Tom Swift and His Space Solartron (11 page)

"How’s she perking?" asked Bud after several minutes had gone by.

Tom’s face wore a pleased grin. "Hydrogen input—solid! And Matty’s definitely making something in there—and a lot of it, too!" He drew off a quantity of gas and tested it. "Oxygen, folks! Good thing I arranged to pipe it into the station reserve tanks or we’d be space-happy on the stuff!"

"Are you going to try to make solid matter this time?" asked Ted.

Tom nodded as he studied the complex wave pattern on the oscilloscope and adjusted several tuning knobs. "We’ll try carbon first," be explained. "That’s a basic element in all organic compounds."

The young inventor stood by tensely as the test solartron throbbed with a slightly different tone. He watched the control dials like a hawk, making frequent adjustments as the needles flickered back and forth.

Minutes crept by, half an hour, then an hour. Finally Tom checked the receiving tank. It contained a thinly sprinkled deposit of a black powdery substance!

"Magic!" Bud exclaimed. "Don’t keep us in suspense, Tom. Is it carbon?"

Tom rubbed some between his thumb and forefinger. "Looks like carbon, all right," Tom replied, his heart pounding. "But I’ll check to make sure." He tested the substance with the Swift Spectroscope, then nodded without speaking. The room rang with hearty cheers from Tom’s friends, led by his father, his sister, and his best chum.

"Guess it works, doesn’t it," Tom said quietly. His father gave him a warm hug.

After combining oxygen with the space hydrogen to make water, Tom concluded his experiments by trying to make one more element needed for food compounds—nitrogen. The results showed clearly that the solartron could generate the gas in usable quantities. "I’m afraid you’d have to run Matty for a few hours to get a cup of sugar out of him, though," Tom remarked. "The guy’s
mighty
stingy!"

Noted Doc Simpson thoughtfully, "But if a team were stranded in space, even small quantities of carbohydrates could make the difference. There are high-efficiency edibles the machine could make that could keep someone alive for weeks, given sufficient water to drink."

"Congratulations, son!" said Mr. Swift after carefully studying the matter maker’s readout figures. "Now how about lending your old Dad a little of that luck of yours! Perhaps a few of you fellows would like to help on my cosmic dust project?"

Tom, Bud, and Ted were eager to do so, and Bashalli and Sandy pronounced themselves eager to
observe
. Acting on Mr. Swift’s instructions, the astronauts took to space and rigged a powerful set of electrodes on the upper hub of the space wheel, facing away from the earth. The elder scientist busied himself setting up a special wave-generating apparatus inside the station, feeding to an oddly-shaped antenna coil on the hull.

When the apparatus was complete, Mr. Swift closed a switch, beaming out what he described as an ultrahigh-frequency ionization ray "of a sort." Tom and his comrades checked the electrodes every few minutes. At first there was nothing to see, but after a couple hours the microscopic dust particles that drifted in space had begun to encase the electrodes in a blue-black crust, thin but visible to the eye. By the time Chow broadcast the dinner gong, the particles had formed a stone, possessing a metallic luster and looking somewhat like a small meteorite.

"Real stardust! Not bad for a first try." Mr. Swift smiled as he examined the results. "But I seem to be up against the same problem you are, Tom—my process works rather slowly."

"The particles may accumulate faster as the attracting surface increases in size, Dad," Tom pointed out. "Let’s continue the experiment tomorrow. I’m eager to see how this works out. You could have a real breakthrough before we leave for Earth tomorrow noon."

"Actually, Tom, Simpson and I have decided to stay behind on the outpost for a time," said Damon Swift. "I have some ideas I’d like to try out without feeling rushed, and Doc is right in the middle of a lengthy medicine-production process that shouldn’t be interrupted."

Tom nodded. "I’m mainly heading down in order to apply what I’ve learned up here to the final version of the solartron—the big ‘space’ model Hank and Arv have been assembling. The
Challenger
will be back in less than a week."

Later, after closing down the galley after supper, Chow was hailed by Bud as he crossed through the central hub on the way to the spoke containing his sleep cubicle.

"Say there, Chow," Bud said in muted tones. "I wonder if—would you mind stopping by my compartment?"

"This one o’ your jokes?"

"No, no!" Bud replied hastily. "It’ll just take a minute. I—I guess I wanted your opinion." Glancing about, Bud lowered his voice further. "Y’see, pard, it’s sort of… private."

