Tom Swift and His 3-D Telejector (11 page)

"Speaking of peculiarities," interjected Phil Radnor, "my instincts are tweaked by the fact that all eight of these good folks happened to be standing near a rocket engine during a live test procedure. Were any of them actually participating in the test?"

"They would have no reason to be," Tom said.

"They’re not engineering specialists or technicians. They’re astronauts, mostly—rocket jockeys, like we used to say," noted Quezada.

Tom picked up on a word. "You said, mostly?"

Mace Vendiablo answered. "Boss, I started pulling the info together right on the spot. Seven of the victims are space vets. The other is a member of the visiting research project that Aciema Musa is working on—a junior physicist named Herb Nelson. If you’re thinking he was behind the engine problem, don’t forget that he was a victim too."

Bud spoke between crunches of granola. "Seems to me nobody’s said yet why they were all there."

Amos Quezada gave a shrug. "That big barn of ours isn’t used for hazardous testing. As Tom knows, these are just routine procedures we do on a regular schedule to detect wear-and-tear problems before they get serious. I may have given you the impression that the engine was fired-up and blazing, but actually it didn’t even have fuel in it, just a dummy fluid that paints a nice picture on our detectors. It’s not unusual for employees on break to wander in out of the sun to watch."

"Interesting," declared Radnor with a note of skepticism. "And is it usual for these looky-loos to be hanging out nearer to the engine than the guys actually running the test?"

"Look, Radnor, I hope you’re not implying that I haven’t been doing my job!" Vendiablo bristled. "I asked all the questions. Those guys happened to be standing there posing for a joke photo, that’s all."

Tom looked down at the table, but everyone could hear a sharp tone in his voice. "By any chance, was it this man Nelson who suggested taking the photo?"

The Fearing staffers exchanged glances. "By any chance—
yes
. He held the camera, in fact," said Vendiablo. He added hotly: "So what’s your point? The man’s had a background check. The Feds require it. You know that."

Sensing a retort on the way, Tom responded before Radnor could. "We’re not implying anything, Mace. There may be nothing at all behind all this."

Bud snorted. "Right. That’d be a first!"

With a fixed smile on his face, Phil Radnor half-rose. "I think
Mace and I
will spend the rest of this sunny morning doing some digging."

As they left the mess hall Bud asked Tom what he planned to do next. "I think I’ll visit some of the guys who came down with our mystery ailment—and that includes Herb Nelson."

The two walked out into the balmy morning air and began to cross the airfield, itself crossed by the long shadows of waiting rockets. Before they had taken ten steps, a voice called out to them. "Excuse me—Mr. Swift?"

Tom and Bud turned. A young base employee was approaching them. "Um—sorry to bother you like this, but I thought I recognized you," he said to Tom, hesitantly.

The young inventor stuck out his hand. "Tom Swift!"

"My name’s Neil Forman," said the man as he shook hands. "I—well, they said you were visiting because of what happened—how those guys all got sick after the accident during the engine test. And I― "

The two from Shopton exchanged glances. Tom asked, "Do you know something about that, Neil?"

The worker glanced about furtively, as if afraid to be seen—or heard. "I suppose I should have told Mr. Vendiablo about it."

"Why didn’t you?"

"They say he can be a little... testy. I like my job here, Mr. Swift. I don’t want to risk it by having one of the big shots get on my case for spreading rumors or something. But they say you’re a pretty nice guy."

"
That
rumor happens to be true," Bud declared firmly. "And he really loves putting puzzle pieces together. So spit ’er on out, pal!"

Forman nodded. "I usually work the night shift, and I take a break around one AM. I go outside and smoke. Guess I’m not proud of not bein’ able to quit, ’cause I kind of stick to the shadows.

"Starting a couple weeks back or so, I started noticing a guy walking from the living quarters along the edge of the airfield, next to the wooded area. I figured he was just some other late worker out for a stroll. But he did it every night, same time, same thing. I never saw him coming back, either."

"Where did he go, exactly?" inquired Tom.

"He always left the field at the same point and headed off between the trees. I assumed there was a path there."

Forman pointed, and Bud muttered: "Then he was heading toward the shore, looks like."

"Yeah, he was. You see, I—er― "

Tom smiled. "Followed him?"

"I was curious."

