Tom Swift and His Deep Sea Hydrodome (6 page)

Then the extravehicular team—Tom, Bob Anchor, and Hank Sterling—worked on the capping mechanism, which sat atop the launching platform at first. It would be drawn down into its final position as the blaster was released. To keep the well-capper in place, they shot rocket anchors into the bedrock. The nozzle, initially open, would be closed gradually, until the device sealed itself.

"All set now. Stand back!" Tom warned his two companions by suit sonophone. "I only hope we don’t set off another geyser!"

When the men reported back that they were in a safe position, Tom signaled the blaster to switch on its powerful engines. With a thudding roar audible even within the Fat Man suits, the blaster bored into the sea floor, raising an inky cloud that billowed and swirled like a subsea cyclone. Dazzled by the reflected glare from the disturbed particles, the three turned off the searchlights in their Fat Man suits. In the yellow-white cone of the seacopter’s penetrating aqualamp beam, made visible in order to assist the workers, they watched the flow of gases freed by the blaster surging in greater and greater quantities through the open well-cap.

Suddenly the
Sea Hound
’s light blinked off and on, as if in a warning signal. Surprised, Tom asked over his mike, "Bud, what’s—?"

He stopped short as the searchlight went off again—and stayed off. Danger! He shut down the blaster, which by now had completely disappeared under the sea floor. Then Tom told his companions to keep their lights out.

Everyone waited tensely.

A few seconds later the small sonarscope in Tom’s suit reported a signal bounceback that made him stiffen with apprehension. An underwater craft was coming rapidly toward them from the south!

Tom was certain the marauder was the phantom
Mad Moby.
Could it be carrying the deadly neurotoxin?

Of one thing he was sure: He did not want to be seen at the secret project! He switched the sonophone output to its minimum setting. Over his mike he told his companions in an electronic whisper: "Lie down flat! Camouflage yourselves! Don’t move!"

Obediently the two grotesque-looking Fat Men followed Tom’s example as he worked the controls of his suit so that it stretched out on the ocean bottom, partially covered in the settling ooze stirred up by the earth blaster.

As the three waited in worried silence, the strange submarine came on steadily and passed like a massive shadow within a few hundred yards of the three prospectors, showing no lights, no portholes, no sign of life within. Only its passage in front of the phosphorescence of the darting marine life revealed its presence to the eye.

In a minute the eerie specter had vanished into the deep-sea gloom.

Tom now switched on his suit lights and slowly worked the robotic arms and legs to bring his Fat Man upright again. The other two were soon standing up also. To Tom’s alarmed amazement, the
Sea Hound
was gone!

"Where did it go?" he puzzled aloud.
"Bud, can you read me?"

Over the sonophone Hank Sterling asked urgently, "What about that sub? Was it the
Moby?"

"It must’ve been," Tom replied.

As he spoke, a light flashed on across the subsea plain and drew closer.
The enemy?
Tom’s heart leaped with relief as he recognized the outlines of the
Sea Hound!

"Everyone okay out there?" came Bud’s familiar voice over the sonophone.

"I am," Tom told him. "Hank?"

"Check," was the reply.

"How about you, Bob?"

The young chemist responded that he was all right but thoroughly mystified by the unknown submarine.

"Aren’t we all!" Bud chuckled, "That’s why I ducked out of sight. Tom, whoever these guys are, they
must’ve
got wind of your planned operations here!"

"It sure looks that way," Tom admitted in a worried voice. "Still, it’s possible that this all has nothing to do with the helium well. They may be involved in some other kind of research—or something illegal—and could be keeping tabs on the general area electronically. Anything on your scope,
Sea Hound?"

"As Chow would say,
She went a-goin’ round the mountain when she went!
We can’t see her—she can’t see us."

"So let’s get on with the drilling."

"Roger!" Bud replied. "I mean—"

"Never mind!" Tom chuckled.

The tubular capping device was already in place at the top the hole cut by the blaster. The power was turned on and the capper ground itself solidly into the underlying rock. Once again Tom remotely closed the circuit to the blaster’s atom-power plant and the machine responded instantly, resuming its angled boring into the sea floor. Several minutes later a hissing roar, deep and muffled, reverberated through the dark waters and the ocean bed itself.

"We’ve struck gas, I think!" Tom cried out to his companions jubilantly.

