Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts (12 page)

"Plenty good so far. It’s not too important at lower velocities, actually, but it’ll be crucial when we really let ’er rip up in space."

At long last the Space Kite was soaring through a black sky at rocket speed, Earth a sparkling blue sphere below. Tom advised Fearing of their status, then grasped the handgrips again.

The force that had been gently pressing the two astronauts back into their seat cushions abruptly ceased. "What gives?" Bud demanded.

"I wanted to start up from zero, that’s all," explained Tom. "Okay pal, grab your stomach!"

The young inventor compressed and twisted the handgrips. Instantly the boys felt a renewal of the G-pressure as the cosmic radiation provided a fresh thrust to the Space Kite, this time far more forceful than before. Almost at the same moment came the countertug of the gravitex, anchoring them safely to earth with a powerfully magnified gravitational attraction. Yet despite the effect of the gravitational kite string, the spacecraft was speeding faster and faster, at a breathtaking rate.

"She works, Tom! She works!"
Bud crowed. Tom grinned, his eyes dampening with joy and pride but never leaving the control dials. For the next few minutes his hands were busy flipping switch levers and tuning adjustment knobs to bring the cosmic reactor and the gravitex action into proper balance.

Its tangential course leaving the earth behind, the Kite was ascending smoothly now, with a modest enough acceleration to allow Tom and Bud free use of their limbs. A myriad of stars studded the blackness of the void around them.

"How goes it, skipper?" radioed Quezada.

"Perfect so far," Tom reported happily. "We’re only doing about a third of a G right now. That’s just the beginning!"

"Chow here thinks you should start on back before you get into trouble."

"Tell him we’ve got to lasso the moon first!"

A series of technical checks with the mission monitoring crew followed. Tom confirmed that the excessive solar activity of the previous week had fallen back to normal, where it was expected to stay for some time. Dial readings were being automatically telemetered in the blockhouse, but Tom added to these his own remarks about the Space Kite’s performance. Before signing off, he spoke to his father about some of the scientific details.

At last the astronauts settled back to enjoy their kite ride through space. "Tom, this is really terrific!" Bud exclaimed. "You know, someday people may go space-kite-riding for fun, just as they go skiing or skin diving now in their leisure time."

"Could be. But it’s more like off-roading," Tom agreed with a chuckle.
"Way
off!"

With a warning to his copilot, Tom now reconfigured the cosmic reactor to produce a stronger push. A two-G force shoved the astronauts back in their seats. Both boys watched in fascination as the cosmic altimeter needle climbed steadily. From 5,000 miles above the earth, they zoomed upward to 10,000 miles… 25,000… 50,000.

"Good night!" Bud gasped in awe. "We’re not only past the outpost’s orbit, we’re almost to Little Luna’s!" This was the young spaceman’s nickname for the moonlet Nestria.

"We can’t see the space outpost from this angle," Tom commented. "It’s below the horizon."

"But look out there—there’s Nestria." Bud pointed toward a gleaming bead of light off in the cosmic distance.

They continued to accelerate. As Tom swiveled the gravitex cone on its gimball base, the Space Kite described a series of sweeping arcs in different directions. Even after Tom eased off on the acceleration and threw the reactor plates out of orientation, each thousand miles seemed to click off almost as rapidly as two or three on an automobile mileage gauge. The two young cosmic astronauts were hurtling through space at incredible speed—yet all the while they were seated in comfort, watching the tremendous spectacle of the starry heavens unreel before their eyes.

"Skipper! Look!" Bud suddenly jerked forward against his safety harness and pointed to the radarscope. A tiny blip had formed on the screen.

Tom was instantly alert. He tuned the radar controls to bring the spot of light into sharper focus. It held to the bearing on the radar screen, indicating that the unknown object was heading straight toward them on a collision course!

"Good night! It’ll crash into us!" Bud exclaimed in alarm.

For answer, Tom readjusted the cosmic reactor and the gravitex, causing the Space Kite to veer sharply off course. His eyes watched the scope. Almost instantly the blip veered in response, regaining its collision bearing!

"Seems to be following us," Tom muttered tensely. "Maybe we’re attracting it!"

"There it is! I can see it now!" Bud cried.

