Tom Swift and His Spectromarine Selector (5 page)

"This little model actually works?" Bashalli asked in amazement.

"Sure," Tom turned to Bud with a grin. "Like a little hair off the top, pal?"

"Please! Don’t experiment on me, Professor!"

Bashalli held up her leather purse with silver initials. "The purse is new, but these letters already need polishing," she said playfully. "Could your machine remove the tarnish?"

Tom hesitated, a doubtful look on his face. "Well, actually—the spectromarine selector is designed to work on materials with water content. I don’t know if—"

"Aw c’mon, genius boy!" Bud urged teasingly. "The Swift honor is at stake!"

"All right," said the young inventor reluctantly. "I suppose it can’t do any harm."

As Bash held her purse about a foot away from the cannon, Tom aimed the model at the metal initials. Then he flicked on the power, provided by a miniature solar battery, and gently pushed a lever forward with the edge of his fingernail.

"Ohhh!"
Bashalli and Sandy shared a delighted gasp as the tarnish seemed to fade away like magic until it had completely disappeared. But their amazement quickly turned to dismay as the initials too began to vanish! Before Tom could fumble his fingers into position on the tiny levers to turn off the machine, even the leather was partly eaten away!

"It’s ruined!" Sandy groaned.

Tom, red-faced, hastily apologized.

"Don’t worry, Thomas," Bashalli said good-naturedly. "It’s an old purse, anyhow."

"You said it was new."

"Now it’s old."

"But what happened?" Sandy asked. Tom explained that he had adjusted the machine to remove tarnish, a sulfide compound. But the selector circuit, by an unexpected feedback action, had also ordered the selector to remove the metal alloy, which contained a sulfurous base.

"There’s sulfur in the leather, too," he added. "So the spectrosel took part of
that
off!"

"Just a
slight
slip-up," Bud grinned.

"It’s a problem that could cause plenty of damage," Tom noted ruefully. "I’ll buy you a new purse, Bashalli, and let’s say this one went for the cause of science. At least it showed me a flaw in my machine that needs correcting!"

"I trust you are no longer bored," commented Bashalli.

The next morning Tom returned to work at the plant over his mother’s resigned and half-hearted protests. He made a quick tour of the various departments to check progress on the full-sized version of his new invention. Luckily there was still time to make changes in the spectrosel’s differential-detector unit. Having developed a promising approach, he went to confer with Art Wiltessa, a brilliant young engineer who often oversaw the construction of Tom’s inventions. He had supervised the production of many of Tom’s projects from blueprint to working model.

But before three words had escaped Tom’s mouth, his pocket cellphone bleeped. Tom apologized to Art and answered the call.

"It’s Ames, Tom," said a tense voice. "I’ve received some new info on this Li Ching guy. It looks like you’re in for some real rough sailing!"

TOM groaned. "What did you find out, Harlan?"

"I’ve been in touch with Hal Brenner, the FBI agent you’ve dealt with," Ames responded. Agent Brenner had previously assisted Tom when he and Hank Sterling had been imprisoned during the run-up to Tom’s flight to South America in his Flying Lab. "He was given permission to tell me what they know about Mr. Li. The main source is Interpol, although I think Brenner was hinting at some sources in the CIA and the domestic terrorism office."

"And maybe your cousin Steve?"

Ames chuckled. "Tom, you should get out of inventing and become a detective! At any rate, here’s what I was told, boiled down. Turns out Li is, officially, Comrade-General Li Ching, former head of the technological research division—weapons, in other words—of the Army of the People’s Republic of China. He was suspected of marketing secrets to Taiwan, but fled the country before he could be arrested."

"So he’s a traitor."

"Yes, and worse—he’s thought to be the leader of a sort of international spy-for-hire ring with a specialization in high-tech theft. Brenner describes him as ruthless and murderous."

"We’ve definitely seen that!" Tom declared. "But just how is he involved in this Mob-Kranjovia connection?"

"Brenner’s stumped on that one, and so am I," admitted the security chief. "It’s possible, of course, that some entirely separate group is trading on his name. But there are a half-dozen government offices at work on the problem—not to mention Enterprises’ own security aces!"

"I’m betting you solve it first, Harlan!" commented the young inventor appreciatively. "Thanks a lot for the report."

"Watch your backside, Tom."

"That’s hard to do," Tom joked. "I’ll let Bud watch my backside, and I’ll watch his."

