Tom Swift and His Electronic Retroscope (6 page)

"Then to anticipate you," the archaeologist interrupted, "I would suppose you to have a devilishly ingenious method that allows you to ‘read’ the general layout of these flipped particles. And from that you can derive the corresponding pattern of cosmic-ray penetration. And there’s your picture. That it?"

Tom grinned. "Simple, isn’t it? Now, my camera here has two detectors. One scans the whole surface of the rock to probe out areas—called
domains
—of shared magnetic-dipole orientation; this gives us a baseline for comparison. The other uses a spectronic scanning beam to map out the quantized—"

Hutchcraft suddenly slid onto his feet and stretched. "All very interesting, and now my curiosity is satisfied—in fact, saturated. I believe I’ll have a bite to eat." He turned his back on the young inventor and ambled out of the hut, leaving Tom with a disbelieving grin at the older man’s self-centered abruptness.

Early the next day, before the humidity became too steamy, Tom trudged over to the grounded paraplane carrying the patching kit, Bud and Chow following. Wilson Hutchcraft, invited to watch as a courtesy, remained behind, saying he saw no reason to waste his energy unnecessarily.

"Wa-aal, I’ll be a horned toad!" Chow grumbled under his breath.

Arriving at the paraplane, Chow cast a critical eye on the rip in the liftbag. "Don’t look all that long t’ me, boss."

Tom gave a wry smile. "It’s enough. Unfortunately the arrow struck right along one of the transifoil strips, and the bag tore a ways along the seam. Seems I didn’t ‘weld’ the pieces together as durably as I thought."

"Which reminds me, genius boy," Bud remarked, "we still have no clue as to who shot that millionaire-arrow."

"Got me an inkling," muttered Chow, eyes narrowed.

Tom knew what he was thinking. "So far, Hutchcraft hasn’t been murderous," he pointed out; "just obnoxious." But Tom’s silent thoughts continued further:
As an archaeologist, he sure was in a good position to come up with that sort of old-style Mayan arrowhead!

The rip was easily repaired to Tom’s satisfaction, and he tested the seal with a small hand-held instrument.

"Looks okay," pronounced the youth. "Let’s take ’er up—I told Slim I’d make a run over the
Sky Queen
and dip my wings. I’ll land the plane as close to the village as possible." The three climbed aboard.

Tom took his place at the controls, gave them a cursory check, and opened the release valve for the reserve helium tank. Tom waited for the liftbag to expand and become rigid as the transifoil strips responded automatically to the rising pressure of the helium gas within. But nothing happened! The liftbag remained limp and folded.

"What’s wrong?" Bud asked.

"Don’t know," Tom replied in a puzzled voice. "Maybe a loose connection in the transifoil power feed." When the instruments had eliminated this possibility, Tom said: "I’d better check the tank."

A moment later, after inspecting the secondary pressure gauge built into the reserve tank itself, he turned a grave face to his companions.

"The tank’s empty!" Tom reported.

BUD sprang out of his seat and scrambled aft to join the young inventor. "You mean the liquid helium leaked out?" he asked in alarm.

"It leaked out all right," Tom replied grimly. "Look here, flyboy. The loading cock is wide open."

"Good grief! How did that happen?"

Tom gave a worried shrug. "Maybe I got careless and popped it accidentally from the control board—maybe. But frankly, I don’t remember even touching the lever before we left the ship. How about you two?"

Both Bud and Chow denied knowing anything about it. Chow, who was dripping with sweat and fanning himself with a sombrero given him by Professor Castillez, added, "Mebbe it’s this broilin’ hot weather. Must’ve made the helium swell up an’ bust out—like th’ vapor-lock on a car."

Tom shook his head. "The tank insulation protects it from the heat. And besides, the helium wouldn’t expand enough to force the loading cock!" He wondered uneasily if someone might have tampered with the plane during their absence, and said so.

Bud looked dangerous. "Easy bet as to who we’re all thinking about!"

"We’d better check out the whole ship to make sure nothing else is wrong," Tom decided.

With Bud’s help, Tom hastily checked the jet engines, landing gear, instruments, and other parts. But the paraplane showed no other sign of sabotage.

"Okey-doke then. Now what?" Chow asked.

Tom shrugged. "Looks as if we’ll have to drive back to the
Sky Queen
and pick up another full tank."

Chow looked pained at this announcement. "No offense, boss, but mebbe I’ll jest stay behind this time. Still got those recipes t’ collect."

