Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates (6 page)

But Tom had already begun speaking, the signal delay overlapping their voices. "Are you fellows all right?"

"Sure thing, son, ever’body’s right fine! Wa-aal—considerin’."

"It’s great to hear you, pardner, but maybe I should talk to Kent. The communications window may not last very long."

"Okay. Here he is."

Rockland’s voice came on. "Looks like you had the same idea as Professor Jatczak, Tom. We’ve been trying from our end for an hour now. We know there’s some sort of screen or cloud-barrier around Nestria that blows things to kingdom come—we’ve sent up a few test missiles."

"Have any of the scientists determined the nature of the barrier?" asked Tom.

"No, we can’t get a fix on anything. One of the Brungarians thinks it might be some kind of antimatter deal."

"I have the same theory," Tom stated. "What sort of condition is the base in?"

When Rockland’s response came through after the delay, Tom noted that it had become more distorted and was noticeably weaker. "We’re getting water from our atmosphere-making machine, but we could use some food. We’ve got quite a few mouths up here right now." The mineralogist explained that the explosion of the supply rocket had sent out a shower of radioactive fallout which had contaminated nearly all of Base Galileo’s experimental vegetable gardens. The colonists, given a few minutes’ warning by the base’s radiation sensors, had retreated to protective shelters but had had no time to shield the crops. "We’ve started de-radding the area, but Doc Simpson says the edibles are unsafe. And we don’t keep a big reserve of the packaged stuff."

"Roger. Your signal’s starting to go now. But tell everyone we’re working the problem. Keep your chins up, all of you," he added. "I’ll try to get a ship there with provisions as fast as possible—and bring you fellows safely back to earth."

Beneath the rising waves of static Tom could hear a faint chorus of cheers and exclamations of relief from voices in the background. Evidently the entire crew of the base had gathered around the radio. "This is Fearing, signing off."

Tom and Bud jetted back to Shopton and Swift Enterprises. Landing, the young inventor headed for his office, remarking to Bud: "I’ve got to let my ideas cook a little—upstairs. Which is fine, because tomorrow ― "

"Is Friday!" concluded Bud with an excited grin. "Which means we’re due in Chinatown for some Chinese-puzzle solving!"

Early the following afternoon the youths took off for New York in a Swift Enterprises jetrocopter. Marketed by Enterprises’ manufacturing subsidiary in Shopton, the Swift Construction Company, this was the name given to a versatile combination helicopter-jetcraft which Tom had invented.

After landing at the Hudson River heliport, Tom and Bud took a taxi to downtown Manhattan. From time to time Tom glanced at the driver’s rearview mirror.

As they neared the Chinatown commercial center at Chatham Square, he murmured to Bud, "Don’t look now, flyboy, but a car’s been on our tail all the way from the heliport. That’s a lot of streets and a lot of turns."

Ignoring his pal’s admonition, Bud twisted his head and watched. "Yeah, four cars back and holding steady. I don’t like this, Tom," he said uneasily. "Let’s not take any chances."

Tom nodded. As their taxi braked at the next stop light, he hastily handed the driver a bill and said to Bud, "Okay, let’s go!"

The boys leapt out, slammed the door, and darted off into the crowd of pedestrians, mostly from Chinatown. Bud flung a quick glance over his shoulder.

"You were right, Tom!" he muttered. "The guy in the passenger seat is hopping out too!"

Tom turned long enough to glimpse a short but square-built figure in a tan suit, an Asian, striding after them, briskly keeping pace as he tried to stay out of view behind the knots of pedestrians. The two from Shopton stepped up their own pace. They wove through the stream of pedestrians for a few blocks, past colorful shop windows filled with Chinese merchandise.

"We’re blocked by the crowd for a sec, but he’s still on our tail!" Bud reported.

"Turn at this corner!" Tom said. A moment later he pulled Bud into a darkened doorway.

They watched the sidewalk at the corner and waited. To their surprise, the follower did not appear. Finally Bud heaved a sigh of relief. "We shook him! He must’ve given up when we ducked out of sight."

"Let’s not stick around!" Tom advised.

The boys were now within walking distance of their destination and soon reached the address the Collections contact had provided, a tall modern office building. Pausing inside next to the elevators, they read over the directory of tenants posted on the wall.

