Tom Swift and His Space Solartron (17 page)

At first Venus, nearly as large as the earth in actual size, showed only as a star before them; albeit the brightest star in the heavens. But it grew. By the midpoint of the journey, as Tom shifted the repelatrons to slow them by pushing against the sun as well as Venus and distant Mercury, the planet had begun to take on hues of pale salmon-red and yellow, a sort of muggy saffron, overlying a lustrous pearl-gray.

"That’s the atmosphere we’re seeing, of course," Tom commented. "The upper cloud deck."

"What’s it made of, chief?" asked Bob Jeffers.

"Nothing you’d want to try breathing! Mostly carbon dioxide—plenty of sulfur, too. Ninety times denser than Earth’s, and hot enough to melt lead."

Bud gulped. "Cancel my reservation!"

The shift from acceleration to deceleration meant that Venus now seemed to be below the spaceship, as if they were approaching it on a down-heading elevator. Seven hours after the reorientation came the periodic interval of coasting, during which the atom-gatherer panels were released into space and unfolded.

On this occasion there was a slight hitch. "Tom, one of the corners of lattice-B is snagged in its output-tube," Hank reported. "It won’t unfold properly."

"Looks like a three-man job," replied Tom, nodding toward Bud and Ted Spring.

"Great," chuckled Ted. "About time I took a spacewalk to stretch these long legs of mine!"

It took only a few moments to unsnag the lattice and shove it on into the void. As the three astronauts paused on the
Challenger
’s "front porch" for a moment before reentering the ship, Bud suddenly exclaimed, "Hey! Is this hail, or am I getting space-happy?"

Without warning a shower of pellets had begun raining down from the starry sky! They pattered gently against the youth’s transparent helmet-globes, bouncing away again into space.

Intrigued, Tom caught a few of the pellets and examined them. They were crystalline and varied in color from steel gray to purplish black. "Looks like iodine," he muttered, confirming the verdict a few moments later with the small spectroscanner that was part of his spacesuit equipage.

"But where’s it coming from?" Bud asked.

"It’s been detected in intersolar particle clouds," was the answer. "But never in this amount and concentration. We should document this phenomenon."

"Skipper!" radioed Hank. "Get on in here! Instruments show a big swarm of those pellets heading this way—the iodine could foul up your suit seals!"

They dashed into the vehicular hangar for protection from the unexpected "rain."

The next moment Tom gave a gasp of dismay. "Good grief!" he cried. "I just realized that these will ruin the couplings on the collector tubes!"

"You said it, T-man!" Ted exclaimed. "Take a look!"

Holes had already appeared in the metallic joints at several points, visible even from hundreds of feet away. The twin lattices were beginning to warp, to curl in on themselves!

"What’ll we do?" asked Bud tersely, turning to Tom for orders.

Tom contacted the command deck. "Hank, shift repelatrons four and nine into position and tune them for iodine!—blast a hole in that cloud!"

Sterling complied instantly. They could see the two radiator-antennas slide into position along their tracks as the invisible beams lanced into space. The cosmic hailstorm came to an abrupt end. The repelatrons had punched an open passage in the cloud for the
Challenger
.

"We’ll repair them at once," Tom said, eyeing the damage. "It shouldn’t take long."

"Genius boy, I think you just discovered a cure for acid rain!" pronounced Bud with a yelp of admiration.

The three waited anxiously on the hangar deck while replacement couplings were prepared in the craft’s machine shop by Arvid Hanson. Then they rushed outside and soared over to the floating panels, and began hastily repairing the damage. The job was completed in a few minutes, and Tom expressed satisfaction and relief. "Fortunately we’ve managed to get ahead of schedule," he noted, "so this won’t set us back at all." As they returned to the ship, Tom transiphoned Hank Sterling to activate the atom-snatchers and restart the solartron.

"She’s working," he radioed back. "Looks like we’re getting a steady flow."

"Man oh man," Bud murmured happily. "That solartron’s a miracle and a half!"

"If it weren’t for the matter maker, this trip wouldn’t be possible," Tom agreed; "and everyone on the outpost would be done for."

After Tom and Bud had gone aboard, Ted remained outside for a few minutes, making a final check of one of the atom conduits at Sterling’s request. There had been some indication of leakage, but Ted found no sign of further damage. "Looks okay, Hank," he radioed. "I’m coming in."

