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

got ahold of Chow in his kitchen and asked if he knew where― "
    "An’ I told him I’d jest come from servin’ you a snack," Chow babbled breathlessly, "so’s you’d have something in yer stomach afore you started playin’ with that gas I brung you t’other day. The man said t’stop you or you’d blame blow up! So I started in runnin’!"
    Ames gave Chow a slightly chiding look. "Next time, Chow, take a deep breath. You took off without telling me which lab Tom was in! I could have called him."
    The westerner looked abashed, but Tom quickly said, "But if Chow hadn’t come running down the hall, I wouldn’t have gone to the door."
    Ames nodded, the tone in his young boss’s voice turning him half-apologetic. "Yes. That’s true. And now that I think of it, you probably would have been caught on the lab phone—with me."
    "And it was cause Tom came to the door that I didn’t go rushin’ right in! One more second and we’d have been a couple mighty dead ducks!"
    "It was a miracle," Tom agreed.
    "Thank that anonymous phone tipster," said Ames.
    "I’ll be happy to if we ever find out who it was," Tom said wryly. "It’s another strange turnabout, just like the warning note about the jetrocopter. Well, let’s survey the damage."
    As Tom and Ames made their way into the lab through the growing throng of employees, Chow stayed behind to calm the crowd. "It’s ohhh- kay , buckaroos," the Texan drawled, like a cowhand soothing a herd of skittish steers.
    Inside the lab Tom was heartsick as he beheld the destruction caused by the hydrogen blast. The whole shop was a shambles. Windows had been blown out, filing cases lay toppled on the floor, shelves and workbench were littered with electronic debris and broken glass.
    "Good great grief!" Ames muttered.
    For a moment the only sound was the dripping of liquids from the broken bottles of chemicals. Then Tom walked over to examine the remains of his megascope space prober equipment. The loosely-rigged test components looked as if they had been smashed to bits by a sledge hammer.
    "It’s a tough break, boss," Ames murmured.
    "We’ve had tougher ones, Harlan, and they haven’t stopped us yet. Neither will this one." Tom swallowed hard and summoned up a grin. "Actually, it’s not so bad at that. I hadn’t invested much time in these preliminary components. I can build new ones in hours," he declared firmly. "It looks as though our unknown playmate has managed to slow me down just a bit. But I’ll tell you this. I’m going to get a working model of the megascope up and running in time to watch Bud’s blastoff to Venus!"
    There were no clues as to the identity of the woman who had placed the warning call to Ames. But that evening a clue turned up unexpectedly at Tom’s home.
    Sandy rushed into the living room waving a small piece of paper in her hand, the size and shape of a business card. "Tom, I found this stuck in one of my magazines, one that was just delivered this afternoon!"
    Tom scanned the card and its brief handwritten message.
H2 for He.
Are you having fun yet, Tom?
We sure are!
Till next time.
    Women With Issues
    "Hydrogen for helium," Tom muttered, deeply absorbed.
    "But this sounds like a joke from a late-night comedy skit!" sniffed Sandy. "Or maybe a rock band—‘ Women With Issues ’! Sometimes I think this ‘political correctness’ stuff is going way too far."
    "It’s a threat, sis," Tom said simply. "It has to be taken seriously, whatever these people want to call themselves."
    The card had already been handled and scraped about too much for usable fingerprints to be likely. But Tom held it up to the light, keenly scrutinizing it.
    "Do you see something?" Sandy asked.
    "Maybe so," her brother murmured. He held up the card in front of her, turning it so it was at an angle to the lamplight to accentuate any shadows. "Doesn’t it look like there’s something on the back side, sort of scratched into it?"
    "Oh Tomonomo, you’ve got to read more