An eerie object, enclosed in a halo of hazy phosphorescence, was coming straight toward them, growing larger by the moment. As it drew nearer, its overall shape could be discerned. It was basically circular, a thick disk with a rounded, bulging midsection. Yet it showed no detail, no sort of machined hull or fuselage. It didn’t seem completely solid, almost as if it were made, not of metal, but of
light!

Suddenly there was a blinding glare. The boys recoiled, shielding their eyes.

"It’s gone—disintegrated!" Bud gasped. "Or exploded!" He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, his face white. For the first time, both boys realized their hearts were hammering. The whole thing had happened almost too fast for them to be aware of the full extent of their fright. "Skipper, Li Ching must be attacking with missiles!"

But his chum slowly shook his head. "No, Bud. I saw something like that before, with Ken Horton on our trip to the outpost when it was under construction."

Bud understood immediately. "Right!—from your space friends! But why didn’t they try to contact us, as they usually do?

"Because they can’t," declared Tom ruefully. "We don’t have the special oscilloscope receiving equipment aboard the Kite. But Bud—if they’re trying to get our attention, it may be because we’re heading into some kind of danger!"

"Danger, huh." The dark-haired flyer gulped. "Why am I not surprised? Is there any way to figure out—"

The question was left hanging as a terrific jolt slapped them back against the contour-cushions of their seats. "We’re accelerating again!" Tom cried.

"But you didn’t even touch the controls!" protested Bud in alarm.

"I know. It must be a malfunction." Puzzled, he began to work the handgrips and control levers, and the acceleration moderated. As part of the space test he had decided, on impulse, to venture approximately halfway to the moon’s orbit. But as the altimeter needle passed the hundred-thousand-mile mark, the Space Kite suddenly speeded up terrifically with another slamming jolt of G-pressure. This time the acceleration continued to mount!

"H-Hey! What’s going on?" Bud exclaimed when he found his voice. The unexpected thrust had pinned him to his seat and momentarily shocked the breath from his lungs.

"No idea, but I’d better
do
something—pronto!" the young inventor replied. "We just passed three G’s!"

Even as he spoke, another tremendous burst of speed buffetted the Space Kite like an explosion. Tom strained every muscle against the crushing G pressure in a frantic effort to manipulate the controls.

"It’s a cosmic storm!"
Tom gasped. "A high-intensity burst of subtrinos!" His words were followed by a cry of dismay as he turned up the gravitex and conned the instrument dials. "The gravitex won’t hold us, Bud! Our acceleration’s still positive!"

Their "kite string" had broken loose from earth’s pull! Like a proton in the Hyper-Celerator, the tiny craft was drifting out of control into the outer reaches of space!

BUD could only watch Tom’s frantic efforts in frozen dismay. Not fully grasping the technical side of the gravitex or cosmic reactor, he was unable to help cope with the terrifying emergency.

Meanwhile, Tom’s sinewy hands were straining at the controls, desperately fighting the oppressive load of four G’s. At length he flipped one of the main control switches. Almost instantly the G-pressure disappeared as the hurtling Space Kite ceased to accelerate further.

"Whew!"
Bud breathed weakly. "What did you do, Tom?"

"Shut down the gravitex."

"You
what?"
gasped the athletic youth. "You mean we’re just running wild up here?"

Tom looked at his chum steadily. "We’re adrift, coasting uncontrolled. It was the only thing to do. Much more acceleration and we’d start crumpling up. When I ‘cut the string’ completely, the particle pressure dissipated almost immediately."

"I get it, Tom," Bud said weakly. "You didn’t have a choice."

But even though it was no longer speeding up, the craft was still streaking away from earth at awesome velocity. Its raw momentum was carrying it on an elongated, cometlike trajectory that would lead them hundreds of thousands of miles into the cosmos, perhaps beyond all hope of rescue.

"I’m hoping I can tilt us into stable orbit, Bud," Tom murmured, trying to adjust the cosmic reactor to make use of its feeble impact thrust, which did not require the retardation of the gravitex. "That won’t get us back to Earth, though. Raise Fearing on the radiocom and tell them to send the
Challenger
up here fast!"

"Roger!"

