Tom swift and the Captive Planetoid (12 page)

Tom told Sholt: “This man you met was probably someone who’s been engaging in sabotage and spying in Swift Enterprises. He’s willing to kill, and will probably make another pass at you, since the laser trap didn’t work out—his idea of self-protection. He’ll have skulked away by now, but that doesn’t mean he won’t go all out to track you down. You know too much! I’d go directly to the police—and cooperate. They’ll have ways to protect you.”

“Oh, I will! Immediately! Absolutely! Th-then—I can go?”

“In a second. I’m inclined to believe your story, but you’ll still have to tell it to the police. Give me your address and phone number.” Tom had him scrawl the information in his pocket-size notebook.

“
Jetz, Skipper!
” Bud protested. “You’re not going to let him go!— ?”

“We have his prints, on the camera and now on this notepad.” Tom told the photographer: “If you
do
decide to run, Sholt, prepare to keep at it for the rest of your life.”

Sholt, badly shaken and perspiring nervously, babbled gratefully, “Th-thanks, Tom. What I said isn’t bogus. People know me in Shopton. I’ve got friends.”

“Next time get some
better
ones,” Sandy suggested sarcastically. “No matter how much money they offer you!”

As Sholt scampered away out of sight, Bud turned toward his friend in amazement. “Genius boy, what’s going on? Why’d you go so easy on that dope?”

Tom shrugged and said mildly, “I’m a trusting sort of guy.”

“I really think,” said Bashalli, “our fun in the sun is over for the day.” She added with thudding sarcasm: “Indeed yes, another typical ‘date’ with Tom Swift!”

Back at Enterprises Tom handed the killer camera over to Harlan Ames. The security chief said: “Obviously the only prints we’ll find on it will be Sholt’s. As with the ‘bee delivery system,’ these players are smart enough to get rid of all trackable traces. Unless—if you started at the beach parking lot with your sensitector tracker—”

Tom’s reply was a brusque interruption. “No. Rover Boy wouldn’t be able to isolate the spy’s traces from those of the others in the lot.”

“Oh? But the amulet—”

“Harlan, we can’t waste time. Have you and Rad had any luck monitoring that faux sultan?”

“Desh Zai? Wes Norris, and Thurston at the CIA, have been giving us what little info they’re allowed to provide. It’s too bad Teek’s employee didn’t have much in the way of useful information, but the
Charger
has been listening for anything of interest on short wave. We were able to work out the frequency by talking to the woman.” The
Sea Charger
, a huge ocean vessel designed by Swift Enterprises for use by the world’s scientific community, had been diverted to the Indian Ocean. Ames went on: “But they’re probably on to us—all quiet for now. Your dad’s been keeping track of Zai’s yacht by megascope; the
Apocalypso
is still out at sea. No way to tell if Zai is on it, but the Madagascar authorities presume so.”

“Have they been cooperative?”

“As much as possible. The country’s in a political crisis right now.”

“I’ve read about it.” Tom fell silent, brow knitted. “At least we know our suspicions are correct. The man who hired Sholt must be the same one who ‘WiFied’ the test tunnel console—a plant employee with an amulet.”

“And he was probably the one who somehow found out about the container lock code and the special Durafoam formula,” the security chief pointed out. “Assuming it’s not some
telepath
hanging around with Desh Zai! But a few henchmen for the Opposition must be on Fearing Island as well, to have broken into the D-Wing pack on the
Fire Eagle
.”

“And they’d have to have ready access to chemical apparatus. How likely is it that some of the raiders themselves remained in hiding on Fearing?”

Ames shook his head. “Not likely, Tom. I know it’s happened before, but I had Vendiablo eyeball every square foot of that island with his most trusted employees. Nothing. And besides, no one could have opened up the container after the
Queen
landed without being caught on the securicams. No one even came near the
Fire Eagle
except longtime technicians who’ve been thoroughly checked. I’ll compile a list for you. You probably know every one.”

“So security was perfect. That’s great to hear, Harlan. But don’t forget one thing.”

“What, boss?”

“It happened!”

Tom left Ames’s office and headed for his main laboratory, adjacent to the
Sky Queen
’s underground hangar. Though it was now late afternoon, the young inventor had no intention of leaving his day’s work unfinished.

