Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates by Victor Appleton II Page B

pensive face. When he finally spoke his voice was low. "We know how the barrier is kept stable. The pulsed magnetic interactions hold the particles at a set distance from one another, and their individual hyper-rotations turns them into little gyrostabilizers. But flyboy ... "
    Tom suddenly switched off the monitor, and Bud was alarmed to see his hopeless, dejected expression. "Bad?" Bud asked.
    "Bad," Tom confirmed dully. "Now I see why the magnetic deflector wasn’t able to hold back enough particles to keep the test missile from getting fried by radiation. Good idea. Not good enough. The general approach just won’t work on stuff like this. What I’m—what I’m saying, Bud― " He looked sadly into his friend’s gray eyes. "—is that my invention’s a flop. I’ve failed."
    Bud’s muscles knotted with fierce emotion. "You’re crazy! You can’t fail!—not with all those men and women trapped up there." His voice softened. "Okay, look. Maybe your magnetic deflector can’t do the job. But you know a lot more than you did an hour ago, right?"
    Tom smiled wanly. "Right."
    "So you just have to wait for another idea to tumble down out of that attic of yours. The one under your crewcut!"
    The crewcut nodded. "Point made. And as a matter of fact, there is something else we can do. It could solve the whole problem without another brilliant Tom Swift invention!"
    "Now you’re talking!" exclaimed Bud.
    "Don’t cheer yet. What I mean is, we could handle the space crisis here on Earth. All we have to do is go after the Black Cobra!"
    Bud grinned. "That’s all, huh."
    "It’s enough!" laughed Tom. "But obviously Li Ching has some way to disperse the antimatter cloud, or at least create a safe passage for his ship. Otherwise he’d be unable to make use of the asteroid for whatever plan he has in mind—such as doping out the Lunite deatomization effect."
    "Sure! If we can find the guy, we could steal his technology for a change, just like he steals ours."
    "Which may be exactly what was behind Mr. Fun’s gift to us—the cobra cube," pointed out Tom. "The big idea wasn’t to penetrate the Nestria barrier, but to penetrate Li’s organization."
    Bud flopped down on a lab stool. "First we have to figure out where it is."
    "It’s where those missing scientists are." Then Tom brightened and snapped his fingers. "In fact, I just realized that we have a lead!"
    "To where?"
    "Africa!" The youth began to pace the lab excitedly. "Diracinium, and its antimatter twin, have only been found in one place on Earth—the big cave gallery under Mount Goaba in Borukundi! For the B.C. to have gathered enough to make the disintegration cloud, he would have to have set up some sort of extraction operation right there, under the noses of the international research facility."
    "Then Africa it is!" cheered Bud. "So what do we do, pal? Fly over in the Sky Queen and drop a secret agent on the mountain?"
    Tom threw his best friend a sly, even mischievous, look.
    "Not a secret agent," pronounced Tom Swift. "One if by land— two if by sea! "
     
CHAPTER 13
THE ANTIMATTER MINE
    TWELVE MILES off the coast of the nation of Cameroon, continent of Africa, the Swift Enterprises seacopter Sea Hound hovered above the ocean floor in deep water. A hatchway opened and two dark-clad figures jetted into the water like human torpedoes.
    "See you soon, Skipper!" sonophoned crewman Zimby Cox. "And please make it real soon!"
    "I’ll sure try, Zim," replied Tom through his diversuit communicator. "Hang tight. It may take a couple days."
    "I’ll be listening for your signal."
    "Got the cave opening ahead, Tom," commed Bud as he aqua-soared alongside his chum. "The sonarscope’s painting a nice glowing blotch on my helmet screen."
    "I see it too." Tom touched his sleeve control, increasing the force of the ion-drive diverjet on his back. Anxious, impatient, he sped toward his target. In minutes it became visible to the eye—a black gash in the side of the