Free Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober by Victor Appleton II

shadow. About fifty miles short of a landing, Tom swiveled the gravity-concentrator and eased the Space Kite into a low orbit.
    "Right on the button," Hank said with a glance at his watch. "Boy, what a sweet flight!"
    "I’m afraid it’s already becoming a routine commute," Tom chuckled. At the appointed time, Tom activated the PER unit. To his thrilled delight, Arv again responded with no gap in time.
    " This is great ," enthused Arv. " Normally there’d be a noticeable lag in responding at your distance—about two seconds total. But not now! Tom, it’s as if you were standing here in the lab next to me. "
    Tom shot Sterling a happy glance. "Thanks, Arv. Now we’ll put the whole moon in between us and see what happens."
    As Tom clicked off, Hank chortled: "Take that , Einstein!"
    The Space Kite began to round the moon. The crystalline blue earth seemed to descend toward the lunar horizon and finally dipped behind it.
    Tom tried the PER. Again—perfection!
    Hank Sterling whistled. "Hard to believe how your signal goes right through all that rock."
    " What signal?" grinned Tom. "As explained by noted philosopher Chow Winkler, there aren’t really two units but one —even with a couple hundred thousand miles and a great big rock between the speakers!"
    Before Hank could comment he was startlingly interrupted as the PER set developed a shrill whistling noise. Wincing, Tom hastily adjusted the speaker controls, but the whistling seemed to be growing louder.
    "A little static in your no -signal?" gibed Hank.
    "It’s nothing to do with the quantum link," declared Tom. "Some sort of induction must be affecting the sound-reproduction circuitry directly. I’ll have to switch off the speaker."
    "What could be causing it, Skipper? An enemy?"
    "Or a heavenly body on the loose," Tom stated grimly.
     
CHAPTER 10
WOMEN WITH ISSUES!
    HANK STERLING was startled by Tom’s cool remark! He wondered fleetingly if the young inventor had meant it as a joke. But Tom’s face was deadly serious. The eyes of the astronaut darted to the space radarscope on the instrument panel.
    "Look at this" he murmured quietly.
    A fine faint line of light seemed to be tracing itself on the screen. Was an object streaking toward them? A meteor? A missile perhaps? The radar scan gave a bright picture of the nearer heavens, but its scale was not designed for an accurate pickup of smaller phenomena at a great distance.
    "Why is it so faint and fuzzed-out?" Hank wondered aloud.
    The two could make out nothing unusual through the dome. But something seemed to be approaching them! The young inventor’s brain was frantically weighing the odds against them, two lone crewmen in a tiny ship. Should he race for earth? Or try circling for cover beyond the moon’s further rim?
    But then the two cried out as a brilliant flash of silver-blue light flooded the cabin!
    The flare was gone in an instant, but left Tom and Hank dazzled, momentarily unable to read the instruments. Were they under fire from a marauder in space?
    Tom’s vision cleared, and he strained to study the radar monitor. "Whatever it was is gone," he pronounced.
    "Right! Mainly because it blew up!"
    But Tom Swift shook his head. "There was an explosion all right. But I’m not so sure it was the object itself, whatever it was. Look at these readings."
    Hank gulped. "High-energy radiation—hot stuff! We’d be fried in here if it weren’t for the Inertite coating!"
    "But the triangulation focus isn’t even close to the last position of the radar bogie," Tom pointed out. "Yet there has to be a connection. If a spacecraft set off the blast remotely, it could have ducked behind the horizon while we were getting our eyes back." After a moment, though, he reconsidered somewhat, admitting that what they had witnessed might have been some unknown natural phenomenon. "Hank, that radiation profile almost suggests a matter-antimatter collision—from two masses smaller than a pea! It’s not