Tom Swift in the Race to the Moon (5 page)

"Enterprises is being attacked!" Tom gasped. And he himself was starting to collapse!

BY AN ACT of sheer will Tom forced his hands to grip the edge of a lab table and his strong, slender arms to prop him up. Assuming that some invisible, odorless gas had been released into the air, he held his breath as his eyes probed the lab for something that could help him.

Tom’s blue eyes lit upon the repelatron. In a series of lurching motions he half-dragged, half-fell toward the machine. Fumbling fingers switched on the power, and the twist of a flat palm against a control knob adjusted the intake spectrosensor so that it would detect the unusual substance in the air and tune the repelatron accordingly.

It’ll take a moment,
he thought, lungs ready to burst.
The lag effect!

Finally the young inventor could stand it no longer. He sucked air into his lungs convulsively. But the air was good! Almost instantly he felt stronger, more alert, energized. The repelatron beam was forcing the knockout gas aside.

The warning sirens were still wailing.

Tom swiveled the antenna so it took in the area of the lab where Sandy, Bashalli, and Bud lay unconscious. After a moment he hastened over and checked their pulses.

"Pulses strong," he murmured. "They’re doing okay—for now." Tom then tried to telephone Ames’s office, then the main switchboard. The phones rang without an answer.

Tom made his way to the lab’s wall of tinted windows and stood gazing out on a scene of eerie silence and desolation. Aircraft sat on the runways unmoving and inert; one prop-plane, caught in the act of landing, was leaning over on one wing, its prop still spinning. Everywhere Tom could see motionless figures sprawled on the ground, tools and equipment scattered about them.

A movement caught Tom’s eye. On the far side of the airfield several figures in Swift Enterprises work garments came staggering out of the portal that led to the rampway connecting the surface with the huge underground hangar where Tom’s great Flying Lab was berthed.
Of course!
thought Tom excitedly.
The hangar has its own air supply and recirculation system—those guys wouldn’t have been affected!

But Tom’s hopes were dashed. The employees managed only a few wavering steps into the open—then they too sunk down and collapsed into unconsciousness.

Tom wondered frantically what he could do. How far was the effect felt? Was Shopton also affected?

Just as he resolved to telephone the municipal police, he discerned another movement outside—and this one didn’t falter! A strangely clad, almost unearthly figure was striding rapidly and confidently across the airfield. His garment, covering his entire body and hiding his face, resembled a pressurized space suit. The figure’s goal was soon made clear: the very lab Tom was standing in!

Tom looked about for a weapon and finally grabbed a metal support strut used in experimental setups. Hearing the sound of footsteps in the main hallway, Tom lay down on the floor, the strut hidden beneath him.

The lab door whisked open. Through slitted eyes Tom saw a pair of black boots of some shiny material step cautiously across the floor, pausing now and then. A fluttering sound told the young inventor that the invader was leafing through the pages of notes on his workbench.

The figure approached Tom, a slight hesitation showing that he wanted to be certain that Tom was as unconscious as he appeared. Tom could sense the intruder bending close, then straightening again, satisfied. As the black boots stepped over the young inventor’s body, Tom struck like a cobra, reaching up and grabbing the trailing ankle. With a sudden jerk, he sent the raider sprawling!

The raider fought back viciously, trying to use his thickly-gauntleted forearm as a club. But Tom managed to roll out of the way and launch himself into action, butting his opponent squarely in the stomach! The figure went down again, landing heavily on his back.

Before he could get to his feet, Tom was on top of him, hammering away with rights and lefts that made the intruder’s opaque helmet whip left and right, producing the satisfying sound of a fleshly head bouncing off a hard inner surface. The raider, despite the fact that he was at a disadvantage in his cumbersome space suit, squirmed and fought like a cornered wildcat. But Tom had a weapon as well as his fists. In a few seconds, Tom overpowered him. Then he bound his limply quivering, semi-conscious prisoner hand and foot with insulated duct-tape.

"Whew!"
Panting from the struggle, Tom paused to catch his breath. Everything had happened so fast there had been no time to take stock of the situation. He stared at the invader in the strange suit and helmet, and a staggering possibility leapt to mind.

Was his prisoner a space being of some kind?

