Tom Swift and His Flying Lab (10 page)

"Now tell me this, Tom of the Swifts. Why is most of your ship all the same color, but not the top?" She ran a finger along the top of the model, which was a dark olive-green, almost black, in contrast to the shiny metallic color of the rest of the model craft.

"Because the
Queen
is mainly
solar
powered," explained Tom. "Beneath the semitransparent ‘roof’ are multiple layers of photosensitive foil which turns the intense sunlight of the upper atmosphere into electricity, to be stored in reciprocal resonance capacitors."

"Think of them as flywheels," Bud said.

"As far as I am concerned, a flywheel is an exercise device for flies," Bashalli quipped. "But it is this sunlight-power that makes the ship go?"

"Well, it gives us the electricity we need, which is a lot," Tom replied. "The actual propulsion comes from the four big jet engines at the rear, running on a new kind of hydrogen fuel, which is mixed with atmospheric oxygen in a free-electron grating."

Bashalli nodded. "I was wondering if you had a free-electron grating. And now I will ask you the big question, Tom. Why are the wings so puny, and facing the wrong way?" Tom and Bud grinned at each other. In place of the broad wings a large aircraft would be expected to have, the Flying Lab had only two small pontoon-shaped fins toward the front of the fuselage, angled forward.

"Here, let me show you something," said Tom, guiding Bashalli over to one side of the room. He switched on a small desk fan and aimed it in her direction.

"Feel that?"

She nodded. Tom picked up a rodlike instrument from its place on a worktable and thrust it into the stream of air. "And now?"

"And now it is much less," Bashalli said. "Have you invented an anti-fan machine?"

Tom chuckled. "Not exactly. You see, moving air tends to develop a slight electric charge—that’s why you can give yourself a shock on a dry windy day when you touch a conductor. The charge doesn’t amount to much, but this invention of mine generates a hyper-localized electromagnetic field that interacts with the charge developed by the airflow next to the hull, deflecting the flow. Those puny wings on the
Sky Queen
aren’t wings at all, but aeolivanes, which—"

"Which Tom named after Aeolus, the god of the winds," Bud interjected.

"What they do is force the air flowing around the ship to go
under
the ship. The underside of the ship is the actual lifting surface. See?"

"See!" exclaimed Bashalli.

The boys showed their friend models of the
Kangaroo Kub
and the
Skeeter
. While examining the latter, she remarked, "And tell me why you call this thing a jetrocopter."

"It stands for ‘jet-rotor copter’," Tom explained.

"Then if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you should have called it the
Jethro
," Bashalli said with a smile, her eyes twinkling merrily.

That evening Bud joined the Swift family for supper. "How’s it going?" he asked. "Ready for tomorrow?"

Tom grinned and held up crossed fingers. "Totally."

"Will you be going up as well, dear?" Mrs. Swift asked her husband.

"Yes, Anne," he replied with a warm smile. "I’m as excited as a kid! The
Sky Queen
has the potential to revolutionize high-altitude research. Even these days, in a new millennium, there’s so much we don’t know about our own world and its atmosphere. Which reminds me," he went on, turning to Tom, "I’ve made some further progress deciphering the space symbols."

"The two triangles?"

"Yes," Mr. Swift confirmed. "Their mutual orientation is in ratio to the other symbols that we’ve concluded represent Earth and Mars. But the significant thing is, the triangles are incomplete—there’s a small gap in their outlines. I believe this indicates a problem to be solved involving our two worlds. Taking the adjacent array into account, I’m inclined to think it’s an environmental problem, perhaps something to do with our atmosphere or surface temperature."

Tom nodded with obvious pleasure. "I’ve come up with the same thing!"

Bud now broke in. "Say, I’ve been meaning to ask—have you been able to analyze what the missile is made of since you moved it to your laboratory?"

"No, not at all," Tom responded. "Spectrograph readings, from reflected light, indicate a silicate base, but the other lines just don’t make sense in those combinations. And we can’t extract a sample, because nothing penetrates it, not even a laser."

"Nor can we see inside the thing," added Mr. Swift, "not by x-ray, not by sonogram, not by magnetic resonance. And it absorbs radar waves perfectly."

