Victor Appleton - Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X

V >> Victor Appleton >> Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X

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"How long have you known this Narko?" Tom asked.

"I met him a few days ago in a restaurant. Believe me, I'd never laid
eyes on him before. And I wish I never had!" Latty added bitterly.

The man's story had a ring of truth. "All right, Officer, let's take him
in," Tom said. To the still-astounded Fred, he added, "We're sorry about
this."

Two hours later Tom and Bud sat in Chief Slater's office at Shopton
police headquarters. Captain Rock and the Shopton fire chief were also
on hand.

"We've had troopers, detectives, and fire inspectors swarming all over
Latty's place," Captain Rock reported. "They examined his house, the
garage, two sheds out back, and every inch of the grounds. But there's
no indication of any place where a bomb might have been planted to cause
an underground explosion in Shopton."

The fire chief nodded confirmation. "So that clue peters out," he said.

With the waning of daylight, the other groups had finally abandoned
their search of the Shopton area without turning up any information.
"I'll notify the FBI immediately," Chief Slater said.

Nevertheless, he promised that his men would continue their efforts the
next day.

"Even if we find nothing more, that arms cache was worth all the
trouble," Slater added. "The country owes you a vote of thanks, Tom. A
bunch of enemy agents could have hurt a lot of people with an arsenal
like that!"

"That's for sure," Captain Rock agreed. "It was a good day's haul, Tom."

The two boys drove back to the Swift home and had a quick shower. Bud
borrowed clean clothes from Tom. Then they sat down to enjoy a warmed-up
but tasty supper, served by Sandy and Mrs. Swift.

As they ate, the boys listened to music on the radio, interspersed with
eager questions from Sandy about the bomb search.

Suddenly the radio announcer broke in. "We interrupt this broadcast to
bring you an important news bulletin!"

CHAPTER VI

BRUNGARIAN COUP

Tom, Sandy, and Bud listened as the radio announcer continued:

"Reports just in say that Brungaria has been taken over by a rebel
group. Military aid to support the rebel coup is pouring in from
Maurevia, Brungaria's powerful province in the north. The Brungarian
prime minister, his cabinet, and all loyal administrative personnel have
fled or been arrested.

"Worried United States State Department officials admit that the
surprise coup poses a new and dangerous threat to free-world security.
Further news reports will be broadcast as soon as they reach this
station," the announcer ended.

For a moment Tom and Bud were too stunned to speak. Sandy was wide-eyed
with the realization that the news spelled trouble for Swift Enterprises
and all America.

"Looks as though that CIA man who briefed us wasn't kidding, eh,
skipper?" Bud muttered at last.

"It came sooner than he expected!" Tom said.

Jumping up from the table, Tom switched off the radio and hurried to the
hall telephone. In a few moments he managed to get a long-distance call
through to Wes Norris of the FBI.

"Is the news on this Brungarian coup as bad as it sounds, Wes?" Tom
inquired.

"Worse! That rebel bunch really has it in for us, as you know, Tom,"
Norris replied. "They envy America and they'll move heaven and earth to
steal our scientific secrets. This could touch off a whole epidemic of
sabotage and other spy activity!"

Tom's jaw clenched grimly. He then asked the FBI man his opinion about
the discovery of the secret arms cache in Pete Latty's basement.

Norris admitted he was puzzled. "It doesn't add up, Tom," the FBI agent
said thoughtfully. "If our enemies were planning to destroy Shopton by a
quake, why would anyone be needing a gun?"

"I can't figure it myself, Wes--unless they were planning to raid and
loot Enterprises after the place was thrown into disorder," Tom deduced.
"What about Narko himself? Has he talked yet?"

Norris replied that although he had not interviewed Narko himself, FBI
agents who had grilled the spy had failed to elicit any information.

"Here's something else, though, which might interest you," Norris went
on. "We now have reports that at the time of the Harkness and Medfield
disasters, seismographs recorded simultaneous quakes off the coast of
Alaska near the Aleutian chain. Tremors were also felt off the southwest
coast of South America."

