Free Tom Swift and His Subocean Geotron by Victor Appleton II Page A

will."
    Tom looked at the explorer coolly. "I’d rather not put half of Mexico into a state of alarm. Before I do anything further with the objects, I’ll try to get more information from the extraterrestrials."
    Nee seemed to deflate. "I wish I possessed your scientific calm. Alas, the celebrated Ruykendahl is not a reasonable man. But that’s all right. Reasonable men do not have such interesting lives."
    "Scientists do lead pretty humdrum lives," Bud cracked.
    Securing the artifacts, they returned to the lounge. "Mind a suggestion, cuz?" offered Ed. "Make Easter Island your next stop. I know you’ll want to use your submersible equipment to search on the ocean bottom, but you might get some sort of lead as to the location of more of the beacons by speaking with a fellow I met there last summer, when the Wascala anchored there for a couple days."
    "And what might this man know of these ancient objects?" asked Nee with some irritation.
    "He’s an expert on native lore and culture," replied Ed. "If there are many of these objects out there, they may turn up in fishing nets now and then, or wash ashore. If you could map out where they’re found, wouldn’t that be a clue as to the location of the crypt? Even if it hasn’t happened in modern times, local myths and traditions sometimes ‘encode,’ in their own way, information about such strange incidents."
    Tom agreed enthusiastically. "You’re right! All sorts of discoveries—including caches of artifacts and the buried ruins of lost cities—have been located by sifting through stories and legendary accounts. It’s worth a day or two."
    "And if you don’t mind carrying my baggage with you, I might just make Easter Island my next stay," Ed added. "When you fly back to the States, I’ll be your local ear-to-the-ground guy."
    "Okay with you, Nee?" asked Bud.
    The big adventurer shrugged. "Why not? I was to lead you anyway to the area of the seafloor where we anchored the Wascala . Easter Island is not far and along the route. I wish to solve this mystery as much as any of you."
    "For the ‘treasure’?" asked Tom bluntly.
    "Oh, my young man, I need an income in these days of my public abandonment, true enough," answered Ruykendahl mildly. "But this cache is a scientific matter, not something to be auctioned, even if I had the right to do so. What is at stake here is my image, my fame. Eh? A Ruykendahl adventure! I need to reboot my reputation."
    With Bud their pilot, they took off southward. Alone with his chum in the control compartment, Tom contacted the Easter Island authorities to make arrangements and secure the necessary permissions, then spoke to his father in Shopton. He told his son that there had been no further messages from the space beings. "I’ll let Ed’s parents know that their lack of worry paid off," promised Damon Swift.
    Switching off, Tom turned to Bud. "What do you suppose we’re getting into, flyboy?"
    Bud grinned. "Oh, the usual. Which means, as usual , I can barely follow what’s going on."
    "Someone, maybe Li, found out about Ed’s having the artifact," Tom mused. "He’s probably been keeping tabs on Nee as well—if Nee isn’t part of the plot himself, as Miss Matopoeia suspects."
    "The guy has a motive to build everything up to get backing from you and Enterprises, make it sort’ve sensational and a scientific mystery— that’s a better hook for Tom Swift than Li’s skyhook!"
    The young inventor chuckled. "It’s working! But it’s obviously not just some kind of stunt, Bud. It’s a fact that the objects contain Lunite, are incredibly old, and generate some sort of unknown energy. And the space message has to be genuine—the symbol language hasn’t been made public or circulated."
    Bud was suddenly serious. "Maybe not to the public . But Tom—you’ve been sharing all this Planet X stuff with the U.S. government. They’ve been known to spring leaks now and then."
    "Yup—true. And we already suspect that the Black Cobra