Tom Swift and His Subocean Geotron (10 page)

"Come
on
! Let’s not stick around and find out!" Bud said, urging his horse forward.

Tom heeled his own mount into action. Soon they were racing at top speed along the rocky trail. Ed, the best horseman of the three, had unknowingly moved far ahead of the two youths. Suddenly Tom’s heart gave a jolt as he saw his pal’s horse stumble over a stone. Bud went flying out of the saddle!

Not bothering to yell out to Ed, Tom yanked his whinnying mount to a halt. As he leaped to the ground to assist Bud, the young inventor’s pulse quickened fearfully.

The masked riders were bearing down on them fast!

LUCKILY Bud was rock-stunned but unhurt. He struggled to his feet as Tom hurried toward him.

"Are you all right?" Tom asked anxiously.

Bud winced and rubbed the seat of his pants. "No bones broken, but I can see right now that I was never cut out to be a rodeo rider."

Spooked by the approaching horsemen, Tom’s and Bud’s mounts had trotted a good distance away. It was now hopeless to escape the men who were pursuing them. The boys stood their ground as the three riders halted nearby, impassive and threatening in their eerie masks.

"
Buenos días,
" said the leader in a quiet voice, dismounting. "We do not mean to harm you, señors."

Tom stared at the man and said warily, "That’s nice to know, sir. But you’ve driven our horses away and got my friend injured. I’ll count that as
harm
."

The leader muttered something to his companions, and Tom thought he heard them chuckle. In spite of the man’s friendly words, the trio wore knives in their belts and seemed ready to point trouble their way. Bud stared at their eerie masks. Made of polished wood, they portrayed hideous, hook-nosed faces with chin-beards and long, dangling ear lobes. They looked like the carved statuettes of evil spirits—called
the Long-Ears
—which they had seen for sale along the boulevard.

"If you come as friends, why are you afraid to show your faces?" Tom asked.

Instead of answering, the man said, "Señor, are you Tangata Manu—the Birdman? For you come from the sky in your great flying canoe."

The other laughed, and Tom and Bud knew they were being mocked. "You know our names," Tom pronounced. "Let’s see now, which one of you is my old friend Halspeth?"

The apparent leader was briefly silent. The three waited unmoving atop their mounts, staring like the great statues.

Plucking the knives from their belts, they nudged their horses and closed in on Tom and Bud.

"Do not fight and we will not hurt you," said the leader. "Be wise and turn around so that we may tie your hands."

The boys exchanged hasty glances, debating whether or not to put up a struggle. Against fists alone, neither would have hesitated, but knives made the odds too risky.

"We’d better do as he says," Tom muttered. Bud snapped off an angry nod.

The leader took chains from his saddle and bound each boy’s wrists together as his cronies rounded up the Americans’ horses. Tom and Bud were hoisted aboard their horses again, and the attackers took the bridle reins in hand. Then the group rode along the trail to a point overlooking the ocean, where a steep rocky slope led down the cliff to the water’s edge. Here they dismounted.

"Are we supposed to climb down there with our hands chained?" Bud growled. "You might as well just shoot us now."

"We will lower you with a rope, little birdman."

The boys were painfully lowered, bouncing and scraping against the lava-stone, down to the secluded cove. A small motor launch awaited them, two more masked men aboard, silently watching. These men were armed not with knives but revolvers. They used the guns to motion the boys aboard, and gunned the motor.

"Those cliffs make a nice cover for your operation," Tom said. "But you should realize that we have instruments on our plane that’ll make it easy for our crew to find us."

Bud realized his friend was trying to draw out the captors. "And it takes a big crew to fly the
Sky Queen
—big strong men. Enterprises hires ex-commandos for all its missions. Ever been shot with an electric rifle?" he blustered.

The men ignored them, one piloting the boat, one covering the prisoners with his revolver.

They traveled a great span of open sea, until low-lying Easter Island, and finally its volcanic peaks, had vanished behind the horizon. The afternoon sun was lowering in the sky when they bumped up against a tiny islet, a mound of rock and gravel in the middle of a wet nowhere.

The two youths, still chained, were motioned onto the gravel of the beach. "If this is your boss’s secret base, I’ve seen better," Tom remarked calmly.

