Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space by Victor Appleton II Page A
Authors: Victor Appleton II
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the youth’s head with one arm.
The young inventor’s lips moved weakly. He mumbled a single word, "Gas…"
As someone opened the door to peer inside, Mr. Swift shouted, "Don’t go into that lab!"
The atmosphere of the air-conditioned hangar soon revived Tom. Gradually the color returned to his cheeks and his blue eyes fluttered open.
"Don’t try to talk yet, son."
When Tom felt completely revived, he accompanied his father into the laboratory. By this time, the blowers had cleared the room of gas and the air was safe to breathe. Mr. Swift sniffed the tank cautiously. A faint trace of gas was still evident. He caught some in a burette and tried several chemicals on it. When he was through, he looked at Tom.
"Know what that stuff was?" he asked grimly.
"Some type of nerve gas, I imagine."
"Fluorophosphonate ester. Son, if you hadn’t got yourself clear, you’d be dead by now!"
Tom shuddered. "I wonder if the Aer-Cel Company really did send me that tank?"
"We’ll find out right now!"
Mr. Swift picked up the phone and asked the operator to get the president of the Aer-Cel Company. Tom listened to the conversation, then flashed a questioning look as his father hung up.
"He knows nothing about it—says they never sent over any tank of oxygen," Mr. Swift reported.
"In other words, somebody pulled a fast one!"
Father and son stared at each other, sharing the same sobering thought. Evidently Tom’s enemies were still at work and would stop at nothing!
One afternoon Bud found Chow parked outside the laboratory door acting as a specially appointed— self- appointed—guard. "You kin go on in. I recconize you!" he declared. Inside, Tom was hard at work with a calculator. His desk was littered with papers, each one covered with figures and equations. From time to time the young scientist paused to punch a new problem into his computer.
"What gives, chum?" Bud asked.
Tom grinned and ran his fingers through his spikey blond crew cut. "Just working out the ascent track of the rockets."
"What a headache!"
"We want to circle the earth in an orbit 22,300 miles up. But the trick is to make our rockets hit the orbit at just the right spot."
"Where’ll that be?"
"Directly above Ecuador in South America," replied Tom. "The CBN people figure that will be the best spot for sending and receiving signals."
"Got the course all figured out?"
"Just about. We’ll go up in a big arc from the underwater launch site near Loonaui Island in the Pacific, tending east. By the time we’re a thousand miles up, we’ll be zooming along at 21,000 an hour."
Bud gave an awed whistle as Tom continued, "At that point, we’ll cut the engines and coast the rest of the way. We’ll travel in an elliptical track around the earth till we reach our final altitude. Then, one more spurt of power to regularize our orbit, and we’re in business!"
Bud glanced at his pal’s workbench, littered with sketches and figures. "Plans for your ‘water-pistol’ system?"
Tom nodded. "I’ve progressed to the point where I need to do some actual nosing around on the ocean floor at that Pacific site Dad visited. You interested in a ride, flyboy?"
Bud laughed and said, "I could probably be talked into it!"
Tom was eager to go. Two days later he took off for the Pacific in the Sky Queen . With him were Bud and a small crew of technicians, including Enterprises’ young chief of engineering, Hank Sterling.
"Let me get this straight," grinned Hank. "You plan to launch your rockets like balloons, but from the bottom of the ocean. Doesn’t that count as going the long way around?"
Tom smiled back, knowing that Hank was already thoroughly familiar with the project. But he decided to elaborate on the idea for the benefit of the others. "The rockets will be two-stage versions of the Workhorse drone rockets we’ve been building over at Swift Construction. We’re leasing a big, fast cargo ship to freight them through the Panama Canal and on over to
The young inventor’s lips moved weakly. He mumbled a single word, "Gas…"
As someone opened the door to peer inside, Mr. Swift shouted, "Don’t go into that lab!"
The atmosphere of the air-conditioned hangar soon revived Tom. Gradually the color returned to his cheeks and his blue eyes fluttered open.
"Don’t try to talk yet, son."
When Tom felt completely revived, he accompanied his father into the laboratory. By this time, the blowers had cleared the room of gas and the air was safe to breathe. Mr. Swift sniffed the tank cautiously. A faint trace of gas was still evident. He caught some in a burette and tried several chemicals on it. When he was through, he looked at Tom.
"Know what that stuff was?" he asked grimly.
"Some type of nerve gas, I imagine."
"Fluorophosphonate ester. Son, if you hadn’t got yourself clear, you’d be dead by now!"
Tom shuddered. "I wonder if the Aer-Cel Company really did send me that tank?"
"We’ll find out right now!"
Mr. Swift picked up the phone and asked the operator to get the president of the Aer-Cel Company. Tom listened to the conversation, then flashed a questioning look as his father hung up.
"He knows nothing about it—says they never sent over any tank of oxygen," Mr. Swift reported.
"In other words, somebody pulled a fast one!"
Father and son stared at each other, sharing the same sobering thought. Evidently Tom’s enemies were still at work and would stop at nothing!
One afternoon Bud found Chow parked outside the laboratory door acting as a specially appointed— self- appointed—guard. "You kin go on in. I recconize you!" he declared. Inside, Tom was hard at work with a calculator. His desk was littered with papers, each one covered with figures and equations. From time to time the young scientist paused to punch a new problem into his computer.
"What gives, chum?" Bud asked.
Tom grinned and ran his fingers through his spikey blond crew cut. "Just working out the ascent track of the rockets."
"What a headache!"
"We want to circle the earth in an orbit 22,300 miles up. But the trick is to make our rockets hit the orbit at just the right spot."
"Where’ll that be?"
"Directly above Ecuador in South America," replied Tom. "The CBN people figure that will be the best spot for sending and receiving signals."
"Got the course all figured out?"
"Just about. We’ll go up in a big arc from the underwater launch site near Loonaui Island in the Pacific, tending east. By the time we’re a thousand miles up, we’ll be zooming along at 21,000 an hour."
Bud gave an awed whistle as Tom continued, "At that point, we’ll cut the engines and coast the rest of the way. We’ll travel in an elliptical track around the earth till we reach our final altitude. Then, one more spurt of power to regularize our orbit, and we’re in business!"
Bud glanced at his pal’s workbench, littered with sketches and figures. "Plans for your ‘water-pistol’ system?"
Tom nodded. "I’ve progressed to the point where I need to do some actual nosing around on the ocean floor at that Pacific site Dad visited. You interested in a ride, flyboy?"
Bud laughed and said, "I could probably be talked into it!"
Tom was eager to go. Two days later he took off for the Pacific in the Sky Queen . With him were Bud and a small crew of technicians, including Enterprises’ young chief of engineering, Hank Sterling.
"Let me get this straight," grinned Hank. "You plan to launch your rockets like balloons, but from the bottom of the ocean. Doesn’t that count as going the long way around?"
Tom smiled back, knowing that Hank was already thoroughly familiar with the project. But he decided to elaborate on the idea for the benefit of the others. "The rockets will be two-stage versions of the Workhorse drone rockets we’ve been building over at Swift Construction. We’re leasing a big, fast cargo ship to freight them through the Panama Canal and on over to
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