Tom Swift and His Deep Sea Hydrodome (18 page)

Anchor turned white as a sheet. "Tom! Are you saying—you think
I
—?"

A quiet voice spoke up, gentle but firm. "I didn’t want to believe it, Bob," said Dr. Clisby. "But you’ve done this before, you know—more than once."

"Arthur, please…" Anchor slumped down on a cot, head bowed. "I don’t know what to say. It kills me inside each time, but I can’t seem to help it. Some people steal, some start fires, I—they call it confabulation, a compulsion to lie, to cause crises to get—a sort of attention. Yes, I broke that valve myself, after you dragged me into the seacopter. I faked my shortness of breath. All I can do is apologize. And try one more time to deal with it."

Tom nodded, and Clisby put a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. "I have an apology to make to someone, too," Tom said. "It won’t be easy."

"Well, no apologies for this hydrodome of yours, genius boy," Bud declared warmly. "Or for that fantastic repelatron gimmick. Man oh man, I have a feeling that gizmo’s going to take us places we’ve never been!" Bud was proven right sooner than he expected, for Tom Swift was soon to enter
The Race To The Moon.

"After all this, you’re already planning new adventures?" inquired Dr. Clisby with a smile.

Tom laughed. "Is the ocean wet?"