Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere (5 page)

"Which may mean little, of course. Have you checked with Vishnapur’s representative in Washington?" Tom asked.

The security man nodded. "The official himself got a similar note hours ago. He was very much upset—seemed to think the warning may be authentic, since Vishnapur is in a state of political unrest."

"Right, because of the succession controversy, I guess." But Tom recalled that Prince Jahan has assured him that matters had been settled, making it safe for the Shoptonians to visit. What was the truth of the matter?

Radnor asked, "What exactly
is
this ‘mission’ business, anyway? Why are these people coming to Enterprises?"

Tom soberly, and Bud excitedly, described how Bashalli’s brief kidnapping in Pakistan had led to the favor Prince Jahan had asked of Tom. "I did a little Net research on the flight back to New York," Tom said. "Vishnapur puts out an English-language newspaper for the international community called
Enlightened Times
. This current ‘mission’ is part of a continuing effort to teach members of the leading class, the educated people, about the Western world—especially as regards scientific research, engineering, and technology. It’s hoped that they might modernize their country and raise its living standards. I guess most Vishnapuris are poor." The new ruler’s son, Crown Prince Vusungira, had been sent to America with the group not only as part of his education as an engineer, but to better prepare him for his eventual political role.

When Radnor commented that the visitors were scheduled to arrive the next morning, Bud asked, "Did anyone check out these brain boys before they made final arrangements to come to Enterprises?"

"As thoroughly as we could," Radnor said. "Harlan took charge of it. But you know," he continued, "Vishnapur is located deep in the Himalayas. Hardly any Westerners are allowed to enter, though that seems to be changing now. Our State Department got a rundown on each of the students, but mostly had to take Vishnapur’s official word that they were okay."

Tom looked thoughtful. "Rad, we shouldn’t take any hasty action in response to that mailed warning. If we turn back or restrain the whole group as security risks—especially when one’s the son of the King—it could wreck friendly relations between our countries and set back their own policy of modernization. Let’s check into this tip-off first."

"But what if one of them
is
a spy?" Bud demanded.

"They’ll all have the customary security scans with our detector instruments," Tom pointed out. "Besides, he can’t do much harm even if we wait a bit. The students won’t actually have the run of the plant, and it’ll just be for a few days. As far as my lecture-demonstration goes, and my—mm,
tour-guide
work, I won’t be giving away any great secrets. If somebody wants to copy my electrodynamic controller device, more
power
to ’em!"

But Tom did agree that Ames and Radnor should keep the student engineers discreetly under watch. "Especially since one of them is supposed to be
deadly
!" he joked. "Oh—any leads on who might’ve been behind the kidnapping incident?"

"Not yet," Radnor replied. "According to Ames, the consensus of opinion is that it was just another of the incidents perpetrated by the many competing factions there. It’s like street gangs defending their turf and one-upping each other. There’s probably no real ‘mastermind’ behind it."

Everyone ended up sleeping on the problem; whichever problem they chose.

The eight young men from Vishnapur—Tom gathered that it was not yet considered suitable for women to enter the field—arrived in Shopton the morning following, and were greeted at Enterprises by Tom’s father. After some words of formal welcome, the Vishnapurians filed into Tom’s lab. Crown Prince Vusungira came first, the others following respectfully. All wore Western-style slacks and sportcoats and were bareheaded and mostly bespectacled, except the prince. He always appeared publically in a white turban, which was studded with a large star sapphire to mark his royal rank.

"
Namaste
!" The students smiled at Tom and Bud and made the usual gesture of greeting—bobbing their heads and pressing their palms together with the fingers pointed upward, as was their ancient custom.

Of the eight students, most looked like typical, handsome East Indians, with olive complexions, jet-black hair, and flashing white teeth. But a couple were almond-eyed, and seemed more Asiatic.

After acknowledging His Majesty the Crown Prince, Tom took his place at a central workbench and explained, "I thought you might like to start off by seeing some experiments I’ve been working on lately."