Now came an especially delicate part of the drilling operation. Handling the controls deftly, Tom brought the blaster zooming backward up to the top of the shaft on its spiked guide-wheels. There was a noise like a cork being pulled from a fizzy champagne bottle as the blaster cleared the surface of the sea floor. Then a terrific geyser of helium gas came thundering upward through the aperture of the cap!

"There she is, skipper! Nice going!" Bud cheered from the
Sea Hound.

Dr. Clisby added his congratulations. "I’ll await the sample, but it’s obviously helium, Tom. Magnificent work!"

Tom turned the controls that closed off the well, stopping the flow of gas from beneath the undersea mountain. Then the work crew stowed the earth blaster away in the seacop’s exterior hold.

After the three took a last look at the capping mechanism, sealed and silent, Tom was flushed with happiness and sheer relief. He sonophoned the other aquanauts to return to the seacopter—the work was done for the day.

His words were cut short by a strangled cry. "Help! S-something’s gone wrong with my air supply!" It was Bob Anchor’s voice.
"I can’t b-breathe!
I’m losing—"

The call died away in a choking gasp!

"QUICK! We must get him back to the ship!" Tom urged Hank.

In agonized suspense the two jetted through the water as fast as they could to their friend’s side. Through the viewdome they could see Bob’s eyes bulging, his face turning reddish purple!

"We’ve got to hurry!" Tom urged. A stark fear welled up from the back of his mind.

Had the phantom submarine somehow exposed Bob to the deadly neurotoxin? And would Hank and Tom be the next to experience its horrifying effects?

Tom and Hank desperately grasped the helpless form in their metal hands, standing on either side. As they half-carried, half-dragged Bob’s Fat Man toward the seacopter, Tom noted with thanks that Bud, overhearing the crisis, had steered the
Sea Hound
nearer and opened the aquatic hatch. Bob was roughly thrust aboard and the hatch sealed behind them. As the water in the lock was pumped away, Tom ordered Bud to keep the inner hatch tightly closed.

"We don’t know what we’re dealing with," he murmured. Bud and Dr. Clisby grasped his unuttered meaning.

Tom and Hank remained sealed in their own suits as a precaution while they used the emergency release lever to force open Bob’s suit. The scientist lay collapsed against his safety restraints. His mouth hung open. For a terrible moment Tom felt certain he was not alive. But then Anchor’s chest heaved and he began gasping for air.

"Can you hear me?" Tom asked over his suit’s external speaker.

Bob forced a nod, his eyes fluttering open. "I’m all right!" he mouthed weakly.

Dr. Clisby was observing them through the small port in the airlock hatch, his face gray with fear for his colleague. Holding a microphone to his lips, he told them: "His reaction does not indicate an effect of the toxin. I’m testing the water and air… yes, it appears to be safe." At Tom’s okay, the hatch to the cabin was opened and Bud and Clisby rushed in to help Bob while Tom and Hank wriggled out of their suits.

Bob was carried to the aft cabin of the seacopter, where a bunk was folded down from the curving bulkhead for him to rest on. As Tom rushed to his side, he gave the young inventor a pained, apologetic look. "I don’t know what happened out there," he said. "I couldn’t catch my breath—guess I panicked."

"No one could blame you," offered Dr. Clisby gently. Tom could sense the warm affection between the two scientists.

"What went wrong?" Bud queried.

"Something happened to his air supply," Tom replied. Taking a small kit of tools, he crawled inside the defective Fat Man and tinkered for several minutes.

"Flutter valve was jammed shut," he announced as he emerged from the suit. "But it’s fixed now."

Hank Sterling received Tom’s news with a frown of disbelief. "Those valves are checked and cleaned regularly. It’s standard procedure."

Tom gave a wry nod. "Right. And it was standard procedure to inspect the pressure tank walls, too."

"It’s no accident," declared Bud firmly. "The Moby gang plans to get us all out of the picture any way they can!" Tom could only respond with a shrug.

The near-tragic accident was temporarily forgotten when the group excitedly discussed the helium strike on the mountain shelf. "Judging by the quantity of gas bubbles, this whole area is loaded with helium!" Bob Anchor declared.

"Fine," said Bud. "Now genius boy here has to work some inventive magic so we can work the mine!"

