Tom Swift and His Spectromarine Selector (7 page)

"How high will we be flying, if I might ask?" inquired Miss Gabardine.

Bud answered for Tom. "About eight feet, ma’am. A little higher if our captain feels daring."

The woman frowned slightly. "Please don’t feel obliged to be daring on my account."

As the other two mantas fell into line behind the
Fathomer,
Tom cut in the forward jet tubes and the super-seacopter went streaking off to the north.

"Hey! Where are we heading?" Bud questioned with a look of surprise. "The North Pole?"

Tom grinned and shook his head. "Just a slight precaution to mislead any spies." He jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. "You never know who may be up there tracking us—even by satellite!"

"Right—maybe even those space friends of yours who sent that rocket," added Ham Teller, referring to the capsule of extraterrestrial plantlife they had recovered during the earlier seacopter mission.

The youthful captain flew northward for almost a hundred miles, then abruptly altered course toward the southeast. The fleet adopted a zigzag course. Far out over the mid-Atlantic, Tom brought the mantacopter down and submerged. But even below the surface, he circled and zigzagged warily for a time, which allowed the crew to watch as the other two craft plunged down behind them, sloshing through the gentle swells in swirls of foam.

"Jest like Columbus," Chow remarked. "Three ships! You coulda called ’em the
Nina, Pinta,
and th’
Santa Maria.
O’ course, we’re headin’ in th’ other direction."

"Any blips?" Tom asked Zimby, who was scanning the sonarscope.

"All clear, skipper!"

Finally convinced they were free of any possible pursuers, Tom laid a course for the sunken city of gold. Hours went by as he and Bud watched the deep-sea fish and other colorful ocean life pass by in the greenish waters outside the Tomaquartz window of the cabin.

"Not quite as fast as your jetmarine," Bud commented, stifling a yawn.

Tom chuckled. "Relax and enjoy the scenery."

Just then Zimby called out. "Tom! I’m picking up a signal on the all-range!"

"You mean a voice transmission?"

"No, just a steady tone. But it’s on the international emergency channel!"

"And what does that mean?" asked Miss Gabardine.

Tom shot her a worried glance. "That means it’s a distress signal. Someone’s in trouble somewhere ahead—and down deep!"

A SIGNAL light flashed on the automatic navigator panel. "I have a tri on ’em," announced Zimby, referring to the sonar triangulation system.

Tom activated his sono-resonance locator device. "Eight miles to starboard, twenty two point four degrees."

"Got a depth reading, skipper?" asked Bud.

"Deep!" said Tom brusquely. He picked up the control panel microphone and commed the other mantas.

"We picked it up too, Tom,"
responded Hank Sterling in the
Deepwing.
"What are your orders?"

"We have no choice but to check it out," replied the youth. "It’s possible we’ll have to mount some sort of rescue operation. But frankly—it could also be some sort of trap! Hank, stand-to for ten minutes or so, then follow. You too,
Supermanta."

"Aye-aye,"
signaled Slim Davis.

The
Fathomer
now put about and Tom poured on the steam. The sea floor sped by under the bright glow of the electronic aqualamp. "Volcanic terrain," noted George Braun quietly. "Rippled, jumbled, and cracked."

The broad terrain of Chow’s forehead creased. "I’m feelin’ a mite thet way myself."

"She’s right ahead, Tom," Zimby reported. "But down below—must be sitting right on the bottom."

"Then we’ll go down to meet her," declared Tom tensely. Moments later, a gentle thud announced that they had settled on the sea floor.

"Look!"
Bud gave a startled gasp and pointed out the cabin window.

Dead ahead, in the full glare of the seacopter’ s beam, lay a strange submarine!

"What in the world kind of ship is
that?"
muttered Ham.

The submersible looked to be about sixty feet from prow to stern and consisted of three flat-sided hulls in parallel. At the rear of each was a spherical module which Tom sized-up as a deepwater diving vessel of some kind, probably detachable. Each hull, as well as the diving spheres, bore a small round porthole streaming with light. The mysterious craft remained motionless, betraying no sign of hostile intent, or life of any kind. Its crew, if any, seemed unaware of the
Fathomer
’s presence and gave no response when Tom called the submarine over the sonophone.

"No answer on any frequency," he stated. "Just the emergency signal."

