Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar (2 page)

Bashalli begged off with regret, a shift at The Glass Cat coffee house waiting for her in town. After the atomicar had been garaged inside Enterprises grounds, Sandy drove Tom and Bud to the airport in her own car, which was more capacious than Tom’s little sports car or Bud’s red convertible. "Ed’s on his way back from England," Sandy explained, "and headed for Mexico. But he
managed
to work in a visit to his doting aunt in between."

Ed Longstreet was the son of Tom’s mother’s older brother Quentin. That branch of the family was well-monied, and Ed had never needed to work for a living. Instead he had become a world traveler with a zest for exotic locales and challenging off-the-map explorations.

"It’ll be great to see Ed again," declared Tom.

Added Bud: "I’ll say—especially since I barely got to see him at all last time he passed through." Ed’s prior visit had coincided with Bud’s being held captive in New Guinea, a tale told in
Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane
.

The Shopton Airport was modest, but growing rapidly as the world beat a path to the door of Tom Swift Enterprises. There was no need for Sandy to find a parking spot, as Cousin Ed’s jet had already landed and its passengers were streaming through the terminal exits. "Oh, there he is!" she exclaimed.

A slender young man of twenty-five with a good-humored grin, and somewhat less than a full ration of hair, Ed Longstreet had been one of the first passengers off the plane.

"Hi, Ed! How’s the world traveler these days?" Tom said, jumping out and shaking his cousin’s hand.

"Just great! And say! Who’s this blond charmer?"

Sandy giggled and leaned out the window to give Ed a quick kiss.

"Since you didn’t call me a charmer, you’ll have to settle for a handshake," joked Bud. "Good to see you!"

"But where’s your luggage?" Tom asked.

"Oh, I always travel light, you know," was the breezy reply. "Easier—and more fun—to just buy what you need when you get there. I just have my one travel bag to pick up at the luggage carousel. Now that I know you’re here, let me― "

His remarks were interrupted as a tense voice blared out over the terminal’s public-address system:

"Attention please. Everyone leave the terminal area at once! Repeat—leave the terminal at once! There is no cause for panic, but please get out quickly! Go to your cars immediately!"

There was a stunned hush, then an excited babble as people began hurrying across the parking lot, glancing back in puzzlement and fear. Tom grabbed Ed’s forearm and spoke to his cousin. "Come on, Ed! Let’s go! We’ll come back for your bag when they give the all-clear."

Ed was just about to pile into the front seat next to Sandy when a loud thudding blast was heard, shaking the terminal’s big glass windows and provoking cries of startled alarm from the surging crowd. Smoke billowed from the airport building.

"A bomb!" Tom cried.

FIRE TRUCK sirens were already screaming in the distance. In a short time a hook and ladder arrived, followed by a police car, another fire truck, and an unmarked official van that discharged several running men in helmeted, thickly-padded work outfits.

"Emergency bomb squad or something," Ed murmured.

Bud nodded. "Shopton’s got its own anti-terrorism office these days," he commented.

Sandy gasped at the thought, but Tom spoke reassuringly. "Terrorists don’t usually give advance warning, guys. More than likely this is just a prank."

The displaced crowd remained in the parking lot, milling about. In twenty minutes exhaust fans had cleared away the last wisps of smoke, and the same voice—much calmer now—was announcing:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we regret this inconvenience, but the terminal is now perfectly safe. The blast was caused by a smoke bomb, and we hope the police will soon arrest the person responsible!"

Most of the crowd showed signs of relief, although some were still angry and shaken.

"Well, well," joked Ed Longstreet, mopping his high forehead with a handkerchief. "
Quite
a welcome you folks arranged for me—as usual!"

Tom laughed wryly and told Sandy to take their cousin to the car while he picked up Ed’s suitcase. Soon the Swifts and their guest were driving home.

When they arrived, Tom’s parents greeted Ed warmly. Then Mrs. Swift, slender and pretty, served glasses of iced fruit juice while their visitor settled himself in an easy chair and Sandy recounted the airport bomb scare. Mr. Swift, tall and athletic-looking, with steel-blue eyes, listened with keen interest.

