Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule (17 page)

"Any doubts I ever had about your acting skills, pal," Tom chuckled, "I hereby withdraw!"

The
Queen
set down at the compact landing pad that had been established for it, next to several small personnel elevators and one very large freight elevator. To accommodate the craft’s several passengers—which included key technical personnel to work with Hank Sterling and Art Wiltessa, Enterprises’ assembly chief who had overseen the time-transformer’s construction—the group descended together on the larger elevator.

They debarked into a large "foyer" with rough-hewn walls. "This is actually an extension of the blast-dome," Tom declared. "C’mon, let’s take a look at the Big Baby!"

A heavy door led into the rocky bubble itself, a huge arching vault with faceted walls that reflected the electric worklights like polished crystal. "Beautiful!" exclaimed one of the engineers. "Never say nuclear bombs aren’t good for something."

Tom chuckled. "My eyes are on the
prize
!"

Tom Swift’s "Big Baby" almost filled the blast-dome, its twin chronolenses lifted halfway up from the chamber’s bowl-like floor by a circular housing. As promised, the convex disks of metal, coated with a sheathing of white ceramic, were several hundred feet broad. In the exact center of the space between them, suspended in its all-but-invisible web of filaments, floated the dyna-4 capsule. It looked more than ever like a bulbous Christmas tree ornament.

The lower chronolens was surrounded by a deep gap, like a waterless moat. Chow walked to the edge and glanced down. "Looks like it goes all th’ way to the ground. Izzat t’ keep people’s hands off ’er?"

"It’s for heat dissipation," Tom explained. "As you can see, there’s a little ‘drawbridge’ that can be extended for access over by the control console. Another on the far side."

Bud asked, "So how do you get into the capsule itself, Skipper?"

"There’s a hatchway that drops a ladder. You can’t see it from here—it’s a little round the bend."

Chow snorted. "That’s th’ way
I
feel sometimes, workin’ with this here crew."

After extending the capsule’s ladder by means of the control console, Tom led the hike across the bridge and the lower chronolens, stopping beneath the dyna-4 capsule, which was about 30 feet in diameter. "Looks like it’s about ready to take off for outer space," commented one of the techs.

"In this case it’s not a
flying
saucer but a
timing
saucer!" Bud wisecracked.

As he gazed upward, admiring the work of his own brain, Tom said: "If anybody wants to take a look inside, follow me." He began to climb the ladder, the round hatchway above his head.

Chow looked dubious but said, "Wa-aal, guess I’ve lifted heavier loads in my time—meanin’ me."

Six climbed the ladder after Tom, the rest deciding to classify themselves as
theoretical
scientists.

The capsule was roomy and well-lit, with its own restroom and accommodations for overnights stays that might last a tenth of a second—or ten years. "Of course, most of this is temporary, like the worklights," Tom noted. "There’s a lot of testing to be done before we dare try it on human subjects. And first we’ll have to solve a big problem: stabilizing and ‘flattening’ the chronoclastic field so that time flows at a uniform rate throughout the capsule, wall to wall. The slightest differential—time flowing at different rates across the span of living tissue—could be deadly. Our tests at Enterprises show that the body’s immune system treats cells that aren’t aging ‘right’ as invaders. It’s like rejection of a transplant, with two halves of the body rejecting
each other
."

Bud made a face. "I can wait, Skipper."

Eventually the visitors dispersed to their various lab cubicles and living quarters in the underground installation. Tom spoke for a time to Hank and Art Wiltessa.

"Main construction’s done," said Wiltessa. "Had a good team. No real problems, Tom—unless you count all those security cops constantly underfoot." He indicated several tough-looking men in olive-green jackets.

"Contract workers employed by the site management company," Tom nodded. "The Federal authorities were pretty insistent about our using their own people, not Harlan’s or the team from the Citadel."

"Well, I wouldn’t want to get one of them mad at me," joked Hank. "Which is just what you want in a cop. As for me, I’ve mainly been dealing with that outsider physicist."

"Irvin Valetta? What do you think of him?"

The young engineer shrugged. "Quiet—keeps to himself. But he’s pretty impressive when it comes to theory and the engineering applications. I’m glad he’s here, though I miss Rafe Franzenberg. Glad to hear he’s doing well."