Brow furrowed deeply, the Texan nodded and followed Bud to his quarters. Ushering his friend inside, the young pilot closed the airtight door, which sealed itself automatically. "These cubicles are designed to be soundproof," he murmured. "That’s fine with me."

Bud drifted down onto his cot and gestured for Chow to sit next to him. The grizzled cook shook his head.

"Do my best thinkin’ standin’ up," he said with a paternal smile. "What’s on yer mind, son?"

Bud paused, then sighed. "I probably should talk this over with Tom," he said slowly, looking down at his shoes. "At first I tried to, but—well, you’ll understand. It’s something that happened… well…" Bud suddenly looked up at Chow with an intense expression on his face. "You know that night I spent at Enterprises with Ted Spring, in the guest house? After the road accident? I mentioned it to you…"

Chow gulped and plopped down next to Bud on the cot. "Changed m’mind," he declared. "Mebbe it’d be better fer me to start off sittin’ down after all!"

"I JEST want ya to know, buddy boy, that ol’ Chow ain’t some kind o’ Texas hayseed, like they make me out to be," Chow continued, speaking rapidly and a bit breathlessly. "I’m a purty broad-minded sort o’ fella, son—and if you wanna make a joke about my broad beltline, you jest go right ahead. Like my own Pa once told me,
You be true t’ your teeth an’ they won’t be false t’ you!
Ceptin’ you’re supposed to apply it to yourself as a whole, not jest your teeth, savvy?"

"I think so," replied Bud hesitantly.

"So go right ahead, let ’er rip, shoot ’er on out, Bud. Chips fall where they may!"

"Right! Good." The youth brushed his dangling lock of black hair back from his forehead. "Well, pard—that night Ted told me he’s in love with Sandy."

Chow gaped. "Hunh? Ted Spring? Sandy? Y’ mean,
your
Sandy?"

"That’s the one," Bud confirmed with a weak smile. "Except she’s not exactly
mine,
is she, Chow? You can’t own a person."

"Ya can’t?—guess you’re right. But—"

"Ted was real polite, real sympathetic," Bud went on. "He said he didn’t want to mess up any friendships. But—he said—the feelings had been sort of building up for a long time, years even. It made him feel guilty, but he couldn’t help it. Feelings are feelings. He hasn’t said anything to Sandy or to Tom. He thought I should know about it, and
he
wanted to know where I was—you get the picture."

"Great gravy!" muttered the cook. "I heard tell o’
space operas—
guess that means a soap opera in space! You two plannin’ to step outside and fight a duel?"

Bud burst out laughing. "No, nothing like that! If Sandy thought Ted and I were fighting over her, she’d punch us
both
out!"

"True enough. Modern wimmin don’t take to it. If there’s any fightin’ they’ll plumb do it fer themselves, these here days."

Bud nodded.

"So then, whatchew plan t’ do, buddy boy? Act like you’re seein’ someone else, mebbe? Make Sandy jealous?"

"Actually," said Bud, "I figured I’d take it calmly and just go on being myself."

"Naw, that’d
never
work," Chow snorted. "That the best you kin come up with?"

"Guess so."

The cowpoke rose to his feet. "Then t’make myself right plain, you got a problem. Sorry to say it." He made for the door, then paused and looked back sympathetically. "But thanks fer askin’ my opinion. Makes me feel just a little smidge like a Dad. That wouldn’t happen otherwise, since I ain’t got m’self no kids of my own, far as I know. Guess I won’t never have any, neither—rate I’m goin’!"

He left Bud sitting with wrinkled brow and a half-smile.

The next morning Tom and his friends busied themselves with the disassembly of the solartron and the conveying of the parts back to the
Challenger
.

"And what about the rose trellises, Thomas?" Bashalli inquired, pointing through a porthole at the floating atom-snatcher panels.

Tom winked. "Keep your eye on em’!" Bashalli’s watchful eye became very wide as the young inventor flipped a pair of switches to the off position and the two atom-gatherers began instantly to fold up, precisely reversing the sequence of their unfolding. "See, Bash? Cut off the current, and the transifoil repeats itself backwards!" In minutes only two compact silver bales remained floating in space at the ends of their tube-lines.

Bashalli made a thoughtful sound and muttered, "Somehow I think there is a metaphor in this. But I shall leave it to the poets."