"What about the plane?" demanded Bud. "You’re not going to abandon it here, are you?"

Tom hesitated, turning the matter over rapidly in his mind. "Look," he said to Bud and Chow, "now that I know the way, I’ll drive back to the
Queen
alone this afternoon, and spend the night. I’ll use the rest of the morning to rig up an alarm system for the paraplane, the same sort of thing we have around the house in Shopton, but with a remote beeper. Would you two mind keeping an
ear
on it until I get back?"

Both agreed readily.

Climbing back aboard the paraplane, Tom made radio contact with the
Sky Queen
.

"So how come you’re not upstairs, as you planned?" Slim Davis asked. "Anything wrong?"

Tom reported the mysterious loss of helium from the plane’s tanks. "We’ll have to leave the paraplane here for the time being," he concluded. "I’ll see you guys by sundown."

"Fine place you picked to run out of gas!" Slim gibed.

"Tell
me about it! But don’t sell us short—I’ll get ’er fixed. I mean, the future of the airship is at stake!" Tom joked.

The drive back to the Flying Lab was long, hot, and uneventful. Arriving at twilight, Tom had a satisfying supper aboard, then contacted Huratlcuyon, transmitting to Professor Castillez’s short-wave radio.

"All is quiet here, Tom," reported Castillez. "I have been half-listening for the buzz of your alarm-monitor, but there is nothing so far."

"Good," commented Tom. "Maybe we’ll all manage a good night’s sleep tonight."

First, however, the young inventor felt moved to work on a technical challenge that had occupied his mind during the long drive from the village. He headed for his electronics work-module, one of the small compartments on deck two. A crewman, Dick Folsom, stopped him on his way for a moment of conversation.

"Cooking up something new in your mini-lab, chief?"

"Not exactly
new,
but definitely
smaller,"
was the reply. "At present the baseline-detector apparatus sits as a separate unit—another big box to lug around, along with the camera console itself and the other parts. I have a notion I can miniaturize that phase of the process and bolt the equipment right on to the main camera body."

"Boy, you’ve got a job on your hands, skipper." Dick frowned as he examined with a professional eye a sketch Tom had made in his notebook. "Neat concept. But my guess is that redesigning your camera ‘eyes’ will take at least a week’s work back at the plant."

"Can’t wait that long—I need the retroscope now, while we’re here in Yucatan. I’m a pretty impatient guy!" Tom ran his fingers through his ragged blond crewcut. "Maybe I’m taking a long shot, but I’m going to try turning out a new rig right here in the Flying Lab."

"Tall order, Tom!" Dick whistled. "But you can do it if anyone can. I’d better clear out, so you can work undisturbed."

Dick Folsom had hardly walked away when Tom plunged into his problem full-throttle. He whipped out a sophisticated calculator and began applying its results to a circuit diagram taking shape on his design flatscreen.

"One thing’s certain," Tom murmured to himself. "To get fine detail in the picture and still keep the rig down to portable size, I’ll have to miniaturize the whole scanning apparatus. Maybe I can cut a few corners by a parallel-processing gimmick…"

Hours went by. Tom’s desk-workbench became littered with scribbled equations, exclamation-marked notes, and sketches of parts layouts. Finally he broke off long enough to buzz the galley over the intercom and ask for food. Slim Davis responded. "You still hard at it, Tom?" he asked in amused surprise. "I just dropped by for an after-midnight snack."

"After
midnight?" Tom laughed out loud at himself. "And I was planning a solid night’s sleep!"

But he was hot on the trail and couldn’t bear to stop. By two o’clock Tom had begun to rig up the new miniaturized detector component for testing, even though he was still not certain he had licked the problems completely. Some time later he glanced at his wristwatch.

"Ten after four!" The young inventor gave a whistle. "What a skullcracker this turned out to be! Dick sure wasn’t kidding when he guessed it would take a week’s work."

Yawning wide and leaning back on his work stool, Tom stretched his cramped limbs.
Sure wish Bud and Chow were here,
he thought wistfully. Bud’s breezy quips and Chow’s many puzzled questions not only gave Tom a lift, but often played a part in giving him a new insight into whatever problem he was tackling.

Soon he was back at work assembling a spiderweb-like mass of tiny micro-components—transistors, diodes, triodes, anodes, magnetodes, and other solid-state odes to modern genius. But presently Tom’s head slumped toward the workbench and he drowsed off from sheer exhaustion, dreaming of numbers.

