Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express (10 page)

What happens when you run out of frontiers, Tom?

They landed on Fearing, desperate and dejected. Tom teleconferenced with his father. "Dad... I wonder if I should go up to Little Luna, to talk to Dr. Jatczak."

"I’ve talked to him," replied Mr. Swift. "I gave what comfort I could. He asks us—very politely, in his usual mild way—to leave him alone for now. He has his own private way to deal with his emotions. ‘Perhaps to grieve,’ he said."

"We don’t know what happened to Violet or the others," Tom insisted forcefully. "As far as I’m concerned, this is kidnapping, not murder—until I know otherwise."

"Yes," said Damon Swift. "Until we know otherwise."

As Bud flew the
Sky Queen
northward, he let his pal sit in quiet thought.
He’s suffering,
Bud knew. There was nothing the young San Franciscan could say to lighten the burden. And he had learned that it was usually best to allow his friend to process things in his own unique manner, without interruption. Tom could explain many things, but not the workings of his mind.

But when Tom spoke, it was as if they had been talking all along. "So why hasn’t Ikyoris followed up with us—with me? As far as I know, the offer still stands. If I turn over Volj and his ship, the Sentimentalists turn over the
Viper Spirit
hyperjet to the West. If that’s what they still call the U.S. and the European governments."

"Skipper, maybe the Cobra organization picked them off after they confronted you. As in, they’re dead."

"All of them? The gang in North Africa? The hyperjet pilots?"

"Why not?" Bud insisted. "The snakeman probably installed backup cronies who are as nuts as he was—and he was always a great one for making a point
perfectly
clear."

"Maybe," Tom replied. "And maybe it’s all just a hoax anyway, start to finish! Collections is in some kind of crisis mode, and John Thurston’s office can get it wrong—it’s happened more than once. They’re just people."

"Then what’s the point of it all?"

"How often do we
ever
know ‘the point of it all’?" snorted the young inventor. He rapped a knuckle on the curving bulkhead. "Even before this baby took to the air—my first real ‘invention,’ Bud—we were dealing with spies and plotters. I grew up thinking that sort of thing went out with my great-grandfather. But
I
take the stage, the new Tom Swift, and instead of pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, instead of making things to improve mankind’s stay on Earth or wherever we want to go, I end up fighting for my life—"

"For all our lives, Tom."

"And there it is—
the point
," said the youth disconsolately. "While I’m running around hunting spies and mad scientists, what happens to the rest of you? To you, Bud? To my family? I hardly deposit my first paycheck as an employee of Tom Swift Enterprises and Sandy is being threatened by a gunman dropping down on her in a helicopter. First thing!"

Bud held up a hand. "No. The
first
thing was dodging a missile from outer space—contact with an extraterrestrial civilization! Jetz, you know I love Sandy as much as you do, but isn’t it
worth
it, danger, pumping up the adrenaline level? To lead us out into—whatever’s waiting for us?
Out there?
Not like it’s going to go away if we ignore it, genius boy."

"So making everyone around me risk death is
okay
? The
science
justifies it?"

"No,
Tom Swift
," replied Bud. "The
future
justifies it."

Tom had no answer.

Back at Enterprises, Tom called Harlan Ames at Wickliffe Laboratories and briefed the man who was still, even at long distance, the chief of Enterprises security. "Your Dad called me first thing, boss, but thanks for the details," he replied crisply. "There’s nothing I can do up in space. That’s your department. What I can do is find this end of the pipeline, the planted agent or corrupted employee who passed the
Fire Fury
plans along to the Sentimentalists. And then, Tom, we follow that pipeline at laser speed, to whoever built the metal-fuel engine, to whoever got ahold of an unregistered load of Neo-Aurium. And then to the truth about Violet Wohl and Nattan Volj."

"Any luck there, Harlan?—at Wickliffe?"

Ames’s voice took on a scornful tone. "This place is like a midget clone of Enterprises—and a pretty sickly one at that. I can’t see this Langley kid flying off to the jungle to rescue his employees the way
you
did, Tom. Did you know the act of writing on paper makes him
nervous
? And yet the trail keeps running back to him, to his office, his personal files."

