The Challenger came to meet them and soon Tom and his party were trooping safely aboard. They carried with them the still-unconscious figure of Ted Spring.
"Great Scott! Where did you find him?" Doc Simpson exclaimed as they removed Ted"s helmet and s.p.a.ce suit. Pale and scarcely appearing to breathe, Ted was laid gently in a bunk.
Tom told about the landing of the second missile and how they had found Ted inside it. "You must save him, Doc," Tom begged.
"I"ll do my best," the medic promised gravely.
While the young physician worked over his unconscious patient, Tom went outside again to supervise the transfer of the solartron and the power gatherers aboard the Challenger. When he returned to the ship"s bunkroom, Ted was stirring faintly and seemed to have a better color.
"I believe he"s suffering from an overdose of truth serum," Doc Simpson explained.
"Why so?" Tom asked with a puzzled frown.
"You remember that I gave Ted and your father, as well as you and Bud, injections of anti- 156 .
truth serum?" When Tom nodded, Doc said, "Well, I suspect that the kidnapers tried to make Ted talk, but found him immune to their truth drug. When he refused to reveal any secrets, they probably kept increasing the dosage until he lapsed into unconsciousness."
Tom was horror-struck. In a low, tight voice he asked, "Do you think you can revive him?"
"Yes, he"s definitely responding," Doc Simpson replied. "Fortunately, he didn"t have a fatal dose, but it may take a while for his system to throw off the effects of the drug."
Tom was still baffled as to why the kidnapers had rocketed Ted back to his friends. Was it merely to rid themselves of a useless prisoner? Or was it a part of an evil plot? In view of his enemies" ruthless methods, Tom felt the latter theory was more likely.
Suddenly Arv Hanson"s voice blared out over the loud-speaker, "Tom, we"re having trouble hooking up one of these energy collectors!"
Tom hurried to the hangar deck, donned his s.p.a.ce suit, and went out through the air lock. "What"s wrong?" he called over his suit radio.
Arv explained that while the collector was being shifted back to the Challenger from the cave setup, some of the wiring of the cell leaves had become loosened. Tom examined the wires and managed to reconnect them, although he found the job extremely difficult to do with his heavy s.p.a.ce gauntlets.
"Hey!" exclaimed Bud, who had been watching A STRANGE CAPTURE 157.
the operation. "Is this hail, or am I getting s.p.a.ce-happy?"
Without warning a shower of pellets had begun raining down from the sky!
Intrigued, Tom caught a few of the pellets and examined them. They were crystalline and varied in color from steel gray to purplish black. "Looks like iodine," he muttered.
The next moment Tom gave a gasp of dismay. "Good grief!" he cried. "I just realized that these will ruin the aluminum foil of the collector tubing!"
"You said it, skipperl" Arv exclaimed. "Take a look!"
Holes had already appeared in the foil at several points, and the tubes were snaking into motion as the helium gas escaped!
"What"ll we do?" asked Bud tersely, turning to Tom for orders.
Tom glanced around. The strange shower was affecting only two of the power gatherers.
"We"ll repair them at once," he replied. "Men, go back to the ship quick and get some Tomasite plastic to patch the holes! Make it snappy, all of you! The iodine may attack our s.p.a.ce suits, too!"
The crewmen needed no second warning. They dashed back to the ship and waited on the hangar deck while the patches were being prepared. Tom and Bud joined them.
"Good thing your dad invented this plastic," Bud remarked.
158 .
Tom nodded. "Best insulation there is against radiation or electromagnetic effects. And it"s impervious to most known chemicals."
As soon as the patches were ready, each man was given a supply of bonding cement. Then they rushed outside and began hastily repairing the damage.
"Hurry!" Tom urged the crew over his radio. "And keep an eye on your s.p.a.ce suits. If you spot a leak in your suit, slap a patch on it and get back to the ship p.r.o.nto!"
The job was completed in a few minutes. But even before the last hole in the tubing was patched, the iodine shower had ceased.
"Wow!" Bud gasped. "I"m sure glad that"s over. Where do you suppose the stuff came from, skipper? Another stunt of our enemies?"
Tom shook his head, thoroughly puzzled. "You"ve got me, pal."
Back aboard the Challenger, Tom opened the stopc.o.c.ks on the helium tanks and pumped more gas into the tubing to make up for the leakage. Then, elevatoring to his laboratory, he checked some of the crystals with a Swift spectroscope. As he had surmised, they were iodine.
"I"ll a.n.a.lyze them even more minutely when I have a chance," he told himself.
Just then, a call over the intercom summoned the young inventor to the ship"s bunkroom. "Ted has just recovered consciousness," Doc Simpson reported. "He"s ready to tell us what happened."
"Be down in a jiffy!" Tom replied excitedly.
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The patient was sitting up in his bunk, finishing a bowl of hot soup, as Tom entered. "Hi, skipper!" he said cheerfully.
Tom shook hands with him warmly. "You don"t know how glad I am to see you well and safe, Ted!" he exclaimed. "Sure you feel like talking?"
"You bet!" Ted declared firmly. "The sooner I tell you everything, the sooner we can rescue your dad!"
Tom"s pulse raced with hope. "Let"s have it, Ted!"
"Well, your father and I were working outside the s.p.a.ce station," Ted began, "when it happened. We had just finished adjusting the electrodes and were talking about the cosmic dust experiment, when all of a sudden we noticed we were being drawn away from the outpost. Apparently it was being done by some kind of force ray, and our jet pistols couldn"t counteract it. We tried to call for help, but couldn"t get any response over our radios."
