Tom Swift and His Space Solartron (3 page)

He tried wrapping his right hand in the tail of his lab coat, but the bulk made it impossible for him to feel or grasp the control switch.
Scratch the easy way out!
he murmured to himself bitterly.

Glancing up, he saw that the sparking portion of the bars was slowly spreading along the length of the aluminum. In moments it would be directly over his head!

TOM faced the fact that there was no solution but to reach directly through the curtain of searing sparks, unprotected. Gritting his teeth, muscles tensed to the limit in fearful anticipation, he thrust his arm forward, crying out involuntarily. "I—I can’t reach it!" Tom gasped as he groped vainly for the switch. The white-hot spume of metal was already blackening the fabric of his sleeves, and the exposed portions of his skin stung with agonizing pain!

"Help!" Tom yelled in frantic desperation. He felt unconsciousness drawing near. If he collapsed under the rain of sparks, it would be the end of him!

"Tom!" a horrified voice cried out from the lab doorway. Tom recognized it as Chuck Thornton’s, even though he was too blinded by the sparks to see him. "How can I get you out?" Chuck called frantically.

Tom’s heart gave a leap. "There’s a big slab of carbon to the right of the door," he shouted, trying not to yield to panic. "Maybe you can use it as a shield!"

"Roger!"

The slab was two yards long and nearly four feet wide. Grabbing it up on his palms and balancing it over his head, Chuck hunched down and dashed toward the young inventor. The intense heat was like a miniature inferno, with molten aluminum sparks shooting like blazing comets in every direction. Chuck managed to insert the carbon slab between Tom and the conductors. In a moment the young inventor had squirmed out of his deadly predicament.

Waving Chuck back to a position of safety, Tom approached the test setup from the opposite side and managed to switch off the power.

He leaned against a bench. "T-thanks for saving me," he gasped, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. The lab seemed to spin around him in a haze of pain.

"Tom, I’m taking you to the hospital right away!" Chuck announced.

He said nothing about his young employer’s scorched hair and blistered skin. But he was worried that Tom would be badly scarred and hospitalized for weeks or months.

"Don’t look so grim! I’ve been burned worse than this playing with other inventions," Tom said, his voice fading in and out. Chuck forced a smile as he helped Tom outside and into a nanocar. He realized that Tom needed to keep his thoughts away from his injuries—and was possibly on the verge of lapsing into delirium. "Then it’s high time you stopped trying to blow yourself up," Chuck retorted. "Don’t you guys get enough excitement rocketing through space?"

Realizing that Tom must be in severe pain in spite of his joking manner, Chuck drove to the Citadel’s infirmary at top speed. Here a doctor and her two nurses took Tom immediately into the examination room and began to salve and wrap his burns.

Bud Barclay came rushing into the infirmary, pale with fright. "Just got the word about Tom’s accident," Bud panted. "What happened, doctor? How is he?"

Tom lay on a gurney, conscious but trembling and barely able to speak. He croaked a greeting at his best pal that was meant to be reassuring. In that, though, it was unsuccessful.

"We’re working on him," the doctor said. "Please wait outside with Chuck Thornton."

Bud and Chuck nervously awaited the doctor’s report. "I’m afraid it could be bad," Chuck said numbly. "Thank God I came back to the lab to look for my keys." He gave Bud a brief report of the accident.

Both young men were intensely relieved when the doctor appeared half an hour later and smiled. "You can relax, you boys," she said. "I’m glad to say Tom’s burns aren’t as serious as first appeared."

"He won’t be scarred?" Bud asked anxiously.

The doctor shook her head. "No, the burns are mostly surface—painful enough—but they should heal quickly. It’ll really put those new timed-release skin-treating bandages to good use; bet Tom’s mighty glad he invented them! He will have to stay here overnight, but I believe we can take the dressings off tomorrow."

"Thank goodness!" Bud sighed. "May we see him?"

"This evening. Tom’s system has suffered a shock, so rest is the best treatment now."

Bud and Chuck promised to return later. Bud proceeded to call Ted Spring in his quarters to tell him of their mutual friend’s condition. He then called Shopton and gave Tom’s family what reassurance he could. He hoped they wouldn’t notice that his voice was shaking.

Tom almost got himself killed!
Bud found himself thinking over and over.
And I wasn’t there to save him.