Meanwhile, Bud Barclay and Chow were turning and tossing in their hammocks back in the Mayan village. A horde of tiny insects buzzed maddeningly outside their mosquito netting.

Presently Bud whispered,
"Hey, Chow!
You awake?"

"I sure am," the cook grunted softly, careful not to disturb Doc Simpson. He managed to lean over close to Bud’s ear, wrapped in his netting. "These pesky flyin’ buzzsaws are drivin’ me plumb loco, let alone all them jungle noises out there. I’m purt near sure I heard that jaguar!"

"You suppose the paraplane’s safe?"

Chow raised up on one shoulder. The moonlight shining in through the door of the hut showed a worried look on his weather-beaten face. He whispered in reply, "It
better
be if we’re ever aimin’ to get out o’ this jungle. Why? You figger it ain’t?"

"I don’t know what to figure," Bud replied restlessly. Throwing off the netting, he got onto his feet and padded softly to the open hut door. Suddenly, as if alarmed, he beckoned for Chow to join him.

"Whatsamatter, Buddy Boy?" demanded the Texan as they both stepped out into the open. "Didn’t hear that alarm-beeper go off."

"It didn’t," Bud hissed, "but look over there!"

"Don’t see nothin’."

"That’s the point, Chow.
Where’s Hutchcraft?"

The Bostonian’s sleeping bag was zippered and empty!

"Aw nuts!" Chow groaned. "That big-brained sidewinder’s prob’ly off messin’ with somethin’ else on Tom’s balloon-plane."

"Absolutely!" Bud grated. "With Tom gone, he must figure it’s a great night to come back and pull another trick!"

The cook exclaimed in muted alarm. "Brand my britches, now you got me worried! Come on, Buddy Boy. You an’ me better hop out there an’ take a look-see—jest to make sure!"

As if to emphasize the point, the monitor clipped to Bud’s elastic waistband suddenly gave forth a chirp of warning.
Someone had tripped the plane’s alarm system!

Pulling on some clothes to keep the darting night insects at bay, the pair tiptoed out of the hut and made their way through the sleeping village and along the half-hidden jungle path to the paraplane site. As they passed the outer fringe of brush, stepping into the deeply-shadowed clearing, Bud suddenly grabbed Chow’s arm. Chow gave a hoarse croak and froze in his tracks. "B-B-Bud!" he gasped.
"D’you see what I see?"

"I sure do!"

The two could hardly believe their eyes. A huge hulking figure, which looked at least eight feet tall, was moving furtively near the nose of the paraplane! Suddenly the silhouette froze, as if listening, then darted off with surprising nimbleness into the leafy underbrush.

"What in tarnation was it?" Chow gulped. "A g’rilla?"

"Not around here." Gathering his wits, Bud spurted forward. "Come on! Let’s see where it went, whatever it is! I want a closer look!"

Together, they reached the plane and plunged into the underbrush on the far side where the giant form had disappeared.

"Leapin’ rattlesnakes!" Chow quavered, as they groped about among the tangled creepers and head-high jungle growth. "It’s so dark in here I can’t tell which is you an’ which is me!"

His nervous wisecrack seemed hardly an exaggeration. Scarcely a ray of starlight pierced the darkness, now that they had left the beaten trail. The leafy canopy above them was too densely overgrown.

"Guess you’re right," Bud agreed. "We don’t stand much chance of finding him—or it—now."

Giving up the search, they backtracked to the paraplane and Bud, an expert pilot, made a quick check of it. Everything seemed to be in order.

"What do we do now, pardner?" Chow asked.

Bud shrugged helplessly. "Not much we
can
do, I guess. Whatever that was we saw, I have a hunch it won’t risk a return visit—not tonight, anyhow."

"An’ I got m’self a hunch o’ my own," declared Chow. "What-so-ever that spooky giant turns out to be, my
hunch
connects it up to a
Hutch
—meanin’ that there Mr. Fancy-Pants hisself,
Hutchcraft!"

AS THE sun mounted high the next morning, Bud made a call to the Flying Lab, anxious to tell Tom about the night’s hulking phantom. The skyship’s flight engineer, Jack Murray, answered the signal. "Our ol’ junior genius is fast asleep, sleeping in," he reported with a half-chuckle. "Had one of his late-night inventing sprees. Shall I wake him?"

"No, that’s okay," Bud replied. "It’ll keep till he gets here this afternoon."