Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express (3 page)

"Then what
does
it do?" demanded Tom.

"Something that advances our end, in a modest way. Shall I tell you the details? But no, why should I make it easy for you, my adversaries?"

Tom’s expression darkened, almost to a sneer. "And of course it may be nothing at all. Just a distracting bluff."

"Made credible by the circumstances we engineered for you. You can not
know
that it exists, no. But you
do
know, now, that we are clever enough to seek out chinks in your armor." Ikyoris checked his wristwatch. "Ah. Perhaps I may stay a bit longer, to complete our business? But I do not expect tea, Mrs. Swift."

"The Brungarian government is a friend of the United States," declared the youth. "They wouldn’t authorize this sort of thing. I presume you’re part of the Sentimentalists."

The fall of totalitarianism in the former iron curtain country of Brungaria had not met with universal plaudits within its borders. A faction known as
i-Szentimentlya
, the Sentimentalists, still worked in secret to bring down the new order and restore the Party dictatorship. They had faced-off against Enterprises on other occasions, and had very briefly overthrown the elected government in a coup. "Yes, the Sentimentalists, as you call us, as we call ourselves," confirmed Ikyoris. "Our great and driving sentiment is to uphold the dignity of the workers and the honor of the Party, to keep our beloved country out of the clutches of the West. But enough of sentiment."

"Your uranium message made no sense to me," Tom stated. "Was that another part of your bluff?"

Ikyoris stared at him coldly. "No bluff—unless it is yours. What you have stolen from us is of value to our cause. As you surely know, we have entered into talks, out of public view, with several governments, your own included. The Brungarian puppet regime does not approve—tough toenails for
them
. We are willing to trade our hypervelocity craft, the U-X, for what you have stolen.

"You do their bidding like good little pets, but how well do they keep you in the loop, Tom, Damon? Do you know the details of our offer? Our U-X, she is a difficult beast. The engine, so wonderfully advanced, yet so hard to tame. I am told—I am no scientist—that there are inherent instabilities. With every use, a risk. The numbers will surely catch up to us one day. Most unlikely that there shall ever be an armada of such warplanes. A mere curiosity.

"But of course, even in a very brief and doomed career, she can be our sword, our spear. There she is, flying down city streets faster than sound, almost touching the tops of cars, dropping whatever she will—do you dare doubt that this is possible? Or at least, not utterly
im
possible? For have we not demonstrated this?

"And what cargo might she carry? We have shown that we have depleted uranium—might we not have the
unspent
kind? Especially
dirty
? We have shown her capabilities now. Is she not a danger? Would it not be worth a great deal for the West to have possession of her? Before we turn to desperate measures, we fanatics?"

"We know nothing of these negotiations," declared Tom’s father. "We have no role to play in this."

"No role? Mr. Swift, you are at the very heart of the negotiations. It is you, you and your talented son, who hide man and machine. The negotiations falter, the secret negotiations that are nonetheless official contacts with the governments. So? Perhaps we negotiate a trade directly, with those who have what is wanted. You are philosophical men, independent thinkers. You will not let the bureaucracy, the politicians, play safe, pass the buck, dither until we have no choice but terror. There is a higher patriotism, Swifts. You will work with us to save lives, even when your government will not."

"What is this ‘man and machine,’ Ikyoris?" Tom demanded. "Pretend we don’t already know. Humor us.
Fake
it."

The Brungarian smiled. "If you wish. I’m your guest, am I not? I refer to our spacecraft the
Dyaune
and its crew—most particularly Nattan Volj, whose services and leadership our movement requires for ever so many reasons. The others are replaceable. Volj is not."

"The
Dyaune
," said Tom’s mother, faintly, her thoughts in a far-distant room upstairs. "That’s their moon rocket, isn’t it?"

Tom and his father shared a tense nod. Named for the goddess of the moon, the advanced spacecraft had used its nuclear-ion propulsion system to race Tom’s
Challenger
to the moon—and to a Space Ark of diseased extraterrestrial animals. After a wary negotiation, the leader of the unauthorized Brungarian expedition, Professor Nattan Volj, had been allowed to enter the alien craft with Tom and his colleagues. "Your fearless leader Volj broke his agreement with us and attacked the Enterprises spaceship," Tom said to Ikyoris. "Of course, you know that."

