Tom swift and the Captive Planetoid (13 page)

It took five hours for the work crew of sixteen—the entire crew of the ship—to float the giant repelatrons and their atomic power feed out of the hangar and into their designated positions near the
Challenger
’s landing site. A few more hours and the entire array of parabolic force radiators, aiming straight up into space, had been anchored to the Follower. Tom commented, “Dr. Jatczak thinks the planetoid originated deep inside some larger body that shattered, probably from a collision between two microplanets in the ‘Jatczak Sphere.’ That accounts for its density. It’s basically a few feet of silicate rock over a solid iron-nickel core. We’ll be using the heavy core material as our thrust medium.”

“Whole place is jest a great big ole cannonball, huh boss?” grinned Chow Winkler.

“About the size of it, pardner. And we’re up here to set off the cannon.”

Chow nodded inside his extra-large bubble helmet. “Say now, mebbe yuh could call yer contraption a ‘core-cannon’!”

“Er... let’s not.”

After a sleep period and a breakfast of Texas proportions, the team set to work on Tom’s rock-chomper, a torpedo-shaped cylinder about eight feet long, with a needle-nose protruding from the middle of a fore-end “mouth.” The drone combined certain features of Tom’s atomic earth blaster with elements he had developed for a recent invention called a lithextractor. “It also uses an X-raser to ‘slice’ the rock into manageable pieces before mechanically shattering them into fragments small enough to go through the feed conduit,” Hank Sterling remarked to a group of curious crew members.

“A computer brain and penetrating radar eyes,” continued Bud; “plus a little telesampler to ‘radio’ molecules back to an analysis unit, through a guidetube along side the conduit shell.” As usual, he had been well briefed by his friend.

The basic installation work concluded, the space team returned to the
Challenger
. Tom guided the craft a short hop away, then activated the rock-chomper, now hidden beneath the surface. “Working great!” Tom announced happily. “As soon as we activate the conduit conveyer, the repelatron array will get a steady stream of ‘feed’.”

Chow whooped. “Brand my rock garden, son—my ole head never had a doubt, big n’r small!”

“Now let’s see if the repelatron array does its job.”

Tom piloted the ship away from the surface, finally settling a few miles directly above—or out from—the repelatron “cannon.” “Won’t that big blast of force knock the ship around?” asked Marsha.

The young inventor shook his head. “No worry there. The trons are tuned to only affect the core-stratum material, as continuously analyzed by the telesampler in the drone. And we won’t be in the way of flying rocks, either. I won’t activate the feed system until we’re way off in space.” He noted that this would only be a longer-range test of the repulsion array focus, to be monitored by special instruments from the ship’s position directly above the installation.

“Here goes,” he said to Bud.

Tom activated the controlling computer routine, sending a signal down to the array. “Instruments showing full response,” he murmured. “Couldn’t be better! I’d say we’re ready—”

Suddenly Hank Sterling yelped out in alarm, “Skipper!—the radar—solid pings coming up from below!”

Tom switched monitors and his young face blanched in fear! “Good grief! We’re being blasted by rocks from the cannon!
We’re right in the line of fire!
”

The
Challenger
was floating in the path of a ton of rocky buckshot shooting up from the planetoid like a serpent’s tongue!

THE REPELATRON array had performed precisely as designed, accelerating its dense, massy fuel into space with enormous force. Tom knew he had only seconds before the first impacts began—metallic rock already traveling faster than bullet speed!

There was no time to adjust the
Challenger
’s super-repelatrons to move the ship sideways or punch the hurtling upward meteor storm onto another trajectory. Even as the ship’s tough magtritanium hull began ringing with the first scattering of rocks, Tom was attacking the controls.

The young astronaut had no time to warn his shipmates to brace themselves. Everyone standing tumbled violently across the deck as the
Challenger
leapt out of the way as if swatted by a baseball bat!

There was one final, farewell
Bwang
!—a powerful one—and silence descended. “W-we’re out of danger,” Tom panted. “Is everyone—”

Everyone was
not
all right. The compartment filled with groans and pained exclamations. As magnetic contact between their space boots and the deck and been broken, the entire crew—excepting only Tom and Bud, who were strapped in their seats—were flailing in midair and bouncing against the bulkheads.

