Free Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X by Victor Appleton II Page B

trapped," Tom choked, his face blackened, jacket and cap smoldering. "The tops of all the cabinets—every one—blasted off. Just the tops—lucky for me. The sides and fronts of the cabinets held the explosion back and shielded me." Hammond helped Tom into the open air and Tom panted to catch his breath. "I’m okay, but there won’t be much left to see down in that subcellar. The files are burning like magnesium torches."
    "I’ll radio the fire department," said Hammond, trotting off to the cruiser.
    Pete Latty, stricken, yelled out: "You gotta believe me, I didn’t know!"
    Tom shrugged. To the still-astounded Fred, he said quietly, "If there’s anything I can do to make it go easier for your uncle, I’ll try. But you did the right thing, and probably saved lives—including your uncle Pete’s."
    A checkover at Shopton Memorial and a welcome shower at home did a lot to overcome the young inventor’s bitter regret at the mixed outcome of his "hunt." But the next day proved his pessimistic assessment to be correct. Very little of the stored materials had survived the flash fire.
    "They used chemical accelerants to keep it going after the oxygen got scarce in that little room," Ames reported. "Basically, the police—and now the FBI, as of an hour ago—have just a few singed scraps that they’ll be studying for a long, long time. They did dope out one thing, though. That foreign language?—Brungarian!"
    Tom nodded his head listlessly. "We figured this business of acquiring alien technology had to go way beyond a group of cultists. Now that that coup has unleashed the Sentimentalists faction, we can expect a lot more of this. Even apart from the ‘Planet X’ factor, they fear and envy America and they’ll move heaven and earth to steal our scientific secrets. This could touch off a whole epidemic of sabotage and other spy activity!" He asked if Speaker Anderman had been arrested.
    Harlan Ames wagged his head in disgust. "He and a few of his select ‘Prime Movers’ vanished into the night a little after the explosion went off, apparently taking some key paperwork and church computer files with them. Captain Rock says the remaining staff claim not to know anything, and he’s inclined to believe them."
    "When I tripped the blast, the mechanism must’ve sent a signal to Anderman that his number was up," Tom said. Frustrated, he sighed and sat without speaking for a few moments as Ames waited, sympathetic. Finally Tom said: "The energy will arrive Sunday. I can’t put any more time into dealing with the mystery plot—not right now, anyway."
    "Go work on your project, Tom," urged the security chief. "There’s nothing more to be done."
    Tom hurried off to his private glass-walled laboratory adjoining the mammoth hangar beneath the Enterprises airfield, which housed Tom’s three-decker Flying Lab between flights. Eager to continue work on his container, or robot body, for the brain from space, he threw himself into the challenging project. As usual, Hank and Arv proved even better than their word. Working round the clock with much assistance and support from the more specialized Swift Enterprises departments, the engineering experts had turned Tom’s sketches and the X-ians’ specifications into a full-sized working model. Arv wheeled it in, ready for Tom’s inspection, when the young inventor arrived at the lab.
    "Wonderful, Arv!" Tom approved. "Every time I see one of your models of a new invention, I’m sure it’ll work!"
    Hanson grinned, pleased at the compliment. "Our boy Sterling was pretty pleased, too. He used this model as a guide in modularizing the real thing. When you make your changes—I know there’ll always be changes—he’ll be able to insert them nearly on the fly."
    Tom now had good reason to expect that the robot-like container would be complete and operational before the Sunday evening deadline and the scheduled arrival of the visitor.
    Bud and Chow, entering the laboratory soon after