Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space (15 page)

A moment later Tom heard the click of a receiver being lifted. A shrill, angry voice began to pour out a flood of indignant complaints. "Take it easy, Mr. Rhoderman," Tom said in a mild voice. "You haven’t been charged with anything so far."

"Then what’s the idea of having me arrested?" stormed the salesman.

"You haven’t been arrested yet," the sheriff’s voice broke in. "You were merely brought here for questioning. Remember, this is America and you’re innocent till we figger out how and why you did it!"

"I’ve already answered your questions," retorted Rhoderman. "What else do you want to know?"

"Someone placed an electronic listening device in a beach hamper I was using," said Tom. "That’s a serious felony. Can you explain how the footprints leading away from it happen to match yours?"

"No, and I don’t propose to try. I dare say I’ve left my prints all over the beach since I’ve been here. If that’s the only evidence you have against me, better pull in your horns!"

"We
will
need more evidence to hold Mr. Rhoderman," Olmenez admitted, none too happily.

Tom asked Rhoderman several other pertinent questions, hoping to catch him off guard or perhaps link him in some way with the attack in the swamp. But the salesman parried all questions cleverly, without revealing any useful information.

Finally Tom said, "All right. I guess there’s no use pressing the matter any further."

"I
know
what this is about, Swift. This is your petty way of getting back at Quik Battery for taking you to court!"

"You’re free to go, Rhoderman," the sheriff growled. Rhoderman slammed down the phone. "I’m convinced that he’s our man," commented the officer. "We’ll get authorization to put a tail on ’im, and I’ll let you know if he tries any funny business."

Tom thanked the officer for his prompt and efficient handling of the case, then hung up and contacted Ken Horton, who had just finished a training seminar. When Horton heard the story, he was glad to learn that Rhoderman would be shadowed. The two new friends talked for a couple of minutes. Then Tom glanced up and saw that Bud was standing nearby, a disapproving expression on his face.

"I
thought
you
might
like to know that a crate just arrived from your friend in Philadelphia," Bud said. "It contains one of those new solar batteries made by the Quik Corporation. Want it hooked up to the test equipment?"

"Yes! Thanks, pal," Tom said excitedly.

Tom found himself pacing up and down impatiently while the crate was ripped open by two workers with crowbars, and the shiny black battery case lifted out. "So that’s York’s latest baby," Bud remarked, as he helped attach the battery terminals to the test-leads. Tom closed a switch on the control board and the needle swung far around the dial.

Bud groaned. "Hey, that’s as powerful as your battery!"

Tom nodded with a worried frown. "Right. And what’s worse, York’s beaten us to the punch by putting it on the market. By the time we bring out our model, the Quik outfit may have things all sewed up!"

With eager fingers he clamped on other test equipment that would expose the battery to a heavy and varying load, mimicking its real-life utilization. Ten minutes passed; then he hooked it up again to the voltmeter on his control board. The needle flickered weakly. The battery was almost dead!

Tom gave a whoop of relief. It was clear that York’s engineers had failed to conquer the problem of how to keep their battery from discharging too fast. Tom’s, on the other hand, had stood up under heavy testing. It would hold its charge for years! "But their desensitizer is almost worthless," Tom concluded as Bud congratulated him.

The two left the lab side by side, talking excitedly. As they neared the zero-G chamber, Bud commented that Chow had gone inside for his second session. "Guess I shouldn’t have left the controls for so long," said the dark-haired pilot, "but that machine can practically run itself."

But Tom suddenly looked alarmed. "Look!" he exclaimed.

Floating in mid-air, Chow was slumped over—limp and unconscious!

"Good night!" Bud cried. He eased off the power, and Chow gently floated down to the floor of the chamber. Tom unsealed the door and rushed inside. He could hear Chow breathing deeply.

Tom shook his portly friend by the shoulder, and Chow’s breathing became louder and deeper than ever. Then his head lolled over to one side and his lower jaw dropped open. Tom frowned, and a moment later his suspicion became a certainty. Chow was snoring!

Now the young inventor shook his patient forcefully. "Chow!
Wake up!"

The cook’s eyes flickered open. He mumbled a sleepy reply. Then he caught sight of his boss, and Bud on the other side of the transparent wall. Chow sat up, blinking in surprise. "Sa-a-ay, what in thunderation’s goin’ on here?" he demanded.

