Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule (3 page)

She gave a shy smile. "Yes. I was. I know it. He had no close relatives, no close friends. He was a private man; I suppose he was rather eccentric. His ex-wife hated him and his adult son Torranz, who lived with his mother, was an obnoxious, indolent wastrel—sort of a get-rich-quick schemer and swindler. Perhaps you know the type?"

Tom nodded. Gabe added: "
I
sure do! I’ve worked for a couple."

"There was no love, virtually no contact, between father and son," she continued. "Sad, isn’t it? Being isolated like that? I was to be married, once, but...

"Anyway, as time went on there was one other person in Dr. Eck’s life that he cared for and became close to—his grandson Mike, Torr’s son. He was very unlike his father. He was a sweet, honest, intelligent boy who left his home and came to live in Terreton when he turned 18."

"That’s the age when people really start showing their stuff," said Sandy with a glance at Tom.

"Mike was devoted to his grandfather, and visited almost every day. He did well in college. Such a bright future ahead of him.

"But Joeren’s—that is, Dr. Eck’s—health was failing. He made out a will with some odd provisions—"

"Wait’ll you hear this!" muttered Gabe Knorff.

Miss Finch, who resembled her name, paused to collect her thoughts. "This is all a bit difficult and muddled. The lawyers explained it to me, but... I’m afraid I don’t think like a lawyer."

Sandy felt moved to say, "No one does."

"He had apparently put together a great deal of money—really, a fortune—over his long life. Patents and consulting fees, I suppose. He chose to live simply and put most of his money somewhere or other, untouched. He told no one where, not even his attorney. I believe it’s all in an account in another country, perhaps Switzerland, or one of those little islands. Or perhaps he converted it to precious metals or art. It was his big secret, even from me.

"When he died last year, his will provided that nearly all his fortune would go to his grandson, to Mike. I see the looks on your faces. Don’t feel sorry for me. Dr. Eck planned at first to leave most of it to me. I argued with him and finally talked him out of it. Mike Eckdal had a long life ahead of him; I only wanted to spend my last years comfortably. Do you see?"

"It doesn’t seem unusual, ma’am, leaving an inheritance to one’s grandson," said Tom.

"But—oh dear. There was something else, you see. Dr. Eck was very concerned—obsessively—that his son Torr, Mike’s father, would get his hands on it. So what he actually left was... this."

Miss Finch opened her voluminous purse and lugged out a bulky, dark object, placing it in Tom’s hand with a little grunt of effort. It was a metal box, flat-sided with beveled edges, about the size of a small brick. It took muscle to hold it. "It’s heavy," Tom said, handing it to Sandy to feel. "Is it made of lead?"

"Oh, I have no idea," replied the woman apologetically. "But the important thing is this. According to the will, this little box contains the information necessary to locate and claim Dr. Eckdal’s bequest, his fortune. But the box cannot be opened!"

Sandy was on the scent of mystery. "What do you mean?" she inquired excitedly. "Does it have a curse?"

"The will gave the rules. If the box is forced open, or a hole made in it, or anything of that kind—well, the information, whatever form it is in, will be destroyed instantly by some kind of pre-set mechanism. It must be allowed to unlock itself. And this is controlled by some kind of inner timer."

"When will it happen?" asked Tom.

"
In twenty-five—now twenty-four—years!
Dr. Eck assumed his son would likely be gone by then, and the money would be there for his grandson to use in the middle of his life." Tom nodded. She went on: "But just months ago, Mike died in an auto accident. I can hardly bear to speak of it." Sandy touched Miss Finch’s arm sympathetically.

Gabe rushed in to tell the rest. "So now, see, it’s all messed up. Under other provisions of the will, it’s clear that Eckdal wanted Mina to end up with the box if something happened to the boy while Torr was still alive. But Torr Eckdal came strutting out with a team of lawyers who say that under state law, the box goes to
him
. Get it?"

"There have been contradictory rulings. Torr hasn’t yet succeeded in forcing me to give up the box," Mina Finch said with sudden ferocity. "Joeren wanted
me
to have his inheritance, not that worthless son of his! Now that Mike is not around to make use of the money... am I wrong to want it? I’ve lived such a colorless life, Tom, Sandy, and I’m not young."