"Then—you think Pete himself
is
the turncoat after all? That he betrayed the U.S.?" The young inventor found himself reluctant to believe this of someone who was, in his peculiar way, so much like himself.

Ames drew in a breath. "No. I don’t."

"Then—"

"Amelia Foger."

Tom gasped at that one. The great-niece of an adversary and rival of the first Tom Swift, a tough and sophisticated woman with a grudge against the plant and the Swift family—and with the most intimate of connections to the CEO of Wickliffe Labs! "Harlan... Amy Foger’s attitude, her big load of bitterness, got in the way of her relations with me and Dad. But I never saw any sign of dishonesty. It’s hard to believe she’d betray her
signoth
and her country, setting him up for Federal charges and selling out American security to the Sentimentalists."

"I didn’t use the word ‘believe’," noted the former Secret Service agent. "You take the chain and look for the weak link. She’s it. Take it as a scientific theory—a conjecture—at this point."

Like the center of a passing storm, all mysteries and terrors were suspended for the next few days. Andy Emda moved quietly and carefully among the plant employees, striking up friendships, seeking the signs of betrayal, past or future. Chow, distrustful, kept an eye on him—and kept his cowboy hat in the closet. His bald head felt naked.

Tom continued working on the Cosmotron Express operation, wondering when, or if, he would hear from Bielo Ikyoris. And whether, despite heightened security, the man would somehow turn up in the Swift home.

The void of space spoke nothing of Nattan Volj or Violet Wohl.

Tom spent an afternoon with Arv Hanson and his assistant Linda Ming, discussing a miniature version of the cosmotron spacedriver he had requisitioned. The model that resulted was smaller than the one that had thrown Lake Carlopa at the youth and his friends. "But it’ll still produce that ‘headwind effect’," Arv remarked. "It can’t be avoided. When you latch onto the momentum-space ahead of the ship and stretch it toward you, whatever’s floating around
in
that space is going to be accelerated your way."

"But it looks like you’ve planned the
Starward
with a nice big windshield," joked Linda.

Tom smiled. "The whole outer hull is a ‘windshield,’ and a strong one—the metallumin globe covers every square inch of the ship. Still, even a headwind of space dust could mess with the stability of the Express. The new field configuration should mitigate the problem."

"But you can’t test it out fully here in the lab," Arv declared. "So—up elevator!"

"To space," Tom agreed. "We’ll set off tomorrow morning in the Space Kite."

Linda sighed. "Don’t suppose
I’m
invited."

"Do you really want to spend a few hours squeezed between an inventor and an engineer in a cramped space capsule?" asked Tom with a grin.

"Let’s make it next time, please—on the
Starward
!"

Tom worked late, breezing through one of Chow’s suppers in a distracted manner. Running up against a technical problem, he talked it over with Susan Fresnel, also working late, in the electronics building, and eventually called Hank Sterling at home.

A few minutes of discussion—the kind of discussion incomprehensible to most of the human race—and Tom declared the problem solved. "It never would have occurred to me to re-angle the Galilectrum ring," Tom said gratefully. "Thanks for pointing out what was right in front of my face, Hank."

Tom implemented the change and was pleased with the result. "Not even nine o’clock," he muttered, checking his wristwatch. "Good night, for once it’s an
early
late evening."

It was time to bring the day to a close. Heavy with thought, Tom hopped in his electric two-seater, powered by a Swift solar battery, in the executive parking lot and headed out the gate, onto the short stretch of curving road that led off the property.

A movement caught the corner of his eye—and suddenly Tom’s car was no longer on the road, but skidding
upward
into the air! The lightweight vehicle did a kind of somersault, tail over hood, and smashed down on the pavement. And as for Tom, he was no longer in condition to complain, or wonder—or anything else.

TOM awoke to darkness, and when he opened his eyes the darkness was still there. He was lying on his back, on something hard and flat, looking up into vacant nothingness. His muscles ached. He hurt all over.

He had had an accident, in his car, on the way home. The car had flipped...

"H-hello?" he quavered. "Can anybody—"

Someone could. "
Awake now, are you?
" The voice came from no particular location. It was big, and sounded like someone was talking from the bottom of a rain barrel. "
Yes, I know—‘where am I’ is next, is it not?
"

Tom decided to frustrate the man’s smugness. "Who are you?"