There was no answer. The transiphone remained dead silent.

"Sterling, do you read me? Hey,
Challenger
—I think my suit radio’s gone out!" But when he carefully checked over his suit instrumentation, he found no sign of malfunction.

Ted was now floating a few yards above the landing-stage platform. With a short burst of his microjets, he rose higher and came even with the control deck. Approaching one of the big rectangular viewports, he shaded his eyes and peered within.

"Catfish!
—no!"
he cried in horrified alarm.

Tom, Bud, Sterling, and the rest of the space crew were sprawled out across the deck, unmoving and lifeless!

INSIDE the ship, automatic alarms blared, beeped, and buzzed unheard. Curled up on the deck—actually a few inches above it—Tom Swift stirred, trying to complete a thought. The effort was like trying to get an automobile engine to turn over on a cold morning.
What was I thinking?
he wondered.
And what in the world is all that noise?

Finally, with a groan of annoyance, he forced his eyelids open. They seemed curiously reluctant.

The first thing Tom saw was a strange, shimmering blur. Suddenly it came into focus, resolving into—what? His brain churning sluggishly, he regarded the object.
Say, it’s a space helmet,
he decided at last.
Hunh. Now what’s a helmet doing rolling around loose like that?

It floated next to his left hand. He stretched out a finger and gave it a tap. As it wavered, a slight breath of breeze swept across his face. Air was still issuing from the helmet’s tank inlet.

The wisp of air seemed to revive Tom slightly. He forced himself upright—and gasped with alarm. His fellow space travelers were collapsed all about him!

"Bud!" he choked out. "Arv! Chow!" None of his companions replied. Gazing closely at Bud’s face, he thought he saw a slight twitch behind the young flyer’s closed eyelids. "Hey, flyboy! Wake up!" Tom gave him a gentle shake—gentle, not from gentleness, but from Tom’s own weakness.

To his horrified amazement, the copilot’s head lolled back. His breathing, inaudible and barely visible, seemed heavy and labored.

"What’s wrong?" Tom gasped. He moved to assist his pal and discovered to his horror that his own legs were barely responsive!

A slight push rotated him upright, and he clawed at a nearby bulkhead to support himself. His head was spinning and he felt slightly nauseated. Something must be wrong with the oxygen supply!

"It’s—the solartron—malfunction! I’d better switch to the… regular…" Tom muttered. But his words trailed off. He seemed overcome by an urge to sleep. As he struggled to reach for the switch that controlled the compartment’s emergency oxygen tanks, he again collapsed into an unconscious heap, twisting slowly in midair!

Blank moments later, Tom was jolted awake by a loud voice crackling over the transiphone in his loose suit helmet. "C’mon you floundering space birds,
wake up!
I’m warning you, I’m gonna try artificial respiration next!" It was Ted Spring’s voice!

"Ted!" the young scientist-inventor croaked out. "The oxygen reserve… there!" He pointed weakly. Ted bounded over and threw the switch, and the compartment was quickly flooded with the oxygen-helium mixture used aboard the
Challenger
.

Ted, still wearing his sealed spacesuit, then made his way over to his friend to assist him. After checking the air on his suit sensor, he pulled off his helmet. "Carbon monoxide, Tom! The cabin was full of it!"

Tom shook his head groggily, gulping the air. "I figured. Something went wrong with the solartron."

Now the others began to revive. First was Bud, the youngest and healthiest. "Where am I?" he asked, looking about. Gradually he remembered seeing his companions lose consciousness before his eyes. "I must have blacked out too!"

Chow was the last to revive, rubbing his head. "Ow! Feel like I been head-butted by a steer!"

Meanwhile Tom had flicked the air circulation system to maximum and activated its electronic "scrubbers." Then he got a squeeze-bottle of water and ammonia smelling salts from the first-aid locker, and went to work bringing the others around.

"W-what happened?" Hank Sterling murmured groggily.

"Not sure yet," Tom replied, "but I suspect something went wrong with the solartron’s oxygen supply. Here—drink some more of this water, Hank, while I check Matty’s instrument readouts."

Tom hurried to check his matter-making machine, housed on the hangar deck and connected to the spaceship’s airduct network. When he returned to the flight compartment, Bud flashed him a questioning glance.

"Figured it out yet?"

