Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung Part 2

"Maybe and maybe not," Mr. Swift said cautiously. "The bottom there is heavily silted."

"Oh--oh." Tom made a wry face. "In that case, we may have some digging to do."

"I'm afraid so. However, no use borrowing trouble." After a short discussion, the elder scientist added, "I'll probably fly home tomorrow, son. Give my love to Mother and Sandy."

"Right, Dad. So long!" Tom hung up and reported the news to Bud.

"What kind of underwater gear will we use?" Bud inquired.

"I'm not sure myself," Tom admitted. "Guess we'll have to take along a variety of equipment and play it by ear."

Before proceeding with his search plans, Tom phoned home to inform his mother of his arrival. Mrs. Swift was sympathetic when she heard of the failure to recover the probe missile.

"I'm sure you'll locate it," she said encouragingly.

"Some of your cooking will sure help brighten the picture," Tom replied with a grin. As he put down the receiver a moment later, he told Bud, "You're having dinner with us tonight, pal. Fried chicken and biscuits."

Bud licked his lips. "Lead me to it!"

Chuckling, Tom began drawing up a list of supplies for the expedition.

Bud helped with the details, after which Tom phoned the underground hangar and the Swifts' rocket base at Fearing Island to give the orders for the next day. Crewmen were also detailed for the trip.

It was six o'clock when the two boys finally piled into Tom's low-slung sports car and drove to the Swifts' big, pleasant house on the outskirts of Shopton. Sandra, Tom's blond, vivacious sister, greeted them at the door.

"About time!" she teased. "We were beginning to think you two had taken off somewhere."

"Think I'd leave town while you and that fried chicken are in Shopton?"

Bud grinned.

"What a line!" Sandy's blue eyes twinkled. "I know it's the fried chicken you're really interested in."

"Where's the rest of that 'we' you were referring to?" Tom inquired.

"I'm sorry, Tom," Sandy said in a mournful voice. "Phyl couldn't make it."

As Tom's face fell, she burst out giggling and a second later Phyllis Newton emerged from the kitchen. Brown-eyed, with long dark hair, Phyl was the daughter of Tom Sr.'s old comrade-in-arms and lifelong chum "Uncle Ned" Newton. Like Sandy, she was seventeen.

"You didn't think I'd miss this rare evening, did you, Tom?" she said, laughing. "After all, it isn't often we see you two."

Sandy and Phyl liked to needle the boys about their infrequent dates, due to Tom's and Bud's busy schedules.

Mrs. Swift, slender and sweet-faced, gave Tom a hug and greeted Bud warmly. Over the delicious dinner, the conversation turned to the mysterious thief missile.

"Who on earth could have fired it?" Sandy asked.

Tom shrugged. "No telling--yet. There's more than one unfriendly country which would give a lot for the data picked up on our Jupiter shot."

"You aren't expecting more trouble, are you?" Phyl put in uneasily.

Tom pa.s.sed the question off lightly in order not to alarm his mother and the two girls. But inwardly he was none too sure of what his survey expedition might encounter in trying to locate the lost probe missile.

Ever since his first adventure in his Flying Lab, the youthful inventor had been involved in many daring exploits and thrilling situations. Time and again, Tom had had to combat enemy spies and vicious plotters bent on stealing the Swifts' scientific secrets.

His research projects had taken him far into outer s.p.a.ce and into the depths of the ocean. With his atomic earth blaster, Tom had probed under the earth's crust at the South Pole, and in other adventures he had faced danger in the jungles of Africa, New Guinea, and Yucatan. His latest achievement, receiving the visitor from Planet X, had been to construct a robot body for this mysterious brain energy from another world. Now, Tom realized, he was on the brink of another adventure which might hold unexpected dangers.

Early the next morning the majestic _Sky Queen_ was hoisted from its underground hangar berth and hauled by tractor to its special runway.

This mammoth, atomic-powered airplane had been Tom's first major invention. A three-deck craft, it was equipped with complete laboratory facilities for research in any corner of the globe. Jet lifters in the belly of the fuselage enabled the craft to take off vertically and also to hover.

As Tom supervised the loading of the equipment, a foghorn voice boomed, "'Mornin', buckaroos!"

The chunky figure of Chow Winkler came into view. Formerly a chuck-wagon cook in Texas, Chow was now head chef on Tom's expeditions. As usual, a ten-gallon hat was perched on his balding head and he was stomping along in high-heeled boots.

"Wow! A s.h.i.+rt to end all s.h.i.+rts!" Tom chuckled.

"Real high style, eh?" Chow twirled about to display his latest Western creation. The s.h.i.+rt seemed to be made of silvery fishlike scales, which glistened like a rainbow.

"I figured as how this was just the thing fer an ocean jaunt," Chow added with a grin. "How soon do we take off, boss?"

"As soon as we get the rest of this gear stowed," Tom replied.

Twenty minutes later the _Sky Queen_ soared toward the ocean. Soon they came in sight of Fearing Island rocket base, a few miles off the coast.

Once a barren stretch of sand dunes and scrub-gra.s.s, the island was now the Swifts' top-secret rocket laboratory, guarded by drone planes and radar. It served as the supply base for Tom's s.p.a.ce station and as the launching area for all s.p.a.ce flights. Seacopters and jetmarines were also berthed here.

A radio call from Tom brought a sleek, strange-looking craft zooming up to join them.

It was the _Sea Hound_, latest and largest model of Tom's amazing diving seacopter. It had an enclosed central rotor, powered by atomic turbines, with reversible-pitch blades for air lift or undersea diving.

Superheated steam jets provided forward propulsion in either element.

As the _Sea Hound_ streaked alongside the Flying Lab, two figures in the seacopter's flight compartment waved to Tom and Bud. One was Hank Sterling, the blond, square-jawed chief pattern-making engineer of Enterprises. The other was husky Arv Hanson, a talented craftsman who transformed the blueprints of Tom's inventions into working models.

"All set," Hank radioed. "Lead the way."

"Roger!" Tom replied.

Flying at supersonic speed, they reached the area of the lost missile in the South Atlantic soon after lunch. Already on hand were s.h.i.+ps of the Navy task force a.s.signed by Admiral Walter to partic.i.p.ate in the missile search. The _Sea Hound_ settled down on the surface of the water, while the _Sky Queen_ hovered at low alt.i.tude nearby.

Tom contacted the government craft and learned that as yet no sign of the lost Jupiter prober had been detected. Then he made ready to begin his own search.

"Let's try the Fat Man suits first," Tom told Bud. Turning to Slim Davis, a Swift test pilot who was in the crew, the young inventor added, "Take over, will you, Slim?"

"Righto." Slim eased into the pilot's seat.

"Got a job for me, skipper?" asked Doc Simpson, Swift Enterprises' young medic.

"Yes. Help the boys, if you like, rig the undersea elevator, and then a.s.semble a tractorized air dome," Tom suggested.

"Will do," Doc promised.

A ladder was dropped. Tom and Bud excitedly descended to the _Sea Hound_. The search for the lost missile was about to begin!