Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane (10 page)

Tom led the men to the jungle stream so they could bathe their tortured, itching skin. Then Doc Simpson swabbed each one with a soothing lotion to reduce the swelling and relieve the irritation.

"Guess we might as well have lunch before we push on," Tom decided.

Chow boiled some water and brewed tea, while the men nibbled on cold rations. After a short siesta, the group started off again.

Progress became slower as they plodded upward through the foothills ringing the shallow valley through which they had passed. At some points, the trees and luxuriant green foliage were not so dense as before. But this helped the men little. The steep climb was more exhausting than hacking their way on level ground.

By midafternoon they reached a narrow, rocky defile. Stringing out into single file, they threaded their way through the pass with Tom in the lead.

As they emerged on the other side, the young inventor passed the word to take a rest. One by one, the men threw themselves on the ground, breathing hard from exertion. They could now see, looming in the far distance, the ebon clouds of the continuing thunderstorm. The rumble of distant thunder was almost constant, as were the stifling waves of humidity.

"Wish we’d had time to find a meteorologist to come along," Tom muttered. "There’s something to be learned from that big blowout." Glancing around, he suddenly asked, "Where’s Hedron?" Supposedly, he had been bringing up the rear. But none of the other men knew what had happened to him.

Tom peered back through the gorge. There was no sign of movement among the rocks or shrubbery. "Hey, George!" he yelled, cupping his hands.
"George Hedron!"

His voice echoed and re-echoed between the high-walled cliffs, startling a flock of red and yellow jungle birds into screaming flight. But the shouts brought no response from the zoologist.

Thoroughly alarmed, Tom beamed out a call over his walkie-talkie. Again he received no answer.

"Maybe these rocky hills are blocking the signal," Sam Barker suggested.

"Could be." With a worried frown, Tom ran his fingers through his ragged blond crewcut, eternally a week late for a trip to a barber. "Anyhow, we’ve got to find him. He may be hurt!"

Ordering his men to regroup, Tom led them back through the pass. On the other side, he called again over his walkie-talkie. Still no reply.

"We’d better fan out and look for him," Tom told the others. "And be sure to keep in touch by walkie-talkie—we don’t want another man missing!"

Leaving the beaten trail which the rescue party had carved through the wilderness, Tom struck off into the underbrush. Trailing vines and creepers mingled on all sides with gorgeous orchids in colors of gold, purple, crimson, and orange.

Suddenly a glint of sunlight caught his eye. Peering into the distance, Tom saw a silver wire spearing up through the trees. At the very instant he saw it, the wire began to disappear from view. It was a walkie-talkie antenna being lowered!

With a shout, Tom crashed forward through the tangled green foliage. A moment later he emerged into a tiny clearing. There stood Hedron, smiling happily. Beside him huddled a weird, brownish-gray animal, strapped in a bag of wire netting.

"Good night, where have you been?" Tom demanded.

"Capturing a padmelon." Hedron pointed to his prize. Looking somewhat like a huge rat, the padmelon was almost three feet long. "It’s really a species of kangaroo," Hedron went on. "The females have a pouch, and—"

"That’s all very interesting," Tom interrupted curtly, "but why the dickens didn’t you let us know what you were up to? Don’t you realize the whole rescue party is searching for you?"

"I’m sorry," Hedron apologized. "I spotted this padmelon burrowing through the underbrush, and it seemed like too good a chance to miss. I couldn’t call you or make any kind of a signal for fear of scaring the thing away."

Tom was greatly annoyed. Hedron apparently thought it more important to capture the ratlike marsupial than to rescue Bud and Slim. But Tom held his temper and said calmly: "Well, now that you’ve trapped it, what do you propose to do? I still wouldn’t have found you if I hadn’t spotted your aerial."

"I tried to contact you just now," Hedron explained, "but my walkie-talkie doesn’t seem to be working. I guess it
was
pretty foolish to wander off like this," he added lamely. "If you hadn’t happened to find me, I might have wound up in a real jam!"

Somewhat mollified, Tom examined Hedron’s walkie-talkie. "Seems to be working now," he said.

"Must be a loose connection," the zoologist commented. "These things got thrown together pretty quickly."

Tom conceded the truth of Hedron’s observation. He called his men together and the trek was resumed. Hedron photographed the captured padmelon from several angles, then set it loose again.

