Tom Swift and His Space Solartron (18 page)

The message that appeared was a single symbol, one that Tom recognized even without the computerized translation.

STOP

"Not much interpretation needed on that one," was Bud’s sour remark.

"I don’t think it’s from the space friends after all," said Tom slowly. "Not the
friends!
My guess it’s a warning transmitted automatically by that device they mentioned."

"You mean what they called a tool—that we’re supposed to destroy?"

Tom nodded. "Yep—if we can! It must be some sort of relay that they used to generate the forces that moved the outpost through space. I’m going to try to pick it up on some of our other energy-detection instruments."

Back in the command deck Tom activated a number of different sophisticated devices and swept them back and forth through near-Venus space.

"Anything?" asked Ted.

"Well… something," Tom confirmed, puzzled. "Though I’m not quite sure what. It's like some kind of field or barrier surrounding the outpost out to a distance of about 20,000 miles. I’m getting reflections from it."

"Is the outpost right at the center?"

"No," was the response. "The center of the field is roughly thirty-three miles from the station, moving along with it. That
must
be where the alien machine is. But I don’t see a trace of it on the telescope monitor."

As the spaceship approached the invisible barrier, Tom slowed her to a stop. As an experiment, he and Hanson rigged up a small probe missile and sent it toward the barrier by a gentle repelatron push, beeping back a continuous signal.

"Contact with the barrier in three seconds," Tom murmured, counting down.

The beeping stopped!

"Did they blow it up?" Chow asked nervously.

"No, I can still see it on the video-telescope," Tom reassured him. "It appears to have gone right through without harm."

"Then the force-bubble, or whatever it is, is mainly functioning to neutralize radar and radio-communication signals," reasoned Sterling.

"It’s transparent to repelatron waves, thank goodness," Tom remarked. "I don’t see any alternative but to shove our way on through."

Using Mercury, far off in its orbit, as a repelatron focus, Tom guided the
Challenger
forward into the barrier. In a moment he announced that they had crossed the boundary safely.

"Great gopher holes, now I kin start breathin’ again!" was Chow Winkler’s half-strangled comment.

"Space outpost to
Challenger!" crackled a voice over the loudspeaker.

Almost too overcome with joyous emotion, Tom held the microphone to his lips, trembling. "Dad!"

"Son! We couldn’t believe it when the telescope picked you up!"

"How—how are you? How is everyone? Do you know what happened to you?" The words tumbled out uncontrollably.

"We know a few things, Tom, and what we don’t know for certain we’ve been able to figure out, to a degree."

"We can talk more when we come aboard, Dad."

The
Challenger
zoomed up to the space outpost, covering the thousands of miles in a small span of minutes. The great ship docked, and her overjoyed crew scrambled up the pressurized corridor, where Damon Swift, Doc Simpson, Ken Horton, and all the rest of the station team awaited them.

After a frantically emotional reunion, the stories began to pour out.

"There was no warning," said Horton. "One moment we were orbiting Earth as usual, the next we found ourselves looking at Venus through the portholes."

Mr. Swift noted, "We detected no unidentified spacecraft, no radiation, nothing requiring explanation. The transition across tens of millions of miles seemed absolutely instantaneous."

"Of course I examined everyone for any physical effects of the, er,
yank
through space," Doc continued. "Fortunately, everyone is perfectly fine from the medical point of view. Psychologically… you can imagine, Tom. We had enough food and water aboard to keep us going, and those algae tanks continued to produce sufficient oxygen."

"Mr. Swift, why didn’t you try contacting us by radio?" inquired Bob Jeffers. "Couldn’t you have used one of the little return-capsules to get outside the barrier?"

Mr. Swift looked puzzled. "What barrier does he mean, Tom?"

Tom explained with a rueful grin, adding: "It must be hard to detect from the inside—and now that I think of it, you don’t have the instruments I used, anyway."

"We just assumed our signals, and those from Earth, were being nullified in some way," Horton said.

After further animated discussion, Doc Simpson asked Tom, "What now?"

"Back to Earth for all of us," was the answer. "We have to clear out before the experimenters arrive."

