Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X (7 page)

Quickly striding up, Bud motioned for the driver to role down his window. He did so—a young man, about Bud’s age, face frightened.

Bud leaned into the window like a highway patrolman. "Friend, you’re messing up my enlightenment, but for the moment I’m feeling too righteous to punch you out. So look, don’t waste our combined soul-power following me. Packing a gun?"

The kid shook his head as if the very idea amazed him.

"Tell you what, then. I’m hitting Beach Dogs over at the Rec Pier—I’m hungry. How ’bout if I meet you there? I’ll even buy you a hot dog and fries. Frankly, I’d prefer being kidnapped on a full stomach. Okay?"

"O-Okay!" the youth gasped.

They rendezvoused at the Recreation Pier in Shopton, on Lake Carlopa. Bud handed his follower the promised snacks, eyeing him. He was a nondescript, muscular youth, not very tall, with hair beached-out by the sun. "So what’s your name?" Bud asked as they plopped down together on a bench.

"I’m Fred Latty," said the other. Bud suddenly realized that his benchmate was even younger than he had first thought—no older than a high-school kid. "I know who you are. You’re Bud Barclay."

"You a fan of high-school football?"

"No, but I’ve seen you in news photos," Fred replied. "You’re the guy who’s always standing next to Tom Swift."

Bud took a snapping bite of his hot dog. His expression had soured. "So what’s up, Fred—why’re you following me?"

"I saw you at Informatics and recognized you right off."

"You a member of the church?"

"No—I just volunteer to do a little custodial stuff there, part-time. When I’m not in school, I teach water skiing here on the lake."

"Okay. You saw me and followed me. Now you
got
me. What’s the deal?"

Fred Latty cleared his throat. "It’s just... I thought maybe you could get a message through direct, to Tom Swift himself. I think something bad’s going down in Shopton. And it’s aimed right at Swift Enterprises!"

"THAT’S real interesting, Fred," Bud commented in disinterested tones. "But so’s this hot dog. I can’t think of the last time Tom—my good pal Tom Swift!—and his company weren’t staring some kind of catastrophe in the snout. We just got back from an
almost
sunken ship, how ’bout that! All of which goes to say that whatever you want me to pass on had better be worth Tom’s time."

"Oh, man, it
is!"
declared Fred hastily.

"I’m listening. And eating."

Fred drew in a long breath, and Bud had the feeling the story was going to be a lengthy saga. Fortunately he had bought one of the extra-long dogs. "I grew up in New Jersey. My folks just got divorced and still fight a lot—from separate locations, but they hassle each other. I just
had
to get away. So I moved here."

Bud interrupted with a note of skepticism. "Just coincidentally the home of Tom Swift."

"Hey, it was because my uncle Pete lives here, that’s all," said the boy indignantly. "I’m living with him. He’s a great guy, except when—"

"Except when he’s not?"

"Except when’s he’s out o’ work, which happens kind of a lot, y’know? Then he’s a different dude altogether—real down for days, then mad, mad all the time. He broke his foot punting the TV through the window!"

"Okay. So no TV."

"Just listen—please. Okay, so all this has been goin’ on since last year. He had to go to court ’cause he... well, he
bit
somebody." Fred looked out at the lake, embarrassed.

"Bit somebody where?"

"In the middle of a hardware store. But anyway, the judge made him do ‘community service,’ and he lit on doing it at the new church—Informatics. Pretty soon he comes home and tells me he wants to join ’em. He said somethin’ about secrets and questions about life and that kinda stuff, but I think mainly he just wanted to get himself t’gether so’s he could hold down a job. See?"

"Uh-huh."

"Now, when you want to join, they make you go through these private sessions. Each one lasts about three hours, and you go every day for three weeks. After a few days of it, Uncle Pete
changed."

Bud ate a fry thoughtfully. "Stopped biting?"

"He was just
different,
like he always had something on his mind. Each day it got a little worse. He started going out after dinner, and when I’d ask, he’d just say something about walking around in town, getting to know the people. But Bud—" Fred was now suddenly intense and stricken. "He was shoplifting!
Stealing!
Little things would turn up here and there, and finally he flat-out told me after I promised I wouldn’t call the cops or anything."

"I’ve heard something about this kind of thing, pal," Bud declared soberly. "Other people have been affected, too—it’s something Informatics does to people in those Higher Plane sessions."

