Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X (6 page)

"Good night! Another quake!" Bud gasped. "What’s going on?" The shaken group rushed to the videophone screen, joining Mr. Swift. Soon a picture appeared on the screen. It was a panoramic shot of a landscape, evidently viewed from a hovering aircraft, with a large industrial plant just below and a busy highway further beyond. At the bottom of the screen was the legend,
recorded live by our traffic-copter reporter at 8:12 this morning.

A TV commentator’s voice was reporting developments as the taped sequence played. "As you can see there was no hint of the tremor to come," he said. "But the scene was quite different three minutes later as our own Dave Kincaid interrupted his traffic video with this harrowing sight." The tape now cut forward to the later segment, the voice of the pilot-reporter replacing that of the commentator. "...flowing smoothly despite the slight early-morning—unh! Barb, I can see—notice that tall smokestack just over the Trumman plant— see how it’s starting to tremble. I’ve never seen—Barb, it’s beginning to crumble! Holy... This must be it!
Earthquake!"

Suddenly the whole scene seemed to explode. Plant buildings collapsed like toy houses built of cards, while at the same time huge slabs of concrete and trees were uprooted as the ground below rolled visibly like long, low ocean waves.

The four watchers in the Swifts’ office stared in horrified dismay. The Trumman Aeroframe plant, big as Swift Enterprises, was disintegrating before their eyes! After a minute the helicopter reporter shifted his camera back to the nearby knot of highways. His voice shaky, he continued: "As you can now see, the arriving rocket-plant personnel and the passing commuters of Medfield are making desperate attempts to escape the wreckage, pulling off the roads to turn back. You can hardly blame them for panicking. I can see that the railway bridge a half-mile down has collapsed, adding to the chaos. Oh—oh! Ladies and gentlemen, there must be another tremor starting up—those high-tension power poles next to the highway look like—" The reporter’s voice was cut off as the screen filled with static!

The studio commentator’s voice broke in again. "And at that point the picture feed became jerky and distorted, then faded out completely. We now believe our satellite-uplink antenna in Medfield must have been knocked out by the quake.

"As of this hour there have been no further tremors in this area, and we have no information as to injuries or damage. Clearly the incident was centered on the Trumman Aeroframe facility, and the visible destruction was immense. We return you now to our regularly scheduled program, but will keep you informed as bulletins come in."

"Great balls o’ prairie fire!" Chow whispered as Tom turned off the set. "I shor hope all o’ those poor folks in cars got away safe!"

Tom rushed to a wall cabinet and pulled a bound sheaf of paper from the file drawer. He leafed through it quickly and when he looked up at the others, his face was grim.

"What’s wrong, skipper?" Bud asked tensely.

"These are the computer ground-mappings from the lithosonde tests," Tom replied. "Just as I thought, that quake wasn’t in a mapped fault zone any more than the Thessaly one was!"

"An anomalous cause," muttered Damon Swift. "As far as I know it’s an unprecedented earth phenomenon."

Chow’s jaw dropped open in a comic look of dismay. "Y-You mean this here ole Earth we live on is gettin’ all busted up an’ twisted around inside?"

"I wish I knew, Chow!" Tom paced worriedly about the office. "It just seems queer to me that both of those quakes should have destroyed vital defense labs linked to space projects!"

"Maybe it’s underground H-bomb blasts—bombs planted by saboteurs!" Bud put in. "That could cause quakes, couldn’t it?"

Tom regarded his pal silently, then finally gave a slight shake of his head. "If this new quake is like the one at Wickliffe Labs, the wave pattern doesn’t jibe with the idea of a bomb explosion. Seismograph readings at Grandyke University showed a
gradual
buildup of deep-earth movements over the course of several seconds. It felt on the surface like a sharp jolt because the rock strata fractured under pressure—but that was
after
the initial actions had already begun."

On a sudden impulse, Tom snatched up the telephone. His two companions listened as he put through a call to the FBI in Washington. Within moments, a friend at the Bureau, section chief Wes Norris, came on the line.

"Look, Wes," Tom said, "is there any chance this quake that just happened at Medfield and the earlier one at Faber Electronics might have been caused deliberately, perhaps by underground blasts of some kind? What do your experts say about it?"

