Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane (6 page)

"I promise." Tom smiled, then surprised himself by blushing as the raven-haired Pakistani raised herself on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss.

Sandy was tearful. "Tom, watch out. And you
must
find Bud—and Slim, too!"

Tom gave his sister a gentle squeeze. "We’ll bring ’em both back safely.
That
promise is for you, sis."

One by one, the members of the rescue party climbed aboard the giant plane. Besides Chow, Hedron, and Hank Sterling, there was Arvid Hanson, the expert modelmaker of Swift Enterprises who was also a crack pilot, and Doc Simpson, the young plant physician. Several experienced flight crewmen made up the rest of the expedition.

In the ship’s large flight compartment, Tom settled himself in the pilot’s seat and ran through a quick instrument checkoff, now and then giving a sober glance sideways at the copilot’s spot usually occupied by Bud. Then, after clearing with the control tower and waving soberly to the two girls, he gunned the mighty engines. With the roar of a giant the
Sky Queen
shot straight up on its bank of jet lifters, then soared ahead westward, having been cleared for a cross-continent trans-Pacific route.

Streaking across the United States at over twelve hundred miles an hour, Tom and his companions paid little attention to the tapestry of farmland, cities, plains, and mountains unrolling beneath them. Then came the long flight across the billowing blue-green waters of the Pacific. Occasionally they passed over tiny ships trailing long wisps of smoke, or tropic atolls ringed by coral reefs and breakers of foam.

Finally, almost ten hours after leaving Shopton, the rescue party sighted New Guinea.

"We’ve outrun the sun," Arv Hanson commented from the co-pilot’s chair.

Tom nodded, glancing at his watch. In the local time zone, it was only a few minutes before three o’clock in the afternoon!

Flying inland over the enormous island, they sighted dismal swamps, dense tropical rain forests, and towering mountain ranges. At some points, the ground was cleared in cultivated patches where the natives raised taro, yams, and vegetables. But most of the terrain appeared wild and forbidding.

"And this is the twenty-first century. Imagine what New Guinea was like a few generations back." The voice behind Tom then asked, "Have you pin-pointed the spot where the crash occurred?"

Looking up from his topographic flatscreen, Tom saw George Hedron entering the flight compartment.

"Should be right about here, according to the—the final readings they transmitted." Tom pointed toward a spot on the screen, which they were rapidly approaching.

Hedron frowned doubtfully. "That region is notorious for being poorly mapped. If Bud’s instruments were going haywire, the position he gave was probably way off."

Tom nodded. "We have to start somewhere."

Pointing just ahead out the curving viewport, Hedron called Tom’s attention to the fact that the area was blanketed by clouds. Hedron explained that fearful storms raged over this spot all the time.

"I think a few miles beyond would be a better place to land. The clear valley there will give us a chance to search in all directions. Besides," added the zoologist, "it’s directly in Bud and Slim’s line of flight from their last reliable position."

Tom looked at Hedron coolly. "I want to set down as close to the crash site as possible. I think the
Queen
can handle a storm."

But soon enough Tom began to wonder if George Hedron weren’t right after all. The cloud deck became thicker and blacker, torn by startling flashes of brilliant lightning that seemed to dance from cloud to cloud. The Flying Lab swerved and vibrated, and Tom ordered all personnel to strap themselves in.

"Never saw a storm like this one," gulped Arv Hanson, seated next to Tom.

"It must be the same one that forced Bud and Slim down," said the young inventor. "I’d hoped it would have dissipated by now."

Suddenly both men gasped as the deck tilted sharply forward. "The instruments!" cried Hanson. All the readout needles were wavering madly, and the radarscope was a flurry of static snow!

Silently, Tom focused his energies on manipulating the controls of the great ship he knew so well. He poured power into the jet lifters. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the
Sky Queen
rose up out of the hurricane-like turmoil. In minutes it was hovering steadily in the stratosphere, high above the roiling clouds.

"I won’t try that again," said Tom. "I guess George was right."

Inputting the positional data for the spot Hedron had recommended, Tom turned the ship about. Ten minutes later he swooped downward toward a rough clearing. Tom switched on the jet lifters again and allowed the
Sky Queen
to settle gently onto the floor of a shallow valley. There was no sign of habitation, but the land had definitely been cleared by human hands some time in the past.

