Free Tom Swift and His Aquatomic Tracker by Victor Appleton II

tense voice: "My unit’s dead too."
    They all were! " Parakeets !—what do we do now?" cried Dan fearfully.
    " Enough with the ‘parakeets,’ already!" came the voice of Brooklyn.
    "Calm down, Danny," George commanded. "We’ll just need to jettison some of our equipment, that’s all. The aquatometers—sorry to say it, Tom. And of course we don’t need the jets anymore."
    The youthful sea explorer returned a slow headshake. "The aquatometers don’t weigh enough to make a difference. As for the diverjets, you can’t unhook them, not if you plan on breathing. The hydrolung apparatus is built into the stanchion brace for the jet."
    "Then we’ll do it by brute force!" Bud exclaimed impatiently, tossing aside his aquatometer. Before Tom could stop him, Bud sprang upward, his powerful arms thrashing him toward the distant surface. The team watched his ascent as it became wavery, slowed—and halted. The bead of light began to fall again.
    "Can’t be done," declared Bud sullenly as he touched down, panting. "It’s like hauling Santa’s bag of goodies."
    "You have the most muscle power, flyboy, but what we all have is way too much negative buoyancy—dead weight—in these fancy electric suits," Tom pronounced. "That’s why we had to have the buoyancy units in the first place. Without those or the jets― "
    Dan Walde seemed to be verging on panic. "You mean—y-you mean we’re stuck down here on the bottom?"
    "Do relax, young man," reproved Alix. "The breathing apparatus has not been affected, and those nice Swift solar batteries will last years, I’m told."
    "Which is just about how long it’ll take if we have to leg it all the way to Iceland!" Ham Teller grumbled.
    Alix shrugged slightly. "Admittedly, there is also the problem of food and water."
    "Aw, good grief, this is ridiculous!" Bud protested. "When we don’t show up, they’ll start a search in the seacopters and the jetmarines—the Sea Charger herself can submerge, in fact!"
    "That’s right," said George. "And don’t forget, that U.S. sub will report having seen us."
    They all looked at Tom. His long silence was ominous. "I believe in being hopeful," he said slowly. "But we have to deal with the facts. It’ll be hours yet before we’re due back, and probably hours more before any kind of large-scale search can be organized. We’ve traveled hundreds of miles since we encountered the Disbursement , and we’ve changed course several times. You don’t need to be an oceanographer to know that the ocean’s a mighty big place. It could easily be days, even weeks, before we’re located."
    "What you’re saying then, Tom, is," summarized Ham Teller, "that we’re sunk ."
    "I wouldn’t put it that way," Tom replied.
    "I would," declared Alix.
    "You were right about Swedes and dourness, Tuundvar!" George Braun stated.
    "This isn’t solving the problem, fellows," reproved their leader sternly. "Let’s head for the seamount. Those lights we saw could indicate some kind of underwater operation, people who could help us."
    "If nothing else—climbing to the top puts us closer to the surface," Bud added.
    Although the "underwater waterspout" had disappeared, there was no guarantee that their safety was more than temporary. At Tom’s suggestion the mer-pedestrians circled widely and approached the undersea formation from a different direction. "Keep your eyes open, all of you," Tom warned. "Let’s not get caught twice by the same trick!"
    Bud shot his pal a puzzled look through his visor dome. "You said trick , Tom. Are you thinking that someone’s giving us the underwater hotfoot on purpose?" Then he added: "Not that I didn’t think the same thing right off."
    "Just a hunch, but I’d almost bet on it," Tom said with quiet anger. "As I understand it, the usual maximum range of an electrotaxis operation is far less than what we encountered. The gear we’re up against must be tremendously more powerful and advanced. If there’s a trawler stationed up