Tom swift and the Captive Planetoid (10 page)

“Ye-ahh, I
get
it,” Chow snorted.

“Bud, just fine. As to you, Tom...”

Tom grinned. “Don’t take it back, Doc. You already said ‘nothing of interest’.”

“And I’m sticking to it. What you have up there is a simple bee sting. No toxins, no plague germs, no extraterrestrial worms invading the Swift brain! Hardly any swelling, either—the histamine reaction is on the low side, which shows it was a pretty clean ‘jab.’ In fact I don’t even see the stinger; it must not’ve hooked-in and just fell out somewhere. I’ll give you a little cream to rub on, but by tomorrow you’ll forget all about it.”

“Wa-aal, I ain’t partic’larly inclined t’ fergit,” declared Chow. “If that there was jest some loco joke, I’d sure like t’ know who pulled it.”

Tom nodded, his face thoughtful. “Me too. I’m going back to take a closer look at those dead bees. Maybe Life Sciences can tell us something about them.”

The three returned to the lab, which Tom had locked behind him. Inside the young inventor looked at the tiled floor and reacted in dismay. “Good night, they’re gone!”

Bud’s forehead crinkled. “The bee carcasses? How could that happen?—the door was locked.”

“Now jest wait a sec, boys,” Chow put in suddenly. “When we ’as walkin’ down the hall jest now, I hear’d some talkin’ round the bend up ahead.”

Tom led his friends out into the hall and trotted toward the cross-hall junction. Rounding it, he suddenly knocked fist against forehead, chagrined. The hall was occupied by the evening custodial crew!

“Hi there folks,” said one of the custodians. “Come to see us scrub the floors?”

“Jane, did you—I suppose you just finished with my little lab, round the corner?” Tom asked.

“Sure, just now. Hit it once a week.”

Bud cleared his throat. “There were some dead bees on the floor, near the big counter. Did you notice them?”

“Is that what those were?” another member of the crew, Dex, spoke up. “Vacuumed them all up before we started in moppin’. Why? Looked dead to me.”

“They were,” Tom said. “It’s nothing. I just forgot you were coming. Had a busy day.”

They strolled back to Tom’s lab. “At least the envelope, the case, and the paper are still here. Maybe Harlan and Rad can get something from them.”

“Like what?” asked Bud. “Doc didn’t detect anything, and you don’t seem to be at death’s door yet, chum.”

Chow was anxious to agree. “Aw now, let’s jest call it a joke an’ stop frettin’ over it. Let th’ fool feller have his laugh.”

“I’d sure like to,” Tom murmured. He picked up the envelope again, holding it delicately to preserve any fingerprints or other traces. “Just says ‘
To Tom Swift, Personal
’. No address ‘to’ or ‘from’. It might have come inside a bigger envelope. Ames can check with the mailroom. There should be securicam recordings of its delivery—the TeleTec record, too.”

Suddenly Chow bellowed: “Look there!” He was pointing at a shelf under the counter. “Earned my pay fer th’ week!”

“
One of the bees!
” Tom laughed. “They didn’t all fall on the floor after all! Thanks, pard!”

“Jest blessed with two sharp eyes, son,” replied the ex-Texan modestly, patting his heroic beltline.

Tom collected the tiny corpse and carried it over to the Life Science lab, then called Harlan Ames at home to report the incident. “Just wanted you to know it happened, Harlan,” Tom explained. “I’ll leave the other materials on your desk.”

The following day, Tom’s examination of the
Fire Eagle
was interrupted by an in-house call from Munford Trent. “Mr. Demburton would like to speak to you, Tom.”

The call was not unexpected. With the two Swifts’ approval, World Portico had issued a press release outlining the upcoming “exploratory” mission to the passing planetoid, hinting at the Gerard project by speaking of it as a feasibility study for some great leap by the future-visioned hotel megacorp. Both companies had been fielding a frenzied media response. “Is he on the line?”

“Not this line. He called me to say he’s in your Northern California videophone studio, the new one in San Jose.”

“I see. That’s where Lisa Francks is stationed.” The Enterprises videophone system was a private satellite-relay television “network” that linked Tom Swift Enterprises with its various operations around the country through a number of small studio-outposts. The several employees also served to review and forward news about science and research, like investigative reporters.

Tom returned to the administrative office. In a flicker he was looking at the eternal smile of Felton Demburton. “Wonderful TV setup, Tom. Perhaps we should think about making it standard as a guest convenience in our better hotel suites. Slight extra charge.”