“Golsarn blame—!
Get me down
!” bellowed a rotund figure, whirling like a runaway moon. Then came an
Ooof
! as Chow slammed into a careening technician.

“H-hold on—I mean—” Tom worked the controls in front of him, feeding a trickle of power into the ship’s repelatrons. At a slight touch of acceleration, the crew began to gently drift down to the deck, where the magnetic coils again took hold of them. They staggered to their feet one by one, wincing in pain. And commenting on the fact.

“Tom,
what
in the name of—” moaned veteran spaceman Neil MacColter.

Tom caught his breath. “I had to use the ship’s gravitex stabilizers to lurch us sideways, out of the path of the rocks. No time for kid gloves. We’re just lucky we’re still deep enough in the sun’s gravitational field to have anything for the gravitexes to latch onto!”

“Ye-ahh,” retorted Chow sourly, “I
shor
do feel
lucky
!”

“Tom—Skipper—before you tell us how this
proves
how well your planetoid-mover works,” interjected Hank Sterling, “
how in space
did the rock-feed conveyor turn itself on? Is this more of that remote-control sabotage?”

“Jetz! Does that Ninth Light deal even work across
space
?” gulped Bud.

Not answering, Tom began studying his diagnostic monitor as the
Challenger
accelerated away from the Follower. “No. It wasn’t sabotage,” Tom stated at last. “The error was all mine—a programming glitch. The command I’d intended to activate only the repelatron array simultaneously activated the conveyor. I—I’m sorry, everyone. No apology outweighs risking your lives.”

“No big hurts, Tom,” responded Marsha. “Don’t worry.”

Bud added quietly, “We all know you’ve got a lot on your mind, Skipper.”

For all its risk to fallible humanity, Tom’s rock-rocket system made an impressive sight. A hazy band, made luminous by sunlight against back space, now extended out from the planetoid like a puppet string from the stars. Even over many miles the rock material was still being thrust along with a powerful acceleration by the repelatron force, producing a constant recoil against the Follower. “I can see how getting in the crosshairs might’ve posed a
slight
challenge for the
Challenger
,” noted MacColter with irony.

Chow was squinting through the viewpane at the planetoid. “Hunh. I got me a couple good eyeballs, but it shor don’t look like it’s moved none.”

“But it has!” exclaimed Tom with a wide grin. “The instruments are already showing a definite change in orbit trajectory!”

“In other words,” Marsha said to Chow, “just be patient.”

“Not sumpin that comes natural t’me, ma’am.”

Tom chuckled. “Me neither.”

After communicating word of success to his father and Mr. Demburton, Tom turned his attention to Little Brother, a dim speck in the further distance of space. He extended the telesampler’s transmitron unit out into the void and focused its retrieval beam on its target. “Let’s see what we can dig out from way down deep,” he murmured.

Moments later Tom announced, “Got it!—traces in the containment cells.” He brought micro-images up on his monitor screen and intently studied the readings from the materials analyzer. “Hmm! Not typical meteoritic iron, that’s for sure...” He increased the image magnification until clumps of individual molecules became visible.

Looking over Tom’s shoulder, Bud observed, “What
is
that stuff, genius boy? Looks like salt.”

Tom wagged his head thoughtfully. “Ultrafine crystal dust, reading as aluminum oxide.”

“Corundum!” said Hank, surprised.

Bud scratched his head. “Is that unusual?”

“In this case—very!” replied the young inventor excitedly. “Bud—we’ve hit a vein of
sapphire
!”

“Sapphire? Jetz! A load of gems!”

“Not ‘gems’
plural
—according to the beam-sweep, it looks like the entire solid core of the planetoid is composed of the stuff!
Little Brother is one great big sapphire!
”

From somewhere in the background, Chow Winkler gulped a mighty gulp. “B-brand my—! This one o’ your jokes, boss? Mean t’ say—sumpin that big—!”

“Incredibly valuable in monetary terms,” Tom breathed. “But I’m thinking of the technical and industrial uses. Rubies are a form of corundum, and the sapphire form of corundum is also used in laser applications and special instruments. If sapphire turns out to be common in Jatczak’s planetoid belt, it’d make possible all sorts of new uses and inventions! It could end up changing our whole way of life on Earth!”

“Man!” Bud gasped. “But are you
sure
it’s sapphire, Tom?”

