"An inside job!" Tom was shocked. Then he remembered again the eavesdropper who had knocked over the chemical equipment in his office, and also the suspected sabotage of the printing plates. Perhaps the same person was responsible for all three incidents. "Any clues, Harlan?"
"Not so far. But we learned that Miss Warner left the papers on her desk while she went out to lunch. In fact she didn"t take the papers to the printer until late afternoon. That would have given the culprit plenty of opportunity to write in the formula."
"But why? What"s the angle?" Tom puzzled.
"Only one reason that I can figure out," Ames replied. "Remember, that formula was long and complicated, with a bunch of mathematical signs and Greek letters in it."
"So?"
"So it was probably too tough to memorize," Ames went on. "And it was too risky to carry it out of the plant written down on paper, since every employee is checked at the gate. But this 116 .
way he could get the formula outside Enterprises without any danger of being caught."
"Hmm, that could be the answer," Tom mused.
The young inventor was deeply disturbed. He knew that the Journal had been mailed to a large group of scientists. Undoubtedly one of them was a subversive, with an accomplice in Swift Enterprises.
"Keep working on it, Harlan," Tom said, "and make sure none of the rest of the formula for the solartron leaks out. In the meantime, do you think we should tell mother and Mrs. Spring about Dad and Ted"s disappearance?"
Ames mulled over the problem. "Still no leads?" he asked.
Tom reported the unsigned radio message, but added that he was not sure it had come from the s.p.a.ce people.
"In that case, skipper," said Ames, "I think we should tell your mother and Sandy. Suppose we let your mother decide whether or not to inform Mrs. Spring and Ray?"
Tom agreed to this plan, and Ames promised to break the news as gently as possible the following morning. "It"s late here. I"m sure she"s in bed now."
Before starting back for the outpost, Tom ordered the power gatherers deflated, folded, and put back into the ship for future use. Then, while most of the men slept, he set the Challenger"s course.
When the great s.p.a.ceship reached the outpost, THE SECRET FORMULA 117.
Ken Horton greeted Tom with a look of excitement as he entered through the station air lock.
"We"ve just picked up a faint SOS, skipper," Ken reported. "It came from s.p.a.ce."
Tom"s pulse raced with sudden hope. "You think it was from Dad and Ted?"
he asked tensely.
"I don"t know. The radioman said the message trailed off before he could catch all of it. But it sounded like just one man, because the wording was "I am stranded in orbit-" not "we are stranded." "
"How about his position? Did you get a fix?"
"Approximately," Ken replied. "He was about 12,000 miles above the Pacific, somewhere around 20 degrees north lat.i.tude and 130 degrees west longitude.
Orbiting on a northeasterly track."
After inquiring the time of the call, Tom gave orders to his crew to re-embark immediately aboard the Challenger for a rescue operation. All data on the stranded s.p.a.ceman was fed into a computer which supplied the proper course and speed to the ship"s navigating instruments. In a few moments the great silver s.p.a.ce craft was spearing downward to intercept the derelict.
"Got it, skipper!" the radarman called over the intercom. "Twelve degrees starboard, elevation minus five!"
"There he is!" Bud cried a moment later, pointing through his copilot"s window.
A small rocket ship was drifting in the inky void with its final stage still clinging, half-locked, to the nose section.
118 .
Tom flicked on the radio and spoke into his microphone. "Swift ship Challenger calling stranded rocket! Can you read me?"
"Rocket to Challenger," came the reply. "I can read you and see you. My third stage is jammed and I"m marooned in orbit. Can you take me aboard?"
"Roger. Who are you?"
"My name is Selwyn Joss," the s.p.a.ce voyager replied. "I blasted off this morning from one of the Marshall Islands. Destination moon-but this is as far as I got."
"You took off by yourself?" Tom asked unbelievingly.
"Sure. Why not? It"s a one-man ship."
Tom and Bud exchanged startled glances. Bud pointed one finger to his head and twirled the finger as if to say, "The guy must be crazy!"
Tom grinned and spoke into his mike again. "Okay, Joss. Stand by for rescue. We"ll come into orbit just ahead of you and take your ship in tow."
Switching to manual control, Tom guided the Challenger skillfully into position ahead of the s.p.a.ce derelict. A few moments later the Challenger"s air lock opened. Tom, Bud, and a pair of crewmen emerged, bearing coils of light, tough nylon cable.
"Secure one end of each cable to our repelatron rails," Tom ordered over his suit radio. "Hook on the other end any place you can find a pro- THE SECRET FORMULA 119.
jection on the rocket. We may have to run the lines all the way aft to his motor compartment."
As the crewmen performed their task, another s.p.a.ce-suited figure appeared.
It was Joss, the rocket pilot, crawling out of his tiny flight compartment.
"Can I give you any help?" he radioed. "I- I"ve never been out in the void before. . . . Whew!"
Tom looked up sharply and saw the s.p.a.ceman waver crazily, then clutch at the ship"s air lock.
"Help him, Bud!" Tom cried. "He"s s.p.a.ce-happy!"
Bud darted to the pilot"s aid. Evidently Joss had succ.u.mbed to the awful giddiness of s.p.a.ce and its bleak sense of emptiness. Bud helped him find a handhold on one of the cables, then guided him gently toward the hatch of the Challenger.
In a few minutes Tom and his crewmen finished connecting the towline and returned to their own ship.
"How is he?" asked Tom, re-entering the flight compartment.
"I"m okay now," Joss spoke up with a wan smile. Bud and Chow had helped him out of his s.p.a.ce suit. "Had a slight touch of s.p.a.ce sickness, I guess. This is my first trip out."