"Sounds as though someone has an unpleasant sense of humor," he remarked quietly. The distinguished scientist and his famous son bore a close resemblance, and they shared similar temperaments. Tom knew his father was wondering if the incident had somehow been aimed at Tom. It would hardly be the first time!

"Got something for you, Aunt Anne," Ed spoke up. He reached inside his suit-coat pocket and brought out a leather case which he handed to Mrs. Swift. Her eyes danced in anticipation.

Inside lay a delicate silver necklace supporting a blood-red ruby pendant. The jewel flashed with fiery brilliance as Mrs. Swift held the necklace up to the light.

"This is magnificent," she said.

"Try it on," Ed urged with a smile.

"You surely didn’t bring this for me?" Mrs. Swift’s voice trembled in genuine awe.

Ed nodded and produced a smaller box for Sandy. It contained a silver ring with a ruby that looked like a twin to the one in the necklace. Sandy bubbled with delight. "Oh, it’s beautiful— just
beautiful!
"

Both she and her mother smiled happily as they expressed their thanks and displayed the gifts to Mr. Swift, Tom, and Bud. Ed’s grin showed his pleasure at their reaction.

"Don’t give me too much credit, you two. Actually the stones were a bargain," he explained. "I bought them unset at the bazaar in Teheran."

"That’s the capital city of Iran, isn’t it?" asked Sandy, more fascinated than ever.

"Yes. Always in the news these days. By the way," Ed went on, "there’s a mystery connected with those rubies, from way back when the country was still called Persia."

"A mystery!" Sandy was wide-eyed.

"Ah
hah
, still a mystery-lover, I see!" Ed’s eyes twinkled. "No doubt you’ve read in the newspapers recently about Kabulistan—a little speck of a country near Iran and Afghanistan which just gained its independence. Well, according to the jeweler I went to in London, a famous ruby mine was once located there, called the Amir’s Mine. Today no one knows where it is—the mine’s been lost for two centuries."

"Jetz! You don’t mean these two rubies came from that mine?" asked Bud with an excited look in Tom’s direction.

"You’ve guessed it," said Ed. "I took the stones to London to be mounted—and because of their color, the jeweler suspected they had been taken at least three hundred years ago from the fabled lost mine of Kabulistan!"

"Oh, how
fascinating!
" Sandy exclaimed, and her mother added, "What a treasure trove if someone could find it!"

Ed winked at his aunt and smiled. "Believe it or not, I just happened to have the same thought. In London I tracked down a book which gives a few clues to the mine’s location! It’s my gift to Tom and Uncle Damon. But if you worm the secret out of it, you’ve got to promise to take me along to Kabulistan!"

"It’s a deal!" Tom laughed.

Going over to his bag, which had been placed on the stairway, Ed opened it and delved inside. In a moment he had pulled a tattered, faded volume, obviously very old, from a secure pouch. "According to the antiquities dealer who sold it to me, this may be the only copy in existence."

"The only one! In which case it’s worth a fortune if it really holds the secret of the Amir’s Mine," said Mr. Swift thoughtfully, taking it from Ed’s hands with a nod of thanks.

"What’s the name of the book?" Sandy asked.

"
Travels in Remotest Araby,
" Ed replied, "written in 1728 by an Englishman named Dalton."

Ed explained that after hearing the jeweler’s chance remark, he had used his London contacts to seek out books of the period which told about the Kabulistan region, then a part of old Persia. He had eventually been put in touch with the antiquities dealer, who had advertised that
Travels in Remotest Araby
included an account of the author’s own visit to the mine. "I don’t imagine the bookseller realized that the mine was lost to history, or that the book could contain some clues."

"We’ll send him a ruby or two when we find it," Bud declared with a grin. "And you know what, everybody? Tom’s flying ‘electric runabout’ is perfect for lost-mine hunting!"

Bud’s comment intrigued Cousin Ed, who asked Tom about his new invention. The discussion continued as they sat down for dinner.

"Right now my test model runs off a bank of our Swift solar batteries," Tom explained, "which the company manufactures in orbit, in the space outpost."

"And they’re not enough?" asked Ed in surprise. "I thought they were super-advanced."

"They are, and in fact the batteries are already in use for powering electric-motor vehicles. But my flying car’s repelatrons are real energy hogs, Ed. I didn’t mention it to Bashalli today, but we really couldn’t have spent much more time in the air than we did—our available power was down almost ninety percent by the time we returned, from just a few minutes of repelatron use."