"That’s what I figured out," the youth confirmed. "I wanted to know what was goin’ on, so—"

"So you volunteered to work there."

"Yeah. An’ I used a phony name, too—Jermaine Butafuoco. Uncle Pete doesn’t know. His sessions are always in the morning, and I come in after five, three days a week."

"Have you doped out anything?" asked Bud keenly.

"Ohh yeah! I found a storage closet where you can hear what they’re saying in the counseling rooms through the heating duct, where it’s pulling off from the wall. These sessions are—wow, people
cry!
They tell all this stuff about themselves, secrets they don’t want anybody to know about. Sometimes it’s just, like, humiliating, but sometimes it’s illegal stuff—mostly to do with tax cheating. Then there’s guys who are seeing somebody behind their wife’s back..."

"What do the church people do, make files on the counselees?"

Fred nodded vigorously. "Yeah—I’m sure they do! They keep ’em in a locked room. See, it’s, like, a blackmail operation. They find a few people with really bad secrets and force ’em to do things."

"Got it!—shoplifting."

"It starts with just watching people’s houses or businesses and writing reports. The ones who do what they’re s’posed to and act like real believers are separated out and told to prove that they have
soul-freedom
by shoplifting—then they go on to breaking into houses!"

"Wait," Bud interrupted. "What’s it all for? Does the church make its money by fencing stolen goods, or what?"

"No. The kind of things they steal are hardly worth it. I think it’s more like a test. Every now and then somebody passes all the tests and ‘graduates.’ They call those people—"

"I know," declared Bud.
"Prime Movers!"

"Uncle Pete made the grade, I guess," Fred continued sadly. "Now he’s one of
them."

Bud said impatiently, "I’m real sorry for your uncle. But what’s the danger to Swift Enterprises?"

"Okay, listen. There was a picture in the paper of a man who’d been arrested for forcing his way into the plant grounds—Al something. Now the thing is, I
know
that guy! He visited Uncle Pete several times over the last couple weeks or so."

"Now you’ve really got my attention, bud. Did you hear what they talked about?"

"A little bit; I must be gettin’ good at it. And that’s what I want you to pass along to Tom Swift. The guy said he was a Prime Mover himself, and my uncle was his ‘enabler.’ That means Uncle Pete was supposed to store things for him in this little cellar we have underneath the house. He told Uncle Pete to make a lot of room down there, because he’d be bringing armloads of valuable stuff
after the big quake!"

Fred’s words finally drew a gasp from Bud. "You mean—a quake here in Shopton?"

"Centered on Swift Enterprises! He said it."

"Then—then he—" Bud’s voice faltered. "He must have been planning to cause an earthquake the other night, using Tom to get past security! It was just luck that we shorted out his plan!"

But Fred Latty shook his head. "No, man, that’s not what I’m saying. Al sort’ve went into it, to my uncle. The other night was just to check out if the goods were where the Church’s inside contacts thought they were. The quake was planned for later—I think maybe next week!"

Bud Barclay stood and made a long angry toss, his crumpled wrappers hitting the edge of a trash can and falling neatly in. "I get it. They cause quakes, then loot the labs and plants during all the confusion, when security is messed up."

"Yeah!" confirmed Fred excitedly. "They grab some
real
valuables to be sold off, for Church income; but also they steal technical stuff, like blueprints. I heard Al say that he was supposed to scout out some carvings from Mexico, for stealing in the quake."

The Yucatan artifacts! Bud asked if Fred had any idea what sort of "technical stuff" had also been targeted. "I’m not real sure," replied the youth. "I’m not even sure the church people know all the details much beforehand. They’re getting orders themselves from other people some place else who want specific items that they know Enterprises has. Look, Bud, there must be evidence in that locked cellar under the house. I’m hoping Tom can get to it and maybe keep the law out of it—I don’t want Uncle Pete put in jail. I don’t think he can help what they’re making him do."

Bud said he understood and would immediately pass all the information on to Tom.

As Fred moved to drive off, he suddenly paused and looked back at Bud. "Oh, I forgot to say—that guy Al did mention something that might help you figure out what they want to steal. He was joking, but maybe it means something. He said the main goal at Enterprises was to make ‘an unwelcome visitor feel
real
unwelcome’!"