"Let’s see—third floor," Tom murmured. "Wu Nang Toys. Pleasant Golden Soup. Hing-Tse Family Association. Universal Exports, Ltd.. Okay—Trans-Pacific Import Company, suite 313. Up we go!"

The door of the third-floor suite brandished a shiny, new-looking brass sign with the name of the company engraved in solemn, dignified letters. "No hint of what they ‘import’," Bud remarked. "Maybe nothing!"

"I’d be surprised if it’s anything more than a front," Tom agreed.

"I sure hope we’re not walking into something!"

"Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s
something
."

The door was locked. It didn’t even rattle as Tom gave a rap. Almost instantly the door was opened by a young, pretty Asian woman wearing a high-waisted, long-skirted
cheong-sam
of jade-green silk. Tom was struck by the fact that she showed no surprise at her visitors.

"Good day, sirs. Do please come in."

"I’m Tom Swift," said the young inventor. "I was asked to come here. This is my associate, Bud Barclay."

"Of course. Please be seated." She closed the door as they entered, and the latch caught with a decisive click.

The room was scantily furnished with only a desk and a few chairs, which were well-padded with dark leather and comfortable-looking—but looked as if no human backside had ever sat down in them. As the boys sat down, the young woman disappeared through another door. A moment later she emerged and held the door open.

"Please go in." A polite smile showed briefly on her calm, delicate face.

Tom and Bud entered the adjoining room and the door closed behind them. They found themselves in a room lighted only by a single, rose-shaded lamp. It cast a dim glow over a small bronze statue of Buddha on a desk.

An elderly Asian with a thin, drooping white mustache, clad in an expensive business suit that appeared to be seeing its first day of use, stood up and bowed to Tom. "Very pleased to receive your visit, my dear Mr. Swift. I am honored."

Tom introduced Bud, then said, "I’m eager to learn why you sent for me, Mr.—?"

"But I did not send for you."

"True. But you were expecting us, obviously."

"An important distinction, is it not? Indeed, perhaps your visit was anticipated, Mr. Swift. I must say, you most skillfully gave our man the slip. His mission was only to guard you, to ensure a pleasant and safe arrival." The man’s smile was polite yet slightly mocking.

Tom felt a slight nudge from Bud, and he followed his chum’s gaze to a narrow decor table of dark lacquered wood pressed against the wall to their right. A small crystalline cube sat upon it.
Embedded inside was a tiny carven black cobra, coiled to strike!

TOM’S pulse quickened as he and Bud exchanged glances. What was the meaning of the cobra image? Had the two walked straight into the enemy’s clutches?

The boys’ faces must have shown their suspicions. Their host said calmly, "The name ‘Black Cobra’ is not unknown to you, I see."

He waited as if he expected an answer. Tom Swift didn’t give one.

"I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I think we’ve had enough of this particular ‘game’," Tom declared hotly. "You’ve obviously established some sort of phony get-up here, staged for our benefit. A real festival of ‘inscrutable oriental’ cliches!"

"Ah, but at least there is no incense." Perfectly serene, the man nodded in acknowledgment. He continued, "The quaint talisman you see was obtained at great risk, by certain ones who are willing to lose their lives to honor others who have already lost theirs. Take it, won’t you? It bears a sort of encryption, and it is our hope that it may serve to assist you, should you ever fall into the power of our mutual adversary."

Tom picked up the cube and slipped it into his pocket. "
Our
hope?" Tom repeated the words questioningly. "Does this mean that you belong to the same... group... that told us to come here?"

Their host pretended not to have heard. He went on smoothly, "You asked my name. I am Mr. Fun. And to answer the stifled laughter I see upon your face, Mr. Barclay, the name ‘Fun’ is common in my native land. I am, in fact, Sheong-Lo Fun. You are wondering, perhaps, why it was necessary to come here. Why could the cube not have delivered to you in a, one might say, less theatrical manner?"

"Now that you mention it, why?" Bud asked.

The Oriental smiled. "There is an old proverb ― "

Tom interrupted with: "Please."

"But this is a good one, Mr. Swift, very apt.
Only Buddha knows if the arrow shall reach its mark.
It was most important that this tiny, rare, infinitely valuable object reach the hands of Tom Swift with safe certainty. Even personal messengers may be followed and dispatched violently, unexpectedly—the way of the cobra, is it not?"

