Tom Swift and His Space Solartron (9 page)

"Seriously, that’s just about what happens," Tom said. "The repelatron force rays push us away from the earth—or whatever object we aim at—just like a ball on the rebound."

As the earth fell away below them, the passengers crowded close to the viewpanes. Now rising with a constant velocity, Fearing Island gradually dwindled to a mere speck on the blue-green waters of the ocean.

"Tom, it's amazing to think how far science has progressed," said Doc Simpson gravely. "Not so long ago, people laughed at the possibility of space flight, just as they once did at the germ theory of disease."

"And who knows what marvels lie ahead!" added Mr. Swift.

"What lies ahead for me is my first taste of outer space," chortled Ted with happy enthusiasm.
"Look
out there, folks—not even noon and it’s starting to get dark!"

The deep blue vault of sky turned indigo, then satiny-black—and then a pure black so intense it seemed almost like a solid thing, scattered with endless crystalline stars. The roundness of the earth began to show in the curvature of the horizon. Presently, off to the east, the travelers could make out something of the shorelines of distant Africa.

"An angel’s-eye view!" murmured Bash.

"You kin see jest about half the whole blame world from up here, ladies!" exclaimed Chow. "I don’t like t’ say it, an’ you kin fergit I ever did—but it makes even ole Texas look a mite small."

With the world of man left well behind and below, Tom moved to set a parabolic course that would smoothly take them to the space station, floating 22,300 miles above South America at the equator. Punching a final button, he lounged back in his pilot’s scat. "Look! No hands!" Tom chuckled with a suave careless gesture.

The mood was instantly broken as a half-dozen alarm buzzers blared forth from the control panel!

"Skipper!"
Bud shouted in warning. "Something’s gone wrong!"

The next moment the entire spacecraft gave a violent shudder. Then the deck began to tilt—slightly, then dangerously.

"Great suns!" cried Doc Simpson in horror. "The ship’s turning upside down!"

"WE’RE starting to tumble," choked out Ted Spring. The deck had now assumed such an extreme slant that the standing passengers, still under the influence of gravity from the nearby earth, were forced to stumble back against the rear bulkhead and brace themselves against it.

"Son," called out Mr. Swift as gently as possible, "is the problem in the repelatrons?"

The reply was terse. "No. Something else."

"Let’s use the ’trons to push us back upright," Bud urged.

Tom did some quick calculations. "Nothing at that angle available for us to repel."

"The sun?"

"Not in range," replied the young space pilot tensely. "It’d take minutes for the field-beam to get there."

"Boss, I—I don’t think we got too dang many minutes left!" gulped Chow. The bulkhead wall was now halfway to horizontal, and the craft’s somersault seemed to be accelerating!

"Everyone remain cool and calm!"
Bashalli commanded forcefully. "Do not distract our pilot!"

Tom and Bud nursed the controls with cool efficiency, hands darting back and forth. Acting on a sudden hunch, Tom disengaged the main control computer and flew the ship by the seat of his pants for a minute. To his relief, the
Challenger
began to right itself.

"The gyros are back on line," Bud announced gratefully. "Jetz!—what a scare
that
was."

As the deck leveled and relieved breaths were exhaled, Ted approached Tom and Bud. "Guys—this is quite a bit like what went down on the
Sky Queen
the other week."

"Very much
‘quite’,"
Tom agreed.

"Sabotage?" asked Tom’s father.

"Of some kind or other," responded the young inventor. "But not of a mechanical sort. It’s as if they’re introducing something into our computers that’s causing parts of the control programming to get loopy. Yet… we’ve protected the system against viruses and ‘worms’ and the like."

"At least you can still fly this bucket the old fashioned way," noted Doc. "By hand!"

Tom smiled and held both of his hands in the air to show that the
Challenger
was now remaining stable in its course without minute direction from its pilots.

"Why, it’s flying itself!" Sandy exclaimed. "Tom, this ship’s a dream!"

"Shucks, you ain’t seen a hair of it yet!" Chow bragged. "Jest wait’ll you see how I scoot around up here in my lil ole jet-perpelled space duds!"

"Why bother with a space suit?" Bud needled him. "We’ve been expecting you to take off for Mars in that shirt you’re wearing!"