A new factor to consider! Tom frowned in puzzlement as he hung up the
telephone after completing his talk with the FBI man.

After Tom had repeated the conversation to his companions, Bud said,
"You mean the H-bomb idea goes out the window?"

Tom shrugged. "Wes says they've found no evidence to support the theory
of man-produced underground blasts. It just doesn't jibe with those
other remote tremors. They'd be too much of a coincidence, happening at
the same time!"

"Then the quakes at Harkness and Medfield were real earthquakes!" Sandy
put in.

"Looks that way," Tom admitted. "Those other tremors Wes mentioned
follow a natural circum-Pacific belt which is well known to
seismologists. I'm no expert, but perhaps they could have set off chain
reactions below the earth's crust which triggered the two quakes in this
part of the country."

In that case, the young inventor reflected, it was only a freak of
nature that the Faber and nose-cone factories had been wrecked by the
shock. But in spite of the seismographic clues, Tom was not entirely
convinced. A nagging doubt still buzzed in the back of his mind.

The next morning Tom hurried off to his private glass-walled laboratory
at Enterprises, eager to continue work on his container, or robot body,
for the brain from space.

Tom frowned as he studied the rough sketch he had drawn in his office
the afternoon before. "This setup's full of bugs!" he muttered.

Nevertheless, Tom decided, the basic idea was sound. Grabbing pencil and
slide rule, he began to dash off page after page of diagrams and
equations.

"Chow down!" boomed a foghorn voice. Chow Winkler, wearing a white
chef's hat, wheeled a lunch cart into the lab.

"Oh... thanks." Tom scarcely looked up from his work as the cook set
out an appetizing meal of Texas hash, milk, and deep-dish apple pie on
the bench beside the young inventor's papers. Grumbling under his
breath, Chow sauntered out.

Tom went on working intently between mouthfuls. In another hour he
finished a set of pilot drawings. Then he called Hank Sterling and Arvid
Hanson and asked them to come to the laboratory.

They listened with keen interest as Tom explained his latest creation.

"No telling if it will work when the energy arrives from space," Tom
said, "but I think everything tracks okay. Hank, get these plans
blueprinted and assign an electronics group to the project. You'd better
handle the hardware yourself."

"Right." Hank rolled up the sketches.

"And, Arv," Tom went on, "I'd like a scale model made to guide them on
assembly. How soon can you have it?"

Hanson promised the model for some time the next day, and the two men
hurried off.

As usual, Arv proved slightly better than his word. The expert
modelmaker was devoted to his craft and as apt to forget the clock as
Tom himself, when absorbed in a new project. By working on in his shop
long after closing hours, Hanson had a desk-size model of the
space-brain robot ready for Tom's inspection when the young inventor
arrived at the plant early the following morning.

"Wonderful, Arv!" Tom approved. "Every time I see one of your models of
a new invention, I'm _sure_ it'll work!" Hanson grinned, pleased at the
compliment.

Tom hopped into a jeep and sped across the plant grounds to deliver the
model to Hank Sterling and his project crew. Work was already well along
on the electronic subassemblies and the strange-looking "body" was
taking shape.

That afternoon Ames and Dilling returned from Washington. The report
they gave to Tom bore out his hunch that the rebel Brungarian scientists
might well be able to divert the space energy.

The next day was Friday. Tom was hoping, although none too
optimistically, that the container might be completed before the week
end. To his delight, an Enterprises pickup truck pulled up outside the
laboratory later that afternoon and Hank rolled the queer-looking device
inside.

"Hi, buster!" Tom greeted it. "Is this your daddy?"

Hank chuckled. "Don't look at me. It claims _you're_ its daddy. But
hanged if I can see much resemblance!"

"Think it'll live?"

"If not," Hank replied, only half jokingly, "the boys who worked on it
will sure be disappointed. No kidding, skipper, that's quite a gadget
you dreamed up!"