"Not exactly a selling point," Bud gibed.

Tom continued, "That’s why my goal is to make it a real
atomicar
, a private vehicle running off its own atomic power source."

Commented Ed with a snort, "You must be making the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
very
nervous."

"Tell me about it!"

"We have all the necessary certifications for prototype development," noted Damon Swift, "but we had to give strict assurances that we won’t use dangerous fissile materials, such as the Veranium we utilize in the jetmarine reactors. Nowadays they don’t want too much of such materials floating around in public."

This puzzled Cousin Ed. After a moment he inquired, "Maybe I’m not up on the latest in atomic energy, but—how can you have an atomic reactor without the stuff that makes it go?"

It was Bud who answered the question. "Genius boy’s foolin’ around with fusion!"

"Really, Tom? Tabletop fusion? You found a way to make it work?" Ed was excited but incredulous.

The crewcut scientist-inventor gave a modest shrug. "Maybe. Sort of. I
think
so."

"Tomonomo’s already tested it out!" enthused Sandy with sisterly pride. "It’s already almost as powerful as a solar battery."

"Which is far from enough," Tom declared. "But I’m continuing to experiment with my atomic power capsule, as I call it—another test tomorrow."

Tom’s mother now entered the conversation, a worried tone in her voice. "Son, your power capsule could have quite an impact on world energy production, and that makes it extremely valuable—and threatening to certain interests, don’t you think?" When Tom nodded agreement, she went on: "Couldn’t that airport bomb scare have been more than a prank? And more than a coincidence?"

Trading a glance with his father, Tom said, "Believe me, I’ve thought about that."

"Me too," Bud stated. "Except—how does pulling a stunt like that at Shopton Airport affect your experimentation?"

The young inventor admitted that he could see no connection. "But it’s enough of a coincidence for me to want to find out a little more about it."

After supper was concluded, Tom strode to the phone and dialed his friend Captain Rock at Shopton Police Headquarters. After telling the reason for his call, Tom asked for details on the bomb incident.

"More anti-Swift shenanigans, hmm? Maybe so. Soon after your cousin’s flight set down, we got an anonymous phone tip that a bomb had been set to go off in the terminal," Rock said. "Naturally I called the airport and ordered them to clear the building at once. No sense taking chances! We’ve traced the warning call to a booth right there at the terminal, which makes it look like a typical prank."

"Did anyone notice the caller?" Tom asked.

"Yes, and it wasn’t some school kid with too much time on his hands. An airline clerk gave us a description—a tall, sallow-faced man with several gold teeth, wearing a light-colored suit. Back in my misspent youth, we called ’em tropical-style."

Tom turned and repeated the description to Ed. "Why, that fellow sat right next to me!" Ed exclaimed. "He tried to draw me into conversation! But I sort’ve ignored him. I’m not into being stupefied with boredom on air hops."

Tom passed this information on to Captain Rock. "Good lead," the officer remarked. "We’ll check the airline passenger list, although the man may have been using an alias. But Tom, my friend?"

"Yes sir?"

"D’you suppose we could arrange for this
not
to turn out to be a spy, just for a change of pace? My guys are getting tired of having to always turn their cases over to the good folks at the FBI."

Tom laughed. "I’ll see what I can do! But I’m afraid it’ll be up to Harlan Ames." Ames was the seasoned head of Swift Enterprises plant security and well known to the Shopton police.

When Tom hung up, Ed commented, "The usual Tom Swift murky-murk, eh?"

Bud stuck out his hand for a congratulatory handshake. "Let’s hope so!"

In the morning, while Mr. and Mrs. Swift and Sandy prepared for a day’s sail aboard the Swifts’ beautiful ketch
Sunspot
, with their guest and Bashalli Prandit’s family, Tom sped off to one of his private labs at Swift Enterprises.

The sprawling, four-mile-square enclosure of gleaming modern workshops and laboratories was the experimental station where Tom developed and tested his scientific marvels. Tom was eager to run the final tests on his new midget power plant. Now that his atomicar was ready for public presentation, the only step remaining was to install the atomic power capsule—provided it checked out satisfactorily.