Chow preened himself proudly as the others stifled their amusement. His latest cowboy shirt was patterned with a wild galaxy of stars and planets and—perhaps—exploding supernovae. "I designed this here number myself, buckaroo, an’ they made it up fer me in the tailor shop. You couldn’t buy another one like it fer love or money!"

"That
I can believe," Bud muttered joshingly.

They arced silently upward far beyond the earth’s atmosphere, the force of gravity slowly diminishing but not entirely absent. They were not yet in a free-fall trajectory but were still suspended atop the invisible columns of the repulsion rays. As the minutes passed Tom checked out Sandy and Ted on the
Challenger
’s controls, Bud assisting.

An attempted adjustment by Sandy caused a beeping sound that left her flustered for a moment. "Oh, my goodness! What did I do?"

Ted, smiling at her warmly, reached across and flipped a switch. The sound ceased. "No big thing, Swift-girl. You’re
really
picking up the technique fast—faster’n me, I think!"

Tom’s sister smiled demurely and reddened. "Thanks, Ted."

"Skipper, if I needed anything to prove you’re a young genius, this’ll do fine," Doc Simpson said, wide-eyed with amazement at the spreading panoply of stars.

"Take a bow, pal!" Bud grinned at Tom.

Bashalli rolled her pretty eyes. "Please, you
must
not encourage the growth of ego in this little room of ours. Here, there is not
enough
space!"

At length the
Challenger
had assumed a weightless orbit, and soon the Swift Enterprises outpost in space loomed into view. Those who had never before visited the space station gasped anew at the breath-taking spectacle. "Photos don’t do it justice!" exclaimed Ted.

The gigantic, silver-white satellite, turning slowly but otherwise seemingly hanging motionless in the cosmic void, actually was hurtling along in its orbit at 6,888 miles per hour. Antennas, polished reflectors, and a latticework optical telescope poked out from the fourteen-spoked wheel, and supply craft were parked nearby, floating stationary as the space-wheel turned. The tapering spokes, joined at a spherical hub, were set close together, and overall the space outpost somewhat resembled a thick, corrugated discus.

"Each spoke is a separate unit," Tom explained to Bash in answer to a question. "Some are designed for crew’s quarters or laboratories, one is an astronomical observatory, and others are assembly lines for charging solar batteries. Those big reflectors you see are to focus the sunlight in on—"

Bud suddenly broke in. "Problem, Tom! The repelatrons beamed at the earth won’t turn off—we’re not matching speeds with the outpost!"

Alarmed, Tom checked the controls and instruments hastily. He flicked several switches without result. "I can’t decrease the earth force." He turned his attention to a separate set of control levers and knobs. "There—I’m shifting the radiators along their tracks to angle them away from the earth."

"At least that works, son," murmured Mr. Swift. "But—!"

By this time, the ship appeared to be rushing toward the space wheel at terrifying speed.
In a matter of moments, they would crash!

"G-gallopin’ hoot owls!" Chow gulped, turning as pale as the stars on his shirt. "Can’t you back up this here flyin’ buckboard?"’

"Not exactly, but you’ve got the right idea, Chow," Tom gritted as his strong fingers moved rapidly over the control panel. "I’ll aim the usable repelatrons at the outpost and slow us to a stop that way," he said, trying to remain cool.

The passengers watched tensely as the ship gradually slowed into stable orbit close to the space station—its momentum neutralized by the forward repulsion rays.

"Quick thinking, Tom!" Mr. Swift congratulated his son.

"B-but how do we get over to the space station?" asked Bash nervously. "You will not launch us toward it like missiles, I should hope!"

Bud grinned. "This is where Chow does that Daring-Young-Man-on-the-Jet-Propelled-Trapeze act he was telling you about."

"That may not be necessary," Tom said, puzzled and thoughtful. "According to the instruments the repelatrons are responding to commands again, just as they should. I’ll maneuver the ship up to the docking corridor under the hub as we planned originally."

In a minute the mammoth ship had mated with the tubular, pressurized corridor that extended from the very midpoint of the underside of the outpost’s hub section, Tom having given the
Challenger
a slight rotation to match that of the station. As a standard precautionary measure, everyone donned their assigned spacesuits, boots, and helmets. One by one, they went out through the ship’s airlock, feeling joyous and a bit giddy as they drifted along the corridor in the zero-gravity environment.