"Go on, Neil."

"One night I took my break closer to where he walked, but kept myself out of sight. When he walked past I waited a few moments, then started following behind, in the shadow of the trees. You can hear the ocean just about anywhere on Fearing, so I figured he wouldn’t hear me tailin’ him.

"So he turns off onto this little footpath. Just dirt, you know? But it goes zigzag, and I lost sight of him quickly.

"The path comes out right near the water, big rocks all over the place. I look around—so where is he? Now I was
majorly
curious. I spent a while skulking around, thinking I’d see him. Man, I just
had
to know what he was up to!"

"I know the feeling," remarked the young inventor dryly, with a wink at Bud.

"All of a sudden I hear splashing. I look out toward the ocean and there’s this black thing sort’ve bobbing around out there. I made out pretty quick that it was the head and shoulders of a guy in one of those frogman suits! He ducked down under the water—and that’s the last I saw of him."

"A frogman," Bud repeated. "Jetz, he could’ve been sneaking back and forth between the island and a boat—maybe even the mainland!"

Tom’s response was skeptical. "We’re pretty well guarded here on Fearing. You’ve got the radar mini-drones circling overhead at all times, and an automatic-alarm sonarscope system keeping watch for underwater intruders."

"I don’t know about the sonar stuff," the worker replied. "But as far as the patrolscope radar, employees all have those anti-alarm amulets, like the three of us are wearing."

"True. Are you absolutely sure the man you saw walking was an employee?"

"Oh yeah, absolutely." Forman cleared his throat. "And I know his name, too. Herb Nelson!"

THE CONFIRMATION of Nelson’s involvement—in
something
!—was disturbing. "Good night, the whole project group could be some sort of cover operation," Tom murmured.

"I can’t believe Aciema Musa is in on it," Bud objected. "Neil, are you pretty sure the frogman was the same as the guy you followed?"

Forman shrugged. "No—that’s why I held back saying anything. I never did see the swimmer come back out of the water. I had to get back to my shift. But I’ll tell you this, Nelson still goes out for his little stroll every night."

Tom rubbed his chin for a moment, taking it all in and holding back a sigh of bemused frustration. "It may sound a little lame to say,
We shouldn’t be hasty
—but we
shouldn’t
be. Innuendos hurt people. We’re not going to start off making any accusations against Nelson or Aciema, or anyone. It’s all conjecture. But you did us a good turn by telling us your story, Neil. It’s all very—interesting."

"I know it’s more than that, Mr. Swift," said the worker. "Whoever that frogman was, he was breakin’ every security rule in the book!"

"You’re right," Tom replied. "And now we have to catch him at it."

After midnight, the moon slivered and still low, a black shape stood among the rocks on the Fearing Island shore, shedding his outer clothes and concealing them carefully. He pulled on his frogman togs and scuba gear and slipped under the easy surf.

In the waters, a half-mile distant, another dark shape hovered like a lurking predator. "Still nothing on the scope," muttered Tom Swift.

"As expected," Bud observed. "Even our porpoise-squeak sonar can’t pick him up."

Tom nodded. "Which means he’s using sophisticated antidetection gear—the same kind we’ve run into before. But it won’t defeat the tracker."

The youths were submerged in a compact sea vehicle of Tom’s invention, called the
SnooperSub
. The name was apt: the sub was equipped with a remarkable snooping system, Tom’s aquatomic tracker, which would allow the young inventor to follow the trail of distinctive molecular traces left in the water by any object passing through it. Touching the controls, Tom said quietly, "Let’s close in a little. The currents are running a little slow today—we’ll have to hunt down the ones with the atoms."

The
Snoop’s
silent propulsion setup inched them forward, yard by yard, in the presumed direction of the surreptitious diver. Picking up no traces, Tom accelerated. "There! Got something."

"What kind of something, Skipper?"

"Metals, plastic, synth-rubber—some oils from human skin. Nelson must be the nervous type. He was sweating when he pulled on his suit."

"Yeah," snorted Bud. "I don’t blame him."

The craft followed the undersea trail, its sun-bright searchlight visible through the viewport, but invisible outside. Presently Tom said, "The traces are getting stronger. We’re getting closer, and I think he’s swimming more slowly, too."

"Must be near to wherever he’s heading."