Turning his attention back to Art, Tom described the flaw that had spoiled his demonstration on Bashalli’s purse. "I think I have the answer," he added.

Pulling out pencil and paper, Tom sketched a feedback-control circuit which he had worked out in his mind overnight. Its purpose was to prevent the compounds in the object being cleaned from affecting the selection of elements to be removed.

"Good enough," Art commented. He was a man of few words, but his eyes showed his admiration for his young employer’s technical insight. "And we can add that easily before the unit’s assembled."

"Thanks, Art." Tom thumped him on the back. "I hate to slow up your schedule, but we want all the bugs ironed out before setting up shop in those Atlantis ruins."

Having given work to others, Tom was now somewhat at loose ends. After spending some time making entries in his personal journal, he prowled about his several labs restlessly. As noon approached, he was relieved when his telephone buzzed.

"Hi, sis! What’s up?"

"Oh, just felt like giving a call to my famous big brother," was Sandy’s breezy reply. "I don’t suppose you’ll be taking off for the sunken city this afternoon?"

Tom gave a wry chuckle. "Not a chance. We’ll probably work Saturday, though. Lots to do."

"Don’t try to wiggle out!" his sister warned. "Daddy says you have this afternoon free, and we want you to join Bud and Bashi and I on a pleasure outing. Even if you don’t care about your devoted sister and poor Bashalli—she of the abused purse!—you don’t want to let Bud down, do you?"

Tom groaned humorously. "Well, I
suppose
if you’ve already got
Bud’s
okay..."

"Meet us in the parking lot in fifteen minutes."

In eight minutes Tom found the girls leaning glamorously against Bud’s scarlet convertible. Bud gave Tom a rueful look. "When they told me you’d given thumbs-up, pal, I figured I’d better come along to play watchdog."

"Huh?" Tom gave Sandy a look of mock accusation. "You said you’d already got Bud’s okay before you called me!"

"No, Tom,
you
said I’d already got Bud’s okay," Sandy replied blithely. "Can I be blamed for your jumping to a conclusion?"

Bud struck his forehead with his hand. "Genius boy, we’ve been had!"

"A fine thing to say, Buddo," Sandy pouted. "Is there something wrong with us, Bashi?"

Bashalli’s long dark lashes drooped sadly as she smothered a giggle. "It’s no use, Sandra. I fear we’re just not their type."

"Oh well." Sandy shrugged mischievously. "If they have to work so hard all the time, maybe we better find ourselves other dates."

"You know, there are these nice two boys who work at Wickliffe Laboratories..."

This brought a quick reaction from Bud. "Hey, none of that!" he protested. "Maybe we
could
manage to break away."

Giving up the game, Tom laughed. "So what’s the plan?"

The plan turned out to be an afternoon at Carnival Park, a large amusement park in the old-fashioned style that had just opened in a little resort town at the tip of Lake Carlopa. For weeks, the girls had been begging Tom and Bud to accompany them there.

"Yippee!" Bud burst out gleefully. "This is wonderful, Sandy! I haven’t been to a carnival in a blue moon!"

As soon as they had parked, the four young people hurried off gaily on foot to the carnival grounds. A din of excitement filled the place. The carnival was ablaze with color, highlighted by striped tents and clusters of toy balloons. Barkers shouted in front of the amusement concessions, while children shrieked and squealed with laughter on the fun rides and the merry-go-round.

"Oh, I’m so excited!" Bashalli confessed. "Sandra, this is the best idea you ever had!"

"Check!" Tom agreed, laughing.

"And you didn’t even have to change your signature blue-striped t-shirt, Thomas," she added with irony, and a twinkle in her eye.

The two couples lunched on dogs, fries, and shakes, to which the voracious Bud Barclay added his favorite, roasted corn on the cob. Everywhere they went, strolling Shoptonians nodded hello, for Shopton’s most celebrated citizen was well known to everyone.

"Hey, let’s show Sandy and Bash what hot shots we are!" Bud proposed as they passed a shooting-gallery booth.

"Okay." Tom grinned. "We’ll make it boys against the girls—losers buy cotton candy all around. But let’s not run up the score on ’em too high!"

The girls selected guns and shot their round first.
Bing! Bing! Bing!
The travelling ducks went down faster than clay pigeons at a rifle match.

"Wow! Almost good!" Bud gulped. Sandy and Bash smiled innocently but said nothing.

