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

impossible."
    "Know what I say, Skipper?" Hank muttered wanly. "I say, Earth, here we come! "
    As they orbited out from behind the moon, Tom reported the incident to Enterprises by means of the Space Kite’s conventional radiocom. There was no further danger during the three-hour return trip—nor any clue to the mystery in space.
    Back safely in Shopton, the Private Ear Radio having proven its worth, Tom’s work continued apace. After refining the PER console and adding a message-alert beeper, Tom sent Bud one of the units as promised, and Bud used it to call back to tell his friend that the Astro-Dynamics officials had given him permission to take it with him on the mission.
    "How’s your pal Chippy?" Tom asked.
    "Obnoxious, and getting really good at it! But I’ve learned to ignore him. Let the Chippys fall where they may!"
    Bud asked if Tom had made any progress in the matter of the Eyeballer drone or the freeze-ray ambushers. "Nope, flyboy," was the rueful reply. "And I guess I’m afraid to admit to myself that I don’t have even a sliver of an idea as to how to proceed. I’m afraid Asa Pike’s confidence may have been misplaced."
    "Never! Hey, don’t tell me I need to give you a pep talk! Just wait, Tom—when you start playing around with your megascope, your Swiftonian brain’ll probably unleash a whole flood of new ideas."
    "I sure hope so."
    Thinking about Bud’s encouraging suggestion, Tom decided to concentrate on developing the basic components of the megascope into a testable form. "I’ll need to start out with a ‘quiet’ multiplier circuit. That’s for sure," he told himself.
    After two hours of benchwork, Chow having just brought a snack to fortify him, the young inventor wheeled the tank of helium Chow had delivered over to his workbench and began to draw off some of the gas into a smaller compression tank, which he would take to the lab room nearby where Arv Hanson had constructed a working model of the improved and redesigned translimator.
    Suddenly there was a clatter of cowboy boots down the corridor, and Chow let out a bellowing cry: " Boss! Tom! Run for yer life! "
    "What’s he up to now?" Tom muttered, striding up to the lab door and throwing it open just as the ex-Texan came running up.
    Then Tom was catapulted into the corridor as a terrific explosion shook the laboratory!
    The concussion from the blast bowled Tom and Chow over. The cook had given his boss a hard tug, and as Chow rocked backwards Tom sailed right over him as if jet propelled and banged his head against the opposite wall.
    "Tom! Son, are you all right? Say somethin’!"
    Chow’s voice seemed muffled, as if he were shouting through layers of cotton batting. Tom rolled over and shook his head, trying to clear his brain.
    "That mean you’re not all right?" demanded Chow frantically.
    "I’m—I—just let me catch my breath." In a moment Tom struggled up, with Chow helping him. "How about you, pardner? The blast hit you too!"
    "Naw, barely touched me. You were standin’ right spang in the way!"
    Somewhere or other, alarms were shrieking. Through bleary eyes Tom saw Harlan Ames running up the hall, his normally controlled countenance white with anxiety.
    "Thank heavens you’re all right, Skipper!" he panted. "And you, Chow?"
    "Still with ya."
    Meanwhile, employees were rushing into the hall from both directions. The blast had evidently been heard all over the lab building—outside too, judging by the shouting seeping through the entrance door.
    "Exactly what happened?" Tom asked. "Chow? Harlan?"
    "I got an anonymous phone tip on my cell phone, just now," Ames explained. "The caller—it was a woman—said someone had substituted hydrogen for helium in a tank delivered to you last Monday, set to detonate when the tank pressure dropped. I tried to reach you by phone and the plant intercom but got no answer, and I didn’t know where you were working. I hopped into a nanocar and blazed over to this end of the plant. I