Free Tom Swift and the Mystery Comet by Victor Appleton II

thing, Hank!"
    "Here’s the model," Bud called over, "packed in this―"
    He was overlapped by: " Say there, fellow travelers! " Lett Monica came strolling up from where he had stepped off Enterprises’ moving-walk conveyor system, the ridewalk. "All set up in the bungalow, Tom. I thought I might meet some others of your posse . You are Bud, aren’t you?" The Brungarian offered his hand.
    Shaking it, Bud grinned. "Strong grip, Lett! Is muscle-building part of space training over there?"
    "No, physical development is a national goal in the new Brungaria. These muscles come from high school gym class!"
    After introducing Lett to Hank and Arv, who had been briefed on the astronaut-exchange program, Tom asked Lett to join the Sky Queen ’s testing mission. Lett reacted enthusiastically. "My word, Skipper ! Fabulous! Your celebrity airship and your latest invention too—um, have I misapplied my English, Bud?"
    Bud’s grin had thinned down at the word Skipper . "No... not at all. You speak better than I do, Lett." He flashed Tom a glance that spoke volumes.
    Arv Hanson said hastily, "Where’s your telesampler to be installed, Tom?"
    "I had the hangar crew pull out the big searchlight and bolt some clamps onto the extender boom. We can use the searchlight’s gimbal base to aim the telesampler." He explained to Lett that the Flying Lab’s powerful Swift Searchlight was designed to be extended out beyond the metal skin of the huge jetcraft. "The sampler beam is blocked by solid objects. It took some doing to figure out how to get through air without fuzzing out."
    The five climbed aboard the ship with the telesampler carrying crate rolling on a handtruck. As Tom and Hank installed and checked over the jerry-rigged device in the searchlight bay, Arv and Bud gave Lett a tour of the versatile skyship. "A marvel of the air, quite majorly, dudes," exclaimed the Brungarian. "Cool! Wowee! Man, send my sinuses to Arizona!"
    "Er— we like it," said Hanson politely.
    "Say, Lett, whereabouts in Brungaria are you from?" asked Bud. "Volkonis?"
    "Hey, a city which owes much to you amigos !" The young trainee laughed. "No, no, our capital is too stately for younger people—we who have grown up after the Revolution. I hang with my family in newly built suburbs, in the northwest. And your family, Bud—in San Francisco?"
    "I’d say I have family in two places—S’Fran and here in Shopton."
    "Love it!—this loyalty to your best pal. Alas, chum, back in dear old Brunka I have only a girlfriend or two."
    Arv Hanson commented dryly, "That sounds like a sufficient amount."
    "Yeah. But don’t think me oppressively macho. You see, in the new Brungaria the young women have been liberalized."
    Tom called them to the forward control compartment over the intercom. The small sky crew had completed the pre-flight check list, and the tower radioed clearance for takeoff. With a roar of its jet lifters the Sky Queen soared vertically into the blue, smoothly turning onto its heading over Lake Carlopa. "I plan to do some swimming in that lake of yours," Lett remarked as the whole broad landscape of upstate New York began to unfold below them. "I hope to learn a great deal of this country during my stay. I wish to learn to surf and become a typical beach bunny. You surf, don’t you, flyboy?"
    "When I can," replied the Californian. "But I’m low on the bunnyhood scale."
    At a thousand feet Tom leveled off and pursued the short flight to the west. Presently he eased down to a lower altitude as they came to a barren, hilly area chosen for the test. "There’s a pretty varied and interesting geology in this region," Tom told Lett. "We saw it from underneath not too long ago—in my underground vehicle, the geotron."
    "Jetz, chum, now there’s a book for which I could set my seat on fire!" exclaimed Lethal Monica.
    Foregoing interpretation, the young inventor turned to his copilot. "Okay, take over, Bud. Keep her hovering steady until I com you to move on