"And doing it loudly," Tom chuckled.

Tom eventually went to his quarters, which were next to Bud’s. As he started to put together his work agenda, the wall intercom buzzed. "Mr. Swift, I have an outside call from Agent Dibs."

"Outside?" The young inventor was surprised. "Put him through, please."

"Hello, Tom."

"Hi, Randy. I was wondering why I hadn’t run across you down here."

"I came up topside yesterday. The onsite security personnel seem adequate, and—if I’m going to prove myself, I need to make some progress on the Eckdal business." He added darkly: "Inasmuch as you’ve rejected my recommendation to leave your friend back in Shopton."

"Let’s put that behind us," said the young inventor with a trace of annoyance. "So what are you doing, Randy? Do you have a lead?"

"Oh, I very well might. I’m looking into the background of someone who could serve as Eckdal’s delivery agent—the spy who’ll make sure you don’t substitute a phony box or open it in secret. There’s a candidate who would have no trouble getting into position to keep an eye on your progress down there."

"Good night! That’s great if it pans out," Tom exclaimed. "Without tipping him off, we could trace him back to Eckdal. Do you have any idea how he plans to break into the installation?"

"He doesn’t need to," replied Dibs. "No—
because he’s already down there with you!
"

ALARMING news!—all the more reason for Tom to resent Dibs’s triumphant tone. "Do you have a name?"

"Sure I do," Dibs replied. "
Dr. Irvin Valetta
."

Tom was surprised at how
un
surprised he was. "Someone we have no personal experience with."

"Someone imposed on you by another outsider, Beecher, who seems to have overall doubts about the project."

"Then you think Beecher is also working for Eckdal?"

"Think about it," urged Dibs. "Eckdal may not be a genius, but he’s cunning enough to probe for weak spots. That’s what swindlers do, am I right? He was smart enough to dig up something from Bud Barclay’s past and trace Rose Rebecca Truncheon to her psychiatric facility."

"Yes, and then get his crony Baxx set up there as an employee," added the youth.

"Of course we have to credit Baxx with his personal charms—the scheme wouldn’t have worked unless Reb fell for him."

"I’ll ‘credit’ Baxx when I get some free time," Tom snapped back brusquely.

"I think Eckdal got to Beecher somehow, maybe some kind of blackmail, and Beecher in turn got someone in his pocket assigned to you."

"Dr. Valetta. Then he’s—"

"It’s mostly conjecture so far," interrupted the agent. "But doesn’t it make good sense?—planting someone whose NSA work has made him all but invisible and untraceable for years? We don’t know what he did there, or what might make him vulnerable to blackmail and manipulation. Or maybe good old bribery. People are money-buzzards, aren’t they, Tom."

Tom considered the matter grimly. "It
does
make sense. He’s not limited to theoretical consultation. Dr. Valetta—if he
is
Dr. Valetta!—could come up with many legitimate reasons to stay close to the time-transformer and keep an idea on how far I’ve gotten with it, all the way through."

"And then reveal himself at the crucial moment, and take the box. But I don’t quite have the evidence in hand, Tom," Dibs cautioned. "That’s why I’m offsite. I may have a big lead that I need to follow up on, in person. Legwork! When do you expect you’ll have the machine up and running?"

"I expect my remaining work to take just a few days," was the response. "I’m about to contact Miss Finch to have the box sent here, high-security."

"Without being obvious, try to stretch it out to Friday. I may have news for you by then. I may not only expose Valetta and Beecher, but find the location of ‘Friendly Village’ and evidence to clear Bud. We’ve
got
to stymie his plot before he gets control of that account, wherever it is—and really, it just takes a phone call. But don’t put anyone on alert by confronting Valetta."

Tom promised he would do as asked. After some thought, he apprised Harlan Ames and his father of the new developments. "It’s frustrating," declared Ames. "The Feds are very insistent that all site security be handled by their contractees from the management company—some political angle, I guess. Otherwise I’d have someone down there keeping an eye on Valetta."

Tom agreed with the frustration, and added: "But ultimately, blocking Valetta wouldn’t help us—for Bud’s sake we have to allow Eckdal to receive the opened ‘brick’ in whatever way won’t make him ‘nervous’. And that seems to mean we’ll have to let him escape."