At dusk the exhausted group made camp near a shallow, cavelike opening in the side of a low cliff. Chow tried to tempt everyone’s appetite with a tasty meal of hot rice and canned meat loaf. But the men were too exhausted, and too sore from insect bites, to even pretend to enjoy it. They ate in silence, then sprawled out to doze.

At last Tom and Chow were the only ones still awake, too drained to talk. While the cook cleared away the supper remains, Tom propped himself against a big rock and stared up into space. Above the clustering treetops, resting upon the distant horizon opposite the black canopy of storm, the slit of night sky was brilliant with stars.

Idly, the young inventor picked out the Southern Cross and other tropic constellations. As he thought of Bud and Slim, a lump formed in his throat. By now, their plight must be desperate. Perhaps they were already dead!

Worst of all, Tom and his rescue party were helpless to aid them. All they could do was plod along, mile by mile, through the jungle at a snail’s pace.
What have I gotten us into?
he wondered. Meanwhile, there were Arv and the two crewmen to worry about as well. What if hostile tribesmen should launch an attack on the
Sky Queen
and its crew?

"Yi-i-eee!"
Without warning, a shriek of terror split the air!

Jumping up in alarm, Tom saw Chow bounding toward him. Popeyed with fright, the cook stumbled over the embers of the campfire and would have sprawled headlong if Tom hadn’t caught him.

"Chow! What’s the matter?"
the young scientist demanded.

"A g-g-ghost! I jest seen a ghost!" yelled the terrified Texan. "Good gosh an’ great gravy, it’s out there watchin’ us!"

"Now calm down, cowpoke, and talk sense!" Tom demanded sternly. "What is it you saw?"

"Two horrible big eyes—starin’ at me out o’ the darkness!" Chow replied. "It’s a jungle ghost, I tell you, or I’d ’a shot it with one o’ these here ’lectric guns o’ yours." He nervously patted the Swift impulse gun, or i-gun, holstered at his hip, which had been distributed to those among the men who were experienced shots.

"All right, all right!" said Tom. The cowpoke was trembling like a nervous bronc. "Just show me where you saw this, Chow."

"Over yonder at the other end o’ camp."

With Chow, Tom ran to the spot where the cook had been cleaning the mess gear.

"It was over there, between them two trees," whispered Chow.

"What,
that?"
It was George Hedron, who had come up behind them.

"There they are!" Chow stabbed the darkness with a quivering forefinger. "Look at ‘em! Starin’ at us jest like a couple o’ burnin’ coals!"

Ahead, beyond the glow of the campfire, two huge reddish eyes peered out of the night. Gaping with half-sleepy amazement, Tom and Hedron stared back at the weird unmoving disks.

Hedron fished in his pocket for a flashlight. "Relax, Winkler. I’m sure it’s only some New Guinea bird or animal. Let’s flash a light on it."

He aimed the beam into the darkness. The light revealed a queer-looking animal perched on a tree branch. With its domelike skull, huge ruby eyes, and a tail partly furred, partly smooth-skinned, it looked like a little gremlin. "Why, it’s a cuscus!" exclaimed the zoologist.

"I don’t care what kind of ornery cuss it is!" Chow retorted, but he colored a little shamefacedly. "It ain’t got no business scarin’ civilized folks half to death!"

As Tom stifled a laugh, the cook stalked forward toward the tree branch and made shooing motions with his apron. "G’wan now! Clear out afore I take the skillet to you!"

The cuscus, instead of darting off in panic, continued to stare at Chow with the same blank expression. Somewhat unnerved, the Westerner turned to George Hedron.

"D-don’t jest stand there!" he cried. "Get that blasted critter out o’ here!"

Hedron shook his head. "Not me. This creature is slow-moving and slow-witted, but it has a very nasty temper when aroused."

"Wa-al, that makes two of us!" snorted Chow.

At that moment the cuscus bristled as if about to attack and let out a shrill cry of
"Chit-chit-chit!"

Chow was so startled that he almost fell over backward. Retreating hastily toward the fringe of trees, he muttered: "Dang New Guinea varmint!" As if satisfied that he had won a victory over the strange invader, the cuscus finally scuttled off into the darkness. Crashing about in the underbrush, just beyond the campfire’s circle of light, the Texan breathed a sigh of relief—and then froze.

"T-Tom!" he called out weakly.

