Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts (4 page)

BOOK: Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts
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A minute went by before Tom fully regained his senses. He could feel a warm trickle of blood on the back of his neck. Tom brushed it away, still somewhat dazed. Then he heard a moan beside him.

"Bash!"

Alarm over her safety helped shock Tom back to full consciousness. Bash was slumped against him, held up by her shoulder strap. Her eyes were closed and there was a shallow gash on her right temple that was bleeding. Tom shook her gently and chafed her wrists.

"Bash!" he repeated urgently. "Wake up!" As she opened her eyes, he asked, "Are you all right?"

"I—I hope so." She tried to smile. "I’m sorry, Thomas."

"It wasn’t your fault. That boneheaded truck driver slammed on his brakes without warning and we crashed into him!" For the first time, Tom realized that the truck was nowhere in sight. He scowled fiercely. "The guy cleared out without even offering to help us!"

"Oh please, Tom, let us be very honest with one another," protested the girl, voice slurry and weak. "Surely this was yet another deliberate attack on the genius inventor of Shopton. I am privileged to suffer collateral damage."

Tom did not try to reply. "No bones broken?" he inquired in sympathetic concern.

"G-guess not." Bashalli winced and touched her shoulder gingerly. "Surely I’m black and blue, though! The strap kept me safe, but my poor shoulder has no gratitude."

"It’s the cut on your head I’m concerned about," murmured the young inventor. "Let’s get it cleaned and bandaged."

"Such gallantry," Bash commented. Before Tom could reply, her expression changed abruptly. She had just noticed the red smear on the back of her friend’s collar. "Thomas! You’re hurt too!" she gasped, instantly forgetting her own bruises.

"Banged the back of my thick skull. It’s nothing."

But Bashalli insisted upon stanching the flow of blood with her handkerchief. As the young Pakistani concentrated on Tom’s injury, a red convertible drew up, stopped with a squeal of brakes, then pulled over to the side of the road just ahead of them.

"Hey! What gives?" It was Bud Barclay, on his way from the plant to dinner with Tom at the Swifts’ house. "Good night! Anyone hurt?"

He leapt out and came running toward them, giving a whistle of dismay when he saw that the front of Bash’s car had been smashed in.

"Barclay to the rescue!" Tom quipped. "You sure turned up at the right time. I’m afraid the Bash-mobile isn’t up to running."

Tom and Bash told him what had happened. Bud quickly checked Bashalli’s car and confirmed that it was no longer in driving condition. He then pushed it clear of the narrow roadway.

"Stay put, skipper!" Bud ordered when Tom tried to get out and help. Afterward Bud insisted upon driving the two victims to the office of Dr. Emerson in town, the Swifts’ family physician, who had late hours two nights of the week. Bud cellphoned ahead, and also called Tom’s family, assuring them that the injuries to Tom and Bashalli seemed minor.

Dr. Emerson examined and bandaged them. "You’re both all right, so far as I can tell," he announced. "No sign of any concussion. Bashalli, you received only a surface scratch which will heal up quickly. As for Tom here—I delivered him as a bouncing baby and he’s been bouncing ever since! You should rest quietly—at least through tomorrow night. That means in bed, young man!" the medic warned with a humorous shake of his finger at Tom.

"Oh, how nice for you, Tom!" teased Bashalli. "He just
loves
idle bed rest, Doctor."

The young inventor groaned, thinking of the loss of time from work. But he promised to comply.

Bud took Bash home and called a towing service to get her car. Then he drove Tom to his house.

Tom’s parents and Sandy paled at sight of Tom’s bandaged head. After hearing what had happened, they immediately and unanimously ordered him to bed. Bud walked upstairs with his woozy pal, calling down behind him: "Oh, and don’t worry about
me,
Sandy, I’m just
fine!"

"Just stuff him into that bed, Buddo!" Sandy ordered.

"Good grief, you’d think I was facing major surgery!" Tom muttered as he changed into pajamas.

"Quiet, please! No griping allowed," Bud retorted with a chuckle, "or I’ll call in a surgeon to remove that bump of stubbornness." But as his chum climbed into bed, Bud became serious. "Tom, did you notice the license number of the truck?"

"Does anyone
ever?
But we did see the sign on the side. It belongs to Shopton QuickRental Company." Tom shot a questioning look at Bud. "Why?"