The big skyship had hardly touched ground when the hatch opened and the men piled out. All were eager to explore the lush green surroundings.

"Sure didn’t see no sign of any plane wreckage when we ’as comin’ down," Chow reported gloomily.

"It might not be visible among the trees," Tom pointed out. "Remember, they might have ejected. We’ll split up into twos and scout around."

Tom drew Hank as a companion. Together, they struck eastward through the forest. The air was spicy with the scent of tropical flowers, but insects were a constant nuisance. Overhead, the cries of strange birds broke the quiet of the jungle.

"Sure hope we don’t meet up with any cannibals," Hank remarked jokingly. "Hey, what’s—!"

He broke off with a gasp as he stumbled over a grassy hummock—a hummock which came to life! Rearing up on long, ostrichlike legs, it turned into a bird about five feet tall.

"Good grief! What is it?" Hank goggled.

"Cassowary, I think." Tom chuckled, adding, "Look out! They can’t fly, but they’re dangerous if they’ve been wounded!"

Evidently Hank had injured the cassowary. Shaking its wattles like an angry turkey cock, the big bird glared at the man. The creature’s head was crested with a large, black horny helmet, and its unfeathered face and wrinkled neck were of scarlet, yellow, and purplish blue. It looked like a weird feathered dinosaur.

Suddenly the cassowary hurled itself at Hank! With a yelp, the young engineer shinnied up the nearest tree, while Tom, to be on the safe side, climbed another.

Below the treed pair, the bird, beside itself with rage, stalked rapidly back and forth.

"Guess we’d better sit this one out," Tom called to Hank.

"You bet. Lucky thing that species sticks to the ground!"

Finally, with another vigorous shake of its wattles, the cassowary disappeared into the jungle. Tom and Hank sighed in relief and slid down from their perches. They continued the search, and when they reached higher ground, looked around hopefully. Still they detected no trace of the missing fliers.

"If Bud and Hank were nearby," said Tom, "we’d have spotted some sign of them from this point. Guess we’d better head back," he added, discouraged.

When they reached the ship, Tom and Hank found that the other searching teams had returned, with no better luck to report.

"Come on. Let’s take off!" the young inventor decided restlessly. "We’ll fly to the position Bud gave just before the crash. Maybe we can thread our way along
under
the storm—Bud radioed something about getting through a gap in the clouds."

"Don’t fergit them volcanoes," muttered Chow. "Buddy boy said he saw a couple of ’em!"

With all hands aboard, Tom seated himself at the controls. He switched on the engine and fed power to the jet lifters.

But the huge ship refused to rise off the ground!

AS TOM worked the throttle controls and checked all the instruments, Chow Winkler popped his bald head into the flight cabin.

"What’s wrong?" the Texan queried. "Ain’t we goin’ to take off like you said, Tom?"

"We can’t. For some reason the jet lifters aren’t getting any power." Unhooking his seat belt, Tom added, "I’ll go below and check."

Accompanied by Hank Sterling and armed with a kit of tools, he hurried down a winding steel ladder to the bottom deck. Here the two troubleshooters opened an inspection port and squeezed into the labyrinthine engine compartment.

An hour’s check failed to disclose the cause of the trouble. Next, Tom inspected the jet lifters in the ship’s underbelly. Hank joined him a few minutes later.

"Any luck?" Doc Simpson inquired, as they paused to wipe the dripping sweat off their brows.

Tom shook his head. "The tubes are clear. Must be something we missed in the engine compartment."

By this time, a purple dusk had descended over the trees. Night was coming on fast, and the screams and twitterings of the jungle birds died away to a faint murmur.

Grimly Tom surveyed the prospects ahead. What if the whole rescue expedition should find itself marooned in the wilderness, in need of rescue itself? But he shook off the gloomy thought.

"Come an’ get it, buckaroos!" Chow appeared in the doorway, banging a metal triangle. "How ’bout you an’ Hank knockin’ off fer now, Tom? Soup’s on!"

Dinner proved a dismal meal, in spite of Chow’s tasty cooking. As soon as Tom finished eating, he hurried up to the radio panel and called Shopton on an encrypted transmission via satellite. To his delight, his father’s voice responded to the pre-arranged code signal.