Glad to be doing something helpful, Bud desperately tried to make contact with the rocket base while Tom watched the instrument dials like a hawk. "Skipper, I’m not getting through—not at all!"

Frustrated, Tom leaned back in his flight chair. "Some effect of that cosmic storm must have produced an overload in our circuitry. It looks like all our transmission antennas have gone dead."

"Okay, but look, pal," Bud responded in frantic hope. "It’s just
our
antennas that are out. Earth stations can still pick us up on their radar… can’t they?"

The crewcut scientist-inventor shrugged weakly. "I don’t think so. Even considering just the parts of the hull not coated with Tomasite, we’re way too far out for ground-based radar to find us. And I’m afraid that goes for the space station and Nestria as well. We’re more than halfway to the moon, and coasting at several miles
per second!"

"But if they just extend a line from the first part of our course—"

"We’ve deviated too far—because of my
astro-
batics, because of trying to evade that blip, because of the effects of the storm. I owe you the truth, Bud. Even the
Challenger
isn’t likely to run across us in space for weeks. Space is just too big, and we’re just too small."

"Hmm! I guess there’s a downside to cosmic compacts." As usual, Bud was trying to lighten the mood to help his genius friend think his way through to a solution. Both boys’ faces, however, were taut with strain.

"What’re our chances, skipper?" Bud whispered after a long, silent interval. His gray eyes met those of the young inventor in another and unspoken question.
Could they survive until rescue arrived?

"I don’t know the answer," replied Tom.

Now there was total silence inside the tiny cockpit as Tom bent all efforts toward maneuvering the Space Kite into a better orbit, one that might eventually bring them arcing back to the vicinity of their native world.

The spacecraft, which had been moving almost straight outward from the earth, gradually began arching into an orbital path. Under Tom’s deft nursing of the controls, the minimally functioning cosmic reactor swerved the Kite just enough to partially counteract its tremendous velocity. Now and then he switched the gravitex back on, but the immediate runaway result showed that the subtrino storm was still raging about them.

"I think we’ve made it, Bud," Tom murmured. "At least we’re locked in a long orbit. That’s something."

The copilot kept a tense silence as Tom’s eyes remained glued to the readout dials. Presently the young inventor began to check out the craft’s other systems, including its vital environmental support apparatus.

"What’s our orbital period?" Bud asked. "Will we be turning back toward home very soon?"

"No—not soon. The precise orbit parameters hardly matter right now."

"Meaning what?"

"From now on, it’s a race against time, pal," Tom explained bluntly. "I had things figured pretty tightly for this test cruise. Our air-conditioning and temp control systems will keep this coop livable for as long as the solar battery lasts. Our water supply is limited, but fairly adequate. The major problem is—"

Bud finished the sentence. "Air."

"We had enough in the tanks for ten hours in space," said the young inventor grimly. "We could probably find ways to extend that, maybe even double it. But we just can’t last more than a day, not any way I can figure this."

"Maybe we could try hibernating like bears," Bud quipped. "That would slow down our breathing, hmm?"

Tom forced a wry chuckle, then became grave. "Bud, I’m sorry I got you into this fix. I never should have tried such a long shakedown flight in this kite until I was sure all the bugs were out. I might’ve guessed that some kind of subtrino phenomenon would follow the solar activity, even as a delayed effect. The cosmic reactor just wasn’t able to cope with an unexpected storm."

Bud punched his pal playfully on the arm. "Think I would’ve stayed behind? At least we’ve cracked the long-distance record for kites!"

The two astronauts settled down to their long wait. To help pass the time they kept up a lively exchange of banter, and even took turns trying to compose comic songs. But the hours dragged by slowly—ever more slowly because they felt helpless and hopeless.

Bud finally managed to doze off in the engulfing silence. Tom regarded his chum listlessly.
We get to do our own deathwatch,
he thought in wry sadness.

Tom’s drifting thoughts now brought up memories. He thought of Sandy, his parents, Bashalli. Then, presently, his friends aboard the hijacked
Sea Charger
floated up before his mind’s eye. He reviewed, musingly, their undersea search in the Loonaui seacopter, the
Emeraldina.
Then, the sonar had failed in its duty, just as Earth’s radar was failing them now. Just as… just as…