A device stood on the bench in front of Tom. It consisted of a round, insulated base with a slender metal rod sticking up which served as the axis for two spheres of crystal, one inside the other. Two coils were mounted on the machine, one above and one below the assemblage of crystal globes and wrapping about the axis. Within the gap that surrounded and separated the two spheres could be seen an encircling silver ring. A thick cable led from the base to a portable electronic console.

"Ah! It will be most rewarding to see the latest invention of the famous Tom Swift!" said a big-haired student named Rakshi, who appeared to have become "westernized" already. "These globes—made of quartz?"

"A special kind of quartz, doped with fine filaments of semiconductor material from our source in New Guinea."

One of the young men nudged another and said softly in English, "The rare-earths mine—
Ultrasonic Cycloplane
!"

Bud grinned. "Right!"

"And this isn’t an ‘invention’ yet," Tom said. "It’s a test prototype our miniaturization engineer, Arvid Hanson, prepared to allow for some research into advanced electrodynamics theory. I’ve already begun the research with a simpler version. This one is more powerful."

"And what shall we call it?" asked Vusungira rather haughtily. "You see, I must prepare reports each day of what I see and learn, to send back to my country."

Tom was silent for a moment, and Bud suddenly realized:
Good night, Tom hasn’t given it a name!

"I’m calling it a—a
polar-ray dynaxializer
," Tom said in a mumble. "—
tron
."

Not for long! Bud promised himself.

"Anyway, I’m working with a physicist in Australia to carry out some experiments in the area of electromagnetic radiation and its propagation through space, based on his recent findings. It’s another aspect of what they call the ‘new physics’." Tom explained that the device used a novel principle to control and change the shape of electrical and magnetic fields and related dipolar phenomena.

Another student spoke up. "My name, sir, is T’yaghokya, and if I may inquire—how is such a thing possible? We have learned that what you refer to involves fundamental constants of the universe. The photons by which electromagnetic energy is conveyed are bound by the strictest of laws. Is this not true?"

Tom accepted the challenge with a smile. "You’ve been well taught. You’re referring to laws involving such physical constants as the
magnetic permeability of free space
and the
dielectric constant
, which nowadays is more often called the
absolute permittivity
of free space. As you know, both are regarded as fundamental properties of space itself—of the vacuum.

"But over time other such presumed constants have been found to be subject to modification under certain circumstances. For example, the constant found in the equations of momentum,
mass
, has been shown to vary at the extremes of velocity, as has the supposed constant of the passage of time. Dr. MacIllheny has discovered a more comprehensive conservation principle that allows electrodynamic permeability and permittivity to be modulated and distorted under the influence of an intense field of space-stressing force." The young inventor noted that he had previously found a way to do something similar in connection with the anti-inverse-square-wave technique utilized by his megascope space prober.

"We have studied that technique," stated the Crown Prince.

Tom reminded the students that the megascope’s method focused artificially generated waves into a beam of constant signal strength, instead of allowing them to radiate outward in all directions, by bending them into a self-containing helical course. "The new approach utilized by this instrument applies to
existing
electromagnetic waves as well—photons already en route, you might say—and also to electrostatic and magnetostatic fields. Now, I’ll demonstrate it."

As the students murmured in anticipation, a number of electroscopes were placed about the room by Bud, who was serving as Tom’s assistant. These were glass jars, each with a metal rod passing through its sulfur stopper. Every rod had a metal ball on top and two thin gold leaves hanging at the bottom inside the jar. Tom took a plastic wand with a metal ball on one end and put an electric charge on the ball by touching it to a high-voltage terminal.

"Of course you all know what will happen when I bring this near the electroscopes," he said.

Tom held the wand near the ball of each electroscope in turn. In every one, the gold leaves swung apart as they became similarly charged by the ball’s induced electrostatic field and repelled each other. The young inventor smiled, knowing that he and Bud were sharing the same thought. A vivid demonstration of the same principle had recently taken place in space!

"As you see, the charged wand has to be very close to the electroscopes because its field is so weak. But now watch what happens when I place the wand next to my dyna—er, my machine here."