When Tom and Bud’s turn came, they were unable to beat the girls’ high score. The boys looked at each other in deep male chagrin as they lay down their guns.

Tom chuckled wryly. "You don’t suppose this could have been a put-up job too?" he quipped to Bud.

The girls burst out laughing.

"I suppose we mustn’t destroy their fragile egos," cautioned Bashalli. "Tom may be needed to save the world."

"Okay, we’ll ’fess up!" Sandy giggled. "We’ve been taking shooting lessons from Chow!" Chow Winkler, a big and grizzled one-hundred-percent Texan, had recently left on one of his periodic trips back to his home in Texas. He had proven himself skilled at the cowboy arts of ridin’, wranglin’, and shootin’.

The boys vowed to do better at the next concession. This turned out to be a booth where the customers were pitching baseballs at a comical-looking dummy. As Tom left them momentarily to fetch the promised cotton candy, Bud sized up the game. "Three shots for a quarter!" the barker shouted. "Nothin’ to it, folks! Hit the dummy and down he goes! So step right up and win your little lady a prize!"

"Okay. Maybe our luck will turn here." Bud, who had been a fireball hurler on his high school team, grinned in anticipation.

Just then a lady bystander snickered. "Hey, that dummy looks just like you, Longneck!"

Bud stiffened. Could the speaker be referring to Longneck Ebber? Beneath hat and sunglasses, the man standing next to the woman certainly resembled the FBI photo Harlan Ames had shown them!

Bud shot a quick glance at Tom as he walked up with the cotton candy. "Tom, that guy over there—I’m sure it’s Longneck," he whispered to his chum. "If he notices you—"

Tom turned to the two girls, speaking quietly and tensely. "Wait over by the ferris wheel, out of sight. We think we see one of that gang, and he could be armed. We’ll be right back."

The possible Ebber, a tall, cadaverous man with a beaky nose, was already walking away with his companion. Tom and Bud followed them at a distance, hoping to remain unseen in the crowd.

But it seemed the mob leader had the sixth sense of a born criminal. He abruptly stopped and turned. His eyes fell on the young inventor, and his slit of a mouth turned deadly.

"Get outa here!" he grunted at his woman friend, roughly shoving her away. Ebber whirled and took off like a startled jackrabbit, plunging violently into the crowd. Tom and Bud dashed after the suspect almost without thinking.

Ducking and weaving to avoid collisions with the carnival merrymakers, the two boys sprinted through the midway. But the crowds of people made it impossible to keep their quarry in sight. They paused to catch their breaths, ready to give up the chase. Longneck Ebber could have slipped off in any of a dozen directions among the tents and concession stands.

Suddenly Tom hissed, "I see him! He’s at that big building over there, behind the ticket booth!" Ebber was standing in line to enter one of the enclosed rides, evidently trying to get out of sight. Even as the youths began to run, they saw Ebber hand a ticket to an attendant and scramble into a boat-shaped conveyance. Over the mobster’s head was a gaudy sign outlined in flickering bulbs:
Spend Ten Minutes in The Tunnel of Love!

They attempted to jump the line, but two stern well-muscled carny men warned them back. "Ticket booth over there, boys!"

Tom and Bud rushed up to the booth. "Two for the Tunnel of Love!" Tom demanded, panting as he fumbled out some coins.

"The times they are a–changin’," said the man in the booth languidly. "First some guy wants to ride all by hisself, then you two boys—"

"Come on!" Bud demanded. "We’re in a hurry!"

"I bet," scowled the man, peeling off two tickets.

In moments Tom and Bud were in their two-seater boat, which ran along on a rail partly covered by a shallow stream of water. They glided slowly forward into the darkness of the building. A number of the little boats, filled with ardent occupants, now lay between them and Ebber.

"Can you see him?" asked Bud.

"Nope. He’s somewhere ahead of that bend up there."

There was nothing to do but wait as the boat inched lazily along among the blacklight-lit monsters and weird clown faces. They came to an open place where they could see across to a further point on the track. Tom elbowed his pal. A boat had just emerged into the violet dimness—empty! "He’s jumped out somewhere!" Tom exclaimed. "He must be trying to get out through a back door!"

"Trying to shake us," Bud gritted. "But we won’t be shook!" He stood in the boat, pulling Tom to his feet. They jumped off onto the painted "shore," their feet crunching down through its foam covering as they sprinted across toward the opening of the dark section that the empty boat had just emerged from.