"Unless we can beat him at the game. Let’s hope Dibs uncovers something that denies Eckdal that power."

"Yes—
uncovers
," Tom said. "It’s time Friendly Village saw the light of day!"

Tom told only Bud and Hank Sterling of the suspicions regarding Irvin Valetta, but pledged them to silence and inaction. "Long as he doesn’t show up in big electric gloves," Bud gibed.

The next day, Tom met Gabriel Knorff at the visitors’ entrance to the Nevada site. "Man-o-boy, was I on edge during the drive down!" Gabe declared as he put his invaluable package into Tom’s hands. "Sure glad you had Mr. Ames’s men following me!"

"Believe me—it was the
least
we could do." His thoughts added:
wish we could have done more than the least!

"I kept myself calm by
assuming
the guys in the car weren’t ringers. Then again, I didn’t check the trunk..."

Tom provided a sour smile. "
Always
great to see you, Gabe."

"Do I get my photo op?"

"It seems you always do," replied Tom dryly. "But as for the opening of the box, you’ll have to settle for a verbal description."

"Aaa, words. Who needs ’em."

Tom placed Joeren Eckdal’s mystery box—and whatever trove of information it contained—in a high-security locker next to the blast-dome. It was DNA-coded and could only be opened by Tom.

He resumed his work, attempting to further stabilize the field between the chronolenses as the earth’s motions caused it to warp and twist. At last, as the week wore away, Tom was able to quietly tell Bud that the brick could be placed in the dyna-4 capsule the day following, Friday.

"We could do it now if it weren’t for my promise to Randy Dibs. The remaining issues aren’t very significant, and Hank and I—and Valetta—are getting closer by the hour," Tom told Bud, at his side in the time cave. "Want to see the Big Baby in operation?"

Bud watched as his chum manipulated the controls on the console, outside the lens field but near the gap that surrounded the lower lens. "I’ll teach you to run the panel, flyboy," Tom said as he adjusted the dials. "It’s just a matter of flipping the main switch once the vector has been selected from the screen options—that is, whether the time flow is to be accelerated or retarded. You can be my ‘hands’ this afternoon while I’m working on the power feed at the far side of this big rock bubble."

"Glad to," said Bud. "What a feeling—Bud Barclay, commander of time!"

"Beats being called ‘Beeb,’ hmm?"

"Er—let’s get on with the lesson."

An hour later, Tom tested Bud’s knowledge of the console. "Okay," said the young inventor, "you’ve selected the time-acceleration option. Inside the dyna-4 capsule, days will compress into seconds when you throw the switch."

"While out here, outside the capsule, it’s the reverse. Let’s try Barclay’s Bouncing Ball Experiment." Bud picked up a small "super-ball" and tossed it across the gap, throwing the activation switch with his other hand while the ball was in flight. Instantly the space between the lenses was filled with a strange, multicolored shadow. The appearance and colors of the capsule, and the far walls of the chamber, changed in a way that disoriented the eye. "Is that darkness the field itself?" Bud asked his pal.

"It’s an effect of the time-slowdown produced by the exterior field," was the response. "Light waves entering the field from outside are forced to slow tremendously, so they become compressed. Then, when they exit on our side, they’re coming out so slowly that the interval between the peaks is stretched as the waves resume normal speed one by one."

"Like cars speeding away after they pass the cause of a traffic jam!—a very California analogy, hmm?"

"The final effect is that they drop to a much lower frequency. In fact, light in the human optical range that enters the field drops down to the lower infrared when it comes out, well below what the eye can respond to."

"But we still see the capsule."

"We’re seeing it by ultraviolet light that has got its waves stretched down into the optical range." He noted that the special spotlights in the cavern had a large ultraviolet output. "But they’re aimed at the inter-space—we operators won’t get
tanned
to death."

"Not a bad way to go, though."

"Another way to think of it is that total energy is conserved between the chronolenses. Time-acceleration inside the capsule ‘counts’ as a huge energy increase for whatever’s inside, which is paid for, and balanced, by a corresponding
loss
of energy in the exterior part of the chronoclastic field—for example, the slowing of photons. In other words, you have to have the oppositely directed time-vector spatial volumes in order to—"