Tom put the wand into a clamp, its metal ball-tip almost touching the outside of the crystal globe. Then he twirled several tuning knobs on the console. He swiveled the ring inside the sphere, which pivoted on the spheres’ shared axis rod. As he aimed at each electroscope in turn, its leaves swung open!

"I must say, quite amazing!" Prince Vusungira pronounced with minimum emotion, as if his royal dignity were at risk. "It seems your device has focused and beamed the little ball’s electrostatic field as far as ten meters."

"Ya got it, Vusungira," nodded Bud.

The Crown Prince frowned coldly. "‘Your Highness’ is appropriate. If you please."

Tom rushed in verbally. "But His Highness is correct. The distortion field extends across the lab, and in theory, with a more advanced machine, the range can be almost unlimited," he said. He now made some adjustments to the instrument. As Tom switched it on again, the nested spheres glowed with a bluish-red radiance.

"The space between the inner and outer spheres contains a mixture of gases, including neon and argon, which of course glow under electrical stimulation. When wanted, this model produces its own electrical or magnetic fields, so there’s no need to use an external charged object."

To preface the next part of the demonstration, Tom explained that by shaping the distorting dyna-field into paraboloidal form, he could make use of its ability to bend and reflect electromagnetic radiation. "For any frequency, not just visible light, the field can act as lens, mirror, or prism."

The young inventor demonstrated this by turning on a portable TV set. He tuned his device to the proper frequency and the screen promptly went blank. When Tom turned off his device, the picture appeared again as clearly as ever.

A student spoke up. "The electronic field drew in the whole picture signal so that none was picked up by the TV antenna—is that it?"

"Right, dispersing it away into space," Tom said. "And now for an even more interesting experiment. As you know, white light is made up of the whole spectrum of colors—red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. I’ll tune the field to ‘trap’ light waves of the frequency of green, leaving the other colors unaffected—and watch what happens to the ambient light in the lab."

Everyone stared with wide eyes as the light from the windows and the overheads began to darken and take on a reddish-purple hue.

Suddenly the light went out completely! Even the morning sunlight flooding in through the windows faded. In a moment the room was plunged into pitch-blackness except for a pearlescent glow from the sphere!

"
Hey
!" Bud cried. "What’s happening?" Everything had been swallowed by darkness. Weirdly, the sphere’s steady glow was visible to the eye but powerless to illuminate anything else. It seemed to be hanging unsupported in black space.

There were mumbles of alarm. Suddenly came a loud crash! "
It’s the spy!
" Bud cried. He leapt toward where he had last seen Tom, ready to protect his best friend though he couldn’t even make out his own feet.

Bud collided with a flailing pair of arms. Two bodies thudded down to the lab floor.

"Don’t move, everyone!" a voice called out.

Light dawned again suddenly.

"
P’tul! Arise!
" demanded a furious voice somewhere beneath Bud’s musculature. He had taken down Crown Prince Vusungira!

"Oh
man
am I ever
sorry
, Your Magnitude!" gulped Bud, scrambling off the royal personage fast enough to forestall war.

Tom was working frantically to correct the trouble with the electrodynamic modulator as the room filled with a smell of burning insulation. Though the blackout had ended, he seemed momentarily unable to switch it off completely. Sparks flickered about the coils.

Finally control was restored. "I’m afraid my experiment misfired—er, obviously. Instead of trapping light of one wavelength, the dyna-field pulled in a wide band of frequencies—the whole visible spectrum!"

"And in doing so blacked out the whole plant?" huffed Vusungira with a supercilious smile as he adjusted the royal turban. Bud thought the smile looked a bit too much like a frown.

"Just in here, but it was enough. My device absorbed so much energy it burned out the control circuits," Tom admitted.

"Well," Bud joked weakly, "Maybe the Defense Department could use that gadget for air-raid blackouts, Skipper."

"Very funny." Tom turned to Vusungira. "Your Highness, please accept our apologies for this embarrassing incident."