"
Mm, that was the next one
."

"Mr. Ikyoris."

"
I cannot quite lose the accent, can I. How do you feel, young man?
"

"Where am I?"

"
Too late, Tom. We have proceeded to another question. Bones all right? The doctor thought so. But doctors sometimes miss the simplest things, don’t they?
" Tom was silent in response. "
No answer? Then I shall assume you’re either well and whole, or dead.
"

"Let’s knock off the preliminaries, Mr. Ikyoris, even the threats and the ranting. What do you have to say to me?" Tom asked—yelled, as he was sure Bielo Ikyoris was some distance away. The voice had the taint of a loudspeaker.

"
Ah! It seems we can eliminate ‘dead’. Sit up, my friend—won’t you?
"

Tom put his palms to the cool floor and tried to push himself up, then yelped as they slid sideways, plopping him back down on his back and redoubling the ache. "Good night!" he muttered. "The floor is covered with oil!"

"
I can hear you muttering, Tom. Finding it a bit hard to sit up? Perhaps you should take it slowly. Consider the matter in a scientific way. Undertake a few modest experiments
."

The Shopton youth tried to roll sideways, tried to get his feet under him. Neither hands nor feet nor the rest of him could get a grip on anything. He merely scuttled and slid around in one spot, making no progress.

Lying back, heart pounding with the effort, he sniffed his hands, rubbed them against his cheek. They were clean—nothing on them. No trace of oil...

"
Well now
," said Ikyoris with a calm and modest boom. "
It seems we’ve placed you in a predicament—rather an original one among the multitudes of inescapable traps one might employ. You find yourself in the center of a flat surface that is quite large and, of greater interest, utterly smooth. No polish, no lubricant—not even a repelatron. It all comes naturally, you see, a surface with no variation, no slightest speck of roughness, almost down to the molecular level. Imagine how smooth such a thing must be, how frictionless—but wait! You need not imagine, Tom, for you are experiencing it directly. Ice, oil, silicate powder, nothing is as slick as what you rest upon. You will find no traction. Zero. Your space engine makes use of momentum; here you find the ideal place to perform demonstrations, for nothing resists you. Start moving, and you will slide expeditiously to the edge of the floor.

"
Except... well, without traction, it’s something of a problem to get started. Hm.
"

"Tell me what you want, Mr. Ikyoris," Tom demanded of the vaulted dark.

"
Our interests have not changed since our last meeting, young man
."

"I don’t know anything about Nattan Volj and his ship. They may have been completely destroyed, in space."

"
You must have just recently started taking seriously that discomfiting possibility. We know you traveled up to the moon the other day. Were you after a lingering memory?—no, I rather think you visited his place of captivity
."

"Why don’t you ask your spy at Enterprises? Or was he taking a sick day?"

Ikyoris laughed pleasantly. "
It’s mean-spirited of me to toy with you, I suppose. Yes, I know you went through an elaborate charade to demonstrate your innocence—even to the extent of faking the disappearance of one of your own. So it was reported. A failed mission, a desperate inventor.

"
Shall we believe it? You and your governments, many governments, surely hope we shall.
"

"And just why would we do that, Ikyoris?"

"
Ah, reasons. Surely reasons are overrated. Are we poor humans not led by the irrational? Our urges, our fears? We need not insist that you Swifts are behind all this, not absolutely, not dogmatically. Indeed, we have no commitment to the rest of it, even—who knows if the Western governments, or the Brungarian usurpers, are involved?

"
But from our point of view there is a logical possibility, a tiny splinter. We must take it seriously. For
we
experiment as well, Tom. And why not? Perhaps we shall learn something of use. Perhaps we shall impress those who need to be impressed.
"

Tom filled his chest, wanting to be loud but not shrill and quavering. "The Black Cobra deserves your suspicions more than we do."

"
Mm, Comrade-General Li Ching. A troublesome mental case, wisely deceased—but yes, he has left a legacy to mankind in the form of a leaderless but vengeful organization. Sounds rather familiar, come to think of it...