The man with the gun at last broke his silence. "Look around you, Tom Swift. You see this little rock with your own eyes, desolate, isolated. Your cousin and the other one, the explorer, will raise an alarm, and the authorities will search for you. First they will search the town, then the rest of the island. It will be days before they begin to search the sea. When they come here at last, exposure, the sun, lack of food and water will have done their work on you. We will not need to touch you."

"What do you want?" demanded the young inventor.

"You have in your possession certain objects that have come your way. We want them. They are sacred to us."

Bud snorted. "Don’t tell me the Black Cobra’s got religion!"

"The objects are sacred to us," the man repeated. "We must have them. We are sure they are in your jet, somewhere protected by locks and security devices. You, Swift—we will take you back with us if you agree to cooperate, leaving your friend here to make you hesitate to betray us. When we have both objects and have gone our way unimpeded, we will release you and you can come pick him up, alive.

"But perhaps you will not pledge your assistance, not yet. What do you think?"

Tom shook his head. "You’ve got it all wrong. We’ll be located within hours. And so will you two—all of you. My cousin knows all about Breeman Halspeth; he’s probably been arrested already. I’d say
we’re
the ones who have the upper hand."

The man with the gun was unmoved. "This was expected. We will return tomorrow. Perhaps the night will lead you to reconsider. You will not sleep well."

As the boat sped away, the youths awkwardly lowered themselves onto the beach. "Let’s get to work on these wrist chains," Bud urged. "Sharp rocks and shells all over the place."

Prying open their cuff-bands was more difficult than expected, but finally they were free. "Time for a Tom Swift invention," gibed the Californian as he rubbed his wrists. "How about a sea shell radio? AM would be good enough."

Tom sat, gazing out at the waves and the red sun that now rested upon them. "I guess we’re stuck here, flyboy, until someone spots us." Tom pointed to a fin gliding through the water beyond the low breakers and added, "Unless you want to risk swimming past the sharks."

Bud shuddered. "No thanks. I’ve met more than enough. Not that sharks bother me. But after all, there’s no place to swim
to
. Except maybe whatsisname’s bedroom way down deep."

To pass the time, the boys explored the islet, a matter of a few dozen paces. Among the weirdly upjutting rocks they found deep hollows, overgrown with weedy grass. Nearer the water were loose clumps of reeds. Tom recognized them as totora reeds, which grew in the marshy crater lakes of Easter Island.

"What a place to get stranded!" Bud groaned.

"That’s the idea, pal."

Night fell with no sign of rescue, only ocean breeze. The boys heaped up the reeds on the beach and used them as mattresses.

They lay sleepless, conversing of various things that would draw their minds away from their insoluble predicament. "So, so," Bud murmured. "When we’re back and safe and everything’s just
sweet
, what’s next? An underwater search for that crypt?"

"Has to be," replied Tom. "We can’t forget what the X-ians told us—the threat of destruction. Since we didn’t get much from Tyburn, we’ll have to fly over the area where Nee and Ed made their discoveries. The gravity-mapper and the other instruments might be able to detect any areas of the floor where the beacon-objects are strewn fairly densely, if there are any."

"Sure—maybe even the crypt itself."

"And it’s always possible the X-ians will have squeezed more information out of the signal they intercepted, even without the other half of the artifact. Maybe."

Bud could hear the discouragement in Tom’s voice, and kept the conversation going. "So—the geotron-ic earthdrone. How’s that one coming? Bet you’re hard at work on it mentally even as we lie here!"

"It’s... okay," was the listless response. "Mr. Brundage sounded anxious to have it, and the technical basics are pretty well set. Seems kind of unimportant right now, what with everything else."

"If some of those beacons are buried deep in sea bottom junk, maybe you could use it to help you solve the
big
problem. You could set it to detect Lunite or somethin’."

"Sure, Bud," muttered Tom. "Sure."

Somehow they fell asleep beside the thundering surf.

Daybreak found them stiff and hungry. The coal-black rocks grew broiling hot in the rising sun,

"Man, I’m about ready to face those sharks," Bud grumbled. "How about you, genius boy?"

"Same here." Tom rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, looking at their mounds of reed. "You know, Bud... these totora reeds don’t grow here on this rock, obviously."