"I
love
this, Thomas!" cried Bashalli over her suit transiphone as she floated serenely. "It is enough to make me overlook the
ghastly
scarlet color of these taste-free outfits you scientific
couturiers
have cooked up for us."

"Well," noted Sandy, "at least we can see each others’ faces through our nice stylish fishbowl helmets."

"Which is a feature I happen to appreciate, Sandy," added Ted Spring.

Tom and Damon Swift brought up the rear. When father and son finally entered the space station and pulled off their helmets, they were greeted by Kenneth Horton, commander of the outpost, a strongly-constructed man of about thirty, with dark, close-cropped hair.

"Welcome, strangers!" he greeted them, shaking hands with the two Swifts. "Tom, I’m eager to hear about this matter-making machine of yours."

A former Signal Corps officer, Horton had become one of the Swifts’ first space trainees and had helped to build the station.

"The machine’s still experimental, Ken," Tom replied. "I’m hoping to perfect it up here—hopefully without throwing the station out of orbit!"

In the interim it seemed that Sandy and Bashalli had used the negligible gravity conditions of the hub as an excuse to drift close to Horton. "Oh, Ken, you’ve just got to get down to Earth more often!" Sandy cooed. "That wonderful tan of yours is going-going-
gone!"

Horton laughed. "You’re so right. The Swifts insist I take a vacation earthside every few weeks. But to tell you the truth, it’s up here in space that feels like the real vacation—and I’m not much for commuting!"

"The low gravity seems not to have deteriorated your muscles, we have noticed with interest," put in Bashalli. "Perhaps Doctor Simpson should examine you—as a space medical phenomenon, that is."

As Ken seemed ill at ease in the face of the girls’ enthusiastic appraisals, Tom grinningly introduced him to Ted Spring and Doc Simpson. Then Tom sought out some of the outpost’s crew of technicians to discuss temporarily adapting the solar battery facility to his use.

Hours later, as Tom was making his way to his small private cubicle in the living quarters module, he paused at Ted’s open compartment door. The young cadet was slumped on his cot in a hopeless, dejected attitude, hands clasped. Tom felt a pang of concern.

Had Ted succumbed to the unpredictable "space sickness" which often struck new recruits on their first trip into the void?

KNOCKING politely and stepping over to the young cadet, Tom laid a hand gently on his shoulder. "Feel all right, Ted?" he asked.

Ted looked up, forcing a smile. For a long moment he hesitated, as if not sure what to say. "Sure, T-man. I-I’m okay. Glad to be here. Just a bit worried about the folk, that’s all. They’re mighty cut off from the world out in that cabin."

"We’ll check right now," Tom promised. "Come with me."

Leading the way into the communications center in the hub, he asked the com operator to contact Enterprises by way of the Swifts’ private satellite relay network. Scant minutes later Harlan Ames’s voice came over the speaker with perfect, robust clarity: "What’s up, Tom?"

"Ted’s worried about his mother and Ray," Tom explained. "Have you heard anything from them since we left Shopton?" he asked, as Ted bent forward to catch the answer.

"I talked to Mrs. Spring just a while ago, Ted," Ames reported. "She and Ray are fine, but she said she’d just had another phone call from Hampshire."

"From Hampshire?"
Ted broke in anxiously. "But how did he find out she was there? How could he have gotten the number?"

"Frankly, I don’t know," Ames admitted. "Maybe from that same spy who sneaked into Tom’s lab. Believe me, we’re just as concerned as you are. In fact—"

Ted interrupted again, impatiently. "What did Hampshire say?"

"He made no threats, thank goodness," Ames answered. "Just laughed about how we’d failed to outwit him. He said to Mrs. Spring, ‘Here I am trying to do you a favor, and you run away from me!’"

Tom and Ted were alarmed by these developments. "Do you think that they’re in any danger?" Tom asked Ames.

"Definitely not," the security man replied. "I’m having two guards fly up there this evening. The men will be in constant touch with us here at the plant. As I told you, there’s only one narrow road leading to the property—and if any unidentified plane should appear, the guards will notify us at once."

Ted brightened immediately when he heard these arrangements. After sending a message to be relayed to his mother and Ray, the two young men signed off. "We owe a lot to Mr. Ames," said Ted.