"As a matter of fact, we’re checking on that very possibility," Norris replied. "In other words, sabotage. Things are pretty hot around here since that news on Medfield came in, so I can’t talk much right now, Tom. But I can tell you this," Wes concluded, "we are investigating, and I do mean thoroughly!"

Bud, Chow, and Mr. Swift were shocked when Tom reported his conversation with the FBI agent.

"Brand my rattlesnake stew!" Chow exploded. "Any ornery varmint that’d cause an earthquake ought to be strung up like a hoss thief!"

"I agree, Chow," Tom said. "But how do we find out for sure? There’s a clue, though," he added thoughtfully. "If the debris at Trumman shows the same strange effect on glass as we saw at Wickliffe Laboratories—!"

"Tom, if this was deliberate," Mr. Swift pointed out, "Enterprises may be next on the enemy’s list!"

Bud gulped but nodded vigorously. "They don’t get any bigger than us! And we sure do plenty of important government work."

Realizing that he had fanned the flames of alarm, Tom did his best to allay the others’ fears. But inwardly he himself felt apprehensive. Any large-scale sabotage plot would be almost certain to include Tom Swift Enterprises, America’s most daring and advanced technology research center.

Chow broke the moment of worried silence. "Got me one o’ those idees o’ mine, boss—bosses," he said. "Y’know that Al feller who decked me out t’other night? Wa-aal, we never did figger what he was after. Mebbe he was workin’ for the quake-maker, you think?"

"He didn’t have anything on him, Chow," Tom objected quietly. "Just that phony knife."

"That’s so," conceded the westerner. "Jest seemed t’me like a funny co-incerdence." With a shrug and a thoughtful expression, Chow excused himself and headed for his "chuck wagon"—his kitchen.

Watching his friend leave, Bud snapped his fingers. "But look Tom, the man
did
have something else on him, you said—that flyer about the nut group in Shopton!"

Mr. Swift commented impatiently, "I can’t see the possibility of a connection. This ‘Informatics’ business is some sort of religious movement. If somehow—incredibly!—these quakes are being produced on demand, it would surely require technology of the most advanced kind conceivable."

Tom said nothing. A trace of smile dawned on his lips as he looked at Bud. "Tell me something, flyboy. If I tell you not to play spy over at ‘Fort Shopton,’ just how guilty are you going to feel when you go and do it anyway?"

The dark-haired pilot grinned at his best friend. "Oh, I always make a point of feeling
extremely
guilty."

"Uh-huh." Tom’s look was mock-chiding but full of affection. "Be careful, pal."

"Always. Want to go with me?"

Tom shook his head. "Sorry. We’ve got an important visitor to prepare for!"

Bud prepared for his afternoon spy mission by talking to Enterprises employee Sam Barker, whom Bud knew had been briefly involved with the Informatics movement in Portland. "I guess I’ve spent a lot of time and money over the years trying to ‘find myself’," Sam conceded, crinkling his brow.

"Have you turned up yet?"

Sam laughed. "Not so far! Still got all my phobias intact. But as for these Informatics guys—well, what should I say? The Portland crew was pretty harmless, mostly University kids earning commissions by signing up new members. Some of them are true believers, though. And believe
me,
you don’t want to cross ’em."

"So I hear," Bud nodded. "But look, Sam... Is there any part of their process, whatever you call it, that might cause ordinary people to act strangely out in the, er, real world? Maybe do things they wouldn’t normally think of doing?—to prove themselves, or something?" Bud had in mind the peculiar incidents Captain Rock had mentioned, which Tom had told him about.

Barker paused, a thinking-frown shadowing his forehead. "Now that you mention it, Bud, there
is
something they do that I’ve always been kind of curious about. It’s this weird thing they call ‘the higher plane.’ Persons who commit to the church are expected to go through a three-week series of really intense spiritual counseling sessions. Very confidential closed-door stuff; you know, ‘reveal your inner self’ and that jazz. Maybe they tell ’em the secrets of the universe or something. I never went for it. But after the series is over, a few of the participants are made what they call Prime Movers. I guess they have a special role in the Church, like deacons."

Bud said slowly, "Yeah. It could be some sort of brainwashing! No wonder they don’t want anybody to talk about what goes on." The term
Prime Mover
stuck in his mind. Could
mover
somehow tie in to
earth movements?
—the violent kind?