"So I gathered," said Tom dryly. Inwardly he was wondering if the man might be putting on an act. Could it be that Joss was a spy, connected with the kidnapers responsible for his Dad"s and 120 .
Ted"s disappearance? "Mind telling us how you expected to land on the moon and get back to earth safely all by yourself?"
"Maybe it was foolhardy," Joss admitted, "but I saw no reason to risk someone else"s life."
The rescued rocketeer was in his thirties, stockily built, and had thinning reddish hair. He explained that his father, a fabulously wealthy man, was owner of the Joss Manufacturing Company. He and his son had hoped to gain publicity by the moon-rocket stunt.
"Mighty expensive publicity if it had cost you your life," Bud observed.
"I guess you"re right," Joss said ruefully. "But when I started out, I really thought I could make it."
Tom questioned him further, and finally decided that Joss had had nothing to do with the disappearance of his father and Ted Spring. Moreover, he had not seen them or picked up any messages.
"We"ll take you to our s.p.a.ce station and send you back to earth safely," Tom promised. "Sorry we can"t offer you much hospitality, but our installation up here is top-secret. Government orders, you understand."
"Sure, sure, I realize that," Joss replied. "Believe me, I"m grateful to you for saving my life. I"d have gotten mighty tired of orbiting around here for the next umpteen million years!"
Tom knew from the shuttle-rocket schedule that a ship was due from Fearing Island within THE SECRET FORMULA 121.
the next two hours. It arrived soon after their return to the outpost. Selwyn Joss was escorted aboard and his craft stored in the cargo compartment.
"So long and thanks again!" Joss called back over the radio.
"Have a good trip," Tom replied.
As soon as the ship had blasted off, he contacted George Billing at Fearing Island over the company"s special frequency. Tom gave orders for Joss to be transported to the mainland as soon as he landed. "I think the man"s okay," he added, "but have Harlan Ames make a follow-up check on him, just to play safe."
"Wilco!" Billing replied.
Tom had hardly signed off when another voice crackled over the radio. "Tom, come and get us! We"re on the moon!"
It was Ted Spring"s voice!
CHAPTER XIV.
MOON SEARCH.
TOM and his companions were electrified! Mr. Swift and Ted Spring were on the moon!
Everyone listened intently as the message continued. "We were drawn away from the s.p.a.ce station by some kind of invisible force ray," Ted went on. "I"m not sure what happened after that. Tom, your dad and I both blacked out."
Mr. Swift"s voice broke in, "The important thing is that the two of us are here on the moon. Come and get us and hurry!"
Abruptly the voices ceased.
Tom grabbed the microphone. "Dad! Ted! Can you hear me?" he called urgently. "This is Tom at the outpost! Come in, please!"
There was no response. Finally Tom gave up trying to contact them.
"Come on!" he told the others. "We"ll take off right now! We must rescue them!"
"I"m with you, pal!" Bud shouted.
Arv Hanson, however, clutched Tom"s arm. 122 MOON SEARCH 123.
"Wait a while, skipper," he begged. "That call may be a trick. If your dad and Ted were captured by some enemy, they wouldn"t be released without some good reason."
"What do you mean?" Tom asked impatiently.
"If we go zooming off to the moon now, we may be heading right into a trap!"
Chow looked worried. "Brand my biscuits, Arv may be right, boss," the cook opined. "Them s.p.a.ce rustlers didn"t plan that kidnapin" just for a joke. Mebbe they"re fixin" to bushwhack us!"
"But what about Dad"s and Ted"s oxygen supply?" Tom protested. "If they are stranded up there, it may give out!"
Arv"s face was flushed and uneasy. "I know how you must feel, Tom, but let"s find out what Hor-ton thinks. Check with Harlan Ames too."
When Ken Horton was informed of the radio message, he suggested that Tom wait until Mr. Swift and Ted made contact again. Ames, too, when reached at Enterprises, agreed with this advice.
"That call sounds fishy to me, Tom," he said. "Why did they stop so abruptly and not respond to your signal? And another thing, would their suit radios have range enough to transmit their voices from the moon?"
"I"m not sure, Harlan," Tom pondered. "It would depend on various conditions, but you may have a point there. Guess we"d better wait."
Hara.s.sed by fears and doubts, the young inventor found it hard to hold his impatience in 124 .
check. To be prepared for any emergency, Tom ordered the Challenger stocked at once with all supplies and equipment needed for a moon expedition.
"How about giving your s.p.a.ce solartron another workout?" Bud suggested, to keep his friend"s mind occupied. "You still haven"t tried combining any of those elements you concocted and making some food."
The idea intrigued Tom enough to try it. "I"ll start with some simple compounds," he said.
After boarding the Challenger, the two boys, Chow, and Doc Simpson unloaded the power gatherers and put them in place on the outside of the ship.
The helium was sent into the tubing, then the watchers crowded into the compartment where the solartron was set up. They watched in fascination as Tom switched on the current and adjusted the controls.
"What"ll it be first, skipper?" Doc asked.
"Let"s try making sugar," Tom decided. "All it takes is carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen."
He pushed several b.u.t.tons on the element and isotope control panels, then watched the wave pattern closely on the oscilloscope. Minutes later, he stopped the machine. Over a pound of sugar had crystallized in the receiving tank!
"Wai, I"ll be a locoed bronc!" Chow gasped. He scooped up some of the glistening white grains unbelievingly. "You sure this stuff is sugar, son?"
MOON SEARCH 125.