"You just fell asleep in the zero-G chamber, that’s what!" snapped Tom irritably. "Had me and Bud scared half out of our wits thinking something was wrong!"

"Huh? Asleep?" Chow echoed, then grinned sheepishly. "Brand my space suit, I shouldn’t o’ stayed up to watch that hoss opera on TV last night! I ain’t fit fer nuthin’ the next day after a late movie."

Chow was so apologetic that Tom burst out laughing. "All right, par’ner, let’s give it another try. But no more doping off in there, or you flunk this test for sure!"

This time, Chow came through with flying colors, and promised to report wide awake for future tests.

The weeks passed very quickly. Snowfalls came and went in Shopton, while in tropical Loonaui teams of workers struggled to construct Tom’s underwater space-launch system. Finally word came that the system was complete and had passed all tests, including the launch of a payload into orbit. With Tom’s father and Jake Aturian giving the final word, the prefabricated modules of the space outpost were packed up and freighted off to the South Pacific.

One evening Tom sat in his living room with Bashalli Prandit. His mother and father were upstairs, and Sandy had gone off to see a movie with Bud.

"No bullets will be shooting through this room tonight, I do hope," remarked Bashalli, eyes dancing merrily.

"Not permitted without prior arrangement," Tom replied humorously. After a thoughtful pause, he said: "Bash, have you noticed Bud being a little on edge lately?" He went on to explain Bud’s unsettled reaction to Ken Horton. "I don’t know how to reassure Bud. Ken’s checked out in every respect."

Bashalli gave Tom a chiding look. "Do you really not understand, Thomas? You Americans! Always toughing it out. Does it not occur to you that good friends can be jealous of friends?"

Tom looked puzzled. "But what in the world does—?" Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh!"

"You see now?"

"Sure! Sandy
was
pretty taken with Ken, wasn’t she! Bud must think Ken’s trying to cut in on him."

"Well, yes, that could be
one
of—"

"I wish he’d talk it through with San, instead of taking it out on me," Tom mused. "Ken hasn’t mentioned Sandy. I don’t think he even recognized you two when he met you the other day."

Bashalli gave him a frown.
"That
is not a very flattering thing to bring up, you know. No doubt you have kept him distracted with—"

Suddenly Tom leapt to his feet.
"Bash!"

"What?"

"Out there, on the other side of the hedge! He’s there again—the Gorilla!"

BASHALLI GASPED in fear. "No! What shall we do?"

"Lights off!" Tom whispered. He flicked off the master wall switch. All the lamps went dark. Only a faint glow filtered into the room between the flecks of falling snow from a late-season snowfall. "Switch off the hallway light—go tell Mom and Dad to stay upstairs for now—and you too!"

The gorilla-like figure had been standing outside the low hedge that enclosed the broad front lawn, near the public road. Now he was nowhere to be seen. But as Tom watched, headlights flickered to life and began to rush off down the road, along with the growl of an engine.

Since the events of the other evening, Mr. Swift had insisted on having a pulsator pistol on hand near the front door. Now Tom grabbed the electric disabling device and cautiously opened the door, checking the magnetic security detector dial to make certain that it registered no one in hiding.

In the light snow Tom made his way across the yard, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. He saw no sign of anyone. But he noticed large footprints etched in the snow further on, by the roadway, as well as the tracks of a car that appeared to have been parked there for some length of time.
Gone!
he thought.

"Wasn’t me,"
said an impossibly deep voice, making Tom jump.

"Who’s there?" hissed the young inventor. He brandished the pulsator pistol. "What do you want?" There was no answer, only the silence of falling snow. Not wanting to make himself a target, he hadn’t brought a flashlight out with him; now he could only turn slowly, trying to make out what he could in the gloom.

He stopped turning. Some thirty feet distant, a black silhouette against the gray of bushes, was a hulking form that he recognized at once.

Tom could not make out the Gorilla’s face, only its outline. The man’s words came out without warning, touched with an accent that Tom decided was French. "They were in a car, parked and watching with infra-red binocs. They didn’t see me. I let
you
see me—wanted a little confab. When you killed the lights, they left."

"Who are ‘they’?" Tom asked.

"Your enemies. Baby Mosquitoes."

"And who are you?"