"Have you found any trace of Slim and Bud?"

"Not yet, Dad. I was hoping that they might have got a message through to Shopton somehow."

"No. George Dilling’s group has been monitoring, but they’ve had no further word since the crash. But here’s a slight piece of good news, Tom. The police just called to report that they now have a lead on that Dutchman—the one who had Feeney hire Jake the Cat to steal the statue. Someone matching his description is wanted by the authorities in Singapore for smuggling."

"That’s great, Dad. Glad to hear it." But Tom’s response was listless. He was far more concerned about his close pal than about the mystery of the statue. Bud was like a second son to the Swift family.

In order not to worry his family or the relatives of his men, Tom decided to avoid any mention of engine trouble. After sending his love to his mother and Sandy, and to Bash, the young inventor said good-bye.

Just as he switched off the transmitter, Chow came into the radio room on tiptoe—as much as his ponderous form could manage. From the furtive way he peered into the passageway, it was obvious that he was bringing secret news.

"What’s up, Chow?" Tom asked.

"Tom, d’you reckon someone could have messed up this here airplane so it can’t fly no more?"

"Sabotage? No, I never even considered that, Chow! Why?"

"’Cause when I ’as hikin’ back from the woods this afternoon, I heard some kind o’ hammerin’ noises—metal hammerin’, but real soft an’ low. Sounded to me like they might have come from the
Sky Queen."

Tom’s pulse quickened with interest. "Did you see anyone near the ship?"

Chow shook his head. "Nope. When I got back, there warn’t no one around, so I figgered I must have been mistook. But now I’m not so sure!"

Tom gave the roly-poly Texan’s shoulder a pat of approval. "Thanks for telling me, Chow. I’ll check right away!"

Calling the men together, the young inventor questioned each one carefully. But apparently no one had been out of sight of his fellow searcher long enough to do any mischief to the plane.

Tom was baffled. If none of his men was the saboteur, then who had been doing the hammering? Unfriendly natives, perhaps? New Guinea tribesmen who had already captured Bud and Slim and were even now keeping watch on the rescue party?

But untutored locals would have damaged the Flying Lab in some cruder fashion easy to detect, Tom reasoned. It was a mystifying problem.

"Just to be on the safe side, we’d better search the plane for stowaways," he announced. "Arv, you take charge of the search, will you? Hank and I will go back to work on the engine."

Hanson responded with a quick salute, "Righto, skipper!"

Twenty minutes later he reported, "Tom, we’ve been over every inch of the ship. No one’s hiding on board."

"Okay, Arv. Thanks." Tom laid down a beryllium wrench and wiped a smear of grease off his face with his sleeve. "At any rate, we’ve spotted the trouble." He held up a length of Tomasite plastic tubing. It was part of the servo-control hookup to the jet-lifter throttle. "Someone crimped the insulation line with a pair of pliers," he explained tersely. "The control signals were shorting out before reaching the lifter engines."

Hanson’s eyes widened in dismay. "Then it
was
sabotage!"

"No doubt about it. Whoever did this had to have planned the whole thing ahead of time." Tom said no more, though he was greatly worried. A highly skilled technician, with detailed knowledge of Tom’s great skyship, was back of the sabotage.

"Somebody must be out there in the underbrush, watching us," murmured one of the crew, Red Jones.

"Like an injun scout," Chow added, "jest waitin’ fer his chance."

Tom nodded. "And he would have had to have known how to defeat our electronic security system, too—and that’s not an easy task." After replacing the length of tubing, Tom took the
Sky Queen
up for a brief test flight. This time, the mammoth ship checked out perfectly. Since the jungle was now shrouded in darkness, Tom felt that further searching that day would be fruitless. They would continue in the morning. He brought the ship down and arranged for guards during the night. There were no visitors, however.

Mist still drifted among the trees when the
Sky Queen
soared aloft at dawn. With Hanson as copilot, Tom headed eastward to the spot from which Bud and Slim’s last contact had emanated. For half an hour they cruised back and forth over the area without spotting any wreckage, the continuing storm growling and glowering on the rugged horizon.

Finally Tom said, "I think our best bet is in the storm area." He pointed off to starboard, where the mass of dark clouds blotted out the landscape. A narrow break in the clouds was visible. "That may be the gap Bud mentioned, Arv."