Tom Swift and the Mystery Comet (6 page)

"Like poking pinholes in a paper cup."

"Allowing heavy trace gases, dissolved in the local seawater, to penetrate into the airspace. If it was along the lines of what happened in space, the whole thing lasted less than a minute—and then the gases began to spread around."

"But how could that single isolated incident―" Hollifeld began.

Bud interrupted excitedly. "It happened a
second
time—while we were bubblevatoring down from the platform!"

"I haven’t forgotten!" Tom grinned. "And the record shows that it happened about twenty minutes earlier, too. In fact, by running the sort of enhancement analysis on the digital readings here that we used on the outpost, I was able to isolate an extended pattern of brief ‘bursts’ of tron-field fluctuations at regular intervals, continuing ever since the first one the other day."

Hollifeld shook his head. "I don’t get it. Why do these periods of fluctuation have different consequences? You mean to say the gases have been leaking into the dome intermittently—and still are?"

Tom nodded his head. "But the later bursts were much weaker in effect, fortunately, though I can coax them out of the automatic monitor data. The cause, whatever it is, ‘de-tunes’ the spacewave field somewhat differently on each repetition. It may be just a random variation—
static
of a sort. Most of the flux-bursts seemed to have produced no measurable effect in Helium City at all, as far as I can tell."

"Except... one of them threw off your bubblevator repelatron," noted Praeger. "Is that what you’re saying?"

"That’s it. The interference was too weak at that point to have much impact on your big dome repelatron, but the much smaller bubblevator repelatron had a much more noticeable reaction. Bud and I will make sure we go back up during one of the null points in the cycle."

Jack Eyling asked, "But why was the effect limited to the water repellers?"

"
Plus
the new mini-trons on the outpost," Bud put in. "It sure didn’t overlook that!"

"Sorry. I don’t have all the answers," replied Tom ruefully. "It may have something to do with the particular spacewave configurations that the seawater and fabric repelatrons use. It’ll take time to zero-in on the relevant factors."

There was a long moment of silence, mixed with dismay. "Tom, as chief of the Helium City operation I’m responsible for a lot of lives," declared Mr. Hollifeld solemnly. "If this thing is continuing even as we speak, who knows what will happen in the next of these fluctuation incidents? Or the one after that!"

Tom felt a great weight on his own shoulders as well. "Mr. Hollifeld, I asked my father to put our undersea evacuation procedures into effect as a precaution. Our research ship, the
Sea Charger
, is on its way, as well as the three manta-class seacopters docked at Fearing Island—the big freight carriers. I’m authorized to ask you to begin an orderly evacuation of all personnel up to the Atlantica platform as fast as you can manage it, between bursts. Helium City can run on computers for a while, until we can get a handle on what’s going on."

Hollifeld snapped off a grim nod, the equivalent of a salute. "We’ll get going immediately," he stated.

Tom added: "As an extra precaution, sir, please bring the secondary repelatron—the emergency backup—up to full activation. Having two overlapping fields might help cushion the effect."

"Yes, ‘
the effect
’," pronounced Dr. Praeger fearfully. "In other words, the possibility that the entire hydrodome air bubble will collapse."

"I wish I could rule it out," nodded Tom; "but I can’t."

After copying the instrument data and contacting his father via long-wave aquarad, relayed through Enterprises’ docking facility on Long Island, Tom and Bud hurried back to the surface. Night over the Atlantic was starry and clear, but to their eyes it seemed overcast with mortal danger that touched many lives.

In Tom’s mind, shadowed by the strange repelatron failures, the events of the hero-convention seemed somehow to merge with the present threat. As Bud piloted them into the sky, he could tell that his friend was brooding and troubled.

"Our skeptical friend Dr. Sarcophagus thinks I spend my time playing around with junk-science, daydreaming in the cause of hoodwinking the gullible public," Tom muttered to his pal bitterly. "He and his followers think people like me are too lazy and self-indulgent to do
real
science. They want science-by-committee, not imaginative leaps.

"I’m called a
hero
, Bud—and these skeptical debunkers have no use for
heroes
in science. They want math, not some kid’s imagination. Too much fun! But I’m sure not kicking back and having
fun
at the moment. I’d just as soon turn it all over to a big team of ‘scientifically correct’ researchers."