"I’ll soon find out," Tom muttered. He ripped off the clothlike, flexible covering that shrouded the raider’s helmet and found a sullen-looking man staring back at him through the plastic faceplate. "Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d say you’re just an earth dweller after all. Okay. Start talking!" Not a sound left the prisoner’s lips, which were bruised and swollen from combat. He merely shrugged, jerked his head as if he did not understand English, and glared at Tom like a captured beast.

Suddenly Tom heard the distant whine of a jet gathering power for take-off. The noise roused the young inventor from his puzzled reflections. Dashing to the window, he was just in time to see a Swift jetcraft taxi to the end of a runway and power-down again. Enterprises employees were beginning to stir and struggle to their feet, and suddenly the warning sirens faded away.

"Good night! What’s happened to everybody?" came a husky voice. Bud was awake! As Tom turned, he was relieved to see that Sandy and Bashalli were also moving, their eyelids fluttering.

Sitting up, Sandy stared dully at Tom’s prisoner. "If that’s a Martian invader, Tomonomo, I don’t think much of the species," she murmured groggily.

"He’s as human as we are," Tom said. "Except
this
human doesn’t mind using sleep gas against innocent people."

"Maybe we should rip off that helmet and give him a dose!" Bud grated. The prisoner did not react.

Making a series of frantic calls, Tom was able to ascertain that the attack had caused no serious injury, though it had affected almost the entire plant—every lab, building, and workshop that did not have its own separate air supply.

To Tom’s surprised pleasure the installation’s talented young medic, Doc Simpson, had already diagnosed the cause of the sleeping plague. "It’s not a gas, but a mist," he explained over the phone, "tiny droplets suspended in the air. I’m familiar with the formula, Tom; it was used in Europe for a time as a surgical anesthetic, but now its use is largely abandoned—the effect wears off too quickly." Simpson described how the substance, entering the bloodstream by way of the lung tissues, acted as a powerful depressant of central nervous system functions. "It’s related to the formulation still used by security forces in Russia, as when they took down those hostage-takers in that Moscow theater."

"Eastern Europe," Tom repeated. "As in Brungaria! Thanks, Doc. I think you’re going to have a pretty busy afternoon."

"Don’t I know it!"

After speaking to his father and to Harlan Ames, Tom switched on the plant’s public-address system and boomed out some reassuring words over the mike. Gradually, reports began to filter in to the supervisory offices in the administration building. Everyone had blacked out for about twenty-five minutes.

A security squad armed with Swift electric i-guns came to Tom’s lab on the run and took the silent prisoner into custody. One of the men said to Tom, "It was a fleet of micro-missiles, about a dozen, that set off the alarms when radar showed them entering our airspace. They overflew the joint, but Ames thinks they must’ve been spraying the sleep-stuff all the way along. This guy climbed the north fence—no sign of any other invaders, though. What do you think he was after?"

Tom shrugged. "He came directly here, and this is where I’ve been working on my repelatron. I’m guessing that’s the connection."

"Then someone working at Enterprises must’ve told him!"

"Not necessarily," said the young inventor. "I’ve found that the repelatron field sometimes generates an electromagnetic effect. Someone might have doped that out and used some kind of instrument to detect it from a distance."

Tom drove Bud and the girls to the Enterprises infirmary, where an anxious crowd had already begun to line up. Doc Simpson confirmed that they, like everyone else, had all recovered without ill effects from the sprayed drug.

"Who do you suppose pulled the raid?" Bud asked, when he heard what had happened. "The Brungarian faction?"

Torn shrugged despairingly. "Makes sense. Your guess is as good as mine, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Let’s hope we can learn something from that man I captured."

Leaving Bud with the girls, Tom hurried to the room used by Enterprises security to temporarily restrain and isolate violators. The prisoner’s pressure suit had now been removed, and he was dressed in loose, comfortable clothes.

Harlan Ames and his assistant, Phil Radnor, had been questioning the man. But he only looked at them, silent and insolent. Tom felt like taking another swing at him as he realized the medical danger to which the Enterprises workforce had been exposed by the attack. But he unclenched his fists and managed to swallow his anger. "Find anything on him?" he asked the security men. "Any clues?"

