Victor Appleton - Tom Swift Jr 03 by And His Rocket Ship

Author:And His Rocket Ship
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2011-12-06T00:03:41+00:00

CHAPTER 12

DANGEROUS ACID

FAMILIAR with Tom’s sudden inspirations, Bud waited a full minute before interrupting his friend’s thoughts. Then he asked Tom how he intended to solve the mysterious space beings’ problem of penetrating the earth’s atmosphere.

“I’ll send them an explanation of how to build a degaussing shield to protect their bodies.”

“Good idea,” Bud said. “But how could you ever do that with geometric figures?”

“It’ll be a lot of work, but I’ll do it some day,” Tom declared. Then, talking more to himself than to Bud, he said, “I might use an arc to represent the shield-“

At this moment the loudspeaker system boomed out the message that Tom Swift was wanted at the communications office.

“Bud, you warm up the Flying Lab, will you, while I go see what’s wanted,” he requested.

“Righto,” Bud replied, and drove off in a jeep.

When Tom reached the radio room, Billing and Ames were there reading a message.

“You must have news,” Tom remarked.

“We sure have,” Ames replied. “That first spy you caught-Drayton who turned out to be Gray-made a full confession to the FBI.”

“He squealed on Rotzog?” Tom cried unbelievingly.

“That’s right,” the security officer answered. “Billing just took the message. Rotzog’s a crazy scientist, kind of a man without a country. Has a pile of money. Nobody knows where it comes from and it’s always in cash. He pays his men well.”

“To spy and steal inventions?” Tom asked.

“That and much more. Gray declares Rotzog claims he’s going to rule the world from a space platform he’s building.”

Tom asked if the FBI had caught Rotzog, and was disappointed to learn that Gray insisted he did not know where Rotzog was, nor the location of his rocket ship. Gray had received all his orders from Hein and had never seen Rotzog.

“Gray and Johnson,” said Ames, “began working for the outfit only recently and did not know much about the spy work it carried on. But one thing Gray was definite about. And, Tom, you can take a bow. Rotzog isn’t afraid of any rocket builder in this world except you.”

Tom smiled and said, “I’ll reserve decision on it being a compliment until I find out more about Rotzog.”

“Well, then, here’s bad news,” Billing said.

“Rotzog has declared he’ll stop at nothing to keep your manned rocket from getting into space!”

“So that’s it,” Tom said, frowning.

“Yes,” Ames replied. “And ever since I heard that, I’ve been figuring out new security measures for the island. I thought Rotzog’s outfit merely intended to try stealing your inventions, but now I’m worried that he means to destroy you!”

Tom was very thoughtful. He also was puzzled. Why wasn’t Rotzog worried that another entrant in the rocket race might keep him from realizing his dream of being master of the world? When he expressed this thought aloud, Ames at once said:

“That’s easy. You’re the only rocket builder who has solved the secret of harnessing the sun’s energy to do your work for you. With it, you could be master over this earth.”

“No, thanks.” Tom’s grim look turned to a smile.

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