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Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X, a novel by Victor Appleton |
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Chapter 9. The Cave Monster |
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_ CHAPTER IX. THE CAVE MONSTER "Skipper!" Bud cried anxiously as Tom staggered back, his hands to his face. "I'm all right--no harm done," Tom assured his friend. Both boys were a bit shaken by the accident, nevertheless. Chow came rushing in as Bud was brushing the fragments of debris from Tom's clothes and examining the young inventor's face. "Brand my flyin' flapjacks, what happened?" Chow asked. The chef had been bringing a tray of fruit juice to the laboratory and had heard the explosion outside. "The radio set just blew up in my face," Tom explained. "Fortunately, the equipment was transistorized mostly with printed circuits. Otherwise," he added, "I might have been badly cut by slivers of glass from the exploding vacuum tubes." As it was, the young inventor had suffered only a few slight scratches and a bruise on the temple from a piece of the shattered housing. Bud swabbed Tom's injuries with antiseptic from the first-aid cabinet while Chow poured out glasses of grape juice. "What caused it, Tom?" Bud asked as they paused to sip the fruit drink. "Good question," Tom replied. "Frankly, I don't know." But he was wondering if the set might have been sabotaged. Tom was still eager to get in touch with his father and telephoned the electronics department to bring another set to his laboratory. Chow left just as the new set arrived. Tom hooked it up quickly, donned a set of goggles, and tuned to the space-station frequency. Then he picked up the microphone and stepped well back from the set, waving Bud out of range at the same time. "Tom Swift calling Outpost!... Come in, please!" A moment later came another explosion! _The new set had also blown up!_ "Good night!" Bud gasped in a stunned voice. "Don't tell me that's just a coincidence!" Tom shrugged. "We can certainly rule out the possibility that anything was wrong with the radio itself. Every set is checked before it leaves the electronics department." "So where does that leave us?" Bud persisted. Tom shook his head worriedly as he took off the goggles. "Both times it seemed to happen just as the reply was coming through from the space station. There is no possibility that their signal was too strong--in other words, that the explosion was caused by overloading the receiving circuits." "Are you implying that an enemy intercepted the message and sent some sort of ray that caused the set to explode?" Bud demanded. Tom's face showed clearly that Bud had pinpointed the suspicion in the young inventor's mind. "Could be." Bud was worried by this latest development. "Skipper, suppose I hop up to the space wheel and talk it over with your dad. He may be able to help us detect any enemy moves." "Good idea, pal," Tom agreed. "The sooner the better, I'd say." The boys exchanged a quick handshake and affectionate shoulder slaps. Then Bud hurried out to one of the Enterprises hangars to ready a helijet for the flight to Fearing Island. This was the Swifts' rocket base, just off the Atlantic coast. From there, Bud would board one of the regular cargo shuttle rockets operating between the space station and Fearing. Tom, meanwhile, plunged back to work on his shock-wave deflector. At ten the next morning he called in Hank Sterling and showed him a set of completed drawings. "Hank, you did a fast job on the container for the brain," Tom began apologetically, "but you'll really have to burn out a bearing on this one!" Hank grinned. "I'm geared to action. Say, what do we call it, anyhow?" he asked. Tom grinned. "Chow told me last night this gadget looked like a fireplug under a rose trellis and I ought to call it Fireplug Rose! But I've given it a more dignified name--the Quakelizor, which stands for an underground quake wave deflector." Briefly, Tom explained the various parts of his latest invention, which consisted of a hydrant-sized cylinder to be inserted into the ground, with magnetic coils near the top. A smaller hydraulic cylinder, mounted above this, was wired to a metal framework and radio transmitter. "This setup will detect any incoming enemy shock waves," Tom said. "We'll need fifty of 'em, so turn the job over to Swift Construction. And have Uncle Ned put on extra shifts." The Swift Construction Company, managed by Ned Newton, was the commercial division which mass-produced Tom Jr.'s and Tom Sr.'s inventions. Information from the detector-transmitters, Tom went on, would be fed into an electronic computer at the Bureau of Mines in Washington. The Quakelizor itself was housed in a massive cube-shaped casting with two large spheres mounted on top. From each of its four sides jutted a hydraulic piston. "How does it work, Tom?" Hank asked. "Dual-control spheres on top," Tom explained, "will receive by radio signal the pulse frequency computed in Washington." He added that inside each sphere was a "pulsemaker." This would produce changes in the pressure of the hydraulic fluid by affecting the kinetic energy of the fluid's atoms. The pressure changes would then be enormously magnified in the four hydraulic output drivers. When the unit was embedded in rock, underground, the huge pistons would send out counter shock waves through the earth's crust to neutralize the enemy waves. "Wow!" Hank