"What gets me is that there’s no thrust exhaust opening," Bud said.

"We don’t know what makes it go," Tom remarked, "but someday we’ll figure it out, and that’ll open the door on a whole new propulsion technology for our little world."

Late that night, Tom lay tossing and turning in his bed. The excitement of the upcoming day—the first flight of the
Sky Queen
—seemed to surge over him like waves of electricity.

Suddenly he heard an eerie, low sound, almost like a whistle. Wearily opening his eyes, he first glanced toward his window, then lazily turned over on his side in the other direction.

Then Tom froze, his eyes bulging in disbelief.

A luminous, inhuman figure was floating towards him from across the room!

"GOOD GOSH!" Tom thought, his pulse racing. "Am I dreaming?"

The bizarre intruder was glowing a faint turquoise green, most of the luminosity emanating from its rounded, bulbous head, which seemed to be semi-transparent. There was no sign of nose, mouth, ears, or hair on the being’s head, and only two dark ovals where its eyes should be. Below the head there was a suggestion of shoulders and a torso, but the glow extended no further down than that. It did not move like a person walking, but like something hovering in midair, ghostlike.

Tom forced himself to speak aloud. "Can you hear me?"

The intruder seemed to pause, waiting.

"Are you from the planet that sent the missile to us? My name is Tom Swift." Tom sat up, swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed. "If you could hang there for just a minute, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. She’s really just your type, and I happen to know she’s desperate for a date. But listen, ET, don’t let her cook for you if you value your health!"

There was a stifled burst of male laughter from the hallway, along with Sandy’s irritated voice. "Oh, stop it, Bud, it’s
not
funny."

Sandy marched through the bedroom doorway, flipping on the light.

"Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t even try to fool
you,
Tom," she said.

Bud poked his head through the door. "What gave us away?"

"Nothing, flyboy—for about ten seconds," answered Tom, sitting cross-legged on his bed. "Then I heard the floorboards creak out in the hall. So what have we here?"

The "alien" turned out to be a sort of balloon sculpture, its "eyes" drawn on by dark marking-pen. A six-foot length of rigid plastic tubing, carefully taped to the back of the figure’s head, allowed Bud to lift and maneuver it while out of sight in the hallway.

"How did you make it glow green like that?"

"Just a little penlight shining up the tube," answered Sandy, "which was my idea, and pretty clever if you ask me! The color of the balloons gave color to the light, and the tube—"

"I know," said Tom; "leftover pipe from when we had the lawn sprinklers redone."

"Think of this as a send-off gag celebrating the big flight," Bud remarked.

"It was a good one," Tom chuckled. "And yes, sis, it was pretty clever, and I guess I deserved it, too."

Tom slept restfully for the remainder of the night, and began the workday with a burst of energy. Now and then he glanced out the office window, which was high enough to allow a view of the nearby road to Shopton. He couldn’t resist the thrill of pride as he took note of rows of parked cars and groups of people sitting in lawn chairs along the road, as if awaiting an air show. The road was also dotted with news vans from all networks and all parts of the country.

At 10:30 Damon Swift entered the office with a tall, red-haired young man who sported a neatly trimmed moustache. Bud Barclay entered behind them.

"Tom, this is Ripley ‘Ripcord’ Hulse, the former Marine Corps pilot I’ve been telling you about," said Mr. Swift.

Tom shook the visitor’s hand, taking note of his firm grip. He liked him immediately. "Pleased to meet you, Ripcord."

"Aw, just Rip—please," he responded with an easy grin. "I’ve grown to hate that nickname. My unit buddies gave it to me. Guess they thought it was funny."

The Swifts had agreed to engage a professional pilot to serve as Tom’s second in command, able to take charge of the Flying Lab while Tom was occupied with an experiment or doing work elsewhere. In addition to serving with distinction in the Central European and Middle-Eastern conflicts, Hulse was an experienced jetliner pilot and came with a full security clearance. He had just completed a course that computer-simulated the finer points of flying the
Sky Queen,
but had never yet set foot within the craft.

"We’re in the final checkout phase right now," Tom explained. "I’d like to introduce you to our key engineers and hangar mechanics before we lift off."