The device stood about shoulder-high, with a star-shaped head, one point
of which could be opened. The head would contain the actual brain
energy. Its upper body, cylindrical in shape and of gleaming chrome,
housed the output units through which the brain would react, and also
the controls. Antennas projecting out on either side gave the look of
arms.

Its "waist" was girdled with a ring of repelatron radiators for exerting
a repulsion force when it wanted to move, by repelling itself away from
nearby objects.

Below the repelatrons was an hourglass-shaped power unit, housing a
solar-charged battery.

The power unit, in turn, was mounted on a pancake-shaped transportation
unit. This unit was equipped with both casters and a sort of
caterpillar-crawler arrangement for the contrivance to get about over
obstacles. Inside was a gyro-stabilizer to keep the whole device
upright.

Tom felt a glow of pride--and eager impatience--as he inspected the
device. If it worked as he hoped, this odd creature might one day
provide earth scientists with a priceless store of information about
intelligent life on Planet X!

Bud and Chow, entering the laboratory soon after Hank Sterling had left,
found Tom still engrossed in his thoughts.

"Wow! Is this your spaceman?" Bud inquired.

Tom nodded, then grinned at his callers' gaping expressions. Each was
trying to imagine how the "thing" would look in action.

"Sure is a queer-lookin' buckaroo!" Chow commented, when Tom finished
explaining how it was supposed to work.

On a sudden impulse, the old cowpoke took off his ten-gallon hat and
plumped it on the creature. Then he removed his polka-dotted red
bandanna and knotted it like a neckerchief just below the star head.

Tom laughed heartily as Bud howled, "Ride 'em, spaceman!"

Tom was eager to notify his mysterious space friends that the container
was now ready to receive the brain energy. Bud went with him by jeep to
the space-communications laboratory. Chow, however, stayed behind and
stared in fascination at the odd-looking robot creature.

The stout cook walked back and forth, eying the thing suspiciously from
every angle. "Wonder what the critter eats?" he muttered.

Feeling in his shirt pocket, Chow brought out a wad of his favorite
bubble gum. Should he or shouldn't he? "Shucks, won't hurt to try," the
old Texan decided.

Chow unlocked the hinged point of the star head and popped the gum
inside. He was somewhat disappointed when nothing happened. Feeling a
trifle foolish, Chow finally removed his hat and bandanna from the
creature and stumped off.

Meanwhile, in the space-communications laboratory, Tom was pounding out
a message on the keyboard of the electronic brain. Tom had invented this
device for automatically coding and decoding messages between the Swifts
and their space friends. It was connected to a powerful
transmitting-and-receiving apparatus, served by a huge radio-telescope
antenna mounted atop the communications building.

Bud looked on as Tom signaled:

TOM SWIFT TO SPACE FRIENDS. CONTAINER FOR ENERGY IS NOW READY.
SHOULD IT BE PLACED OUTDOORS?

Stirred by a worrisome afterthought, Tom added:

MESSAGES MAY BE INTERCEPTED BY ENEMY WHO WISHES TO STEAL ENERGY.
SUGGEST YOU USE FLIGHT PATH TO LAND EXACTLY TWO MILES WEST OF
FIRST CONTACT WITH US.

"By 'first contact,' you mean when that black missile landed at
Enterprises?" Bud asked.

Tom nodded. At that time, he reminded Bud, the Brungarians and their
conquerors had not yet learned of the Swifts' communication from another
planet. Hence they would have no idea of the site referred to--which
would hamper any plans to kidnap the brain energy.

"I get it," Bud said. "Smart idea, pal!"

Tensely the two boys waited for a reply from outer space.

CHAPTER VII

WALL OF WATER!