"What do you make of it, skipper?" Bud asked with a puzzled scowl.

Tom was equally baffled. "You’ve got me, Bud. I can’t even guess its nationality." He paused thoughtfully. "And yet..." From the manta’s onboard computer he brought up a searchable listing from Jane’s and paged through it. But he found no submarines pictured with lines like those of the unknown craft.

"Must be some new type that’s been kept top secret," Tom muttered. "Especially to be operating at this depth!"

"What do you intend to do?" inquired Miss Gabardine. Her tone suggested reservations.

"I intend to use some of that ‘funding’ of ours to save lives." He shot Bud a quizzical glance. "Are you game to pay ’em a visit?"

"In Fat Man suits?" Bud grinned. "Sure, why not? Boy, will they be surprised to see
us
at their front door!"

Tom and Bud each squirmed into a suit and clamped shut the top-to-bottom access hatches. Moments later, the queer-looking steel monsters squeezed their way out of the contoured hull apertures. Those aboard watched tensely through the cabin windows as Tom and Bud waddled forward through the undersea murk. Each suit carried its own set of spotlights. At this depth the Fat Men were under extreme pressure and bone-chilling temperature. But inside, Tom and Bud were perfectly comfortable as they made their way along, their legs extending downward into the suits’ motor-assisted limbs.

Reaching the mystery submarine, Tom manipulated his Fat Man’s arm controls to rap on the hull. Repeated knocks brought no response.

"Maybe there’s no one aboard," Bud remarked over his suit’s sonophone.

"Just what I’m thinking." Tom’s face, seen through his Tomaquartz view dome, bore a puzzled frown. "It may even be a derelict."

"With an automatic signaler that’s on the blink. So what do we do now?"

"Let’s jet over to the other side."

They used their small suit jets to hop over the hulls. Landing gently, Bud suddenly called out: "Look—a name!"

"Good night, no wonder she seemed familiar!" Tom exclaimed. "It’s the
Hydra-Gaea,
Professor Centas’s research deep-diver!"

"Who’s he?"

"In a few minutes, pal, he’ll introduce himself."

"Hope so." But Bud was secretly fearful that the submarine’s occupants might be found dead.

They looked through the forward portholes but saw no signs of a crew. "At least she doesn’t seem to be flooded," Tom noted. "Let’s check out those spheres at the other end."

As he approached the porthole in one of the spheres, Bud cried out, startled. A dark silhouette had moved into view!

"It’s Centas himself!" exclaimed Tom. "And someone else, too. But their communications must be out."

Communicating by gesture, Tom indicated that rescue was immanent. He contacted the
Supermanta,
which now had arrived and was hovering some distance away, and gave detailed instructions to Hank Sterling and Arv Hanson. The mantacopter drew near and settled down onto the bottom, one of its side freight hatches almost touching the occupied sphere. Inside the big airlock, the two expert technicians had bolted down one of the powerful repelatrons the sub was freighting to the city site.

"Hank says they’re all set," sonophoned Brian Fraser. "Shall I tell ’em to switch on?"

"Right—radius fifty."

In a moment the occupants of the
Hydra-Gaea
were witness to a sight few on Earth had seen, the birth of an airspace bubble at the bottom of the sea. The bubble seemed to grow right out of the manta’s hull, partially penetrating the ground as it expanded. In moments it encompassed the entire stern of the
Hydra-Gaea
with its three metal spheres.

The young inventor now gestured for the occupants to emerge into the airspace.

"Man, I just hope they trust us!" Bud remarked. "It’s a little
offputting,
climbing out of a sub at the bottom of the ocean!"

"Professor Centas knows all about the repelatron and hydrodome setup, Bud."

A round hatch slowly opened. The man Tom had recognized crawled out into the airspace, followed by the other occupant, who was unknown to Tom. Lugging along a large metal case, Centas closed the hatch behind him. The two were directed to the
Supermanta
’s wide airlock hatch, which had swung upward, gullwing-fashion. After it was shut and sealed again Tom ordered the repelatron powered-down, and he and Bud returned to the
Fathomer.

"Fantastic!" exulted George Braun.

"Aw, calm down, George," snorted Ham Teller. "It’s all in a day’s
woik
for this guy." But he clapped Tom and Bud on the back, and Zimby and Chow added their congratulations.

