Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere (3 page)

THAT EVENING the Shopton vacationers and the Prandits were invited by Prince Jahan to dine with him in the huge royal suite in the hotel. "This here’s quite a spread," conceded Chow, dressed up in a manner that almost fit the dignity of the occasion and the formal elegance of the table. "Lookit all them silver pots ’n pans ’n suchlike."

"Miss your spangled shirt and ten-gallon hat, pardner?" teased Bud.

"Naw, buddy boy. Too busy thinkin’ about which blame fork goes with what."

Tom leaned over to ask, "Chow, whatever happened to that great wild west tux you put together for the banquet in Montaguaya?"

"Don’t fit. Guess I’m still growin’."

The Prince, only a few years older than Tom and Bud, was charming, witty, and well-educated, speaking English flawlessly. "Miss Prandit, the photograph we gave my searchers did not do justice to your radiance."

Bashalli radiated all the more in a somewhat fluttering way. "Ohhh, Your Highness is most perceptive. Flattering, that is."

Compliments were lobbed in Sandy’s direction as well. Both girls seemed about to tip over the edge into uncontrolled giddiness. At times Bud and Tom looked like two captive gentlemen too polite to frown—barely. Yet it was clear that Jahan’s comments were cultured gallantry and represented no more than the proprieties of royal etiquette.

"Gotta be perlite at these here things," Chow whispered to Tom reassuringly. "Their heads’ll turn back around after a good night’s sleep."

"Assuming they don’t dream," Bud amended.

As Bashalli’s ordeal wasn’t right for the mood of the occasion, the talk evolved in other directions. Tom discussed the two satellite mysteries his father had brought to his attention. "Now don’t anyone start tossing forks my way," he begged sheepishly, "but I think Dad would like me to cut the vacation short and head home. He was going to transmit some details that explained the seriousness of the problem with the Titan probe."

"The Kronus," said Jahan musingly; "named for a demigod of the Greeks, one of the Titans, who deposed his father." There was a darkness on his face, but then he brightened and continued. "But in space the father of the moon Titan is the planet Saturn, the god whose domain is time, years, and the wisdom of age. I am young, but I hope I have a trace of such wisdom."

"You seem to be doing all right," Sandy piped up with faint breath.

"Thank you indeed, Miss Swift. In fact, perhaps it is such wisdom that prompts me to make a suggestion as to how to extend your vacation even as Tom returns to America."

"Oh? What’s your idea, Your Highness?" Tom inquired.

"Please, all of you—I am Jahan. As to my suggestion, why do you not join me on my jet and return with me to my country when I finish my trade mission here?"

Bud looked openly skeptical. " ‘You’ means
who
—Jahan? Not just the girls, right?"

The Prince smiled good-naturedly. "I fully intend to preserve and honor the reputations of these young ladies, Mr. Barclay. I extend my invitation to all of you who can accept—including, naturally, Mr. and Mrs. Prandit. One of our festivals is coming up. You will find it fascinating, I think. And thus our Tom here will be free to return to America aboard the majestic
Sky Queen
without having the holiday cut short for the rest of you."

It was clear that the girls wanted very badly to accept. But Sandy touched Bash’s arm and glanced at her brother. "Jahan, what a great invitation, but—we’ll have to discuss it a little."

"Yes, of course. You must speak to your own parents in Shopton, and no doubt Mr. Winkler must consult with Mrs. Winkler."

Chow snorted courteously. "I left off askin’ permission from Ma back when I still had hair."

Over a sumptuous dessert Mr. Prandit politely asked his royal host about the political situation in Vishnapur. "I do recall some mention in the papers of certain recent difficulties, my dear sir."

"Yes. The matter of the succession," replied Jahan soberly. "It is not a situation that would stir up any threat to foreign visitors. The question has reached a satisfactory conclusion."

"I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it," Tom said.

"Perhaps you would not find it as interesting as we do in Vishnapur."

Sandy spoke hesitantly. "I read—mm—about the—how you― "

The Prince smiled, if some grimly. "Don’t be embarrassed to mention it. It’s all public knowledge. You see, Tom, all of you, my father the King died three years ago. As Crown Prince I naturally expected that I would ascend to the throne at the end of the official mourning period. But on his deathbed Father promulgated what amounts to a will. Without explanation he altered the line of succession, which is permitted by our laws and ancient customs. His brother Glaudiunda was crowned
nej’h
—that is, King. His eldest son, my cousin Vusungira, is now Crown Prince. So you see, my friends, I have been demoted."