It’s pretty far-fetched,
Bud mused as Sam left for his shift.
Still, that’s the kind of outside-the-box genius stuff Tom’s always getting into!

In an hour his red convertible was parked next to the old theater that now bore the sign "Church of Informatics Soul Science Fortress of Knowledge, Shopton Congregation." More discreet lettering advised that visitors, and donations, were welcome.

Bud, using a pseudonym, had been ushered from the tastefully decorous lobby into the office of the pastor of the Fort Shopton church, who introduced himself as Speaker Scott Anderman. He was a slim, youngish man, not even thirty, with a ready smile and a visage as bland as an open face sandwich. "But I’m not gonna fall for
that!"
Bud snorted inwardly, seating himself before the man’s wooden desk.

"Well now, Mr. Newton," Speaker Anderman began.

"Oh, please call me Ike," Bud said.

"Ike. You’re here on a quest, aren’t you—
Ike?"
Was there a hidden taunt in his words? The man’s empty-sky blue eyes seemed to focus on Bud’s gray ones.

The athletic youth shifted uncomfortably. "What’s that mean? A quest?"

"Quest. As in
question.
Don’t we all have questions about the world, about our place in it? About our happiness?"

"I suppose so, sir." Bud glanced away.
The guy’s trying to hypnotize me!
he thought.
That must be how it starts!

Anderman nodded, and the nod seemed friendly and sympathetic, which made Bud all the more suspicious. "Your questions are your quest, Ike. You seek information. Informatics supplies what you seek."

"That’s—great." Bud realized that he sounded less than persuaded.

"We all began with skepticism," laughed the man gently. "Me too! But the process one goes through—called Confirmation—leads you from the world’s skepticism to the other side."

Bud tried to keep his voice level. "The other side. That’s what you call ‘the higher plane,’ isn’t it?"

To Bud’s surprise, Speaker Anderman looked unnervingly pleased. "I see you already know about Informatics Soul Science. Wonderful! You’re not a ‘zero-leveler,’ and we can move forward rapidly."

"I—I did speak to someone, a friend of mine at work, who had an interest in the church. He mentioned something about... special counseling sessions?"

"Mm-hmm. The first phase of Confirmation." Anderman leaned forward in his chair toward Bud, eyes still locked on. He said softly, "You have secrets."

Good night, does he know who I am?
"Secrets? What do you mean—Scott?"

"We all have secrets. Secrets burden us down through life, like weights. To enter the Higher Plane, you must shed that pain. Do you see? The Confirmation Series, three weeks of daily private sessions with trained and enlightened church elders—that’s where you lay the burden aside and ready yourself for the white robes of knowledge. No more secrets, Ike. We free your soul."

I’ll bet you do!
"I think I understand," Bud said. "And then—is that when you become one of those ‘Prime Movers’ my friend told me about?"

The man’s attitude seemed to chill as he shifted back in his chair. "This friend of yours wasn’t a very good friend of
ours
if he flaunted our private spiritual gifts to an outsider."

"He never went all the way into the Church, actually. He didn’t realize—"

"It doesn’t matter." The Speaker shook his head dismissively. "Religions all have their sacred languages and rituals. You’ll learn. We’ll provide you with better ‘secrets’ than the toxic ones you now hold within. And the new secrets will not be secrets at all, but truths. Truths are our treasures." Bud involuntarily followed Anderman’s glance toward one of the office walls. A colorful poster bore the legend:
"Truths are our treasures.—Eldrich Oldmother".

Bud said he would think about what Anderman had said. "Yes—you
will,"
the man replied. "And then, I believe I’ll see you again."

"Goodbye, sir."

"Later—Ike."

Bud turned over the odd-feeling interview in his mind as he pulled out of the parking lot. What had he learned, exactly?
Only that this guy’s a mighty sophisticated seller of snake-oil!
he thought ruefully. But what exactly went on in those secret no-secrets sessions?

Bud glanced in his mirror. A compact car, beat-up and badly in need of paint, ambled along the almost deserted highway about a half-block behind. Several turn-offs later and the car was still keeping pace, no closer, no further.

"Swell," grated the youth. "I’m not in the mood."

Bud slowed. The other car slowed also, making no move to pass. They went slower, slower—and Bud suddenly swerved onto the shoulder and yanked the parking break. A bound took him out onto the pavement as the compact skidded to a startled halt not far away.