his friend.

"Bud was sure you would." Slim rubbed his eyes, then resumed. "One day—I don’t know how much time has passed—they came to move us into what they called ‘the cave’. Of course, Bud and I had worked up a plan to break loose. But no go. Strang was there with some little thing that looks like a flashlight. He beamed it at us, and Bud—Bud was closer to the gun. He took a bigger charge." The pilot sighed ruefully. "I think maybe he was trying to protect me, Tom. Anyway, since then it’s been like a nightmare, where you want to run but your legs won’t work."