"Ouch!" gulped Bud. "Must’ve hurt."

"There was more hurt to come." Prince Jahan was silent for a moment. "His Majesty chose to revive an ancient tradition of my country. He claimed as his wife the former King’s widow. And so my mother, Aju, continues as Queen of Vishnapur—my mother, who is now also my aunt."

Chow ventured a comment. "Reminds me of a movie I saw’r once. Hope ever’thing works out better fer you than it did fer those poor folks with their swords."

"I hope so too, Mr. Winkler."

Tom said, "We’re all most appreciative for your invitation, Jahan."

"Perhaps, then, I might ask of you one small service in return?"

"Of course."

"A small group of my countrymen is now in New York City on a mission of importance, not unlike my own here," the Prince explained. "But in this case it is not a trade mission. They are visiting as students, engineers in training who have a special interest in scientific and technical matters. It would greatly honor my country if you would permit them to visit Swift Enterprises during their sojourn—particularly as it includes the Crown Prince, who shares these inclinations." He added: "For the good of my country, we wish more of our professional people to learn how things are done in the western world."

"Oughta go t’ San Antone," Chow remarked. "That there’s about as western as you kin get."

Tom smiled and nodded to the Prince. "We’ll welcome their visit. I’ll serve as their guide myself."

"Most kind."

After discussing the matter with Mr. Swift and with Harlan Ames, Tom told Prince Jahan next morning that they would be honored to accept his invitation to Vishnapur. "I know Sandy and Bashalli are thrilled. My friend Bud and I will fly back to America on our jetcraft. I think my work in Shopton won’t require me for too many days. We’ll fly to Vishnapur in the
Queen
to take everyone home after your festival is over. Perhaps we can even catch some of it."

It was the afternoon after the dinner—the day after Bashalli’s terrifying experience—when the two jets headed off in opposite directions. As Luke Tor piloted the Flying Lab across southern Europe and then the cellophane carpet of the Atlantic, the young inventor discussed with Bud what his father had transmitted concerning the Kronus satellite problem. "Basically, the satellite’s orbit has shifted in a way that takes it too close to the edge of the Titanian atmosphere, for some reason no one yet understands. It’s no longer circling in a stable way, and there’s not enough fuel left in the maneuvering thrusters to correct it. As the parameters change—the orbital perigee and apogee—there’s real concern that the Kronus will end up plunging into the atmosphere of Titan all the way."

Bud nodded—but shrugged. "Too bad for space science, I guess. But pal, how is that any kind of crisis?"

"There are some complicating factors that make it a lot more serious than it sounds." Tom reminded his chum that Titan, large as a planet, was the only moon in the solar system to have an appreciable atmosphere. "Hydrocarbon rains, lightning, oceans of methane—and trapped heat emanating from its core, which may be generated by the crunch of tidal interactions with Saturn. It all adds up to the possibility that organic materials may have started forming, just as they did when Earth had a similar environment."

"Way back when," joked Bud. "So they’re thinking something may be living up there?"

"There’s well-reasoned speculation that Titanian life is at
least
possible. There may even be oceans of liquid water down deep under the surface ice. We’re not sure yet."

"I get it, but I still don’t see― "

"Flyboy, the problem in a nutshell is this," continued Tom seriously. "The Kronus relies on a midget nuke reactor for power, so as to avoid power loss during orbit, when the satellite crosses into the shadow of Titan—not to mention similar problems when Titan itself is on the shadow-side of Saturn. The team running the project calculates a better-than-even chance that the reactor core won’t burn up during the plunge, but will shoot right through the ice layer, into—whatever’s down there."

"Good night! You mean there’ll be an atomic explosion?"

"Well—no," Tom smiled. "But contamination of a possible biosphere with radioactive waste is pretty dire. It could certainly compromise future bioscience explorations of Titan."

"Yeah, not to mention making the Titanian fish pretty mad at Earth!" The young Californian asked his pal what Enterprises was being asked to do.

"They want us to study the problem and see if we can come up with a scientific solution."