"Not a thing," replied Radnor. "Our pal’s pockets proved to be empty. Neither his space suit nor his inner clothing bore any clues to his nationality."

Ames gave a snort. "No label in the suit—not even laundering instructions."

Forcing himself to speak mildly, Tom tried to engage the man in conversation. But the prisoner merely shook his head to all questions and maintained a stubborn silence.

"Maybe we ought to work him over a bit, and then see if he’ll talk!" growled one of the watching security crew, who had suffered a nasty blow on the temple when he was felled by the sleep-drug.

"Nothing doing," Tom said firmly. "The Brungarians may mistreat prisoners in their own country, but we won’t use their tactics."

Ames nodded. "We can’t keep him. Jack here, and Paul Hann, will drive him into Shopton and hand him over to the police as soon as we’ve made the arrangements. He can wait for the Feds in jail."

Tom nodded. "It’s about all we can do, I guess."

Ridewalking back to the infirmary, Tom noted that the sun was low and red. Now that he bad time to turn his attention to Sandy and Bash, he realized that their event for the evening was ruined. "I’m sorry," he told them soberly. "I suppose it’s too late for the party now."

Sandy nodded. "I’ve already called Mother; she told everyone we’d have to give them a raincheck. Don’t worry, Tom. It wasn’t your fault."

"Maybe
we
should apologize for bringing you such bad luck," Bashalli added sympathetically. "Lately we have been nothing but albatrosses hanging themselves from your neck."

"Cut it out!" Tom grinned. "Nobody got hurt, nothing was wrecked or stolen, and now we have a prisoner!"

"Yes," said Bashalli sourly, "how wonderful it is. We must get together soon for another sleepover!"

Bud offered to take the girls to dinner in town. After they had left, Tom contacted Evan Glennon and Anton Faber in the guest bungalow to make certain the scientists, older men, had suffered no ill effects from the attack.

"Ach, we two are fine and spry, m’lad!" Glennon exclaimed heartily. "In truth and fact, we both slept right through it!"

After meeting for a time with his father, Ames, and Radnor, Tom followed his father home for a late supper admidst drooping, bedraggled party streamers and sad, listless balloons.

Tom was clearing the table when the telephone rang. "Tom? This is Captain Rock!" came the familiar voice of the head of Shopton PD, grimly excited.

"What’s wrong, Captain? Has something happened?"

"Absolutely. It’s enough to make me swear off my dissolute lifestyle for a year. Tom, your prisoner has escaped!"

"OH NO," Tom groaned.
"Please
tell me you didn’t say that, Captain."

"Feel bad? Think how
I
feel!" retorted Captain Rock. "This outfit hasn’t lost a Brungarian spy in
years!
Seriously, Tom, we’re all just sick about it."

Trying not to sound upset, not succeeding very well, Tom asked the police captain what had occurred. "Your two men, Jack Dellingmoor and Paul Hann, came barreling in to our parking lot, in one of those Enterprises SUVs you folks use, just a while ago. We were already starting to wonder where they were.

"They said the prisoner had somehow worked his way out of his restraints in the back seat and had looped a strap around Hann’s neck, as if he were gonna strangle him. Your men gathered that he was demanding to be set loose—not much need for deduction on
that
point. The guy had them pull on to one of those unpaved side roads that cross through the Freyner Woods—what’s left of it; they’re putting in a Guess-What-Mart, you know—anyway, they let him out in the woods and he hightailed it out of there, as we police-types say. He’s gonna have some trouble if he’s still got cuffs on him."

"I get the picture, Captain," Tom said. But his voice was heavy with thought. "Mind doing something for me before we hang up?"

"Sure, Tom."

"Can you see our vehicle from your office window?—I know it fronts the parking lot."

There was a pause, and then Rock said, "Sure can."

"Can you see the door handle on the backseat door, driver’s side?"

"Well—yes." Captain Rock sounded puzzled.

"How’s it look?"

"The handle? Matter of fact, it looks sprung, hanging on by one end."

Tom nodded to himself. "And are our two employees still there, at the station?"

"They’re filling out reports. Why? Want to speak to them?"

"No," said Tom; "I’d just like you to take a look at their knuckles, closely—especially the one named Jack. Would you mind?"