“Enterprises doesn’t broadcast
that
kind of programming, Mr. Demburton,” replied the youth dryly. “What can I do for you?”

“Of course I read of your recent space—experience. Frightful! I wondered if this reentry-wing business would have any effect on Portico’s venture. There’s been a bit of columnar speculation—op-ed columnists, you know. Have to write
something
.”

Tom shook his head. “No sir, the duratherm wing has nothing to do with our trip to the planetoid in the
Challenger
. I’m willing to set the D-Wing aside while your company and Enterprises work up an overall plan of action for the Gerard Project.”

“Yes. Mm, Tom—let’s call it the ‘World Portico Hotels Project,’ shall we? Perhaps it wouldn’t be too wise to rest the whole thing on the shoulders of—”

“Of an embarrassment?” The young inventor regarded the hotelier coolly. “Mr. Demburton, I suppose I’m going a little beyond the bounds of nice contractual language, but I’d like to say that Neil Gerard has been an inspiration to a lot of people for many years. I hope you can assure me that this project will treat him and his ideas respectfully—not exploit him for his image. Even if he’s fallen on hard times—er, mentally—I’m not willing to see him just tossed aside. His words may be a little unfocused, but that doesn’t mean he has nothing of value to say.”

The hotelier’s smile became a somewhat different kind of smile. “Please, Tom, you’re completely misreading my attitude. We all have great respect for Neil and his stature as a trailblazing futurist.”

“Then I’m reassured.”

Demburton had more to say. “But Tom, speaking of respect, please take a look at our position. Let’s be candid, shall we? You’ve met the man. The cause of space exploitation won’t be advanced if its public face is someone who can’t string two sentences together without wandering off on some indecipherable tangent. The man’s a great visionary. But I hope you see that garnering support and resources is a down-to-earth matter.”

“Yes, sir. I do,” Tom affirmed reluctantly.

“Old heroes never die, but they
do
fade away—sometimes too slowly for the good of their reputations. To speak frankly.”

“It’s sad.”

“Tragic. But it’s reality. We’ll both be there someday.”

Never!
thought the young inventor fiercely. What he
said
was: “Mr. Demburton, if Swift Enterprises can... ease the burden in working with Mr. Gerard in some way...”

The man dialed up to full beaming. “In other words, a warmer, more attentive environment, among admirers. A generous and sensible offer, Tom. Perhaps we’ll take you up on it.”

After concluding the electronic conference, Tom stepped around the corner to the security office. Finding Phil Radnor at his desk, the youth asked if there were any word on the analysis of the remains of the bee.

“Sure is, boss,” Radnor answered, “just a minute ago, matter of fact. Life Sciences says it’s a bee, all right. Rarely harmful, unless you’re allergic or happen to pick up an infection where you’re stung.”

Tom shrugged. “Just a common New York style bee, hmm?”

“They said it’s a species more common in the south than up here,” he replied, glancing at the faxed summary. “It doesn’t much like the cold, but it’s been showing up more and more in the northern states. It’s a hardy little guy, resistant to the usual insecticides.

“You might find
this
comment interesting, Tom,” he continued. “They pointed out that if you wanted to send a live bee through the mail, or keep it inside a tight container for awhile, you couldn’t do better than this species. It’s a mighty tough li’l critter!”

Tom absorbed the news. “If there are clues there, I don’t know what to make of them, Rad.”

“As to the envelope and the case inside, and that piece of paper—I’d say the deliverer wore rubber gloves. Nothing interesting on the mailroom securicam. No postage, as you saw, so it didn’t come in the mail... unless, of course, it
was
inside a larger envelope. Outdoor cams show nothing out of the ordinary; no trench coat types sneaking around with envelopes or beehives. Maybe some employee found it somewhere and dropped it off after Trent went home.”

“I understand. Was there anything else in the report?”

“Mmmm, maybe
one
little thing,” grinned the husky security man with a hint of mischief. “These bees aren’t native to the western hemisphere. Specifically, they originate in East Africa. Aha!—and even
more
specifically—”

What was coming was an easy guess, and Tom said it. “
Madagascar
!”

Mulling, musing, Tom returned to the Flying Lab’s great underground hangar where the
Fire Eagle
had been stowed. Hank and Arv joined the young inventor, as did Art Wiltessa, the plant’s chief assembly engineer.

