Tom Swift and His 3-D Telejector (12 page)

Radnor finished the thought. "Instructions to turn on their master and make for the middle of his chest, top speed."

Bud shot Tom a wry glance. "Guess the guy had good reason to be frightened!" The young copilot noticed that his friend had turned pale.

"All nice and neat," stated Quezada. "Now tell me why we couldn’t detect these ‘satellites’ on sonar—or the frogman himself."

"Because of this." Tom withdrew a small shred of dark-gray material from his pocket. "It was torn off by the projectile as it ripped into him, and the diver gave it to me to look at."

"Reflects light in a funny way," Mace observed.

"
Real funny!
" Bud retorted. "Tom and I have seen it before."

"It has a coating of Li Ching’s anti-energy crystals," said Tom. "It absorbs and partially refracts nearly every form of energy, including radar, sonar, and light! Under the right conditions it can cause objects to become blurred and distorted to the eye—hard to see."

"Then it’s confirmed," Mace added in grim tones. "Your Black Cobra is involved in this, just as Ames and Radnor told me."

Tom nodded, wiping a hand across his forehead. Bud noticed its quiver.

"Him, or at least his organization. But we don’t know what he’s after. He must’ve used Herb Nelson to cause the rocket engine problem, and the blowup somehow... somehow caused... uh..."

Tom hesitated in midsentence. "Bit by one of your on-the-fly ideas, Tom?" asked Phil Radnor.

"
No
!" Bud gasped. "
He’s going to
― "

Crumpling backwards, knees giving way, Tom tumbled toward the floor!

"JETZ!" Bud lunged forward and caught his friend in his powerful arms before head met floor.

Tom’s eyes fluttered. "Th-thanks—Bud—I..."

"You’re burning up," Bud said gently, lowering him to the carpet. "Lie down flat."

"I’ll get Carman!" said Amos Quezada.

Tom coughed. "I felt it... coming on for hours, but—I d-didn’t want to foul things up..."

Bud knelt by him. "It’s the fever, isn’t it."

"I think so. My muscles... I’m so weak all of a sudden..."

"Don’t talk, Tom."

After a quick examination on the spot, Dr. Carman had Tom moved to the base infirmary, where he spent a limp and restless night, but one marked by steady improvement hour by hour. By midmorning he was able to sit up for a breakfast in bed.

"I feel pretty good," he told Bud. "Thanks for taking care of my jutting brow last night. I need it to shade my deep-set blue eyes, y’know."

"Instinct. I treated it like a football," joked the athletic youth. He motioned toward a spiral-bound pad of paper next to Tom’s tray. "What’s that? Getting psychic symbols like Oldmother?"

Tom laughed. "Maybe I am—in my own way!" He handed the notebook to his chum, who held it one way, then another. Bud finally gave up after a complete turnabout.

"You sure you’re not loopy, genius boy? To me this looks more like a scribble than the latest product of the mind of Thomas Edison Swift!"

The crude sketch showed a set of polyhedral structures, open frameworks constructed of what Tom explained were tubular struts. The polyhedrons appeared to be connected on gimbaled joints to a compact central body, which was solid. "The struts that make up the frameworks are actually extensible ‘arms’ which are jointed together. The sketch shows ’em folded and tucked-up, but they can be unfolded straight."

"Hmm! Reminds me of that paper-folding art the Japanese make, origami. That, and modern sculpture—which I can’t make anything of either!"

Tom laughed again. "If you want another analogy, think of it as a cluster of huddled-up legs, like you’d find on a grasshopper or a mantis."

"How
ever
I think of it—what’s it for? Something tells me it’s not art for your living room."

"It’s how I plan to get past the Green Orb’s defenses to find out what’s really going on in there."

Bud dropped down into a big chair. "Sure. What does it do,
jump
the wall?"

With a grin and a burst of fresh energy, Tom explained that the framework units would have Tom’s 3-D wavefront holoceivers attached to each joint of the many legs. "The structure is so completely reconfigurable and expandable that we’ll be able to collect light waves from many different angles, which is what we need to do for the telejector to produce a detailed 3-D image."

"Good grief! You’re not saying this deal is gonna be big enough to reach all the way around the Orb!"

"No, it’ll only be a few yards across—much smaller when it’s all folded up tight, of course. But there’ll be six of them, initially approaching from all four sides, and above and below, equally spaced."