Bud nudged him and said quietly, "If you’d done that, a whole submarine city might have ended up drowning, Tom. Please—
stay
scientifically incorrect!"

They jetted back to Shopton and what was left of the night.

Next morning brought welcome word that the evacuation of the helium hydrodome, as well as the similar subsea complex near the Madeira Islands, had been completed.

Tom spent some time with security chief Harlan Ames and Phil Radnor, his assistant. "We’ve been all over that cryptic card," Radnor said. "We can’t pull anything useful from it, Tom, not if you need a quick answer. It’s just a standard three-by-five index card. Ordinary ink from a roller-ball gel pen—you can buy ’em anywhere."

"What about prints on the card?" Tom asked.

"Always the first thing we look for," replied Ames. "Unfortunately this card came to us pretty well-handled."

"They passed the cards forward through the crowd," nodded the youth.

"We’ll pull from it everything that’s there to pull," declared Ames firmly. A veteran of the Secret Service, he was well-trained in modern criminological technology.

"Well," Tom said jokingly, "
I
wouldn’t know anything about all that
technological
stuff. In any event, the writer might not show up in any fingerprint database. Probably just some guy who thinks it’s fun to rattle celebrities—or likes mysteries even if he makes them himself."

The three went on to discuss the two men Tom had encountered at the convention. "The information I’ve dredged up is—well, it’s interesting," Ames pronounced, "but I don’t know if it’s very relevant to the questions at hand.

"This fellow who calls himself ‘Dr. Sarcophagus’—he had to fend off a trademark infringement suit to be able to use the name—is basically a former science writer and accomplished amateur magician who makes a living performing and lecturing. He has a regular magazine column, he blogs, writes indignant letters to indulgent editors—that sort of thing."

"He’s a pretty entertaining writer," put in Radnor. "Lots of clever turns of phrase—but he also likes to turn the knife."

"He makes it personal to the point of tossing off casual insults," Ames continued. "He has his enemies list, and he doesn’t ‘suffer fools gladly.’ He’s mounted a crusade against what he regards as ‘public pseudoscience’ and ‘paranormal rubbish.’ You
don’t
want to mention UFO’s or spoon-benders within earshot, Tom."

"I’ll take care not to," responded the youth dryly. "What about this organization he mentioned?"

"Ah!—SCAT. Mailing list, 4300. Active members, 3. They traipse around the country debunking whatever they can find to debunk, and then they write it up in their slick quarterly newsletter with big dollops of sarcasm. And yes, they push some lunatic notion that the whole Swift space-contact saga is―"

"Let’s just say
moonshine
," interjected his stocky assistant.

Tom nodded. "A big, elaborate, high-tech hoax concealing weapons experimentation and ‘black budgets.’ Gosh, for people who call themselves
logic-minded skeptics
, they’ve sure committed themselves to a conspiracy theory wilder than
anything
in the ‘Tom Swift books’!"

"Still, there’s nothing criminal in all this, as far as I can tell," cautioned Ames thoughtfully. "Freedom of speech is there to be used, I guess, even by fanatics and crackpots. The guy—his real name is Randolph Sarkiewski, and he’s not a ‘doctor’ of
anything
—is obsessive and pretty full of himself, but as far as I can tell he’s sincere—calls himself a good citizen acting in a worthy cause.
And
making a little income at it."

Tom nodded. "It’s sure true that there’s a lot of fake science and urban legendry floating around out there. Anyone who takes on ‘the Church of Informatics’ can’t be all bad!"

"His confrontation with you was probably mostly for publicity," commented Ames. "Now as for Dr. Karl Feng—
you’d
probably understand his background more than we would. He’s actually well-respected in his academic field. But his
out-there
speculations are the kind of thing that drives the skeptics contingent into full
rant
. The mainstream historians pretty much dismiss the whole business of the Brothers of Hermes and this weird ‘mental alchemy’ theory of Feng’s."

"That’s
his
obsession!" Tom chuckled. "Maybe we all have one or two. But his book’s interesting."

"And let’s not forget—
someone
thinks the man’s important enough to warn you away from," Phil Radnor pointed out.

"
And
to fake a visit from the famous Tom Swift and his signature T-shirt," added the young prodigy with a wink. "But the incidents could be unrelated. Maybe my double’s just a hero-worshipper."