Wiltessa walked around the blackened, battered hulk. “Makes me sick,” he muttered. “Tom, we four put this thing together by hand. If there was a mistake, we made it.”

“And worse, didn’t catch it,” Arv Hanson said quietly.

Tom shook his head. “Look, I don’t accept that. The
Eagle
apparatus passed every test, and all readings were nominal, even as the wing was being deployed in space. The problems appeared after reentry had got going.”

“Pretty sure it’s sabotage, are you?” observed Wiltessa.

Hank chuckled. “Holy Mack, when
isn’t
it?”

“Sterling, whatever it was it just about killed Tom and Bud,” reproved Wiltessa. “Nothing to crack wise about. We’d all have been devastated. I’d spend my life wondering if I’d got careless and missed something.”

There was a nodding silence. “Let’s find the problem and fix it,” Tom said. “That’s what matters now.”

After hours, the four agreed that they’d attained the first goal. “That’s it,” declared Hank Sterling. “Between the time she left the plant and the moment of liftoff, some kind of glob of foreign matter was inserted into the container. As the Durafoam ballooned out along the transifoil guide strips, the stuff spread with it.”

Art Wiltessa stared at the disgraced space canoe. “Triaxial ferrochromatite. The ion transfer completely overwhelmed the absorption terminals.” He glanced over to Tom. They all did, awaiting his pronouncement.

But the space venturer said nothing for long moments. He stepped away from them, rubbing his chin, looking at the distant hangar wall. The seconds passed ominously—many opaque seconds before Tom spoke again, and then his voice sounded haunted. “Yes... ferrochromatite in a polymerized adhesive, precisely formulated to bind in strands to the Durafoam.”

“Deadly taffy!” Arv Hanson pronounced.

“The D-Wing containment cylinder was sealed,” objected Wiltessa. “I sealed it here at the plant with an electronic code-lock—sealed it myself, locked it onto the nose of the capsule myself, loaded the whole thing onto the
Queen
myself, with a forklift. And you and Bud were the only crew for the flight to the island.”

“But it happened!” Tom stated. “We not only have a saboteur on Fearing Island, but a spy here at Enterprises who’s able to know a lock code sequence
created on the spot by one man in an empty room!
”

The Ninth Light was all-seeing!

“SO IT’S all tied together,” pronounced Arv Hanson. “Mystery raiders on Fearing who crack uncrackable control codes and go
yoga
on you by remote control commands. Saboteurs who target you and Bud here at the plant and up in space—”

“Or were they targeting the duratherm wing itself?” Sterling interjected. “It seems they have something against space technology. Maybe.”

Wiltessa shook his head in disgust. “I want to spend my time building things, not solving these boys-book mysteries. That’s Ames’s job. But as long as we’re juggling ‘clues’,” he continued, “how about this? Screwin’ up the D-Wing sheath wasn’t just a matter of opening the container and sticking something inside. Chief, you
know
that this polymer bonding agent had to be formulated within a
very
narrow range of specs to work on the Durafoam. Forget how they got the codes to unlock the container—tell me how they knew the
precise
formulation of the Durafoam variant you used in the sheathing!”

“Exactly right,” Hank declared heatedly. “You can’t, pardon the expression,
wing it
. Tom was working on the last-minute reformulations right up to the time the prototype was packed away, and I’m the one who cooked it and squeezed it into the mix—Tom and I are the only pairs of eyes to even
see
that final formula!”

Tom said slowly, “Yes, the final formula... which I finalized just minutes before you produced and applied it to the compressed sheathing mix.”

“Yeah, well, what if they hacked into the computer?” suggested Art Wiltessa.

“I used the computer for the calculations, Art, but the chemical notations were just jotted down on a piece of paper,” Tom declared. “I hand-carried it over to Hank.”

“And I concocted the final version right on the spot, and destroyed Tom’s instructions,” continued Sterling. “So they would have to have started off by analyzing a sample. But holy mo!—I don’t see how
anyone
could
possibly
extract a sample from the D-Wing pack after it arrived on the island, analyze it, and create the sabotage stuff in just the few hours the
Eagle
was up on the launch pad—and
then
go back and insert it into the capsule. They
must
have prepared it
in advance
and had it ready on Fearing even before the capsule arrived on the jet. Which means somebody knew details of the final formula that only Tom and I had access to!”