Bud chuckled. "In other words, an emergency Tom Swift invention, made to order! But look, isn’t the solution pretty simple? Let’s fly out to Saturn and pick up this Kronus gizmo—or maybe just shove it back into the right orbit."

Tom knew Bud had in mind Enterprises’ huge spacecraft the
Challenger
, which thrust through space on the force-beams of Tom’s versatile matter-repelling devices, the repelatrons. The ship had already taken them to the Moon, to the vicinity of Venus, and recently to an intruding space object called the Green Orb. "No time for that, Bud. The Kronus orbit is shifting rapidly, and will probably go critical in a matter of weeks. Even if we exceeded our usual constant-1G acceleration, it would take
months
for us to reach Saturn in the
Challenger
."

"Then I’ll return to my starting shrug. What can you
possibly
do, Tom? How do you fix a problem that’s hundreds of billions of miles away?"

"If my brain knows, chum—it hasn’t told me yet!"

The
Sky Queen
touched down in Shopton at dinner time, and Tom and Bud had supper at the Swift home near the gates of Enterprises.

"What a horrible thing for Bashalli to endure!" exclaimed Mrs. Swift feelingly. "Fortunately, her brother here had barely learned of it when he got word that she was safe. What was the motive, do you suppose?"

Tom answered, "They say it was probably to embarrass us ‘foreign entanglers’ and gain status—with a little ransom on the side. Seems it’s all too common in that part of the world."

Mr. Swift added, "This Prince Jahan seems a remarkable young man. According to our various sources, he’s universally regarded as intelligent and honest—excellent character. Our State Department was rather disappointed at the change in succession. No one knows a great deal about the new King and his son."

"Sandy and Bash are sure to get a lot of info about all these guys," Bud noted.

"But you know, the best source of information may be good old Chow," said Tom. "He’s always had a good nose for character."

Bud nodded. "Absolutely. It’s the best part of his face."

The next day, working in his office at Swift Enterprises, Tom took a telephone call from Professor O’Malan, the physicist leading the GenRev satellite team in Toronto. "Tom, I know your father has briefed you on the problem with our satellite."

"Have you determined the cause of the episode, sir?"

"We’ve made zero progress," replied the man disgustedly. "Thus far we’ve deduced nothing from studying the orbital parameters—no change whatsoever. We can rule out a meteoroid collision or some unexplained explosive event inside the GenRev itself. It simply fails to respond. Absolutely dead."

"What I find especially strange," said Tom, "is the fact that
all
its systems went ‘absolutely dead’ at the same moment, even those operating on separate batteries."

"Which includes your own Swift Enterprises solar batteries. We can’t explain the matter, and have no way to investigate it further—unless― "

Tom grinned. Expectation fulfilled! "Unless Enterprises goes up and brings it back to you."

"The GenRev’s ‘black box’ should tell us the details of the event. But as it’s not transmitting, it seems we’ll have to download its data directly, here in mission control."

"I’ll be glad to perform ‘towing services,’ Professor," replied the youth. "In fact it’s pretty convenient patrolling the local spacelanes now that we have a midget vehicle available to us here at the plant."

There was no reason to wait. In an hour Tom and Bud were rising—with somewhat frustrating slowness—through the atmosphere in the young inventor’s remarkable Space Kite.

"She may not be fast," remarked Bud, "and she’s sure no
Challenger
, but I get a kick out of this little cosmic compact. It’s weird to think, though—the wind of particles that pushes her along is sweeping right up through the earth and through
us
even as we go!"

"The subtrinos
are
weird, flyboy, and they’ve set off quite a revolution in the physics community. Which reminds me..."

"Hmm?"

"I’ve been in touch lately with that Australian scientist who discovered the subtrino, Dr. Clarke MacIllheny."

"Found anything exciting out there in the desert with that big racetrack of his?"

Tom nodded, with a chuckle accompaniment. "Since the Hyper-Celerator was rebuilt, he’s been pursuing a few interesting leads on what he calls his ‘polar ray investigation’."

"Polar ray. Should I go for it?" Bud pretended to muse. "Ahem.
So, Tom, polar rays, hunh? Opening a tanning parlor in Antarctica?
—No need to laugh, pal. I’m just exercising."