Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts (5 page)

"I’m sure you’ll find a way, son." Damon Swift gave the young inventor an encouraging pat on the back. "We both know that any major scientific breakthrough takes time. Just stick with it."

"I will, Dad. I know it’ll take time." But as Mr. Swift walked away, Tom’s mind added a silent subclause.

Would his enemies—including the ruthless Li Ching—allow him the time he needed? The project was at their mercy. And mercy was not their calling card!

IT WAS afternoon several days later when Tom was able to take the basic ideas for his space kite, hand-drawn sketches supplementing the precise specifications shown on Tom’s design flatscreen, to Arvid Hanson. Hanson was the expert who turned out scale models and midget test prototypes of the Swifts’ inventions as the first step past the idea stage. He was not only a gifted modelmaker, but an experienced electronics engineer and technician

Tom greeted the good-natured hulking six-footer and his assistant technician Linda Ming, then spread out his papers on a countertop.

"What’s the assignment this time, Tom?" Linda asked. "And when do you want it?"

"By yesterday." Tom grinned. "But don’t break your necks, you two. We’ll work on this together. Take a look."

Tom showed them the rough drawings of the space kite, after which he downloaded and printed the computer files.

"Aha, your compact car for space commuters!" joked Linda. "It’s about time we shared our smog and congestion with the moon and the stars."

Hanson was fired with enthusiasm. "Boy, this makes space travel look like fun!" he exclaimed.

The design of the space kite was beautifully simple. The pilot and copilot, with their control and communications equipment, would be enclosed in the forward-facing part by a transparent oval-shaped dome of durable Tomaquartz, coated with Inertite and tinted to protect the occupants from the glare of the sun. Behind their seats, the dome was partitioned off by the flat "screen layers" of Tom’s cosmic reactor—the device for converting cosmic subtrino radiation into motive power. The five-sided screen was made up of many rows of the small component cells, which were square in shape and open at the rear to the spatial void.

Linda Ming’s humorous remark had a basis in fact, for the craft was no bigger than a compact car standing up on end. Tom pointed out that the space kite would rest upright on three slender, graceful landing supports while on the ground awaiting launch. "The full-sized model will be powered by a single Type IV Swift solar battery—light as a pop-up toaster! But it’ll supply sufficient current to run the basic components and the equipment in the pilot cabin. Everything else will be completely passive and unpowered, like a sailboat or a kite.

"But don’t worry, this one doesn’t have to be a working model," Tom assured them with a smile. "It’s mainly a guide for Hank Sterling and Art Wiltessa to use for reference as they turn out the life-sized test version." He added that the final version would have some differences anyway. "I still have to come up with my electronic ‘kite string’ to stabilize the craft and allow the cosmic reactor to work at full efficiency. And it’ll have to function without a big power drain," he noted musingly.

"If you’re ready, boss, we three can get to work on it at once," Arv urged.

"The Big Swede’s like a kid at Christmas with a new model set to glue together," remarked Linda teasingly.

"Dragon Lady’s absolutely right," declared Hanson. "You won’t need to pay my salary on this one, Tom—she’s a beaut!"

He began machining the metal parts from lightweight magnesium alloy. Tom, meanwhile, shaped the glittering dome of the astronaut compartment out of transparent Tomasite plastic on a molding press, while Linda began crafting the cabin’s interior setup. Within hours, the finished model of the space kite was hanging from the ceiling of the modelmaking workshop on fine plastic threads.

"I’ve got to agree with Arv," stated Linda. "Prettiest thing I’ve worked on in months." The three stood quietly for a moment, pausing to admire the result of their craftsmanship.

At that moment the outer door of the lab-workshop swung open in response to the signal of an electronic key, coming from outside in the hallway. A food cart was rolled in, followed by a stomach, followed by Chow Winkler. "Here ya go, folky-dokes, afternoon energy food!" The plump westerner served meals and extra snacks to the Swift executive staff whenever they were busy in their customized work areas and labs.

"Oh, hey there, Tom! Didn’t know you’d be here. But I allus bring around more’n enough," he boomed cheerfully with his Texas-gravel voice. This afternoon, to go with his scruffy cowboy boots and white ten-gallon hat, the former range cook wore a green-and-red shirt with a heat-lightning theme.