"Skipper, has it occurred to you that the crash might not have been an accident?"

Tom nodded thoughtfully. "I didn’t want to say anything in front of Bash, but she brought it up first."

"Well, I intend to check up and find out," Bud declared. "That driver might have planned to run you down, if Bash hadn’t happened to pick you up!"

Tom agreed this was possible. "It’s a tired old gimmick, but still pretty deadly. See what you can dig up, Bud."

The following morning, on his way to Enterprises, Bud stopped at the office of the Shopton QuickRental Company. He explained about the crash and asked for the names and addresses of all persons who had rented trucks from the company the day before.

Hoping that abject cooperation might avert a lawsuit, the manager was only too happy to oblige. Four persons had rented trucks, none of which had yet been returned. Two of the people were familiar to the manager and had left town the morning before on long-distance hauling jobs.

The third proved to be a construction man who claimed to have been at the site of a project during the time of Bash’s accident. After inspecting the rear end of his truck, Bud was satisfied that this was not the one which had been involved in the crash.

"That leaves one name," Bud said to himself. But when he checked out the renter, Gus Emden, he was told at the address given that no one there had ever heard of such a person. Grimly satisfied, Bud drove to the plant and reported this to Harlan Ames.

"Looks as though Emden’s our boy," Ames agreed. "Good work! I’ll alert the police and see if they can find him and the truck. But he probably used a phony name if he intended to cause an accident."

The second day after the accident, Dr. Emerson made an early visit at the Swift home and pronounced Tom fit to return to work. "I’m sure you could have gotten a better deal from your plant medic, Simpson. But I hear he’s on vacation."

The patient chuckled. "He deserves it. We put him through a lot!"

At Enterprises Tom sat down with his chief engineer, Hank Sterling, to see if he could manage some progress on the "challenge."

"I’ve looked over everything you gave me, boss—the subtrinos, your experiments, the whole shot." Hank’s brow creased. "I’m afraid this sort of hard-science theoretical stuff is a little out of my league as an engineer. Break it down for me a little, would you?"

Tom grinned. "I’m not so sure I get the in’s and out’s of it myself."

"I understand the basics—the fact that the particle can change from one form to another."

"It ‘flips’ when it passes close to a certain kind of configuration of nuclei," explained the young inventor. He made a sketch on a notebook page as he talked. "The cosmic reactor, as I’ve named it, is built up of small segments—cells. What I was testing the other day was one of ’em, though in miniature."

"I thought as much."

"Now each cell has two plates, A and B. The A-plate is coated with nano-sized granules of ultradense neutron matter, which the Citadel provides us with for experimentation."

Hank looked surprised.
"Neutron matter?
I know enough of physics to know that that stuff is super heavy!"

"That’s true enough," replied the youth. "If we used more than a molecule-thick film, any propulsion system using it would be too heavy to get off the ground!" Resuming his account, Tom said, "When the subtrinos shoot through plate-A, the presence of the compacted neutrons causes them to transform into their alternative fermion state. When they hit plate-B, which is coated with Inertite, they bounce off and transfer their momentum to the reactor frame, giving it a push."

Hank nodded but retained a frown. "A push, but a very weak one, as I understand it."

"That’s the mystery here, Hank. What was there about that last arrangement of the two plates that caused such an over-the-top effect? If we can figure that out, we’ll have enough thrust to drive a spacecraft along." He handed Hank the monitoring data on the series of experiments, and the young engineer promised to focus on the question.

Driving home after work, Tom ran a few errands in town, then meandered along past the lakefront park in his sports car. The end of the day had left Tom feeling anything but hopeful. Every attack on the subtrino problem seemed to lead up a blind alley. Yet he couldn’t help feeling that its solution would lead to a space-travel breakthrough.

As Tom slowly drove past the widest section of the grassy park, he saw several young boys trying to fly a kite. But the boys were having trouble keeping it aloft. Recognizing one of them, Tom pulled his car over on impulse and got out.

"Hey, there’s Tom Swift! He’ll help us!" cried Jason Barstow, the son of an Enterprises employee. The group of boys excitedly hailed the celebrated young inventor.

Tom chuckled and strolled out across the field to meet them. "What’s the matter, Jazzy? Won’t she go up?"