Julienne Gabardine held back, making no comment. But the boys could see her jotting some notes in the small notebook she carried.

Tom sonophoned the
Supermanta
and confirmed that there was no one else aboard the disabled craft. "How are they? Do they need medical attention?"

"Doc Simpson says they need attention, all right, but they’re not in critical shape," Hank reported. "He thinks they can be treated at the sub-city."

"Then it seems there would be no need to turn back, I take it," Miss Gabardine commented.

Tom glanced at her, irritated. "Not at the moment, ma’am. We’ll proceed with the mission and give our medical man a chance to evaluate them."

"And what about their submarine?"

"The
Hydra-Gaea
is anchored in place. It’ll stay put for now. It’s not our business to salvage it—it’s not an American ship, and belongs to a private research foundation that Professor Centas heads."

"They should jest be glad t’be alive," Chow added.

"I’m sure they are, Chow," Bud said. "If not, we’ll throw ’em back."

The fleet now resumed the voyage, ascending a ways toward the surface to avoid the jagged upthrusts of the sea floor. They skirted the Madeiras and headed northward until they sighted the Horseshoe Seamounts that concealed their destination. They were soon directly over the city of gold, two miles down. Tom shoved the control wheel forward and the
Fathomer
plunged toward the ocean bottom.

The waters darkened and gradually became pitch black. Tom switched on the powerful undersea searchlights. Presently the rugged crags surrounding the slotlike entry channel lay dead ahead. "Here we go," he sonophoned. "Use sonar guidance to keep to the middle, away from the channel walls. There should be plenty of room."

They plunged into the darkness beyond the yielding curtain of vegetation, Tom’s mantacopter in the lead. They angled downward moment by moment, involuntarily listening for the scrape of hull against rock.

Tom checked over the automatic instrument readouts. "No problems with the guidance system. It should be just—"

"Tom! Hard to port!"
It was Bud’s frantic warning!

Acting almost automatically, Tom flicked over to manual control and twisted the wheel. What had caught Bud’s attention was now visible to all of them.

"B-brand my seaweed cutlets!" gasped Chow. "A sea serpent!"

A weird, luminescent sea creature was darting toward them!

A BIZARRE fusion of eel, serpent, and jellyfish, the skin of the monster seemed semi-transparent and gelatinous. It glowed with an eerie bluish light, as if veined in neon from tip to tail, and was at least fifty feet long.

"I’ll try to scare him off," Tom muttered. "He might foul the rotors if he gets himself sucked in." The young inventor swiveled one set of the gimballed jet tubes, aiming them forward, and shot a plume of white, steamy froth toward the creature. It paused and drew back for a moment, almost like a cobra poised to strike. But it seemed only annoyed, not fearful. Its black protruberant eyes, extended forward at the ends of waving stalks, glared lidlessly at the invader. Powerful jaws gaped open, revealing an armory of spiky teeth that curved like scythes.

"It’s starting to coil!" warned Zimby Cox.

The serpent’s intent became clear. Like a huge boa constrictor, it was preparing to wrap itself about one corner of the
Fathomer
’s kiteshaped hull, dangerously close to the portside rotor well and its whirring blades. The result could be catastrophic!

It charged—but Tom Swift charged first! With a burst of jet steam he rammed the curving prow of the mantacopter right into the nose of their attacker! For a moment the veined gell of the beast was pressed against the viewpane as it thrashed about wildly, stirring up clouds of murky froth mixed with streamers of luminous blue fluid. The
Fathomer
rocked and trembled.

Then suddenly the creature darted away. The aqualamp beam showed it plunging into a narrow crack in the looming wall of the channel.

"Let’s hope it stays in there till the mantas have passed!" Bud gasped.

"We may have gotten in the way of its daily commute home," was Ham Teller’s remark. "Oh, and Chow?"

"Huh?"

"Whatever you’re thinking, forget!"

Chow’s fondness for experimental cooking was almost as notorious as his shirts.

Moments later, the
Fathomer
was plunging back down toward the enclosed canyon. As the channel opened wide, Tom brought the giant seacopter to rest on a slight rise among the undersea peaks that afforded a panoramic view. The two trailing mantas were hovering nearby, their lights illumining the pillared ruins of the encrusted golden city.