Apparently Chow was in a jaunty mood. His tall hat was pulled so low over his eyes that it prevented him from seeing the suspended space-kite model. "Hey, watch it, Chow!" Tom yelled.

An instant later there was a loud
whump!
as Chow collided head-on with the space kite! The glittering model crashed to the floor as Chow stumbled back in alarm. He ended up sitting on the floor next to the downed model. "Brrr
-rand
my coyote cutlets, what sneakin’ varmint hit me?"

Tom and Arv helped Chow to his feet as Linda giggled helplessly. Then Tom grinned. "Young feller, you just sabotaged my latest invention!"

Chow stared around dazedly. "I’m sure sorry, Tom. Looks like I knocked it all galley-west. Didn’t do my brand-new somber-ayro any good, neither."

Luckily the kite model was undamaged and Tom hung it up again. Chow straightened out his askew hat, then brushed it off. "What’s this new contraption o’ yours, Tom?"

"A space kite for astronauts. It uses cosmic radiation for propulsion."

"Y’don’t say." Chow’s leathery face assumed a skeptical expression. "It’s no blame
wonder
they call ’em
nuts,
goin’ up inta space jest to fly a kite."

"Not
nuts—astronauts."
Tom tried hard to suppress a smile because he did not want to embarrass the kindhearted old Westerner. "Voyagers to the stars! They’ll travel inside it."

"Humph." Chow stared hard at the kite model for a few moments, then gave up trying to understand it. "Waa-al, it made me
see
stars, all right. But I dunno if I’d care to go ridin’ up yonder in sech a flimsy rig. I guess these here cosmic aster-nauts are the ones you were talkin’ about th’ other day, the folks that’ll flit back and forth while they work up there."

Tom’s eyes turned dreamy as he nodded. "That’s right. If my cosmic-ray propulsion device pans out in actual use, those ‘cosmic astronauts’ may eventually change the way the whole world works!"

"That’s nice. Long as the world still needs a cook er two t’ keep ’em all fed an’ happy!"

After snacking Arv went off to acquaint Sterling and Wiltessa with the details of the new spacecraft model. Afterwards Tom hopped onto the moving-ramp system that criss-crossed Swift Enterprises and headed for the office in the administration building that he shared with his father.

Mr. Swift looked up from his desk with pleasure as Tom strode in. "You look pretty upbeat this afternoon, Tom. Has the inventing bug bit you?"

"Just a little nip," Tom replied with a chuckle, "but I believe I’m closing in on the answer to the final part of the space kite."

Mr. Swift grinned proudly at his celebrated son. "Let’s hear it."

"Briefly, my space kite will use a gravity concentrator," Tom went on. "Sort of a repelatron in reverse, at least as far as what it does. My gravity concentrator will make use of the
attracting
force between objects, rather than producing a repelling force."

"Mm-hmm." Damon Swift couldn’t help looking a tad skeptical. "Control of the gravitational force has been a dream for centuries, son. Few scientists think it’s possible."

"That’s out-of-date thinking, Dad—very ‘old millennium’! We already know for a fact that gravity can be controlled. The space friends do it!"

The thoughtful nod of Tom’s father conceded the point. With its every whirl about the earth, the phantom satellite Nestria confirmed that the never-seen extraterrestrials with whom Tom communicated had mastered the basic forces of nature. They had not only moved the tiny moonlet into orbit, but had established a livable gravitational field there. "But son, we’ve never been able to understand how that ‘gravity cube’ device of theirs functions. We’ve never even been able to move it!"

"I know," Tom agreed. "But I was able to make a more thorough study of its effects, at least, on my last trip up there. We know it generates some sort of gyrating electromagnetic flux—a real whirlpool of force—that uses the Lunite veins in the ground as some kind of antenna."

"And you believe you now understand how to use the principle to create gravity directly?"

"Not
create
it, Dad. The gravity cube on Nestria doesn’t actually create gravity, after all, but distorts and concentrates the
existing
gravitational field like a lens. I hope to invent a similar sort of device for
increasing
the gravitational pull exerted by the earth or any other heavenly body on my space kite. By aiming the device in the right direction—say at the earth or moon or sun or any suitable planet—the pilot will be able to produce a strong pull to act as a ‘kite string’ for his craft."