Five minutes later Bud hissed, "Tom, there he is!"

A diver, legs thrashing, was crossing the aqualamp beam!

"Unless his tech is a lot higher than ours, he won’t know we’re here," Tom pronounced.

"Now?"

"
Now
we follow like cautious sea hounds, flyboy."

The frogman continued for another few minutes, then arced downward toward the seafloor. He crouched low, and suddenly a square shape rose into view—the lid of a container. "Looks like we found the treasure!" Bud exclaimed. "Satisfied?"

"Yup!"

The young inventor spoke into a microphone, and pulses of sound, disguised as fish-talk, alerted others lurking nearby that it was time to move. A minute later, Tom said: "Okay! Let’s pin him."

With the flick of a switch, the invisible beam turned visible, startlingly brilliant.

His shadow trailing off into the far dimness, the frogman froze in shock, then whirled about, thrashing his legs frantically. "Too late, Herb-o," grinned Bud. "Here come the trawler boys with the big nets."

A squadron of six Fearing security personnel in Swift diversuits converged on the hapless frogman, sped along like living torpedoes by the jet drives on their backs. They orbited the obviously frightened sub-man at a fifty-foot distance, gesturing for him to make for the surface—where, Tom and Bud knew, an armed motor launch awaited him.

The man abruptly flipped backwards, flailing his arms wildly. "Good grief, the guy’s freaking out!" Bud laughed. "Total panic!"

But Tom frowned. "No—look at that plume of― " He broke off and studied the readout on the aquatomic tracker’s control panel. "
It’s blood
!"

The man was now floating like a shred of limp seaweed. Two of the Fearing team grabbed his arms to pull him to the surface, while the others approached the chestlike container half-buried in the bottom.

It was an hour later, back on the island, when the boys were briefed by Mace Vendiablo. "It was Nelson all right. Dead in the water."

"How?" asked Tom somberly.

In reply the security man held up a long, straight object, narrow as a finger.

"What is it?" Bud asked. "A harpoon?"

"Well, it might as well be—it harpooned him!" snorted Vendiablo. "Went right through that fancy plastic stuff he was wearing. Went halfway through
him
, matter of fact."

Tom examined the object curiously, noting its needle-point and cluster of fishlike tail fins at the rear. "Look here," he said. "This deep groove runs the whole length of the main shaft, wrapping around in a tight spiral." Tom glanced up. "I’m taking this over to the lab. I’d like to scan it with a TeleTec and some other instruments."

Soon Tom returned with his own report. "It’s not a harpoon," he told the small group, which now included Amos Quezada and Phil Radnor. "It’s a kind of super-miniaturized electronic torpedo. Basically an
underwater spy satellite!
"

"What!" snapped Radnor. "That dinky thing’s been spying on us?"

"I’d say so. And not just this one. There may be a whole fleet of these things out there, circling Fearing under the surface just like our own drones circle us up above." Tom explained that the device had its own battery power source and some kind of unconventional receiver-transmitter. "The part of the shaft between the nose section and the tail is a freely rotating sleeve surrounding a rigid central strut. It’s ingenious!"

"Well don’t fall in love with it, Tom!" Bud gibed.

"But it’s an amazing example of micro-technology! Transverse magnetic induction makes the sleeve ‘float’ above the central shaft and drives it into a rapid motion—something like those high-speed maglev trains they’ve developed. The outer groove acts as a kind of longitudinal prop-screw, and the system counteracts torque directly by locking the excess angular momentum in the suspension field. I doped out that it can receive remote-control signals, which modify its onboard ‘guidance computer’, and it can transmit back whatever it’s designed to record as it orbits around Fearing."

"To someone on the mainland?" asked Bud.

"No. One of the divers stopped by the lab and told me that the hidden container had data-storage equipment inside, along with other equipment. My guess is that the drones transmit whatever they have in very brief low-power bursts as they pass close to the chest in their course, receiving any new instructions in the same way. It’d be too localized for our sensor instruments to pick up.

"Nelson must’ve been going out nightly to pick up the recorded data and slip-in any new control instructions. But tonight it played out differently. ‘They’ must have been monitoring the situation remotely, somehow. When they saw that their operative was on the verge of capture, they risked transmitting an override code long-range, with new instructions."