Minutes went by before the signal bell rang on the electronic brain.
Both Tom and Bud dashed over to the machine as it began to spell out the
incoming message on tape:

ENERGY WILL COME TO THE SPOT YOU SUGGESTED. WE CAN CONTROL
FLIGHT COURSE BUT WHILE THE ENERGY IS ON EARTH YOU WILL BE IN
CHARGE. WE WILL HAVE NO CONTROL FOR TWENTY-ONE DAYS. THEN WE
WILL RECALL ENERGY TO BRING US IMPRESSIONS AND DATA OF YOUR
WORLD.

The two boys stared at each other excitedly as the transmission ended.

"Wow!" Bud murmured. "If Planet X is a peaceful place, Ole Think Box is
sure in for a jolt here on earth!"

Tom grinned fleetingly at the reference to Chow's nickname for the robot
creature. Then he became serious, knowing that Bud's words were all too
true. The space visitor might also take back impressions of the
suffering and warlike threats that some earth countries inflict on one
another. Maybe one day, Tom reflected, it would be different.

In the meantime, the young inventor realized he had an awesome
responsibility. He must not only make the best use of the brain energy
during its stay on earth, but also keep it from falling into the hands
of treacherous Brungarian plotters.

Tom's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of girls' voices.
Sandy and Phyl were standing in the doorway of the space-communications
laboratory.

"Talk about deep thinkers!" Sandy said teasingly.

"Goodness, we had no idea we'd be interrupting a session of the brain
trust," Phyl added with a mischievous sparkle in her brown eyes. "Maybe
we should go away again, Sandy!"

"Hey! Hold it, you two!" Bud exclaimed. "What do you think, Tom--are
these the visitors we've been expecting from outer space?"

"Well! I like that!" Sandy pouted. "Do we look like a couple of little
green people?"

Tom chuckled and seized the opportunity to do a little teasing of his
own. "I think it's just your pointed heads that fooled us, Sis." Then,
as the two girls broke down in laughter, he added, "Why the unexpected
visit?"

Sandy and Phyl explained that they had come to invite the boys to a
picnic cruise on Lake Carlopa the next day.

"And while we're here, since it's practically quitting time anyhow,"
Sandy went on, her blue eyes twinkling, "we might even let you drive us
some place for dinner."

"Guess they've trapped us, Bud," Tom said with a grin. "Okay, it's a
deal. But first we have something to show you." He took the girls to his
laboratory to show them the robot creature.

"It's marvelous!" Sandy exclaimed, and Phyl agreed.

Early the next morning Bud called for Tom and Sandy in his tomato-red
convertible. Then they stopped at the Newtons' house to pick up Phyl.
Each girl had packed a picnic basket for the day's sail.

"Hmm. Looks as though we're going to be well fed," Bud commented
jokingly. "What's on the menu, girls?"

"Chicken and ham sandwiches..." Sandy began.

"Pickles, olives, hard-boiled eggs, potato salad..." Phyl went on.

"Chocolate cake, milk..." Sandy took up the list.

"Stop! You have us hungry as bears already!" Tom warned.

"Right!" Bud agreed. "Come on! Let's get this cruise under way!"

The two couples drove to the Shopton Yacht Club dock on Lake Carlopa.
There they boarded the _Sunspot_, a beautiful thirty-foot sailing ketch
with auxiliary engine which Mr. Swift and Mr. Newton had purchased for a
frequently promised but not yet realized joint family vacation.

The craft was equipped with twin gravitex stabilizers, mounted one on
each side of the hull. These gave it amazing smoothness even when
plowing through rough seas. They were adaptations of a device Tom had
invented for his space kite and _Cosmic Sailer_.

"Oh, what a gorgeous day for a sail!" Phyl said, aglow with enthusiasm.

The sky was a cloudless blue. Under a hot summer sun, a brisk breeze was
ruffling the lake into tiny whitecaps. The two couples cast off eagerly
and were soon scudding out across the water under full sail.

Tom and Bud wore swimming trunks under their slacks. Unfortunately the
girls had forgotten to bring their suits. When the _Sunspot_ reached the
center of the lake, the boys hove to, stripped down to their trunks, and
dived overboard. Meanwhile, the girls sun-bathed on deck. Soon it was
time for the picnic lunch, and all four ate with healthy young
appetites.