The young pilot paced about his quarters. It was mid-afternoon, the New Mexico sun was high and blazing, and it would be hours before he could visit Tom in the hospital. He knew he needed something to divert his mind.

Calling Ted Spring again, the two young men decided to drive over to the nearby pueblo community—a brief sightseeing trip. Though security personnel controlled entrance to the overall area and signs warned visitors to respect the ancient site and its artifacts, this was still a living settlement occupied by members of the local tribe, and was on land they owned.

Bud and Ted climbed the wooden branch-ladders that linked the cliffside ledges and were guided by young Indian lads through some of the dug-out habitations.

The tour ended and they were left alone in the hot, bright sun. "Say," said Bud with a chuckle, "I thought this place was supposed to be authentic. Look at that—a satellite dish!" He nodded in the direction of a small parabolic dish slightly hidden behind a boulder jutting from the face of the ancient, eroded cliff.

Ted stared at the out-of-place object with a frown. "Shouldn’t it be pointed up at the sky?" He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Bud, that antenna’s pointing toward the Citadel!"

In a flash Bud’s expression turned serious. "I think I’d like to see just what it’s connected to."

No visible line or cable appeared to lead from the antenna. Bud and Ted concluded that any connection must pass through the sandstone and rock of the mesa itself. "Must lead into one of these cave-houses," murmured Bud. "But which one?"

Then Ted nudged him and gave a subtle jerk of his chin. Bud looked up just in time to see a pair of eyes disappear into the shadows of a cave one tier above them as the beaded curtain covering the opening swayed from the movement behind it. Trying to appear casual the two climbed up to the ledge and slowly ambled toward the cave mouth.

Ted gave a veiled glance downward out of the corner of an eye. "One of the guards sees us," he whispered. "I think he’s motioning to us not to go any further."

"Well, what
we
don’t see or hear won’t stop us, hmm?" responded Bud with determination. "I’m going into that cave. If the guard wants to cut loose with a flaming arrow, let ’im!"

Attempting a diversion, Ted pretended to essay a shortcut down to the tier below them, scrambling and half-sliding down the cliffside instead of using the ladder.
"Hey!"
exclaimed an Indian woman, annoyed at the dust and fall of pebbles as she danced and swayed to the silent rhythms of her traditional CD headset. "You’re s’posed to stay where it’s marked!"

"Oh, right—sorry," Ted apologized. "The sign said
Slide Area,
so I thought—"

"Yeah, white-eyes, like I so
totally
believe that," she grumped.

Meanwhile Bud had ducked through the curtain and into the dimness of the excavated pueblo dwelling. Other than a colorfully patterned woven mat on the floor and a bare hook on a wall evidently intended to hold a lantern, there were no furnishings, nor any trace of the watching occupant he had glimpsed. Alert to any sound, the dark-haired pilot quickly examined the walls.
Got to be a hidden door here somewhere,
he thought.
The guy didn’t just evaporate!

"Mmm!" said a loud, sharp voice. "Looking for the Men’s Room?" Bud whirled. A silhouette stood in the oval of light of the cave-house door, just outside the curtain. What he held loosely in his hand looked very much like a gun!

Bud froze in place. "Sorry, pal," he said at last. "This one off-limits?"

The man parted the hanging bead-strings, and Bud could make him out more clearly. He was a copper-hued tribesman, thirtyish, in jeans and a t-shirt that outlined broad, blocky shoulders and powerful muscles. A color-accent of platinum blond in his black hair, and a pair of fashionable tiny-lensed glasses perched atop his jutting nose, made him a strange hybrid of old and new. He waved the gun casually, loosely in Bud’s direction. "C’mon out."

Bud exited the cave dwelling. Now he could see that the man was wearing an official site name badge that disclosed the name JEREMIAH.

Bud started to make excuses. "First time here. Is there a sign? Guess I didn’t—"

"Don’t worry about it," said the man pleasantly enough. "I think you
did
see the sign and decided to go inside anyway while your buddy out there made a little fuss. But so what? Eagle Branch Pueblo is an educational site. Maybe you’re an enthusiastic student of our old tribal culture. So what did you find in there?"

"Not much," Bud replied. "It’s empty."

"Which doesn’t mean n’body owns it."

"Sorry."

The man smiled. The smile was not warm. "I’ll show you the way to the ladder. Easy to get hurt if you’re not careful. And you don’t seem the careful type."