"Now wait, you folks," cautioned Chow abruptly. "This here don’t make sense to ol’ Chow. Didn’t that space tellee-gram say you had t’
destroy
that machine o’ theirs?"

"He’s right, genius boy," Bud said. "What gives?"

Tom clenched his hands together. "We haven’t been able to detect the device, and other than transmitting that warning, it hasn’t interfered with us in any way. All I can think to do is attempt to leave the area and respond to whatever happens as it happens."

"Let’s face it, gents," commented Bert Everett, "even if we
want
to destroy the machine—" He didn’t bother concluding the thought.

Twenty hours remained before the deadline announced by the space friends.

A massive evacuation effort now commenced. Hour after hour, supplies and useful equipment, including the algae "farms" that produced oxygen, were transferred over to the
Challenger
from the outpost. Last came the space station’s several dozen crew members.

"We’ll be at mighty close quarters," noted Horton. "But I suppose we can put up with it for a couple weeks, hmm?"

"Hey, that’ll be nothing compared to what
I
have to look forward to," gibed one of the television company technicians. "I have to account for a hundred thousand dollars worth of abandoned TV equipment!"

"I don’t s’pose there’s a way to take th’ whole space wheel along with us," murmured Chow ruefully.

"Oh, how I wish!" said Tom. "We’ll build another one, pardner."

Finally, with six hours to spare, the
Challenger
uncoupled itself from the docking corridor and gently cruised away from the outpost. Many eyes, some teary, watched it fade with distance.

As they neared the anti-communications barrier Tom brought the ship to a full halt, scrutinizing his instruments. "Everything’s the same as before," he announced. "But we’ll approach at snail-speed."

The intercom buzzed. "We’ve been getting that same
‘stop’
symbol, Tom," reported the acting communications officer. "But now something else is coming through. The computer is working up the translation…" The crewman gasped in alarm! "Tom, I’d better send this up to you!"

The translated message appeared on a small screen in front of Tom.

TOTAL DESTRUCTION IMMANENT. PARAMETERS FOLLOW.

His heart thudding, Tom read off the string of numerical data and made some quick calculations. "The stated time matches the deadline the space friends transmitted. And the radius of destruction completely fills the interior of the energy barrier!
Let’s get out of here!"
The young inventor dribbled a tiny amount of current into the repelatrons. Thrusting against Venus, the
Challenger
inched forward, cautiously.

Suddenly, without warning, came a tremendous jolt. The spacemen were almost knocked off their feet!

"B-Brand my mule team, what’d we hit?" demanded Chow.

"The barrier!" was Tom’s grim reply.
"It’s not letting us through!"

Mr. Swift asked his son if the sensor instruments revealed anything about the nature of the energies involved. "Nothing at all," responded Tom. "It’s at the threshold of detection. If you’re asking if we can counteract it somehow—maybe. But it’d take time, Dad."

"Which we lack," stated Damon Swift. "Then it seems we must move along to your alternate plan."

"Right," agreed the young scientist-inventor. "Hank and I are pretty optimistic about what we came up with during the trip. But the fact that you approve means a lot to me."

Tom intended to use the antiproton Exploron gas in the solartron’s energine as a bomb—a matter-antimatter nuclear bomb of almost unbelievable power, directed against what the space friends had termed their masters’
tool.
Though the alien device could not be seen, the Earth scientists could only presume that it was located at the center of the spherical force field. That would be the bomb’s target.

After giving an account of the daring plan, Tom ordered the entire swollen crew of the
Challenger
into spacesuits, helmets sealed. "Our Inertite coating should keep the bomb’s radiation pulse from penetrating the hull," Tom explained; "but we have no idea whether there might be some kind of secondary blast from the device itself, in a form of energy Inertite can’t handle. Your suits will provide an extra layer of protection." As a further precaution, he directed everyone into the central compartments of the cabin-cube. Only he and Bud would remain on the command deck.

"Thanks for not leaving me out of the action, Tom," Bud said, his gray eyes gleaming bright.

"Flyboy, for what you called me in that pueblo, you
deserve
a front seat to getting fried!" retorted his best friend with a wink. "And you know I don’t go anywhere without you."