In a moment Tom was at his side. "It’s gone, Chow," Tom said. "You can—"

But Chow was pointing off into the jungle darkness with a finger quivering in fear. Tom turned to look, and his jaw fell open.

Twenty feet distant, framed by tree trunks, an eerie face, dead white, floated in the darkness like a ghost!

CHOW AND TOM stood in frozen silence for a long moment, staring at the weird face. The deathly whiteness of its skin was interrupted by slitlike eyes and a fierce-looking mouth outlined in blood red. The spectre seemed to glow slightly as light from the stars fell across it.

"Tom Swift, you gonna tell me that there’s some brand o’ animal?" whispered Chow.

"No," Tom replied. "It’s human, all right."

"Yeah," shuddered the cook. "But alive—er dead?"

Tom drew his i-gun, and Chow followed suit. They slowly approached the apparition, which remained motionless.

The two split off in opposite directions, circling around the big trees and arriving at the eerie object at the same moment.

"Well, it’s not a ghost," said Tom.

"Naw. But what in heck
is
it?"

The object, the size and shape of a human head, was mounted at the top of a wooden pole which had been thrust deeply into the matted ground. It had a leathery covering, painted white, with eyes and a mouth crudely painted on the front. Bulges beneath the covering suggested a nose and two ears.

"It’s a human skull," Tom said, examining it. "This stuff it’s wrapped in must be skin—probably the skull owner’s own, cured, stretched, and painted."

A beam of light split the darkness, falling upon the skull. "Willya look at that!" came the voice of George Hedron. "Tom, that’s an Iwooro ceremonial skull!" He came closer and played the light over the repulsive object. "Yes indeed, the genuine article. This old fellow was somebody’s ancestor, maybe going back several hundred years."

"I ’as gonna say he didn’t look so good," declared Chow. "But I expect I’ll look a mite worse when what’s left o’ me is that old."

"Why is he painted white like that?" Tom inquired.

"It means he’s killed a man," was the response. "This was a warrior."

"Whatever he was, he hasn’t been standing here very long," Tom said, bending down. "Look at how those leaves and shoots are scuffed up. Somebody planted this here within the hour—for us to find!"

Hedron nodded. "You’re right, Tom. We’re being told that the ghost-warriors of a tribe have claimed this jungle, and are prepared to defend it."

Chow’s eyes darted about nervously. "It’s a warning—that it?"

But Hedron shook his head, a grim smile on his face. "Not exactly a warning. It’s not telling us to get lost or else. It’s telling us to get ready to die!"

Chow gulped loudly. "Brand my gravestone! I’d prefer a warning!"

"I’d better assign guards for the night," said Tom. "We’ll take turns in pairs." The three returned to the cave and Tom reluctantly awoke the other men, so desperately in need of sleep. Red and Sam were assigned the first watch.

The rest of the party stretched out in their sleeping bags around the cave entrance. Soon the camp was wrapped in silence again.

Just before dawn broke, the group was rudely awakened by a wild whooshing sound overhead.

"Bats!"
yelled Hank Sterling, who was one of the sentries on watch.
"There’s a million of ’em!"

The air was black with the fantastic looking creatures. Even at a distance their wingspan seemed enormous—as wide as a man’s outstretched arms!

Awakening in alarm, the weary men scrambled from their sleeping bags and jumped to their feet.

"Flying foxes, aren’t they?" Tom asked Hedron.

The zoologist nodded, staring in fascination at the oncoming horde. "That’s what most people call them. Actually they’re a species of fruit bat."

The next moment, the rescue party began to scatter in panic. Instead of passing over, the bats zoomed straight at them!

"Oh—oh! This cliff hollow must be their home!" Tom exclaimed.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when one of the creatures swooped past, grazing Tom’s cheek with its wing tip. The young scientist-inventor recoiled. But the bat banked, and circled around. Before Tom could dodge, he was whacked so hard on the face that he fell flat!

The other men had taken refuge behind trees, but now dived to the ground. In three minutes the raid was over. The bats disappeared completely inside the hollow’s inky interior.

"That cave must be deeper than it looks," observed Doc. "Must be an opening up above, behind those rocks."

Chow muttered, "I ain’t takin’ any chances. I’m stayin’ out in th’ open. Druther be skeered by a ghost than bit by a bat!"

The night finally ended. While the men splashed their faces in the water of a nearby creek, listlessly, Chow built a fire and started breakfast.