Free Tom swift and the Captive Planetoid by Victor Appleton II

broadcast that mentioned something about—”
    Mr. Swift interrupted. “The exact words are important in this case. Or—I suppose Harlan Ames could speak to her directly—”
    “That’s unnecessary!” snapped Teek. “As it happened, she was clever enough to jot down the words right after she heard them. She emailed them to me.”
    “You said she called you, Shaw.”
    “She called me and then she emailed me. Do you want this information or not?”
    Tom gave a warning nudge to his father, who looked humorously rueful. “Sorry. I’m a bit distracted by a pain in my side.”
    “I’m told marriage isn’t always bliss,” Teek sneered verbally. “The message was: ‘ when Tom Swift test-flies his duratherm system in space day after tomorrow ’.”
    “ That’s an incomplete sentence.”
    “Am I responsible for the inadequacies of atmospheric transmission? At least it was in English.”
    “Why wouldn’t it be?”
    “She said it was heavily accented,” huffed Henshaw Teek. “Seems to me that rather ups the likelihood that this came from outside the United States.”
    There was a lengthy silence. It seemed both old, now former, friends were struggling to calm themselves.
    “Shaw...” began Mr. Swift.
    “Yes, I know,” interrupted Teek. “We’re grown men.”
    Tom’s father chuckled. “We weren’t always.”
    “No, Day. I—I suppose it’s—”
    “It’s not either of our faults,” said Mr. Swift. “Just the standard prickliness of human nature. I propose we place the blame on Anne.”
    “Yeah. For being a lovely young woman.”
    “She still is.”
    “Awfully smart.”
    Damon Swift grinned. “Not smart enough to choose you, Shaw.”
    “Aaa, I just fumbled around on our first date.”
    “Your— first ? She told me—”
    “The others were just... Now look, Damon, if you mean to suggest that Anne is less than truthful—”
    As Mr. Swift opened his mouth, Tom nudged him sharply. “Well. Thank you, Shaw. N- nice to talk to you.”
    “I can hear your teeth gritting, Day. But—yeah, it was. Old times, huh?”
    “Very much.”
    After ending the call, Mr. Swift briefed George Dilling, then called in Harlan Ames.
    “Nice work,” smiled the security man. “Having an accent is trivial in itself, but it does go along with the foreign connection—Bangladesh, Madagascar.”
    Tom rubbed his chin. “Given this ‘theory’ we’re working on, it makes sense to me that the message might have originated on Desh Zai’s yacht. He could be on a cruise in the Indian Ocean.”
    “As a matter of fact, I just happen to know that he is ,” winked Ames. “At least his boat is. His yacht is called the Apocalypso , by the way. Brand new, custom built. And it’s huge!”
    “This fellow has a mansion and a yacht,” snorted Mr. Swift. “Not a bad life.”
    “If you don’t want to do anything,” Tom commented dryly.
    The reentry test of Tom’s duratherm wing was scheduled for dawn the following morning, Wednesday. Flying to Fearing Island in the Sky Queen with the midget Fire Eagle in the skyship’s aerial hangar, upon which the D-Wing container capsule had been mounted, Tom and Bud spent the night on the Swifts’ tightly guarded rocket base, where crews continued to work round the clock repairing the damage done by the raiders.
    “The bunch we caught have been moved to federal custody on the mainland,” Bowden told them. “The one guy, Purji-something, is still in his brain-freeze coma. No change in his condition—nor in the condition of the others, namely silence .”
    “You’ve changed that code system, right?” asked Bud.
    Bowden nodded. “Sure have. Mace Vendiablo assures us that security on Fearing is tight as a drum. His words.”
    “I feel ‘assured,’” Tom stated dryly. “ Re assured is—another question.”
    The next morning they were driven to the main launch area, where the Fire Eagle had been mounted atop one of Enterprises’ small, reliable Sampson IV booster vehicles.