Bud was thunderstruck! A
visitor!
"You’re right, Fred," he commented weakly. "I think just maybe it
does
mean something!"

The young pilot roared back to Enterprises in frantic haste, finding his chum hard at work on the space-brain canister in his underground lab.

"Hey, Bud," Tom greeted him. "They let you escape, hmm?"

"Jetz, Tom! Wait’ll you—"

"Boss, boss!"
interrupted a deep, twangy voice and the thud of heavy footclomps on concrete. Panting with excitement, Chow burst into the lab. "Wait’ll you hear what I got t’tell ya! Brand my Pecos mules!"

With an apologetic glance at Bud, Tom nodded for the older man to go ahead.

"Wa-aal, Boss, after I left t’go off t’ my galley, I got to thinking—you recollect that piece o’ paper you got off’n that there spy? About that Info-Church? I heard somethin’ about ’em and got to wondering what in th’ name o’ Longhorn Louie they’s doin’ here in Shopton.
Say, Old Wrangler,
I told m’self,
mebbe you ’as right the first time. Mebbe that Church is up to it’s dang neck in all this quake stuff!"

"Wow!" Tom exclaimed with affection. "That there’s good thinking, pard!"

Chow beamed. "An’ that ain’t the end. I took right off and rode out there in my pickup—told ’em I wanted t’ sign up."

"What did they do?"

"Girl at the counter said normally they’d have me talk with the head man, who they call the Speaker. But she said he ’as already in talkin’ to somebody—must be doin’ a flapjack business there, Tom. So’s they put me in with someb’dy else, little feller name o’ Jim. I kin tell ya anything you wanna know about that church now—what they’s all about, how you join, all that stuff. Bet it’ll help you figger what they’re up to!"

"Bet you’re right," grinned Tom as he gave Chow a pat on the back. "What a great job!"

"Aw now, son, anybody coulda done it." Chow shuffled his feet, then looked up at Bud. "But I guess I busted in on you, buddy boy. Go on with what you ’as saying."

Bud hesitated, not wanted to steal any of Chow’s loud and excited thunder. "Well, I was about to tell Tom... I went to get something to eat in Shopton, and this kid comes up to me. He knew who I was—high school kids know about my football career." Bud gave a slightly edited rendering of Fred Latty’s amazing tale.

"Good night!" Tom gasped. "This pretty well confirms what I’ve been suspecting for a long time. There’s some connection between the quake plotters and the arrival of our visitor—and with the X-ians themselves. I’m sure of it!"

The face around Chow’s bulging eyes turned a shade paler. "You mean t’ say them space people are makin’ th’ blame earthquakes?"

Tom gave a grim nod. "They’re involved in some way. You see, when I got to thinking about the strange effect of the Thessaly quake on glass, I remembered how the extraterrestrials’ energy-force, the glowing field that they use in moving solid matter, has a particular affect on silicon and silicon compounds, such as glass."

"You’re right!" exclaimed Bud. "Sandy told me how the rocket that flew over Shopton lifted up the cut-glass punchbowl!"

"Exactly, flyboy," the young inventor confirmed. "And of course, most of the rocky material of the earth’s crust is composed of silicates—silicon compounds. If the quake-makers are using X-ian technology, the effect is just what you’d expect to see!"

"An’ I thought we had trouble comin’ before!" groaned Chow. "If them loco church people have got themselves partnered-up with those saucer-riders—what kin we do?"

"What
I’m
going to do is talk to Harlan Ames and Dad," Tom declared. "And then to Captain Rock."

"And then?" asked Bud.

"And then I’m going to see if I can wangle permission to do a little hunting in Shopton!"

The astounded authorities were willing to give Tom Swift’s approach a try.

That night a nondescript sedan stopped at a weather-beaten house in one of the less charming sections of town. Wearing an official looking jacket and cap, Tom stepped out, along with a plainclothes police officer named Jack Hammond. "Is this one of the nights that kid Fred works at the church?" he asked Tom in a whisper. "He could give us away if he recognizes you."

Tom replied, "I called Informatics on a pretext. ‘Jermaine’ doesn’t work there tonight. I’m hoping he’ll be expecting quick action and won’t be too startled. But keep ready, Jack, in case things go south in a hurry!"

A pot-bellied older man came to the door in response to the bell. "What you fellers prowlin’ around for?" he asked with a scowl.