"Okay, now I see. It’s a space probe—a flock! Will you launch these guys directly from Earth?"

Tom shook his head, explaining that he wanted to build the delicate structures in the stressless environment of zero-G. "My plan is to have them all constructed up on the space outpost, and launch them from there toward the Orb on a special carrier vehicle."

"Will they stay outside the Orb taking pictures? Or will they― "

"If all goes well, they’ll rendezvous and ‘boldly go’ right into the unknown world like Viking explorers! I’m determined to get a 3-D view of the inside of our green friend."

Bud grinned, happy to see his pal back to his normal vigorous self. "Let’s hope the TV show doesn’t put us to sleep this time."

Presently Dr. Carman came to examine his charge. "You’re ready to leave, Tom," he pronounced. "I wouldn’t operate any heavy machinery for a while, though."

"Doctor, you’re talking to the one person on Earth least likely to take that advice," Bud wisecracked.

"And now that you’re doing better," Carman went on soberly, "I need to tell you about a call I took late last night from Simpson."

Tom’s nod interrupted him. "About Hank Sterling and Dr. Grimsey?"

The medic’s eyebrows lifted. "Someone told you?"

Bud held up his hands. "Wasn’t me!"

"I figured it out myself," said the young inventor with a degree of wry grimness. "When did they come down with it?"

"They went symptomatic last night, just as you did. Their fevers spiked around 3 AM; now they’re both pretty much over it."

Tom turned to his boggling friend. "Now that we know it takes a couple days or so to incubate, I knew I couldn’t have picked up the infection here on Fearing. So I mentally backtracked."

"Jetz!" Bud exclaimed. "The telejector blowup the other day—like the incident with the rocket motor!"

"That’s right," said Tom. "And Hank and Grimsey were present. We were all exposed to something."

Dr. Carman regarded Tom thoughtfully. "Yet these two machine failures have nothing in common, as I understand it. The rocket business wasn’t any kind of explosion."

"But it was a venting of heated gases and smoke into the air," was Tom’s reply. "Same thing when the telejector blew. I think the bursts must have sprayed out particulates of some sort—maybe something like spores or pollen, with something riding on them that got into our lungs."

"To what end?" the physician asked. "The effects were inconvenient but ultimately minor."

"And besides, what about Arv Hanson?" Bud objected. "He didn’t have anything go blooey on him."

Tom could only shrug as he turned toward his pile of clothes. "If you’re saying that a lot doesn’t fit—I agree. Rad and Mace tell me they’re pretty sure Aciema and the other project people weren’t involved in whatever Herb Nelson was up to. He was a last-minute addition to the team when another member became― " Tom paused significantly. "
Sick
!"

"But Nelson was infected himself."

"Which is smart," retorted Tom. "It threw off suspicion. And besides, as you said, Doctor, the fever is harmless."

Bud flew Tom back to Shopton in the cycloplane, leaving Radnor behind on the island to continue his investigations. "What we have so far," mused Bud, "is too much plot and not enough resolution, pal. Snakeman and company skulk around finding ways to get Enterprises employees infected with some 24-hour bug. Psychic celebrities get kidnapped—unless they’re all off chanting their mantras someplace. Somebody pretends to be Pete Langley to Tom Swift, and pretends to be Tom Swift to Pete Langley, and pretends to be a peg-legged ghost; plus a little girl wants you to go see her, and a phony mindreader wants you
not
to do something, and way out there in space is this green thing that isn’t really there, but it puts you to sleep. Why, why, why? What do we do now, huh?"

"Well, you
could
add another ‘why’," suggested the scientist-inventor dryly.

Bud laughed. "Yeah. I know you say ‘the outcome is the reason,’ Skipper. But right now I don’t think we’ve got much of a handle on either one."

"I know. It’s enough to make me switch to Langley’s version—‘the consequence is the cause’!"

Back at Enterprises Tom made a quick visit to Doc Simpson to verify that Hank, Arv, and Grimsey were well, continuing his rounds with visits to his father, Harlan Ames, and finally to the lab where the telejector was being repaired. Tom asked Dr. Grimsey, "I saw you unseal the container the triamplicon came in, but was there anything unusual about it that you recall? There’s reason to think it might have been gimmicked to explode and spread whatever it is that infected us."