"Jeepers!" Sandy whispered to Phyl with a giggle. "After a feast like
this, we'll have to go on a diet!"

"Don't say it," Phyl warned, "or Tom and Bud will use that as an excuse
for never taking us out ag--"

She broke off with a gasp.

"What's wrong?" Tom asked.

Breathless with fright, Phyl pointed off to starboard. The others paled.
An enormous wave was sweeping across the lake, straight toward the
ketch!

"Jumpin' jets!" Bud gulped. "It's like a tidal wave!"

The boat was already rocking under the swells that preceded the oncoming
huge breaker.

"Quick!" Tom yelled. "Grab life jackets while I start the engine!"

The four leaped into action. Every instant the terrifying wave rushed
closer! By now it was a twelve-foot wall of water!

Tom and the others had just put on the jackets and the engine had barely
gunned into life when disaster struck. The mammoth wave swept up the
_Sunspot_ and heeled it far over into the trough like a toy bark. The
next instant a cataract of water poured over the deck with stunning
force!

"We're going under!" Phyl screamed.

All four were swept overboard in the maelstrom! Under the smashing
impact of the water, the ketch's mainmast bent and groaned. A moment
later came a crack like a gunshot. The mast broke off, hung teetering by
shreds, then toppled into the water. As it fell, the mast struck Sandy a
grazing blow on the head!

"Sandy!" Bud cried fearfully as he struggled in the swirling torrent.

Calling on every ounce of strength, he swam with powerful strokes toward
the girl. Sandy was dazed and limp. Bud's husky arm circled her tightly.
Then he began to fight his way toward shore. Tom and Phyl--each
struggling in the turbulent water--could only breathe a prayer of thanks
as they watched the rescue.

[Illustration (a huge wave capsizes the Sunspot)]

As the huge wave raced shoreward, the lake water gradually became calmer
in its wake. Tom was able to assist Phyl, and Sandy by now had recovered
her faculties.

The _Sunspot_ had capsized but could still be seen afloat, some distance
away. Rather than swim to it and cling to the hulk in the hope that a
rescue boat would arrive, the four decided to continue on toward shore.
They knew that the aftermath of the tidal wave would keep all shore
facilities in an uproar for hours to come.

As they neared the beach, the young people could see other overturned
craft and heads bobbing in the water. A few daring persons finally began
putting out in motorboats and rowboats to pick up the survivors.

A hundred yards from shore, one of the boats took Tom's group aboard.
Minutes later, they were scrambling out onto a dock.

"Are you all right, Sandy?" Bud asked, his arm still around her.

"I--I think so," she gasped weakly, "but I must have swallowed half the
lake!"

"Take it easy, Sis!" Tom added, as Sandy swayed and shuddered from the
shock of her recent ordeal.

Gently he made Sandy lie down and pillowed her head on a folded
tarpaulin provided by the sympathetic boatman. Phyl, though wan and
white-faced, was in somewhat better shape.

"Tom, we must get these girls home as soon as possible," Bud declared.

This, however, was not easily accomplished. The tidal wave had caused
devastation along the entire shore front. Many docks had been wrecked,
boats splintered like matchsticks, and buildings along the water
smashed.

When Tom's group reached Bud's convertible, parked near the yacht club
pier, they found the car completely waterlogged. Its electrical system
gave not even a faint sputter or spark.

"Oh, fine!" Bud groaned. "The crowning touch!"

Eventually ambulances and private cars began to arrive to transport the
injured. Tom, Bud, and the two girls were given a lift to the Swift home
where Sandy and Phyl were immediately put to bed by a worried Mrs.
Swift.

Downstairs, Tom switched on the TV set. A mobile camera crew from the
local station was scanning the water front and interviewing witnesses of
the disaster. To the two boys, the most interesting note came in a
statement by the announcer that a very slight earth tremor had been felt
in Shopton.