"Hmm. Most ingenious." Mr. Swift frowned, adding dryly: "And good luck, Tom—of the
‘you’ll need it’
variety, I’m afraid. Even with a few hints from alien technology, it certainly won’t be easy to devise such a gravity concentrator. Also, to be effective, the device would have to step up the gravitational attraction to a strength thousands or millions of times as great as normal."

"Yes," Tom admitted, "and on minimal battery power. I haven’t got it licked yet. But as I said, I
think
I’m making progress with my gravitational-extensorizer—my gravitex."

"I wish you luck," Mr. Swift said. "Any kind of luck that works."

Tom pursued the frustrating quest throughout the day and into the evening, taking home with him his notes and some of the circuitry and equipment he had been experimenting with. The problem brought out the inventorly stubbornness in him. Like a bulldog with a bone he couldn’t bear to set it aside.

Bud was visiting, as he usually was—often for dinner. While the young pilot joined Sandy in the living room playing with her cockatiel Featherbee, Tom headed out to his home workshop and lab, a room addition which adjoined the garage. His hands were full of electronics apparatus.

As he assembled the materials on his workbench, the young inventor smiled. "Guess I’ll have to play this by ear," he thought half-aloud. "I’m trying to do something I can’t even fully explain to myself!"

Tom reflected that gravity can be considered as a form of radiation even though its nature is not yet clearly understood by scientists. Its spreading forces were linked somehow to distortions or "bends" in the invisible fabric of space itself.

"But we’ve been dealing with that sort of thing for a long time now, ever since we discovered the spectronic wave-field and harnessed it to the repelatron," he said to himself. "There’s got to be a way to concentrate the strength of the G-force radiation by electromagnetic action. If the space friends can do it, I can too—darn it!"

Tom relaxed and tried to allow himself to be guided by his scientific intuitions, as if by a half-forgotten dream. First, he shaped the basic chassis of the gravitex on a metal-spinning lathe. As it would be producing a directional effect, he gave it the form of a gimball-mounted cone. Next, he molded a number of lightweight plastic balls and removed the air inside them with a vacuum pump. He then wound the balls, just as if he were winding up balls of knitting wool, with many turns of fine, insulated wire "doped" with fibers of certain "rare-earth" elements, which Tom knew to have unique magnetic and semi-conductor properties

Guess I’ll call these gravitol spheres,
Tom decided, jotting down this name on his working sketch.

Working rapidly, he enclosed each gravitol sphere in a shell of Lunite metal from Nestria. The several small spheres, interconnected, were mounted inside the hollow direction cone, and the entire assemblage was connected by cable to the electronic modulator component through a power control unit. He affixed the gravitex-wannabe, flared end pointing downward, to a bracket above the workbench and reached for the power knob. When power was turned on, the flowing electricity would create a rapidly rotating magnetic flux inside the gravitol spheres.

To measure the result, Tom had attached the hinged bracket arm to a spring balance.
So far, so good,
Tom thought warily.
Now to see if my idea works at all!

He switched on power and adjusted the voltage reading of the control unit. Instantly the needle of the balance dial swung downward.

Tom gave a cry of delight. "It’s working!" The gravitex was concentrating and magnifying the gravitational force acting upon its own suspended mechanism!

"I want Bud and San to see this!" Tom muttered triumphantly. He turned the knob on the control unit further, stepping up the voltage. The balance needle responded by swinging still further around the dial.

At the same time, Tom became aware of a strange sensation in his head. He felt giddy and disoriented.
Hunh! What’s the matter with me?
he wondered in distracted bewilderment.

The young inventor had a weird feeling of going up and up in space. He grabbed the workbench for support. His eyes would not focus right, and the workshop around him seemed to be listing over on its side.

A second later Tom blacked out completely!

"HEY, TOM! Where are you?"

Bud Barclay had just poked his head into the workshop. Getting no answer to his shout, he strode forward to see what was making a hum. Bud gasped when he saw Tom sprawled unconscious on the floor beside his workbench.

"Good night! What happened to him?" Fearing that his chum might have been electrocuted, Bud ran toward the young inventor, flicking off the power switch as he passed it. He slightly raised Tom’s head and felt his pulse, then placed an ear to his chest. "Breathing, thank goodness!"