"That’d be great," he replied with enthusiasm.

Tom, Bud, Rip, and Mr. Swift ridewalked over to the great underground hangar, where Rip was introduced around. Though Tom maintained a stream of small-talk, his stomach was in knots and every muscle was charged. This was it!—the first crucial test of the
Sky Queen
in its natural environment, the sky!

Drawing Rip away from the others, Tom and his father told him some of the details of their secret mission to outwit the rebels.

Mr. Swift mentioned that though the leaders apparently had both sufficient money and scientific training to carry out their plans, it was suspected that they were holding certain top-notch Hemispak scientists from whom they had forced vital information under threats against their families.

"A bad situation," Rip agreed. "Maybe my background as a worker-bee in combat for Uncle Sam will come in handy."

"It may well," Mr. Swift replied. "And now for your preview of the
Sky Queen."

About a half-hour later when they reached the second level of the mammoth ship, Tom unlocked the door to the laboratory and rolled back the fireproof panel. Rip stared in astonishment. Then, as they went from one laboratory section to another, he exclaimed: "Oh man, this is fabulous! I’ve never seen anything like it!"

"You shore haven’t," said a voice behind him, and Chow ambled in. Tom introduced him. "This ole lab," the cook went on, "has got more bottles than the biggest drugstore in the world. An’ look at them tools!" He pointed to one wall of the laboratory. "If there’s one missin’ from that there collection—well, brand my cactus, I’ll eat me a pound o’ Texas sand!"

Another section of the laboratory was given over to numerous machines ranging from tiny scales to an ore crusher. Many of them were unknown to Rip, who shook his head in wonder at the neat arrangement of the manually and electronically operated devices.

"Tom, kin I show Rip the lights?" begged Chow boyishly.

"Sure. Go ahead."

Chow went from one battery of lights to another. The Swifts were amazed that he had picked up so much information from listening to the engineers when the various switches had been installed.

"Now this here little feller"—the cook pointed to a midget green bulb—"that one don’t connect to nothin’, jest needs impulses out o’ the air to make it light up. An’ this giant here—it’s fearful powerful."

Tom explained that this was really the newest development of the Swift giant searchlight, a laser-like super illuminator, and that no one would use it unless he were wearing special lenses to protect his eyes. It was attached to a boom that could be extended into a small dome on the underside of the hull.

"Well, all I can say is, the millennium is really here!" Rip grasped Tom’s hand as the group exited into the hangar. "I’d call this a scientist’s dream come true."

Tension and excitement ran high at Swift Enterprises as news spread beyond the engineers and hangar crew that the giant craft was about to make its debut. After a last-minute checkup in the underground hangar, Tom threw a master switch on a wall panel. A warning horn sounded. As if by magic the roof slowly split in two. Huge gears lifted half the structure to one side, the other half in the opposite direction.

"Okay," Tom shouted to one of his engineers. "Ready for the elevator."

Slowly the hydraulic lifts pushed up the floor beneath the
Sky Queen.
When the edge of the floor came even with the ground level, the elevator stopped. Four rubber-tired tractors pulled the plane out to the flying field as excited cheers rang through the air, not only from the assembled Swift Enterprises employees, but from the distant onlookers outside the perimeter fence.

"What a beauty!" Rip exulted at the sight of the Flying Lab gleaming in the sun at last. "It’s even better than the underground preview, Tom!"

Engineers and workmen exclaimed over the giant plane as it was towed to a specially marked spot on the runway. The area, a quarter of a mile square, was made of special ceramic brick to withstand the blasts of the jet lifters.

The onlookers, standing at a safe distance to avoid any danger of being burned, cheered and shouted anew as Tom and the others went up the boarding rampway and through the main hatchway into the ship. All went immediately to their designated places. Tom took the pilot’s seat, Rip the copilot’s seat. Bud stood directly behind them. Mr. Swift had decided to station himself in the laboratory where he could monitor the stability of the various chemicals, bottled liquids, and the electronic equipment, which now included the new Damonscope. As the electronic circuitry inside the walls interfered with televoc communications, everyone flipped on his intercom phones, and Bud took charge of the radio link to the plant, so that Tom could give his undivided attention to the test flight.