"War does not pause to observe niceties. The only honor lies in victory."

"We repelled his attack, literally, and pushed the
Dyaune
off into space. That’s the last we saw of it."

Ikyoris’s expression turned fierce. "We are still faking it? You and the West know well that she returned safely to Earth, not to traitor-occupied Brungaria, but to a... welcoming place in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, a country willing to shield us. There, in that place, she awaited her orders, as she was repaired and made better—for we learned from the battle with you, Tom."

"We knew she had returned," responded the youth, "because Volj was one of the leaders of the subsequent coup. He escaped when it fell apart."

"Escaped to the base, to the
Dyaune
. And six weeks ago, the ship returned to space. She rounded the moon, many orbits, and suddenly was no more."

"Just what do you mean?" demanded Mr. Swift.

"Ah, Damon, we mean a mysterious disappearance in orbit, a failure to reappear after rounding the lunar farside. Our ship, our leader—gone. Having intercepted transmissions from the satellites of those several nations who now have instruments circling the moon, we are sure there was no explosion, no crash. The
Dyaune
was seized, stolen—is not the word
shanghaied
? And who could accomplish such a thing? Only the Swifts, masters of space."

"We haven’t been anywhere near the moon during that period of time," Tom declared. "Those transmissions you’ve eavesdropped on must confirm that."

"Your wonderful spaceship is immune to such instruments of detection. Some sort of coating, I believe."

"But we have no spacecraft that could—"

"Let us not waste time on these protective fictions," interrupted the Brungarian coldly. "You are Tom Swift, the great inventor. What you do not already have, you invent. And outer space is your playing field, as the world knows. Even now you work to create a new vessel for such efforts! Somehow, somewhere, you hold the
Dyaune
and its crew captive. For what? Ransom? Some plot against us by your government and the Brungarian traitors? We choose not to wait while you settle upon your demands."

"Your time is up, Mr. Ikyoris," stated Tom bluntly. "
Get out of this house!
"

"You demand a good deal of a man who is armed," Ikyoris replied. He took a small cellphone from his shirt pocket. "My friend upstairs—on speed-dial. One ring and he imposes a penalty upon young Sandra, the first in a series. Let us hope his wife does not call, eh?"

"What do you want us to do?" asked Tom’s mother, frightened.

Ikyoris stood up suddenly. "To do? We ask you to think, merely
think
. Think of what we might do with our X-U. Think of how comfortable it would make you if we were to turn it over to your government, as we pledge to do. Think outside the box, color outside the lines, push the envelope—that is the way of you Swifts. And then return to us what you have taken." The Swifts gasped as Ikyoris pushed a button on his cellphone. "Oh, do relax.
This
ringtone is the
nice
one."

The other man, Ury, clomped down the stairs. "
Mir-kyimsa, Sandara Sweeft,
" he said with a leer. "
Ah!—mir-kyimsa
."

"He says your daughter is very sweet," said Ikyoris. "And now, goodbye, with thanks for your hospitality. We will contact you. In one manner or another, eh?"

The two left. The door clacked. By the time Tom had reached the window, two long-legged steps, there was nothing to see. All they could do was to race upstairs, to confirm with relief that Sandy was unharmed.

The blond girl, one year Tom’s junior, tried to show Swiftian strength, but her blue eyes betrayed her with a sudden rush of tears. "Oh M-Mom, Dad—I—he was just
there
all of a sudden, behind me on the step—the, the
man
stood there l-looking at me—next to the bed—the gun, his
eyes
—!"

Her mother held her. "They’re gone now, dear."

Tom was furious. "I can take a lot, but not
this
! Maybe we
should
station an army around this place!"

Mr. Swift put a hand on his son’s shoulder, and said nothing. "I’m going to contact Collections," Tom declared, bolting from the bedroom toward his own.

What "Collections" was, precisely, was largely unknown to Tom and Swift Enterprises. It appeared to be a special group organized at the highest levels of the Federal government to confront high-technology threats against the nation—or sometimes, the world. One agent, nicknamed the Taxman, seemed to be assigned to work with Tom directly, communicating with the youth over the secured server that Tom used for his daily scientific journal. For nothing was secure against Collections.