“Absolutely! You can see the characteristic hexagonal structures right on the screen. It’s sapphire of gemstone quality.” Despite his certitude, Tom had the
Challenger
approach and circle the planetoid, which seemed tiny after their encounter with the Follower, and acquired further samples. “All the same,” he confirmed; “and the gravity-mapper shows the crystal is solid and continuous all through.”

Bud laughed. “Maybe we should chip off a few pieces to give to Sandy and Bash.”

“Once we figure out how to deal with Little Brother, we could give them a roomful of the stuff!”

The
Challenger
put about and commenced its long return to Earth, its crew energized and jubilant despite their brief peril. “A giant gemstone in the sky!” exulted MacColter. “But how can it be mined, way out here?”

“Tom’ll find a super-science way to do it,” declared Hank Sterling. “Tell you one thing, though—he’ll have to capture Little Brother just as he did the Follower. Otherwise it’ll be out of reach by the end of the year.”

“Aw now, th’ boss won’t have no trouble tamin’ this itty pea-size piece o’ buckshot,” Chow pronounced smugly. “No siree. We c’d jest lassoo ’er and drag ’er all th’ way down t’ Texas!”

The ship pursued its days-long return flight. As the hours passed and blue Earth bulked up in the viewpane, Tom remained in touch with his father by Private Ear Radio. “It’s an amazing find, son,” Damon Swift said proudly. “This shows how scientific ventures that seem to have only a practical goal—testing out Gerard’s approach to habitat engineering—can pay completely unexpected dividends in terms of pure science.”

Tom grinned inwardly. “Maybe we’ll get some grudging appreciation from that news writer Duke Laflin—although I don’t think I’ll publicize how we were almost blasted to space dust!”

Mr. Swift’s response had a serious tone. “We must never forget the risks we face, Tom. Every one of us makes errors now and then. That’s how humans are designed. But when burdensome concerns like this Ninth Light business hang—”

Tom interrupted. “Dad, I know I can turn to you when I need to. I made a bad mistake with the programming, all right, but it wasn’t due to being distracted by the Ninth Light or anything else. You and Mom—and everyone—have to trust my way of doing things.”

“We do, Tom.”

Switching PER quantum-cartridges, the young inventor next contacted the communications center at Base Galileo on Nestria and was patched through, by landline, to Dr. Jatczak. “Hello, Tom! I see your planetoid relocation operation has met with success!”

“You’ve detected the change?”

“Indeed so, with the interferometric polyphoton ranger. The Follower is definitely creeping and crawling into a new orbit like a meek solar captive. Oh, and by the way,” the astronomer continued, “I hope you won’t mind, but I’ve decided to confer a somewhat more dignified name on the planetoid, a right I’ve earned as its discoverer.” Tom had refrained from mentioning that the Nestria astronomer might not, in fact, have been the planetoid’s true discoverer.

“What did you come up with, sir?”

“I’ve decided to honor those who have made my discovery possible by giving me this marvelous perch from which to observe the cosmos,” replied Jatczak; “namely the Swift family. Henceforth the Follower shall answer only to the name
Bartonia
—in honor of your... let me see now...”

Tom laughed. “The family tree
is
a little complicated! Barton Swift was my great-grandfather Tom’s father. Honoring him that way is a wonderful thought, Doctor, because he was really the first ‘scientist-inventor’ in the family.”

“A motorized butter-churn, wasn’t it?”

“Er—that and other things. Mm, and in other news—” Tom now told the astronomer the big news about the small companion to Bartonia.

Dr. Jatczak was clearly thrilled. “My word, the Jatczak Planetoid Sphere is well-stocked with wonders of all kinds, it seems! In view of this discovery, perhaps we should provide the ‘Little Brother’ planetoid with its own suitable name, eh?”

“‘Jatczakia,’ maybe?” Tom suggested humorously.

“Come now, as a humble astronomer I seek no public celebrity; just a few stars. No—I have a name.
Petronius
! After a classical story of love and devotion.”

“Petronius it is, sir.” Then he added: “Bud Barclay will probably call it ‘Planetoid Pete’.”

“Petronius won’t mind what he’s called, as long as he’s not called too late for supper,” was the joking comeback. “Which reminds me: now I must eat. I find I nibble a good deal on that mineral food these days. Marriage can be somewhat draining, you see.”

“So I’ve heard.”