Presently he called his father in the office in the administration building. “Dad, I won’t be home tonight. Tell Mom, will you? For the next several nights I’ll just sleep on the cot and have Chow keep me fed. We can’t miss the deadline for the planetoid trip—not if we want to fulfill our contract with Demburton.”

Mr. Swift caught something in his son’s voice. “Tom—how much strain are you putting yourself under? Can I take some of the load off you?”

“No, Dad,” Tom replied tensely. “
No one
can help me on what I have to get done. After all—it’s not easy figuring out how to
move a world!
”

TOM SWIFT’S fantastic plan, already explained to his father and approved by Mr. Demburton and Neil Gerard, was set forth to his circle of close friends the next morning. The rest of the world would have to wait.

“Now, son,” piped up Chow, “jest how d’yew plan t’ push around some big space rock like that? Mean t’ say—ain’t it bigger’n Manhattan?”

Tom was weary, but grinned. “Is it really such a wild idea, Chow? The space friends moved Nestria into orbit, you know.”

“Is
that
the idea?” asked Bud. “Get some help from the SF’s?”

“The Skipper has something else in mind,” Hank Sterling said. “It’s big and wonderful, as usual, but I’ve told him it’ll work. Expert approval!”

Tom drew a diagram on a display board. “It’s just basic, schoolboy orbital mechanics, fellows. When we reach the Follower on our trip—we take off next week—we’ll be carrying along some mighty big luggage. We’re going to embed a bank of oversize repelatrons in the surface of the planetoid. Over the following several weeks, while we’re back home making preparations for the construction of the Gerard space habitat, the trons will be running continuously, gradually shoving the planetoid onto a new trajectory.”

“What’ll the trons be pushing against?” Bud inquired. “Earth? The sun?”

“Neither,” Tom responded. “There don’t happen to be any big celestial bodies at the right angular position to achieve the orbit parameters we want, so I’m using the repelatrons to produce thrust in an entirely new way.” Using the board, the young scientist-inventor described how the repelatrons would use the material of the planetoid itself as a thrust medium. “I’ve designed a robotic machine that will roam around inside the Follower on its own, extracting solid material and ‘pumping’ the stream of fragments up to a feeder device built into the repelatron installation. We’ll then use repelatron force to shoot the fragments spaceward with tremendous speed, producing a counterthrust in the opposite direction.”

“I get it,” Bud spoke up. “A rock-rocket!”

“That’s the plan, flyboy.” Tom noted that there would be an additional benefit. The “rock-chomper” machine would be slowly creating a large hollow space within the planetoid, which was needed to make a reality of Gerard’s overall vision, a safe habitat for longterm occupation by fragile humans.

Hank said, “The whole process will take a while, of course. Even Tom Swift can’t make a flying mountain turn on a dime!”

“Guess I kin sorta see it,” pronounced Chow uncertainly. “Sorta. Now tell me
why
yuh’re gonna do it in the first place.”

“Right now the orbital path of the planetoid is quite elongated, as Comet Tarski’s was,” the youth explained. “It will essentially end up leaving the solar system after passing close to the sun. So we’re going to
circularize
the orbit, lasso it to the sun and make it a real ‘captive planetoid.’ The new orbit will be much more closed and compact. It’ll range from somewhat within the orbit of Mercury to a little beyond Jupiter, with a period of several years—years on Earth, that is.

“The purpose of all this is to test out Mr. Gerard’s basic space-habitat idea, but also to go beyond it. The team of ‘orbiteers’—about fifty of ’em—will live in a deep-space environment isolated from Earth. By our readjusting the Follower’s orbit, they’ll be able to make all sorts of close observations of some places in the solar system we won’t be visiting very soon, not even in the
Challenger
.” He noted that a new group of inhabitants would be “rotated in” whenever the planetoid made its nearest approach to our world. “It’s a research project that can go on for centuries!”

Bud piped up with: “Tom... if it crosses the Earth’s orbit—”

Tom grinned. “Good night, pal, you’ve got to stop fretting about the Earth! Like its present trajectory, the changed orbit of the Follower will be sharply tilted to the plane of the planets. Even at the nearest point it will never actually cross our path.”

After extended discussion and many questions, Tom’s audience left—all but one. “Tom, what’s goin’ on?” Bud asked, looking at his pal with troubled gray eyes. “It’s not like I don’t
know
you.”