Between bushy beard and haystack hair, the telecommunications engineer turned white. "Hey-mama! You think this was deliberate? But why would I be― " He glanced at Hank Sterling. "Why would
any
of us be targeted?"

Hank observed, "I don’t know about you and me, Edmund, but our boss here sits right on a permanent bullseye."

Grimsey had no further information, and Tom returned to his office, sitting down at his desk. Using the number provided by Dr. Rogo, he was soon in touch with Bylands Residence School and Lorna Darvey. "Stan Rogo told me to expect your call, Tom," she said. "I understand you’re interested in one of our charges, Jennifer December."

Tom provided a measured, toned-down account of his reasons. "I was amazed that she really existed, and had been tested as having some ESP abilities."

"That she does," confirmed Dr. Darvey. "I’m hardly an expert, but she converted me from skeptic to—well, maybe not a believer, but someone with questions."

"Does she show her abilities there at the orphanage?"

"Oh yes. No major miracles, but she often seems to know in advance things that happen, and I’d swear she’s taken peeks into my mind. But the strangest thing..."

"Don’t worry, ma’am—I’m expecting it to be
very
strange!"

"It is," said the physician. "I think Jennifer can create dreams."

"You mean she can consciously control what she dreams about?"

Darvey took a deep breath, as if afraid how her story might sound to a scientist. "No, I mean she can control
what other people dream about!
" There was a long moment with no response from Tom. "I know. Sounds like something from the movies, doesn’t it?"

Tom chuckled. "Well... yes. But she doesn’t use it malevolently—does she?"

"Oh my, thank the Lord, no! And she isn’t a ‘firestarter’ either," the woman laughed. "But many times she’s mentioned to various staff members striking images that we recall from dreams of the preceding night. And she’ll say,
Oh
, I sent that to you, wasn’t it funny? or such things. But she’ll describe it and comment
before
it’s been mentioned!"

After further discussion, Tom admitted that he still lacked a clear picture of what Jennifer was able to do—and how she accomplished it. "Then why not come up to Maine and visit her? She’s a very sweet, pleasant little dear. She’s not really able to explain what she does, but perhaps we haven’t been asking the right questions."

"I’ll do that," Tom promised. "Tomorrow afternoon?"

"We’ll expect you."

"Ma’am—I think Jennifer December is
already
expecting me!"

TOM and Bud rented a car at the city airport where they landed the Pigeon Special. "Genius boy, you’ve got to get into the notion of traveling around in your atomicar," Bud remarked. "I mean, the
Silent Streak
can fly, not to mention tooling along the road without stopping for gas."

"Uh-huh. I shouldn’t mind the traffic jams and accidents as the other drivers do doubletakes?"

"Chum," said Bud, "you worry too much."

Bylands Orphanage was small but modern and pleasant, nestled among low, rolling hills. In Lorna Darvey’s office, the youths were given the brief history of Miss Jennifer December. She had been taken to Bylands as a toddler, after her parents had lost their lives in an auto accident. Her only close relative, an elderly great-aunt, was unable to take her, but wealthy enough to provide for her board and care. "She goes to public school in town," explained Dr. Darvey, "and there have been no problems or incidents. Just a bright, ordinary little girl."

"Who can transmit TV programs into people’s heads," noted Bud.

Tom asked, "Ma’am, are these ‘dreams’ she takes credit for in the form of stories?"

The physician shook her head slightly. "I wouldn’t characterize them that way. It’s more a matter of intrusive images, sometimes little scenes that you see, as you might look at the picture on a postcard. I’ve been given such things as a fox in an overcoat, a flying chocolate cake, and a bright blue rose."

"Has anyone ever reported seeing images like that when they’re not asleep?"

"You mean just floating around in the daylight? No, Tom."

The Shopton visitors were taken outside to meet the girl of the hour, who was at play in a sandbox. The perfect image of the little space girl, she stood up and shook Tom’s hand gravely, seeming to pay no attention to Dr. Darvey’s introduction. "I know who you are, mister."

"You can call me Tom."

"Uh-huh. And that’s Bud. He’s your friend."

"His
bestest
friend," commented Bud.

Tom asked the girl, in a gentle way, how she knew of him. "Did you see me on TV?"