His brow perplexed, Tom gave a half-nod. "Then the problem now isn’t just the legalities of who’s entitled to the box and the wealth—"

"The problem is time, pure
time
! I’m no more likely to be around in twenty-four years than Torranz Eckdal. I must at least try to claim Dr. Eckdal’s inheritance—to keep it from Torr, as Joeren wanted, as much as to benefit by it myself."

"Oh! Now I understand," declared Sandy. "You read in the papers that Tom is working on an invention to change the rate time passes—"

"That’s right," said the gray little lady. "I thought a great deal about what I read. Science is so wonderful, so many new things that I could never have dreamt about as a girl... Imagine, a machine to make a year go by like an hour, or a wedding night last a year..."

Tom gave a wry look, which settled on Gabe Knorff, journalist. "Miss Finch, the newspapers take the tiniest whisper of a possibility and turn it into an international roar. It’s true that I’m working on a time-transformer apparatus. I call it the dyna-4 capsule. It works, but it’s only been tested on a very small scale; you could speed, or stop, a wristwatch with it. We’ve done it.

"But this metal container is far too big to fit inside the focal point of the model we have up and running at Swift Enterprises. Making a big machine that really works is the next step—that’s why I’m here today—but still, it’s just a possibility to be explored. As someone pointed out to me a few minutes ago, a lot of this is uncertain."

The woman’s face fell. "I... see. I approached Gabriel because I knew he was personally acquainted with you, and when he told me you would be here—"

"Gabe’s known for getting a
little
over-enthusiastic," Tom said dryly, drawing a rueful red-haired nod. "Though it’s true that we’re here in Nevada to take the first steps to construct a big experimental unit."

Sandy couldn’t bear to see the possibility of thrills dissipate so soon. "Now Tom,
surely
you could just take that little model at Enterprises and make the, the
capsule
part just a tiny bit bigger!"

Tom shook his head. "I’m afraid it’s not that simple. The problem isn’t the capsule, San, but the size of the gap between the twin lenses. The chronolens field doesn’t scale up in a smooth way—there are certain ‘notch-points’ that have to be used, or the energy demand is far too great. The next-larger focal point requires the sort of giant-sized unit we’ll be constructing here at the Test Site."

"Okay. Fine. So
build
it already and put Mina’s brick inside," demanded Gabe doggedly.

This forced a smile from the young inventor. "Sounds pretty simple! Well, the chances are pretty good. The basic modular elements are already being built in Shopton. We could have something up and running in a matter of weeks. Swift Enterprises is known for fast work."

Gabe grinned. "Enterprises doesn’t
waste
time, they
make
it."

Tom chuckled and turned back to Miss Finch. "Ma’am, I’ll do my best to help you. In fact—maybe I can help you at least a bit right now."

"Oh really? Right now?"

"Let’s head over to my aircraft, the Flying Lab. Perhaps some of my instruments can tell us what’s inside the container even before we get it open!"

Gabe Knorff had been in the
Sky Queen
before, but for Mina Finch it was a temple of wonders. As Sandy gave her a wide-eyed tour of the three-decker, Tom took the box to one of the middle-deck lab cubicles and began to subject it to various probing scans and tests. When he rejoined the others in the view lounge, they found the young inventor puzzled—and smiling determinedly at the challenge. "The container is made of a material called deucalionium carbide. It’s a sort of interlaced composite, dense and almost as strong as industrial-grade diamond."

"Isn’t it used in nuke-type stuff?" Sandy asked.

"It used to be," confirmed the youth. "Lately it’s been pretty much sidelined by some of Enterprises’ own discoveries, such as Tomasite and Neo-Aurium. But you’re right. It’s what Dr. Eckdal would have used years ago to contain nuclear materials. He wouldn’t have had any trouble getting the box fabricated to his specifications."

Mina looked surprised. "But it’s just a box with some sort of message inside—not some kind of atomic device."

"Well, it’s an ultrastrong metal to make a box out of, but there’s another reason. According to the scanning instruments, a tiny needle of uranium is embedded inside, connected to some fairly simple microcircuitry. My guess is that this is your timer. The uranium decays at a fixed rate—its ‘half-life’—and acts like a perfect clock.
Nothing
can affect it. Not even a court decision—this is what you can call
real
higher law! When it reaches a certain point in its decay, twenty-four years from now, I assume it’ll actuate the unlocking mechanism."