Frowning, the young inventor drew a deep breath and nodded. "I see. And evidently you intend to tell us no more than you choose to. Do you and your people realize how many lives are at stake here? Can’t you at least tell me what you know about the whereabouts of Li Ching?"

"I have given you my answer. It lies within your pocket," he said. "Yet you are my guest, and I must see to your satisfaction. So I shall tell you this. In trusting and protecting John Tsu, you have made a regrettable error. He is the servant of the man whom you seek, and is, by compulsion, loyal to him—even unto death."

"You mean his warning was bogus? To send us off the rails?" demanded Bud.

"He only managed to utter the first few words of what he was to say. The remainder would have, indeed, given you, in a most convincing way, false information, a false lead that would have put you and your associates in the hands of your adversary."

"Was shooting him part of his being ‘convincing’?" Tom asked skeptically.

"Those who pursue him are members of the military of the People’s Republic of China," replied Mr. Fun. "As you know, certain secrets were taken by one of their own."

"Comrade-General Li Ching."

"There are those in China who yearn desperately for the return of those secrets, unexposed to the light of day. They have found a means of, shall we say, negotiating. But the opposite party now makes unrealistic demands, arrogant demands that no government can accept. And so they do what they can to interfere with his plans, to demonstrate that they are not to be trifled with."

Tom inquired bluntly, "Is it permitted to ask your own interest in this? Just who you are?"

"Your humble friend and servant." The man bowed, then straightened and pressed a wall button.

The young woman in jade reappeared so promptly that Tom suspected she had been standing on the other side of the door. Mr. Fun then turned back to the boys.

"How valuable it is to have an efficient secretary." Again he bowed. "Most pleasurable to have met you both. Miss Tung will show you out. Good day to you."

Moments later, the two were back in the hallway. As the door shut behind them, Bud gestured with his thumb. The door was blank. The identifying plaque had been removed. "I’d say Miss Tung is
mighty
‘efficient’," commented the young Californian. "Maybe they need the plate for this evening’s hoax."

In the lobby, Tom pointed at the wall directory. The listing for Trans-Pacific Import Company was gone, replaced by:
Vacant, now available for lease.

Bud gaped. "Good night! This whole thing was phony from start to finish!"

"Maybe
phony
isn’t quite the word, Bud." Tom’s face took on a wry grin. "Let’s say it was arranged for our benefit."

"Benefit? We should be so lucky!" Bud retorted, and hailed a taxi for their trip back to the heliport.

As Bud piloted the jetrocopter toward Shopton, Tom’s brow wrinkled as he closely examined the crystal cobra cube. "Personally, Bud," he said, "I think someone’s gone to an awful lot of trouble to help us. Maybe a little
too much
trouble. The import company was a blind for our rendezvous—and now that our unknown friends have handed over this cube, they’re making sure no clues are left behind."

"If you say so, genius boy. As for me—
my
theory is, we got roped into being unpaid actors in somebody’s low-budget spy movie—what they call a
pirate shoot!
"

Tom devoted the weekend to intense work on the problem of designing a means to safely take a sample of the destructive space barrier. The shadow-traverse effect had proven to Tom that the dispersed particles were stabilized by some form of enveloping electromagnetic field that cloaked the moonlet on all sides.
And if magnetism holds it in place
, he reasoned,
I can use magnetism to scoop out a piece of it!

Bud wisely left Tom to his work most of the weekend, but paid a visit to the lab late Sunday afternoon. "How’s the brainwork?"

"Chugging along," was the reply. "I may have something to show for it soon."

"Great, genius boy," said Bud. He added in a somber voice: "And what would be
really
great would be a Swift gimmick to punch a big hole in that space cloud—I’ll settle for blowin’ it away from the base, into outer space."

"I know, Bud. If only there were some way to get through to them!" Tom muttered.

Suddenly a girl’s voice asked, "Tom couldn’t possibly be referring to
us
, could he?"

Tom and Bud whirled in surprise as two girls breezed through the open lab door. The one who had spoken was pretty, blond Sandra Swift, Tom’s sister.

Sandy’s companion, Bashalli Prandit, offered a bland smile and eyes that twinkled. "Since when did Tom and Bud ever worry about contacting a couple of mere girl friends?—that is to say,
friends
who happen to be
mere girls.
"