"Sure won’t!" Jason complained. "And we spent all afternoon building this kite. Look—it’s made outta Tomasite plastic! You’re an expert, Tom. What’s wrong?"

"From the way it’s sagging up there, I’d say you’ve got overkill on your stabilizer, gang—the tail’s too long and heavy." Tom reeled in the kite and tore off part of the rag tail. In a few minutes he had the red kite soaring high in the blue, then turned it back to Jason.

"Oh, boy! How about that?" cheered Kenny Smith gleefully. "Just like magic!"

Tom grinned. "No magic about it," he explained. "Your kite was just tail-heavy. What makes a kite stay up, anyhow—ever stop to think?"

"The wind," Jazzy volunteered. "There’s plenty of wind from the lake."

"What else?"

Tom’s question brought puzzled looks. The boys could only shrug blankly.

"Well, for instance, what will happen if you let go of the string?" Tom persisted.

"The kite’ll fly away," said Kenny.

"And probably keep going forever!" Jazzy Barstow added. "At least till the wind dies down."

"Drop the string and see what happens," Tom suggested.

The boy hesitated, then let go. At once the kite started falling toward the ground. Jazzy quickly grabbed the string again and reeled in. As soon as the cord was taut, the kite seemed to regain its lift from the wind.

"I get it now, Mr. Swift!" piped up Joe Spinzo, a bright-eyed eight-year-old. "We need the string pulling on the kite, too, to make it fly."

"Smart thinking, Joe!" Tom approved. "You see, there are three things that happen when a kite goes up in the air. Watch."

Tom picked up a stick and scraped a diagram on a bare spot of ground. "First," he pointed out, "there’s the force of gravity which tries to pull the kite down. Second, the wind blows along the field and pushes the kite away from you. Third, you pull on the string into the wind, which makes the kite move upward in a curved arc. The string enables the kite to make use of the wind force so as to overcome the force of gravity."

"Gee, that’s simple the way you explain it, Tom!" said Jazzy.

Tom grinned. "Because the string holds back the kite against the wind, the wind bounces off it like a rubber ball. It sort’ve runs into itself as it bounces back, which makes a layer of extra pressure on the down-angled surface. If the kite were just carried along by the wind, you’d lose that pressure right away.

"Actually, it’s just like the pressure differential that gives lift to an airplane wing. When you pull on the kite string you supply the extra force needed to keep the kite up—in the same way an aircraft engine supplies the force to keep the plane up. No engine, no flight—no string, no flight."

The boys seemed to enjoy having the problem laid out by none other than Tom Swift. After chatting with them a few minutes longer, Tom asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.

"Space pilots!" the trio chorused.

"Glad to hear that, guys," Tom said. "It’s one of the best jobs in the world."

He waved good-bye and resumed his lazy homeward drive. He found himself wondering if the boys’ dreams would ever come true. "Not if we can’t beat the cost factor in space travel!" Tom reflected ruefully. "Kite flying is sure cheaper."

Kites!
The word exploded in Tom’s mind. He almost hit the brakes as an exciting idea struck him full force. Instead of regarding cosmic rays as a dangerous drawback to space flight, why not make use of cosmic subtrinos just as a kite makes use of the wind?

It suddenly struck the young inventor that the pressure-effect of the rebounding subtrinos interacting with one another during his experiment might have caused the enormous increase in the resultant force. Could it be?
I’ll build a brand-new experimental craft on this principle,
Tom thought elatedly,
and even call it a space kite!
The heightened force of the "captured" subtrinos would move the spaceship, just as the wind moved the boys’ kite aloft! Tom reasoned that he had accidentally produced the effect when he had rearranged the plates in his experiment.

At home Tom was quick to discuss the revolutionary approach with his father. Setting aside their joking "rivalry," the young inventor explained his space-kite idea.

"A spaceship propelled by cosmic radiation?" Mr. Swift was at once startled and intrigued. "And yet, why not? Tom, I believe you have a really promising idea there."

Then the scientist frowned. "The only trouble is you’d need still another source of energy—something to provide a force for the cosmic radiation to react against. Otherwise, as the craft accelerates freely, the particle impacts will convey less and less momentum, and the layer of pressure will dissipate."

"In other words," his son agreed thoughtfully, "something to take the place of the kite string on an ordinary air kite."

BOOK: Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts
7.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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