Bud climbed down to rejoin Ted, and the two made their way back to the Citadel car they had taken. The uniformed guards gave them glowering looks, and a glance back showed Bud that "Jeremiah" was regarding him coolly from one of the ledges.

"What do you think’s going on, Bud?" asked Ted.

"Oh, the usual bad-guy spy-stuff, I’d guess," replied the other with pithy sarcasm. "But I didn’t get clonked on the head this time, so I guess it’s a lovely day in the neighborhood."

"Not for Tom," Ted pointed out grimly.

The evening arrived as slow as a desert tortoise, but at last, after dinner, Bud and Ted, joined by a fretting and fussing Chow Winkler, were allowed to visit Tom in his room in the small facility hospital.

As the three entered the room, Tom grinned at them through his bandages. He was propped up comfortably in bed.

"What are you trying to do, Tom—masquerade as an Egyptian mummy?" Bud asked, grinning.

"The name is Tut, please," Tom replied. "Down on your knees and knock your head three times against the floor before you address me."

"Son, I’d shor knock my head
twenty
times if it’d keep you out o’ mischief!" exclaimed Chow. "Keepin’ you safe and in one piece is like tryin’ to tie down and brand a lightnin’ bolt!"

"Sounds pretty lively for a mummy," Ted remarked to his companions.

Bud nodded, pretending to scrutinize the patient with a frowning air. "He’ll live, I guess. Once they start cracking lame jokes, it’s usually a hopeful sign...
oof!"

The last remark came in a stifled grunt as Bud ducked back to avoid a well-aimed pillow!

"Just wanted to show you my reflexes are still working," Tom chuckled. But his chuckle was weary and weak. "Now sit down, clown, and entertain me with your witty conversation."

The four friends were soon talking and laughing about other things and for the moment Tom’s harrowing ordeal in the lab was completely forgotten. Bud narrated the story of the visit to the pueblo site. Tom suddenly looked so concerned that Bud regretted having brought it up.

"We need to have someone ask a few questions about this," Tom declared, "and right away! We’re well protected against electronic probing—but there’s sure no good reason for somebody to go pointing an antenna our way."

Ted inquired whether any of the work being done at the Citadel was classified, or of a confidential nature. "Strictly speaking, no," was the reply, "at least not at the moment. But if someone’s listening in on our conversations or trying to find out the details of the solartron—which is possible—then who knows what they might resort to next."

Chow snorted. "Brand my spyglass, boss, one o’ these days you oughta invent somethin’ nobody wants, jest to keep the spies out of it!" They all laughed—Tom with an occasional wince.

"Good thing no reporter is taking this down for
ForeSite,"
Bud remarked with a grin. "He’d think we came out here for a lowbrow gag session instead of a scientific project."

"ForeSite?"
Ted inquired. "What’s that?"

"A new magazine our company’s putting out," Tom explained. "An ‘e-magazine’—a website, in other words. It’ll be mainly a technical journal, with papers contributed by our research staff and engineers, but there’ll be other features too."

"With a real eye-catching homepage logo," Bud boasted. "Bashalli designed it." Bashalli Prandit was a talented sketch artist and art student enrolled at a school near Shopton, and a close friend. "Only trouble is"—he pretended to shake his head in disgust—"I’m afraid the rest of the site may spoil all the good-looking artwork."

"How come?" asked Ted with a puzzled look.

"Oh, the technical stuff isn’t
so
bad, but there’s one article that’ll
really
make the readers turn blue. It’s chockful of Greek-letter formulas and Einstein equations by some decrepit fogy named, lemme see,
Tom Swift."

The next moment Bud ducked as Tom let fly another pillow. "Just for that I’ll make you read it!" Tom vowed.

"Then best do it right quick, afore you run out o’ pillows!" Chow recommended with a throaty western chortle.

At this point a nurse looked into the room and regarded them sternly. "Visiting time is over, you three. You’re wearing out my patient."

"Only fair," Bud retorted. "This jumping genius here wore out
my
patience years ago!"

As Chow served breakfast to Ted and Bud the next morning in the small private dining room, they were surprised and delighted as Tom came strolling in as if nothing had happened. There were still some small bandages on his forearms, face, and the back of his right hand, but he was obviously stronger and in good spirits. "Don’t worry, folks—my deep-set blue eyes made it through just fine! Seriously, they say I won’t have any scars."