The man chuckled. "You named me.
Gorilla
isn’t the worst thing I’ve been called, young man."

"So you’re Miza Ranooq?"

"In another life."

"Do you plan to tell me what’s going on? Or are you going to finish the job you and your buddies started in Florida?" Tom was slowly backing away.

"That
is a most uncharitable judgment, Tom. Or as your friend might put it,
not very flattering."
Tom could feel the blood leaving his face. The Gorilla had been listening to his casual conversation with Bashalli!

"Okay," said Tom, trying to keep his voice steady. "I’ll just stand here. Play your game, and go."

"No game," retorted Ranooq. "By the way, you can forget using your electric gun on me. I’m protected against it, naturally."

"Naturally."

"Now let me tell you a few things, Tom. That other night, I wasn’t the one who fired the spy shell through your house. I was watching the one who did, though—Eli Rhoderman, incidentally. He slunk into a prepared hiding place, thinking he could recover the bullet, with its recorded data, after everyone went back inside. But I handed him a disappointment—I got to it first!"

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing at all. Wrong point in the play."

"Uh-huh. So what’s he after?"

"Money. His boss York pays him to spy on you, but lately he’s been peddling the stuff to Stanis Blatka too. Hence the bug in Florida. He also hired the two thugs to keep tabs on you and your friends; then Blatka decided he wanted you out of the picture. The phony Aer-Cel tank was Blatka’s idea, though Rhoderman’s the one who arranged it. He’s a busy little bee."

"Let me guess," said Tom with heavy sarcasm. "In the swamp, you were around just to
protect
me—right?"

"Right, Tom. If either of them had succeeded in drawing a bead on you, they wouldn’t have lived to see the bullet miss the mark."

Feeling the chill of the snow, Tom shook his head skeptically. "Why should I believe any of this? What do you get out of this?"

"Nothing but my salary," said Ranooq. "After all, it’s
your tax dollars at work!"

Tom was thunderstruck. "Are you trying to tell me—
you’re
the Taxman?"

Ranooq laughed. "Let’s just say we all work for Collections. You’re getting to be a pretty popular fellow around the office, Tom. We want to see you alive and well. You’re doing a sterling job upholding your unique little strip of the human genome—like your great-grandfather did. But we can’t interfere too much."

"Wrong point in the play?"

The Gorilla laughed again, amiably. "A few more things and I’m outta here. First, your Mosquito is a mighty smart guy. We can’t touch him right now, but
he
can touch
you
—even 22,300 miles up in space. Don’t take your safety for granted up there.

"Second, if you don’t tell the world about your space friends,
we will!
It’s too important to keep bottled up until you and your Dad are good and ready.

"Third, don’t waste breath and body heat asking me how we know what we know."

"Anything else?" Tom asked.

"Yes, I suppose—one thing. Stop being such a pig-headed boy genius and
take a good look at the people around you!
We like you, Tom Swift, but sometimes you make us wanna cry!"

Tom’s left hand was thrust into his pants pocket. Now he stretched out a finger and pressed a button on the remote control unit secreted there. Instantly the Swift property was flooded with light.

But no one stood in the light but Tom Swift himself. Miza Ranooq, the Gorilla, was gone.

Tom reported the eerie incident—to his family, to Harlan Ames, to the police. But there was nothing to be done, and little to be said.

Four days later, Tom, Bud, Mr. Swift, and four-dozen trained astronauts—Ken Horton and Chow Winkler among them—took off in the
Sky Queen
for Loonaui. This was the first small step in an epic journey that would end 22,300 miles above the earth!

Landing at the airstrip that had been cleared and paved near the old hotel, Space Central, the boys emerged from the Flying Lab to a din of shouts and cheers from the assembled work force.

For weeks aircraft and ocean vessels had been delivering supplies and equipment to the makeshift spaceport in the Pacific. The extent of the construction work since Tom and Bud’s previous visit, guided by Hank Sterling among others, was astonishing.

"Brand my neutralator, you got a reg’lar rocket city built up on this little ole island!" Chow gaped at the extent of the humming base surrounding the hotel, with its machine shops, commissary, barracks, and recreation areas. Special docks had been built for the fuel tankers and salvage tugs. And the hangars and warehouses were crammed with supplies and parts-assemblies for the outpost in space.