Tom said nothing, deep in thought. An astonishing idea had suddenly burst upon his inventive mind! He turned to the controls and began guiding the seacopter back to Fearing Island, where the
Sky Queen
awaited them.

Day after day Tom’s family and friends found him preoccupied, in a mood of quiet intensity. When his mother expressed some motherly concern, he explained that he was trying to work out "a very strange solution" to the vexing challenge of setting up a permanent workers’ camp at the deep-sea helium site. "If I’m right, Mom—if it works—the whole problem of pressure will be behind us! It’ll revolutionize man’s ability to work in the depths of the ocean!" But he politely refused to describe his invention.

One evening, as Tom worked late at Enterprises once again, Damon and Anne Swift discussed the matter in the Swift living room as Sandy listened, playing with her pet cockatiel Featherbee.

"What happens if he just
can’t
solve the problem?" asked Mrs. Swift. "Our son is brilliant, but some things just can’t be done. We never taught him to accept that."

Mr. Swift nodded. "I never could either—neither could my Grandfather Tom. In the blood, I suppose." He turned to Sandy. "And as for you, sweetheart, I think you’re blessed with the same streak of stubbornness—aren’t you still trying to crack the Jack the Ripper case?" Sandy’s love of true-crime mysteries was a family joke.

"Don’t think I’m not making progress, Daddy," she replied blithely. "As for bringing brother Tom back to earth, I have a plan—but it needs the approval of the Swift Enterprises CEO." She smiled sweetly and ominously.

The day following, a warm afternoon, two figures hopped off the Enterprises ridewalk in front of the immersion dynamics laboratory, a large free-standing structure at the outskirts of the plant near the observatory dome. They were garbed in shorts and bright-colored sweatshirts, their eyes masked by stylish sunglasses.

"We really don’t want to walk in on him, Sandra," said Bashalli Prandit with a toss of her long raven-black hair. "Not that he does not deserve to be interrupted. But it would not be a proper ambush."

"Daddy called Tom up to the office," replied Sandy. "Just before you arrived—late!—he told me by cellphone Tom was on his way. He’ll keep him there for twenty minutes—long enough for us to slip into the pool." Sandy took the small electri-key her father had left for her and aimed it at the door to the building. It popped open with a slight beep. Sandy entered and switched on the overhead fluorescent tubes.

Tom had been working steadily in this building for several days, trying to perfect a mysterious new invention that required testing in a large body of salt water that replicated the general composition of the mid-Atlantic. His sister and Bashalli, a young Pakistani who was a close family friend, were determined to startle the young inventor away from his labors for an afternoon of fun on Lake Carlopa. Here the Swifts maintained a sleek little sailboat, the
Mary Nestor.

"Now what do you suppose that is?" asked Bashalli as she followed Sandy into the lab. Next to the north wall, about twenty feet from the edge of the pool, an open metal framework had been set up. It appeared firmly bolted to the concrete floor. At the top of the framework tower, held in place by clamps, was an odd-looking jumble of electronics equipment trailing down thick power cables. A knob-studded control console stood nearby, a silent blank-faced sentinel.

"Oh, that must be what Tom is working on—his new water invention," said Sandy, pulling off her sweatshirt to reveal her swim top. "Ugh! I hope he improves the look of it before he puts it on the market."

"Do you know what it does?"

"Not a clue, Bashi. Don’t you hate it when boys play coy?"

The girls removed their shoes and outer clothing, stashing them out of sight.

Carrying a small beanbag intended for playing catch in the water, Sandy approached the edge of the immersion pool—as large and deep as a conventional swimming pool—and gazed down into the clear water. "Oh dear, we’ve made a mistake. This isn’t salt water at all. It’s some kind of acid! Can’t you smell it? Well, I guess we’ll—
ohhh!"
Arms whirling, she tumbled into the water with what was calculated to sound like a dire shriek.

Bashalli approached her floundering friend. "That was
hardly
convincing, Sandra. I recommend that you keep your day job."

Sandy responded by splashing her crony. "You’re just heartless. Come in—it’s a little cool but not too bad. Like the ocean. Oh—switch off the lights first."

Bashalli complied, then used the railed steps to slip gracefully into the pool. The only light in the lab came from some illuminated dials on the control board. That was fine with the girls. They intended to lie in wait for Tom in the water, then pop up with a banshee cry when the young inventor switched on the lights.