Tom nodded grimly. "According to the spectroscopic record, the machine was producing a fractional percentage of carbon monoxide along with the oxygen, just as we suspected. And now I know why—traces of that space-iodine worked their way into the outlet tubes from the atom-gatherers. It threw off the solartron’s element-frequency modulators." He added that he had flushed out the conduits and readjusted the solartron.

Bob Jeffers sighed with relief. "Thank goodness! We’re back on line."

Tom looked troubled. "But we’re behind schedule now. We’ll have to sustain higher decelerations. We’ll feel it, guys!"

"Don’t matter, son," Chow declared. "We’ve taken worse hits an’ kept on goin’ strong."

After completing the scheduled run of the solartron, they resumed the deceleration routine. It was some comfort to realize that even during the midst of the crisis, the ship had continued "falling" toward Venus and the orbiting space outpost.

They used the deep-space radio at regular intervals. Though there was no response to their signals from the outpost, they were continuously in touch with the Earth.

Speaking with his mother on Day Eleven, Tom asked how Sandy was handling the difficult, emotional situation. "Very bravely, dear. I know she’s trying to keep me from worrying and fretting."

Tom chuckled. "Funny thing, Mom—she said the same thing about you! I’m sure proud of the both of you."

During the next exchange of messages, Tom spoke with Harlan Ames, inquiring as to the final results of the plot by Hampshire and Lewton Ajax. After a gap of about a minute—thirty seconds out, thirty seconds back—Tom received the reply. "As I told you, boss, Ajax’s out on bail now, denying everything through his lawyers—any one of whom costs about a hundred times more in billable hours than Hampshire ever dreamed of! We’ll see what happens. It’s sure given Perkins a lot to splash around in the
Bulletin!
But if you’re in the mood for surprises, he’s published an editorial that apologizes to you and your Dad for relying on ‘unreliable sources and unsubstantiated innuendo.’ Hoo boy!"

One day out from the rendezvous with Venus, the shrouded planet loomed ahead like a pale bronze disk glowing with hazy, sulfurous heat. The distant earth was now a diamond-bright star, tinged with a trace of blue.

"Any sign of the station?" Bud asked Tom.

"Not yet, flyboy. But if the numbers provided by the space friends are accurate, she’ll be comin’ round the mountain any time now. The orbital ellipse is very distended, like a comet’s—the outpost doesn’t spend too much time up close to the planet."

Chow sidled up to the two. "Boss, whatter ya think th’ space folk meant, talkin’ about something happening to your Dad and the others? What could happen all of a sudden like that?"

Tom shrugged. "I wish I knew. I’m afraid the most obvious possibility—and the worst!—is that the stated time is when the alternate-solvers will physically arrive at the outpost and begin their experimental program."

"Good gravy! In one o’ them flyin’ saucers they use?" Chow gulped. "If’n we don’t get there before ’em—!"

"This is a race we
have
to win, pard!" said Tom firmly. "The space beings just
might
let us all return to Earth once we’ve evacuated the station, because it would have interfered with the experimental setup they had in mind. But if they get there first, I doubt there’s anything we can do!"

Now the hours passed with almost unbearable tension aboard the
Challenger
as its velocity ebbed away. Unable to even think of sleep, Tom monitored the radarscope and electronic telescope continuously, straining to catch a glimpse of the stolen space base.
But what if they’ve made it as invisible to sight as it is to radar?
Tom worried.

But that worry, at least, proved groundless. Several hours into the sixteenth and final day of the journey, Tom suddenly scooped up the intercom microphone and announced. "Attention everyone! I’ve sighted the outpost on the telescope screen!"

Cheers and whoops filled the
Challenger
as the others rushed up to the control compartment to join Tom. "Way t’go, T-man!" chortled Ted.

"Does it look in good shape?" asked Arv Hanson.

"Nothing out of the ordinary at all," replied Tom happily. "I just wish we could contact them."

"I’m sure it won’t be long," Bud said. "Let’s you and I head down to communications and send ’em a call."

In the communications center below, Tom sent several messages, using various frequencies in case the space beings were somehow canceling the frequency normally used. "Nothin’," he said bleakly to Bud.

Suddenly both boys jumped back as the alarm buzzed on the space oscilloscope. "Good night, it’s a message from the space friends!" Tom gasped.