Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway (7 page)

Tom leaned the spear against the wall and dashed outside the house, Mr. Aturian following. Mr. Swift had already hurried to switch on the yard floodlights and in moments was unkenneling the Swifts’ two bloodhounds, Caesar and Brutus.

Tom let the dogs sniff the spear to get the scent. But after loping about the grounds and a ways along the little-used road, the hounds gave up in whimpering bafflement.

"The spear must have been hurled from a car that stopped and then drove along," Tom decided, mounting the front steps. "The thrower could’ve stood up on the hood to get a view over the top of the hedge."

Mr. Swift nodded. "I believe I recall hearing one approach just before the alarm sounded."

"Whoever threw it must have been someone of giant strength," said Uncle Jake in an awed voice as he eyed the distance from the street. "It penetrated one wall, and was buried inches deep in the next!"

"It might have been projected by a powerful, specially designed spear gun," Tom conjectured. He continued the thought as they returned to the den and resumed scrutinizing the projectile. "And actually, it’s not all that tough to go through the wall—which is just the usual stucco and tar-paper setup. Much easier than through the Tomaquartz." He again picked up the spear and held it close. "I don’t know what sort of wood the shaft is made of, but it’s extremely light in weight. And I can barely nick it with my thumbnail."

"I’m especially interested in the spearhead," stated Uncle Jake. "With all my metallurgical training, I don’t recognize that metal alloy. The point and edges are sharp as razor blades, even now, but feel how slick it is. As if coated in oil—but nothing is coming off on my fingers."

Carrying the spear Tom led the way to his small lab-workshop between house and garage, where he examined the obsidian-black metal under a microscope. He then analyzed its molecular composition with a hand-held spectroscanner. "It’s uncoated machined metal, all right, but not a type I’m familiar with. Are you, Uncle Jake?"

"Not offhand."

But Tom’s father said, "I believe I know what it is. It’s an alloy—expensive and very difficult to produce—developed for use by hypersonic jetcraft and spacecraft to cope with air friction. As I recall, it tested out as impractical. But― " Damon Swift added with a chuckle, "
hardly
what I would expect to find at the business end of an African tribal spear!"

"A rare synthetic alloy," Tom mused. Why did the idea ring a bell with him? "Dad, do you recall who developed it?"

"Hmm. A European firm—Dutch, I think."

"Might it have been Afro-Metals, Ltd.?"

"Why yes, that’s the one! How did you make the connection, Tom?"

Tom shrugged. "The whole thing’s connected to Ngombia somehow. Mr. Kwanu mentioned Afro-Metals as the firm working with the government—Dutch!"

After telephoning Harlan Ames and the police, Tom turned to his father. "Dad, you don’t think we should give up on this project, do you? If someone’s targeting the family― "

"No," said Mr. Swift. "We’ll decide about the project on its own merits, son. I’m opposed on principle to yielding to threats. Your mother has always felt the same way."

"
And Sandy!
" called a voice from the next room.

Tom gave his father a warm handclasp. "I’ll make it unanimous!" he declared.

Next morning at Enterprises Tom checked with Harlan Ames, who reported that the spear and message had yielded no usable fingerprints. "That strip of cloth the message was written on, by the way, is real antelope hide. Within the last month it was still bobbing along on the poor antelope! The writing is interesting too: a kind of ink, a dye, containing real human blood."

Tom gulped. "Gruesome! Somebody’s carrying traditional values a little too far."

The next day, while Tom’s great Flying Lab skyship was being loaded and readied for the flight, he took a few hours to drive to nearby Grandyke University to ask an expert on traditional African cultures, Professor Kasten, to look over a few of the foil effigies.

"I see no special significance in their shapes or manner of construction," he stated. "It’s true, of course, that certain birds, as well as animals, have a totemic importance to many of the traditional cultures. But not in that part of upper East Africa, and not among the Ulsusus or the Ghidduas."

Tom nodded, and then tentatively advanced another question that had been on his mind. "I have the impression those two tribes don’t care very much for one another, despite all the talk of ‘brotherhood’."

The academic gave an academic chuckle. "To put it mildly! There is a thousand years of enmity between them. Each regards the other as an ‘inferior race’, and so teaches their children. I have little hope for the longterm unity of this put-together nation of Ngombia."