Ames grinned. "After all, Swift Enterprises itself sells those tees—over the Net."

Later in the morning, as Tom sat alone in the office he shared with his father, a wide shadow crossed his desk. Chow stood in the door.

"Jest came to see when you wanted lunch t’day, boss," said the westerner in the usual gravelly tones of the great pebbled prairies. "An’ Trent out there—he allus gets miffed if’n you call him Munford—said to tell you Let
tall
M’
nee
ka’s on the way up."

"Hmm? Who’s—?" But then Tom smiled. "Oh! I’ve never heard it pronounced aloud. Here’s how it’s written."

He turned his desk appointment book around for the cook to see and pointed to an entry.

LETHAL MONICA

"Wa-aal now!—that there’s quite a handle!" chuckled Chow. "She must be a right modern kind o’ gal, hmm?"

"It’s a man," Tom explained, "and the name, funny as it looks and sounds, is good honest
Brungarian
. He’s our visiting exchange-astronaut."

For much of the century concluded the eastern European nation of Brungaria had been a staunch enemy of the United States and the western world. With the fall of communism and the Soviet bloc it had become a hesitant, and occasionally suspicious, friend. With the support of NASA and the State Department, Tom’s father had arranged a one-month exchange of space pilots with the Brungarian equivalent to NASA, called COSMOSA. Enterprises astronaut Neil MacColter had traveled to Brungaria in exchange for one of COSMOSA’s top space trainees—whose name was startling to American eyes and ears.

Chow had a doubtful expression on his face. "Guess I heer’d about that there notion. Sure he ain’t one o’ the usu’l spies, are ya?"

"If he is, pardner, he’s kept it undercover."

"Ye-aah, well, that’s what they do! But if yew tell me to feed the poke, that’s what
I’ll
do."

As Chow began to back out of the office door, he almost knocked over Munford Trent, the Swifts’ executive secretary. "Mr. Monica is here, Tom."

"Great! Please show him in."

The young man who entered and offered Tom his hand was lean but muscular, with piercing blue eyes. He had a short moustache, five-o’clock shadow along his jawline that appeared permanent, and hair buzzed so short to his scalp that his hair color could not be determined. "At last!" he said with a bright smile and no discernable accent. "Tom, I’m honored—I know all about you!"

Tom laughed. "Don’t tell me you’ve studied up on me!"

"Ever since I was selected for this assignment I’ve been reading your books, the fiction series. I’m reading them in order, one by one. Quick reads—here you call them ‘page turners,’ don’t you? Just today I finished off
Repelatron Skyway
, on the plane."

The scion of Tom Swift Enterprises felt slightly embarrassed. "Lethal, the books... please don’t take them too seriously. They’re really aimed at the young adult market—school kids."

"But listen, they’re
exciting
; I’d call them inspiring. What a fine message about human harmony, the
Skyway
story!" The Brungarian added in a friendly way: "And please, Tom, just call me Lett, won’t you?"

The two sat and talked for a time, and Tom provided some details of the training routine planned for him. "I’m afraid COSMOSA is something of a mess right now," Lett commented. "As you know, the anti-democratic faction, the Sentimentalists, infiltrated the more advanced elements of my country’s spaceflight program and used them to their own evil purposes. Of course our
good-guys
regained control after the brief coup was defeated..."

"I’ve been intending to ask you," Tom interrupted, "are you and the other astronauts at all in touch with Col. Mirov?"

"Streffan Mirov?"

"I’ve come to consider him a friend, Lett. I know he spent some time recovering from his injuries on Little Luna—Nestria. And then he was recalled to military duty in the uprising against the coup leaders."

The young Brungarian’s face clouded with thought. "Yes, Mirov. Something of a hero to my countrymen."

Hero.
That word has worn out its welcome!
came into Tom’s mind. "I haven’t been able to get in touch with him lately. Has he decided to retire? I thought he might rejoin your space program in some capacity."

"No, not as far as I know," shrugged Lett. "The sad fact is... even the new Brungaria retains its old habits. Perhaps it’s part of our Slavic culture. There’s always hidden backbiting and deal-making and—what is your phrase?
Kissing upward from beneath?
"