"But no damage occurred except along the water front," the announcer
explained.

Tom gave a snort of anger, jumped up from his chair, and began pacing
about the living room. "Bud, I feel sure that wall of water was caused
by a minor earthquake!" the young inventor declared. "What's more, I'll
bet it was _man-made!_"

Bud stared at his friend, appalled but feeling a hot surge of anger
himself. "If you're right, pal, it's the most fiendish sabotage I've
ever heard of! Think of all the lives that were endangered!"

Tom nodded grimly. "I _am_ thinking!"

Both boys jerked around to look at the TV set again as a studio
announcer's voice suddenly broke into the telecast:

"Flash! A severe quake has occurred at the headquarters of the American
Archives Foundation, a hundred miles from Shopton. The Foundation's
buildings, containing many priceless government and scientific
documents, were badly damaged, and an underground microfilm vault was
utterly destroyed. Apparently this quake was part of the tremor felt
here at Shopton."

Within minutes the Swifts' home phone began jangling constantly. Some
calls were from friends, others from strangers. Many of the calls were
routed through from the Enterprises switchboard.

One was from Dan Perkins of the _Shopton Bulletin_. "What about it,
Tom?" the editor demanded. "I guess you know by now the public's aroused
and in a state of near panic over all these quakes. What they all want
to know is this: are you, Tom Swift, going to find a way to stop all
this destruction?"

Tom's jaw jutted out angrily. "Yes, I am!" he snapped. "And you can
quote me on that!"

CHAPTER VIII

A SUSPECT TALKS

The next morning Tom was up at the crack of dawn, grimly determined to
find an answer to the earthquake menace. He ate a hasty breakfast, then
drove to his private laboratory at Enterprises. He instructed the
switchboard operator to shut off all incoming calls, then plunged into a
study of the mystifying problem.

Earthquake activity, Tom knew, tends to occur in circular patterns, like
bands around the earth--for instance, the circum-Pacific belt, and
another belt extending eastward from the Mediterranean through Asia and
on into the East Indies. Often these quake lines are visible as breaks
or ruptures along the ground surface, called _fault traces_. No doubt,
Tom thought, there were many more uncharted ones.

Could an enemy scientist be making use of these earth faults to produce
a man-made quake? Tom mulled over the disturbing idea.

"How would I tackle the job myself, if I had to undertake such a project
for national defense?" the young inventor mused. He felt a growing sense
of excitement as an idea began to take shape in his mind.

_What about an artificial shock wave!_

An hour later Bud Barclay walked into the laboratory and found Tom
hunched over a jumbled pile of reference books on his workbench.

"What cooks, skipper?" Bud asked.

Tom looked up, his blue eyes blazing. "Bud, I think I may have the
answer!"

Tom got up from his stool and paced about the laboratory. "Suppose the
Brungarian rebel scientists have invented some sort of shock-wave
producer--a device for sending vibrations through the earth's crust or
the mantle underneath."

"Okay, suppose they have," Bud replied.

Tom snatched up a piece of chalk and made some quick diagrams on a
blackboard. "Just this, pal. Let's say they set up two or three stations
around the world for sending out such waves in a definite direction.
Wherever the wave crosses an earth fault or another wave--_boom!_ An
earthquake!"

Bud stared. "No kidding, is that how those rats triggered off all these
quakes?"

"It must be," Tom declared. "It's the only possible explanation."

"Good night!" Bud gasped weakly. "What a weapon! Just push a button
every so often and you could blow up another country bit by bit--and no
one could ever prove who was behind the attack!"

Tom nodded. "Enough to make every American shiver, if he only knew!"

"What can we do about it?" Bud asked.

Tom resumed his worried pacing. "I'll have to invent a shock-wave
deflector, Bud. It must be done in a hurry, too. Our enemy may start to
destroy American cities as well as vital defense plants!"

Immediately Tom put through an urgent call to an eminent scientist in
Washington who was a member of the National Research Council. Quickly he
outlined a plan.

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