Problems had cropped up in the relationship. Tom had briefly shielded one of their agents, a man named Asa Pike, when his professional misbehavior became entangled in Enterprises’ G-force inverter project. Though the matter had been resolved with Pike’s eventual arrest, the Taxman had been unresponsive when Tom recently had asked for help from Collections in trying to find Bud, who had been abducted and held captive.

Nevertheless Tom thought it urgent to try. He accessed his journal page and typed: "
It’s tax time. I need to know what to do about the Brungarian craft that attacked our construction site.
" Tom knew Collections would already be aware of the alarming breach of national security.

There was no response.

"
Are you aware of the disappearance of the Sentimentalists’ spacecraft?
"

The cursor cursed, but no message appeared.

"
Two men invaded our home and spoke of negotiations with the government. My family is threatened. I need to know what to do
."

And then two words appeared.

CHECK BACK

"
When shall I check back?
"

NOT A WHEN
A WHERE
CHECK BACK

"
What do you mean?
" But there was no further response.

Tom vexed his agile mind for an answer.
Check back
. Not a
when
, but a
where
...

"Good night!" he muttered to himself disgustedly. "Lives are at stake! What’s the point of this idiotic game-playing?" He looked at the monitor screen, half-expecting an answer. For sometimes, with the Taxman, it
did
answer.

A
where
... and the simple answer came to him. "Check back" meant he was to check backwards to an earlier point in his journal file! He scrolled the screen, toward his entry of the day previous. And just after that entry was something Tom hadn’t written, evidently inserted only
minutes
before!

WE ARE AWARE OF YOUR VISITORS
AND HAVE A FULL TRANSCRIPT
WHAT THEY SAY IS FALSE
THERE ARE NO SUCH ONGOING NEGOTIATIONS
DISAPPEARANCE OF SHIP MAY BE RUSE
MASTERMINDED BY VOLJ
FOR HIS OWN PURPOSES,
PERHAPS PLOT TO OUTWIT RIVALS
WITHIN THE GROUP
THEY WOULD NEVER TURN OVER
THEIR HYPERJET AS A TRADE
TOM TOM
YOU COMPROMISED MY ABILITY TO HELP YOU
BY YOUR HANDLING OF PIKE
YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN FOR NOW
THERE ARE PROBLEMS AT OUR END
WE ARE INVESTIGATING A POSSIBLE BREACH
DO NOT REPORT VISIT BY IKYORIS
TO YOUR USUAL GOVERNMENT CONTACTS
TRUST THAT WE HAVE FORWARDED
ALL INFORMATION TO NECESSARY AUTHORITIES
PROCEED WITH COSMOTRON EXPRESS PROJECT FOR NOW
I’M OVER PIKE’S PIQUE TOM
BUT PRESSURE IS ON HERE AT THE OFFICE
YOU NEED TO MINIMIZE CONTACT
WITH COLLECTIONS FOR A TIME
BUT WE MAY BE MEETING FACE TO FACE
BEFORE LONG
YOU NEED A HAIRCUT

That was all. The fact that the message had been entered during the span of mere
minutes
since the Brungarians had left gave Tom, as usual, a feeling of awe—and discomfort. If the government had such fantastic power to monitor ongoing events, to the extent of having an instantaneous transcript of a conversation held in the Swifts’ living room, how could the Sentimentalists—or anyone—stand against them?
I’m just glad Collections is on our side,
he thought.

And then he wondered what would happen if some rogue element in the agency decided to peddle the information elsewhere. Was the Taxman hinting that the threat had already materialized?

"Fine. I’ll leave Collections—and the rest of the government—to their own devices," he said to himself bitterly as he switched off the computer—for all the good it might do. "But the Cosmotron Express project is bound for space. And if we just happen to find out what became of that lost spaceship and its crew—well, it’s a phenomenon of scientific interest."

And Tom Swift was, after all, a
scientist
-inventor.

"ALL RIGHT, boss," said Phil Radnor to Tom. "We take as our Gospel Reading of the Day that we don’t rush to contact John Thurston or Wes Norris or the other good folks we trust every day to keep us from being blown up."

"What the Swifts are saying is reasonable," Harlan Ames declared across his desk in the direction of his stocky assistant. "Or at least we can make a case for it. Thurston and others have confirmed that this ‘Collections’ group is part of the national security apparatus. If your ‘Taxman’ tells us to hang fire for awhile, Tom, we have to take it seriously."