“What’re you getting at, flyboy?”

“The way you handled Vern Sholt... other things too... it doesn’t add up for me. There’s something you’re not telling me. And I don’t like it. Look,” Bud went on, “did you plant some kind of bug or signal device on our boy Vern? Is that why you decided to be a ‘trusting kind of guy’?”

“I didn’t plant anything on him, Bud. I really do think he’s just an innocent pawn.” The young inventor stepped closer and clapped a lingering hand on his friend’s muscular back. “We
do
know each other, about as well as two people can. Maybe it’s
you
who should be a little more trusting.”

“Wh-what—what are...” Bud glanced at Tom curiously, then down at the floor. “Yeah. Okay. I—I guess you’re right. As always—whatever you say.”

“I knew you’d get the message,” said Tom.

Busy days later, her hold stuffed tight with bulky equipment, the
Challenger
lifted spaceward from Fearing Island. “From up here you can’t see all the damage, all the burn marks,” commented a crewmember, Marsha Davenport. She stood on the command deck, gazing down at the shrinking sliver of land through the big viewpane.

“Ye-aah,” agreed Chow. “Like as it never happened. But it shor did!”

“And I was caught up in it,” Marsha continued thoughtfully. “A bit of shrapnel from one of the explosions zinged my shoulder. They say there were no major injuries, but a lot off us took on
souvenirs
. Tom, have you figured out why those men targeted the installation?”

In the pilot’s chair next to Bud, Tom could only give back a shrug. “No one’s figured it out. There might be some connection to an old, wealthy family from Bangladesh. The head of the family lives in Madagascar. But the motive—who knows?”

Bud remarked, “Some kind of weird cult thing, they’re saying. Gosh, Skipper, a lot of people out there in the world have weird grudges against the Swift family, and against you personally—as we’ve found out more than once.” Tom just shrugged again.

Chow added, “Leastways, we’re way up here where they cain’t get in our hair, fer a while.”

“You’re worried about your hair, cowpoke?” teased Bud.

The all-but-bald westerner snorted. “Wish I had
more
of it t’ worry about, too!”

Day and night had little meaning in interplanetary space, but after many hours and sleep periods, accelerating and the decelerating at 1-G, the
Challenger
came to a floating halt a mile from the planetoid called the Follower.

“Will we start off doing a survey pass, Mr. Swift?” asked a crewman.

Tom shook his head. “It’s not really necessary. We’ve thoroughly mapped the surface with the megascope, and retrieved some subsurface materials with the big Enterprises telesampler. Other than taking some deep-core samples, our job is to set up the automatic equipment. Then back to Earth.”

“Still planning a visit to Little Brother?” asked Bud, using his nickname for the tiny micro-planetoid that accompanied the Follower.

“Not right away,” said Tom. “Little Bro has an entirely different trajectory and is still quite a distance away, more closely aligned to the plane of the ecliptic. As we put about, I’ll take some deeper samples with the telesampler. The transmission distance from Earth limits the effective penetration-depth of the probe beam. We’ve only studied the crustal strata, just a few feet.”

At last the great spaceship touched down, gently, on the blistered, porcupine-jagged surface of the planetoid. It was the easiest descent conceivable, as the tiny Follower was virtually free of gravitation. The
Challenger
drifted down to a gentle bump, and drill-anchors in its landing “feet” fastened it firmly to the surface.

Tom radioed their arrival to Earth via the PER. “So I see!” chuckled Mr. Swift, seated at the megascope screen. “Having an electronic ‘eye’ a few hundred feet away takes a bit of suspense out of the conquest of space, son. I might as well switch channels and go back to watching the
Apocalypso
.”

“Oh... it’s still safe to predict at least a
touch
of drama here and there,” Tom replied. “Mankind’s never tried to shove a mini-planet around like a billiard ball. Unexpected things could still happen.”

“And I’m glad to see that you’re ready for them,” said his father warmly. “No secret saboteurs aboard, I trust?”

Tom laughed. “If so—it’s still a secret!” Both father and son knew the astronaut construction force consisted of employees of long standing, men and women who had been carefully screened and were regarded as utterly trustworthy.
If we can’t trust even
these people,
we might as well shut down Enterprises
, Tom thought.
Dad and I can’t do everything ourselves!