Sterling was breathless at the sheer scope of the young scientist's newest invention. "I'll get hot on the job right away." After forty-eight hours of round-the-clock work, the equipment was ready. Tom conferred by telephone with both Dr. Miles in the Bureau of Mines and Bernt Ahlgren in the Pentagon. He had already chosen the spots for the detector-transmitter check points. Tom told the men that he believed the best spot for the Quakelizor itself was on a certain government reservation in Colorado. A deep underground cave there would provide a perfect site. "We'll be close enough to the San Andreas fault to prevent a really huge-scale disaster," Tom explained. "And the Rocky Mountain structure will give us a good bedrock medium for shooting out waves anywhere across the continent." Dr. Miles and Ahlgren agreed enthusiastically. Tom and the two scientists spoke over a three-way telephone hookup--with automatic scramblers to counter the danger of enemy monitors--laying plans to install the equipment. Ahlgren agreed to fly a technical crew out to the spot in Colorado which Tom had named. The next day, Tom, Hank, and several top Enterprises' engineers, including Art Wiltessa, took off in the _Sky Queen_. This was Tom's huge atomic-powered Flying Lab. The massive plane flew at supersonic speeds and was equipped with jet lifters for vertical take-off or hovering. A Whirling Duck heliplane, loaded with communications equipment, accompanied the _Sky Queen_. In little more than an hour, the two craft touched down in a rugged Colorado canyon. The government technical crew was already on hand. "Glad to know you," Tom said, shaking hands with the engineer in charge. He introduced his own men and added, "Better roll up your sleeves. This job is going to take plenty of oomph!" The parts of the Quakelizor were unloaded from the _Sky Queen_ onto dollies. Then the group, armed with bull's-eye lanterns, flashlights, and walkie-talkies, hauled the parts by tractor into the cave. "Okay. Now let's pick out the spot for embedding the unit," Tom said. The men had no sooner begun to look around the huge underground chamber when a fearsome growl rumbled through the cave. Everyone whirled about and the next instant froze in horror. A huge bear reared up in the mouth of the cave! The monster snarled and blinked its yellow eyes in the glare of lights. "We're trapped!" Hank cried out. The enormous bruin was now waving his huge head from side to side, as if daring the intruders to step up and fight. Several of the government men had brought rifles and shotguns. But in spite of their peril, no one wanted to shoot the handsome old fellow. "I'll send out an SOS," Tom said. "If help arrives before the bear attacks, we won't use guns." He radioed the local Forest Ranger post. After a nerve-racking wait, with the group expecting a charge from the beast at any minute, two rangers appeared and captured the bear with a net. One man of the government work crew knocked together a stout wooden cage. The beast, outraged, was loaded aboard the heliplane to be released in an area remote from the cave. [Illustration (Tom and Hank meet a bear in the cave)] Now the grueling job of installing the Quakelizor began. First the cave was cleared of debris, bats, and other small living creatures. Then a site was marked out on the cave floor. Tom had brought along a midget model of his great atomic earth blaster, which he had invented to drill for iron at the South Pole. With the blaster, Tom quickly drilled a pit of exact size into the bedrock. Then the Quakelizor was assembled and lowered into place by a portable crane. A power plant and radio antenna were set up and the installation was finally completed. "I must return to Shopton now," Tom said. "Art here will stick around and help you operate the setup," he told the government engineers after radio contact had been made with Washington. "If anything goes wrong, just flash word to Enterprises." The _Sky Queen_ and the heliplane sped back across the continent. As Tom landed at Enterprises he was greeted by Bud, who came speeding out on the airfield by jeep. "Just got back from the space wheel about an hour ago," Bud said. "Your dad's really worried about those exploding radio sets, Tom. He has no clues, but he's sure the scientists working for the Brungarian rebel setup are responsible. He thinks they may try to ruin all of Enterprises' communications system by remote control." Tom's face was grave as he listened. The two boys discussed the problem as they drove to the Swifts' office in the main building. "Boy, I sure wish I could think of some way to cope with it," Tom said wearily, flopping down in his desk chair. "Your dad said to give it the old college try," Bud reported. "And he also said he'd be back in two days to help you on the problem." Tom glanced at the calendar. "Which reminds me," he said, "on Monday the brain energy will be due from space!" The thought sent a thrill of excitement tinged with worry through the young inventor's mind. Would the container he had devised prove suitable? "Hey! A call on the videophone!" Bud pointed to the red light flashing on the control board. He jumped up and switched on the set. Blake, the Washington announcer, appeared on the screen. "Bad news, skipper," he said ominously. "An earthquake tremor was just felt here in Washington. It centered in a shipyard on the Potomac and caused great damage!" _ |
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