"Perhaps the transportation project will help."

"Perhaps. Or it may simply make it easier for them to get to each other to fight. We’ll see, eh?" The professor paused thoughtfully. "By the way, there’s a mystery you might help to solve while you’re over there."

Tom grinned. "We can always use another mystery or two."

"This one involves a fellow scientist, someone I knew in school and kept in touch with over the years, intermittently," Kasten explained. "A brilliant man and a talented researcher in several fields. Yet toward the end, he became increasingly obsessed with theories that many of his colleagues regarded as fantastic."

"You said—toward the end?"

"Oh yes," confirmed the professor. "You see, he went off to Ngombia—to the great jungle, to be precise—more than twenty years ago. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since!"

"THAT ‘missing scientist in the jungle’ scenario sounds like something from old-style adventure novels," Tom commented with a smile.

Professor Kasten nodded with a smile of his own. "I suppose it does. In this case, though, it’s quite real. Welkin Eldreth was last seen in Princetown—they call it Huttangdala now—attempting to put together a Ghiddua team to travel into the jungle. Nothing since."

"Did he travel to Ngombia alone?"

"As I recall he had two assistants, graduate students who had studied under him—true believers, I’d imagine." Kasten went over to his bookshelf and pulled out a bound journal. "Take this with you, Tom, if you like. It talks about the case, and about Eldreth’s theories."

The young inventor took the journal and thanked his host. "I’ll keep my eyes open," Tom promised, "and see if I can pick up any clues."

Tom had intended to read the article that evening at home, but a discussion with his father intervened, as well as a late telephone call. "
Hi there, T-man!
" came a familiar voice.

"Ted!" Tom exclaimed delightedly. "Don’t tell me you’re calling from Loonaui!" This Pacific island, half a world away, was the site of the special launch facility that served the Swift Enterprises outpost in space. Ted Spring, a brilliant astronautical engineer and longtime close friend of the Swift family, had been appointed chief of the operation.

"No, Tom, it’s vacation time for me," explained the young African-American. "I’m here in Shopton, at home with my Mom and my little brother—who’s not all that little anymore."

"When can we expect you over, Ted? You know how much we’d like to see you—Mom and Dad, and Bud― "

"And... Sandy?"

"And Sandy." Tom understood the reason for Ted’s awkward, hesitant question. It was quietly accepted that Ted had had romantic feelings toward Tom’s sister, feelings which Tom suspected Ted’s time on Loonaui had not extinguished.

Tom described his upcoming trip to Ngombia, departure scheduled for the next morning. "Actually, T-man, that’s something I wanted to bat around with you—a favor. I read about the Ngombia deal in the news, and figured you’d be heading there pretty soon. How’d you guys feel about taking me along?"

The youth chuckled. "Funny—someone else asked for the same favor the other day, and I turned him down. But you work for us, Ted; more importantly, you’re a trusted friend. Sure you can come!—start packing."

"Great! Want to know my reason?"

"Sure."

"Well, it’s one of these family-history things. Mom says one branch of the family came from that part of Africa ‘back in the day’. I’ve always wanted to pay a visit, bring back some photos and souvenirs. I think it’d mean a lot to her."

"You don’t need a reason, Ted," Tom remarked warmly. "But among all possible unneeded reasons, that’s a good one!"

Before retiring for the night the young prodigy took a moment to speak with his sister. "San, I know you know all about Ted’s feelings for you... "

"Obviously," Sandy responded with a wry nod. "Secret-keeping is
impossible
with Bashalli around. Or me, of course."

"Do you want me to speak to Ted? It might be unfair to encourage him—and sometimes even silence can be a sort of encouragement."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Are you
presuming
to know my mind, Tom? You—and that Bud guy you hang around with—ought to give a try at
not
taking things for granted."

Tom conceded the point with a grin. "It’s between you and Ted. But I think there are a few people—even in Shopton—who might venture an opinion or two, whether we think it’s their business or not."

"Should I care what other people think?" Sandy’s look was proud, if slightly condescending. "I’m a Swift!"