The
Challenger
team bid farewell to Mr. Swift, Doc Simpson, and the outpost crew and boarded the majestic spaceship. The docking link was withdrawn, repelatrons activated, and soon they were hurtling along the long arc back to their native world. Tom and Bud were again piloting the ship manually and eyeballing the instrument outputs, lest the main computer have any more surprises up its microelectronic sleeve.

"So just where do things stand right now, genius boy?" Bud asked his pal, taking an unnoticed glance across the command cabin to Ted Spring, who was chatting with Sandy, who was chatting back.

Tom looked up from the controls. "If you mean in terms of the solartron project, what remains to be done is pretty difficult."

"The power problem?"

"Yep. Still a roadblock. Now we know the matter maker works. But it won’t be practical unless I can find a lightweight, compact, mobile energy source that can pump out as many amps as the entire outpost battery factory!"

Bud whistled. "What about the cosmic energy converters here on the
Challenger?
They’re mighty hot stuff, skipper—as I recall, they just about fried that blond crewcut of yours not so long ago."

"Oh, I remember," was Tom’s wry comment. "But even both the converters acting together can’t generate what we just had on the outpost."

"Bet you already have an idea or two—right?"

Tom’s blue eyes took on a twinkle. "Well… I suppose so."

"Out with it, chum!"

"Okay." Tom swiveled his chair around. "I’ve been doing some calculations, and I think I can use Exploron as fuel for a super-dynamo no bigger than a loaf of bread—but packing the punch of several hundred solar batteries!"

Tom’s friend was astounded!
"Exploron!
You mean that antimatter gas from Mount Goaba? The stuff that disintegrates pretty much anything it touches?
That
Exploron?"

The young inventor laughed. "Hey, I see you remember it!"

Some time before, Tom and Bud had headed up an expedition to the jungles of central Africa to probe the mysteries of a strange taboo mountain, Mount Goaba, and the caves of nuclear fire that burned deep beneath it. Using an invention of Tom’s called the terrasphere, they had managed to recover samples of an anomalous physical substance in gaseous form which emitted antiprotons—subatomic particles capable of causing normal matter to disintegrate in a burst of incredible, deadly energy. Only the material Tom had named Inertite, also from the taboo mountain, was immune to the effect.

"You can see the point, can’t you, Bud?" Tom went on excitedly. "Imagine a small tank of compressed Exploron oozing just a trace amount into a reaction chamber containing some common, heavy-mass element—iron, for example—in vapor form. The matter-antimatter reaction is so energetic that we’d have more than enough power to run the solartron till the next millennium! Yet the mechanism itself could be extremely small."

Bud plopped down in the other chair. "I understand what you’re saying. But good night, what about the danger of a super-nuclear blowup if just a grain of the stuff gets out into the open?"

"You’re absolutely right. The control and safety aspects are the toughest nuts to crack." He grinned. "But since when has that stopped me?"

The
Challenger
cut through the atmosphere in a long, unhurried descent that barely raised its hull temperature. Finally Tom set her down on her four landing struts back home on Fearing Island.

As Sandy and Bashalli prepared to enter the ground access elevator, they ambushed Tom on either side with a simultaneous peck on both cheeks. "Oh, Tom, this was just wonderful—incredible!" Sandy declared.

"We thank you for letting us see real stardust close-up," added Bash. "I made some lovely sketches, too."

With a broad smile Tom asked if they were ready to take a longer trip—to the moon.

"First we have to go around and brag about
this
trip," Sandy replied with a giggle. "Then we’ll see!"

The Flying Lab covered the course back to Shopton with its customary quickness, and by early evening Tom and Sandy were back home and regaling their mother with travel tales.

"By the way, dear," Mrs. Swift said to Tom, "Harlan Ames called. He’d like you to call him at home this evening, at your convenience."

Tom contacted the security chief after supper. "There have been some important developments here at my end, Tom. That theory Rad and I had worked up really paid off in spades!"

"You mean you’ve discovered who was spying on Arv Hanson and me that day?" asked Tom in surprise.

"Yes! We did a little of that digging and snooping we do so well—and our suspicions were pretty well confirmed when she stopped showing up for work!"

"She?"

Ames chuckled. "Little Miss Warner, our temp!"

Tom was amazed—yet also chagrined. "Good gosh, Harlan, it makes so much sense it hurts! Sitting at that desk in front of our two offices, she was in a perfect spot to hear whatever she wanted to."