Bud nodded. "Yeah. I suppose they get washed into the surf around Easter Island and drift here. Say—that means we’re not as far from the island as we thought!"

"True. And the bigger point is—they float pretty well. They don’t just get sogged down and sink. You know," Tom said with sudden energy, "it seems to me we could escape by
boat
!"

Now a laugh punctuated Bud’s wry nodding. "Listen, genius boy. Building a jet-propelled railroad in the desert by hand, that I’ll believe. Making an igloo fly—even
that
I’ll believe. But as far as
weaving a boat
—!"

"Challenging me, Barclay?" Tom grinned. "I’ve seen reed boats in South America. We could make two for ourselves out of these reeds."

"Two boats? We haven’t enough for one."

"We have for the kind I’m talking about." Tom began bundling the long reeds into two separate sheaves, each shaped like a huge, curving tusk. Then he tied each sheaf at several points with knotted wreaths of weed.

Bud watched in puzzlement. "Those are boats? Planning to carve a couple outboard motors out of rock?—not that my inventive chum couldn’t manage it."

"Well,
call
them boats," Tom replied. "We’ll lie on them and paddle with our arms and legs. That way we won’t be quite such shark bait."

Bud exclaimed, "You
are
a genius, boy!" He added: "Admittedly, at some point on the trip we may not have any arms and legs to paddle
with
."

The boys picked up their reed floats and a few sharp rocks to use as anti-shark weapons, then waded, at a run, out past the breakers and launched themselves into the water. Bud was amazed at how well the frail craft worked. Soon they were gliding swiftly in the direction of the unseen mainland.

To their joy and relief, favorable winds and unexpectedly strong currents sped their journey. Hours and many miles later, the sun hot above them, they could make out the summits of Easter Island’s volcanoes far ahead.

There were many signs of shark, and the constant muscular effort—and the nervous watch for the returning enemies—exhausted them. They felt themselves becoming weary. Then Tom’s sudden yell electrified them. "Watch it! We’ve got company!"

A deadly-looking fin was knifing toward them! Both boys quickly withdrew their arms and legs from the water. The shark nudged Bud’s float slightly, then lost interest and swam off.

"Wh-
whew
!" Bud flicked perspiration from his brow. "That’s as pally as I like to get with those babies!"

Both were aware of the real danger to them. A crazed shark, scenting a meal and charging, could ram their frail floats and flop Tom and Bud into the sea—and into teeth like daggers.

The boys resumed paddling, strength redoubled by fear. As Easter Island slowly unveiled itself from its cloak of ocean, Bud’s face blanched. In the crystal-clear water, he could see a striped form streaking in his direction. A tiger shark! It zoomed upward.

The muscled athlete knew the uncertain temper of sharks—a blow could frighten it off, or only enrage it. As the snout broke water, he raised his arm and hurled a razor-sharp stone like the ex-footballer he was. The shark darted away! Bud went limp with relief. Then he chuckled weakly. Tom hadn’t even noticed!

Knowing they were too low in the water to be seen from shore—or from the masked gang’s motor launch—they drew near the island at long last, trembling with ache and pain. As the reed canoes landed on the beach in the pounding surf, a flock of mewing seabirds rose up from the crest of a towering pinnacle and winged across the small cove to a neighboring rocky spire.

Tom and Bud scarcely heard the shouts, in Spanish, from the beach, barely felt themselves lifted and dragged ashore by strong arms.

Unconsciousness approached not as darkness but as a blinding glare. As Tom’s senses fell away, he heard a woman’s cry of alarm, in English.

"Oh dear, no!
We’re too late!
"

"IT WAS the Englishwoman who brought you both to the hospital, in her lorry," said Ed Longstreet, seated between two hospital beds filled by a pair of sunburned, bruised, bandaged young men. "Just out on a jaunt taking photos to bring back to her kids. Man alive! I’ll never make fun of tourists again!"

"I’ll have to thank her," groaned Bud in husky voice, "just as soon as my muscles
shut up
for a while."

"What did Lieutenant Moreno say?" Tom asked feebly.

It was Nee Ruykendahl, seated nearby, who answered. "Of course he’s very impressed with your endurance, you two, and your ingenuity. I’m a bit envious."