The atom-snatcher panels had been deployed and were now running busily. With the loss of the energine, the solartron would be useless during the homeward dash. Trying to build up an extra reserve of air and water, Tom now ran his invention at top speed.
Even so, it’s anybody’s guess whether we can even make it halfway!
Tom thought. But there seemed to be no alternative. It was a chance at survival, a hope born of desperation.

Finally, with a deep sigh, Tom pulled the lever ejecting the couplings that connected the atom-conduit pipes to the body of the ship. Silhouetted for a moment against the glowing disk of Venus, the atom-snatchers drifted off into the void. Their extra weight made them a liability on the trip to come, and they served no further function.

"Like cutting off an arm, isn’t it, pal?" Bud squeezed his friend’s shoulder.

"It’s fireworks time," Tom said quietly.

The drone capsule containing the modified energine unit was released into space, a pair of repelatrons sending it streaking toward the center of the force-sphere at ever-increasing speed. Tom and Bud rushed to the communications center, an inner compartment, where a simple control board had been set up, along with a monitor receiving a feed from the telescope.

The countdown ticked away. The drone capsule shrank with distance until it could no longer be discerned. "It’s reached position," stated Tom.
"Now!"

No human eye saw the explosion directly; no human eye could have withstood the intensity of its pure white light. Tom and Bud saw the telescope monitor screen bleach out, then fill with ragged static. A slight tremor passed through the
Challenger
.

Tom checked the instrument panel. "No radiation inside the ship. Temperature normal." He flipped a switch and his brow furrowed deeply. "No radiation outside the ship either!"

"But we
saw
the bomb go off, genius boy!" Bud exclaimed. "I mean—didn’t we?"

"We sure saw
something,"
Tom replied slowly. "Let’s go topside. With luck, the barrier will be down."

Taking the ladder, Tom preceded Bud into the control compartment. As Bud came scrambling up, he found Tom standing like a statue in the middle of the floor, rooted in place, staring out the big viewports.

"Tom! What—"

Bud turned, looked, and froze. His mouth gaped open.

Venus was gone.

But the
Challenger
was not alone in space. Before their eyes loomed a great sphere of crystalline blue flecked with swirls of white.

Tom took two shaky steps and examined the main instrument panel. Then he looked back and his eyes met Bud’s.

"It can’t be," gasped Bud. "It just
can’t
be!"

"It is," said Tom numbly. "Earth.
We’re home!"

The instruments were unanimous. The ship was in orbit, 22,300 miles above Ecuador.

Tom pointed off to the side, casually. He was now well beyond surprise.

Bud followed his friend’s gesture. "The outpost?"

"Exactly where she should be. And the two atom-gatherers, too. They sent back everything."

At Tom’s intercommed behest the other space travelers now came flooding out of their compartments, gazing out various portholes at a sight too astounding to be believed.

"You’ll have to help me understand this, Tom, Damon," murmured Doc Simpson, standing next to his friends on the control deck.

Tom’s awe was beginning to yield place to jubilation. He flashed a bright, broad grin. "I think—just a guess!—that the device from Planet X didn’t just move the outpost
through
space to Venus, but somehow transported an entire chunk of space itself across a hundred million miles."

"Yes," said Damon Swift. "It’s a reasonable hypothesis. The machine held the ‘space-bubble’ in place. By destroying the machine, the fabric of spacetime snapped back like a stretched piece of rubber—and here we are."

"All that way, an’ in one piece!" Chow pronounced in his usual foghorn blare. In softer tones he muttered to the tiny form perched on his shoulder: "If’n we
are
in one piece, huh-hey, Li’l Ole Alamo?"

After receiving the deeply felt thanks and congratulations of the crewmen and shaking hands with everyone, Tom and Mr. Swift hastened to the radio compartment, accompanied by Chow, Bud, and Ted Spring. Here they sent word to the astounded space base on Fearing Island that the
Challenger
was heading back with Mr. Swift safely aboard. The elder scientist said: "We’ll be on our way as soon as we’re finished repopulating the outpost—oh, and retrieving the collector lattices used by Tom’s space solartron. We mustn’t give short shrift to the invention that made our rescue possible in the first place!" As Tom glowed with pride, Mr. Swift concluded by sending his love to Sandy and Tom’s mother in Shopton.