"That"s easily explained," said Tom. "The force ray probably caused interference."
Ted went on to relate that he and Mr. Swift had eventually been seized and taken aboard a s.p.a.ceship far from the outpost. "There were only three men piloting the ship," Ted added, "but they kept us covered with ray guns until they had us aboard with our hands tied."
"Americans?" Tom asked.
Ted shook his head. "I"m not sure of their nationality, but they looked Mongolian and spoke A STRANGE CAPTURE 161.
English with a thick accent. Anyhow, they went into orbit somewhere thousands of miles above the s.p.a.ce station."
"But we looked everywhere," Tom said.
Ted smiled. "Those fellows are mighty clever, Tom. They knew that and kept one jump ahead of you."
"Go on with your story," Tom urged.
"Later on, two other men came aboard from another ship and tried to make your father and me talk," said Ted. "They were after the secrets of your solartron."
Ted explained that his captors had mistaken him for Tom, and were furious when they learned their error. As Doc Simpson had suspected, when the Americans refused to talk, the criminals had kept on injecting doses of truth serum.
"After a while I blacked out," Ted concluded. "That"s the last I remember."
"What about Dad?"
Ted shrugged unhappily. "I"m sorry, Tom, but I just don"t know. All I can tell you is that he seemed okay just before I got woozy and pa.s.sed out. Keep your chin up though, skipper! I"m sure we can find their rocket, because I know where it"s...o...b..ting!"
"How come?" Tom asked eagerly. "Did they reveal their position?"
"Not exactly," Ted replied. "But from what they said, I do know they"re planning to stay in the same orbit. It seems they cooked up this whole plot against you without the knowledge of 162 .
their government, so they don"t dare land anywhere with either of us aboard.
Their object is to learn the plans for your matter maker, and then palm it off as their own invention."
"But how does that help us find their position?" Tom asked worriedly.
"I"m coming to that," said Ted. "They took our watches away a while after we came aboard, but not before we learned that they always served our meals at regular intervals. That enabled us to judge the pa.s.sing of time pretty well."
Tom nodded. "And?"
"Your dad and I could tell, from glimpses we caught of the earth every so often, how long it was taking us to orbit- We found out that we pa.s.sed over the same spot on earth every two and a half days."
Tom slammed his fist into his palm. "Smart work, Ted! That clue identifies the height of their orbit! We"ll take off as soon as the ship is ready!"
CHAPTER XIX.
FLAG OF TRUCE.
AS TOM rushed to the wall panel and pushed the alarm b.u.t.ton signaling a general alert, he had never been more excited in his life.
"Attention, everyone!" he shouted over the intercom. "Ted has just told me that my father is being held prisoner on an enemy rocket. We"ll try to intercept it.
As soon as the Challenger can be made ready, we"ll take off! You getting this, Arv?"
"Sure am, skipper," came the reply.
"All right. Check the solartron, the energy collectors, and see that the ship"s repelatrons are okay. Everything must be in top working condition. Then muster all hands and make sure everybody"s aboard. Report when you"re ready."
"Roger!" Arv acknowledged.
Tom made some quick calculations as he hurried back to Ted Spring"s bunk.
He knew that the observed time of two and a half days to circle the earth would fix the enemy ship"s distance 163.
164 .
above our planet, since a body"s...o...b..tal rate varied at different alt.i.tudes.
"Ted, what was the spot on earth you used as a reference point and when did you first see it?" Tom asked.
"It was the western bulge of Africa," Ted replied. "The first time we pa.s.sed over the area it was approximately seven a.m. on the morning after we were captured. We appeared to be moving east southeast."
"Good! I"ll work the rest out by computer!"
Tom hurried to the ship"s computer room and fed in the data which Ted had just given him. He added the orbital period of sixty hours and the elapsed time since the first observation. In a twinkling the navigation dials on the electronic brain showed the enemy rocket"s present celestial lat.i.tude and longitude, as well as its distance from the earth, which was about 60,000 miles.
Tom grinned with satisfaction, then flicked a switch and pressed a "memory"
b.u.t.ton. The computer would now retain this information and continue calculating the rocket"s movement after the Challenger took off.
"I"d better see how Arv"s making out," Tom said to himself as he hurried out of the compartment.
Going down in the elevator, he was struck by a new thought. He donned his s.p.a.ce suit hastily in the hangar compartment and went out through the air lock, meeting Bud on the landing platform outside.
FLAG OF TRUCE 165.
"Where to, skipper?" Bud asked over his suit radio.
"Bud, when you and Bert looked for a message in that rocket which carried Ted, did you search it thoroughly?" Tom asked.
"Well, sure ... at least, I think so," Bud replied. "Why?"
"Because I have a hunch there must have been a message somewhere aboard," Tom a.s.serted. "Otherwise, why would the kidnapers bother to send Ted back? I doubt if those guys were just being kind!"
"Not that bunch!" Bud agreed. "Okay. Let"s look again."
The two boys boarded flying carpets and soared off toward the spot where the missile was still lying.
When they landed beside the rocket, Tom said, "Bud, you check the outer surface. Make sure there"s nothing scratched or stamped on the metal. I"ll look inside."
Several minutes went by while the boys examined every inch of the missile.
Tom was about ready to give up, then decided to take another look in a crevice in front of the loading hatch. This time he gave a whoop of triumph.