Sandy beamed. "But one thing
can
change the rate of decay—speeding up the flow of time itself!"

Miss Finch asked hopefully, "If you were able to see inside it—were you able to make out the message?"

"I’m afraid not," Tom replied. "The material is too dense for my instruments to penetrate all the way to the center. Of course I could slice it open—with an X-raser, say—but the point is
not
to do that."

The older woman nodded. "Well. You tried."

"There may not even
be
anything inside, like a piece of paper or microfilm. He could have made it more difficult to read electronically," Sandy speculated. "He could have inscribed it into the metal, or maybe painted it on."

Tom shrugged. "But the upshot is, I guess, that it’ll take the full-sized dyna-4 capsule to settle things."

Gabe nodded vigorously. "I may be a little headstrong, but I’m usually right—right? I knew you’d figure something out!"

"Figuring is easy, but
doing
—"

"Naaa, you’re a success story under a crewcut, Tom. And when you get it done, when the pie is opened—er, the box—the historic moment requires—"

"A photographer?" interjected Sandy.

"Please. A photo-journalist."

Tom and Sandy took Mina Finch for a sky-ride, a brief one—but long enough for the supersonic
Sky Queen
to reach the Grand Canyon. "I’m sure you’ve read about the Monoswift, ma’am—the floating tourist monorail Enterprises put together. There it is."

"It’s wonderful!" she gasped.

An hour later Tom and Sandy said their goodbyes at Gabe’s van. "Are you sure you don’t want to hold on to the box for me?" asked Miss Finch. "At first I kept it under the bed, but lately I’ve been keeping it in Joeren’s big safe in the basement."

"I’d prefer not to," Tom replied. "Actually, ma’am, I’m less concerned about the container than about your personal safety. If Torranz Eckdal is as unscrupulous as you’ve said—"

"We tend to deal with a
lot
of kidnappings," Sandy observed.

"Oh, I understand," was the response. "But you know, you can’t spend all your life worrying and fretting. The farmhouse—the whole property—has a good modern safety system. It’s all very—
romantic
, isn’t it? And at my age! Perhaps I should live under an assumed name. I feel like a spy!"

"Oh, it’s just the beginning, Mina," Sandy assured her happily. "Pretty soon you’ll be having adventures full time!"

"Just
living
full time—that’s enough for me, dear."

Tom and Sandy left Nevada below and behind, their thoughts—excited and mystified—flying even faster. "So what do you think, sis?" asked Tom. "Quite a story! Do we believe her? Or is she the first of your ‘suspects’?"

The pert girl sighed. "Oh, I
want
her to turn out to be a devious mastermind, I really do. But she seems awfully sweet and simple."

"I agree," nodded the young inventor. "I think it’s all as she says—as far as she knows, anyway."

"As far as she
knows
? You mean there’s hope for skullduggery?"

"Wouldn’t want to disappoint you!" Tom joked. "The thing is... Mina portrayed Torr Eckdal as, basically, a crook—an aggressive stop-at-nothing type of guy. His own son is barely in the ground, and he’s already engaged in a big lawsuit."

"One lousy human being."

"So isn’t something missing?"

"Hmm."

"Why hasn’t he made some kind of attempt to steal the box outright?"

Sandy thought it over. "Hmm!"

"She’s been keeping at the Eckdal farmhouse—even under the bed!—while all this legal business is going on. But she didn’t mention any break-ins, any mysterious watchers—nothing. By itself it probably doesn’t merit a thought, but—"

Sandy nodded. "But whether it
merits
a thought—it does make a person stop and think."

She looked at the expression on her brother’s frank face and gave him a slight nudge with her elbow. She knew these growing mysteries were usually batted back and forth with Tom’s best pal—not his sister.
The time-box mystery is second in line
, she thought. "Tom," she said, "there’s something else, isn’t there. You know better than she does how vulnerable the box is to being stolen. So why didn’t you take it with us?"

The young inventor frowned, and Sandy’s intuitions were confirmed. There
was
something else! "I feel guilty about my decision, sis, but I think a little bit of
you
is cropping up in
me
. I’m feeling suspicious—not of Miss Finch, but of the situation itself. Something’s not quite right in all this. What if Enterprises is being
used
—set up in some way? After the business with Asa Pike and his manipulations, I’d like to be able to pay attention to my current..." he began—and was interrupted.