Tom did no reading that night. The journal wound up in Tom’s luggage aboard the mammoth three-decker
Sky Queen
as it rose into the stratosphere the following morning and turned its nose toward Africa. The solar-powered craft, given VTOL capabilities by the banks of jet-lifters in its underbelly, had been Tom’s first major invention. True to its name, the Flying Lab was outfitted with the latest research equipment from all fields of science.

The supersonic jaunt across the Atlantic took a few brief hours, followed by a sky trek across the great bulge of Africa on a heading slightly south of east. Tom spent an hour in the view-lounge, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, reading over the journal article about the missing Professor Eldreth.

He had just finished, and was musingly watching the high cloud deck slip by below, when Hank Sterling entered. "Looks like you’re deep in Swiftonian thought, boss."

Tom shrugged. "Just turning the article over in my mind."

"Good stuff?"

"Interesting—but strange. It seems Eldreth was originally a highly-regarded cancer researcher. His studies led him into an investigation of the process of cell replication and how living organisms grow."

"I can see the relevance," Hank remarked as he settled down onto a contoured chair. "Cancerous tumors are runaway cell-splitting."

"Yes. But along the way he began to pursue some radical ideas. He thought it might be possible to engineer mutated
viroids
—basically the controlling ‘software’ of virus particles, or virions—and insert them into active virions to alter their function."

"To what end? Fighting cancer?"

"He seems to have abandoned that goal," replied Tom. "He became interested in modifying the rate of cell division, to promote faster and more robust growth. Talked about better crop yields, bigger livestock—that sort of thing."

"How about giant humans kicking over skyscrapers?—
that
sort of thing!"

"I’m afraid the article doesn’t address that particular question," chuckled the youth.

"So where did Ngombia come in?" Hank asked.

"I can only tell you what he claimed, Hank. He said he had found, in plant and animal samples originating in the V’moda swamp, traces of a mildly radioactive compound that included the metallic element Niobium. It’s normally highly toxic—carcinogenic. But the Ngombian specimens showed no ill effects. Eldreth had some notion of using the Niobium compound, conveyed by bacteria, to engineer his growth-inducing viroids. Complicated, isn’t it?"

"Oh, no more so than magneto-hydro-dynamics, Skipper."

"One thing that struck me about all this," continued Tom, "is that we may have already stumbled across something related, here in Africa. Remember that man Mkeesa we dealt with in Borukundi?"

"I sure do—the fellow who was able to slough-off his exposure to radiation in Mount Goaba. Had something to do with herbs in his diet, didn’t it?"

"It appeared so. And here again we have the same factors—radioactivity, toxins, unusual substances in the body... "

"And one thing more.
Africa
!"

Tom agreed silently, then said: "Something further to think about, too—and this is a weird coincidence, if it
is
just a coincidence. The journal article was written a few years ago by none other than Darcy Creel, the environmental journalist I told you about!"

"Holy simoleons! Maybe Eldreth is the real reason Creel was trying to wangle a ride with us!"

"I wonder," said Tom.

It was early evening, local time, when the ship settled to the ground in Huttangdala at the edge of Ngombia’s sole large airport.

"We crossed a lot of green," commented one of the crew, Bill Bennings, to Tom in the Flying Lab’s room-sized control compartment. "I suppose some of it was that big swamp."

"Nope," Tom corrected him. "That’s further to the east, cutting this half of the country, West Ngombia, off from East Ngombia. We’ll be seeing it tomorrow morning from way up high."

"What’s next on the itinerary, Skipper?" asked Bud, who had been piloting the
Queen
. "African voodoo stew Chow Winkler style?" As usual, the colorful chef had been made a part of the expedition.

Tom glanced at his wristwatch. "Maybe for tomorrow’s breakfast. An associate of Dr. Onammi’s, from the Ministry of Patriotic Progress, as they call it, is to meet us in front of the terminal with a car—no doubt one he’s driving himself! His name is Jombilabu." He turned to Ted Spring as he entered the control compartment from the lab section to the rear of it. "Ted, why don’t you join Bud and I? This meeting is mostly a formality. The government offices are just a few blocks away—we can stroll back, and you can get a taste of Ngombia." Ted agreed.