Into the Abyss (Tom Swift, Young Inventor) by Victor Appleton Page B

the
Verne-0
! Not a moment too soon, either.
    I opened the outer door of the air lock and pressed the button that started draining the water out of it. As soon as it got down past my neck, I wrenched my helmet off and breathed in as much air as I could hold.
    I was alive—but I had just barely made it. I had to sit down for a minute to recover, even though my dad and the others were running out of oxygen themselves.
    As soon as I was able to move again, I tried to radio the
Nestor
. I was going to need their help pulling the
Verne-1
up, and I could only hope the worst of the storm up there was over.
    “Hello,
Nestor
, do you read me?” I waited.
    Nothing.
    “
Nestor
!
Nestor
! Come in!”
    Deathly silence.
    “Bud! Are you there? It’s me, Tom!”
    Crackling. And then, “Tom! You’re alive!”
    I laughed out of sheer relief. “You’re still kicking too, I see.”
    “Man, it’s been rough up here. We lost our radio antenna for awhile there, and they had to bolt it back up. The computers went on the fritz too—know who fixed ‘em? It was Yo.”
    It didn’t surprise me. Yo is an unbelievable tech wrangler. She can fix just about anything computer-related—when she isn’t seasick, that is.
    “Everyone okay up there?”
    “Sort of. Your sister’s been barfing her guts up.”
    “And not Yo?”
    “No, man. She’s been so busy fixing the computer system she forgot to be sick!”
    I had to laugh—but only for a second.
    “Bud,” I interrupted him. “We’ve got a bad situation down here. I’ve only got about half an hour to get this right, and then I’m going to need you guys tohaul away on that cable and pull up the
Verne-1
as fast as you can.”
    “You got her freed?” he asked. I knew Captain Walters had to be leaning over his shoulder, taking it all in.
    “Um, not yet. But I’ve got a plan.”
    “You’ve got a
plan
? Man, what’ve you been doing down there all this time?”
    “I’ll tell you later,” I said. “Bud, this is the last chance any of us have of making it back up there alive.”
    There was a short silence as he took my words in. Then, “What do you need us to do?”
    “Like I said, in exactly one half hour, I want you to haul up the cable, as fast as it’ll go. Hopefully, I’ll have the
Verne-1
freed by then.”
    “Okay, bro. You got it. Go get ’em, Tom.”
    “Will do,” I said. “Um, Bud?”
    “Yeah?”
    “If I don’t see you again—well, it’s been great. Tell Yo for me, okay?”
    “Hey, Tom, don’t talk like that. You’re coming back … aren’t you?”
    “I’m planning on it,” I assured him. “Just … well, just in case, though.”
    “Cool.”
    “Okay, then. Let’s roll. Over and out.”
    I took a moment to examine my diving suit. It sure didn’t look too good. The squids embrace, as well as my fall down the slope, had left it much the worse for wear.
    The trouble was, I was going to have to trust it with my life.
    To implement Plan B, I first had to link Q.U.I.P. directly to the prototype’s control systems. That took me about five minutes—not bad, but in this case, every minute used was one minute lost.
    “Hello there, Tom,” Q.U.I.P. said as I hooked up the final wire. “Nice to be talking again.”
    Since I’d taken his chip out of my watch so I could use it for the explosive charge, he’d been without a voice.
    “Didn’t the explosives work?”
    “No. We’re going to try something else.”
    “And what would that be?”
    “Q.U.I.P.—I’m going to use the prototype to free the
Verne-1
.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’m going to ram this baby into those two big boulders until the
Verne-1
is free. Correction—
you’re
going to do it.”
    While I was telling him all this, I was busy refilling my air tank with most of the
Verne-0
’s remaining supply. That would give me a full one and a half hours worth of air—enough to get the job done and, hopefully, save myself as well.
    “My calculations tell me that such a collision would