II04-1954-TOM SWIFT and His Giant Robot by Victor Appleton II

Author:Victor Appleton II [pseud.] [Appleton, Victor II]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Published: 1954-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

14. STRANGE INDIAN STORY

LOOSE EARTH and cement showered down upon Tom. Sputtering and choking, he fought his way through the mound of debris and gasped for breath in the dust-filled cavern.

Above him there was a deathlike silence and he was worried about the safety of his father and friends. Tom knew that the only way to get aboveground was through the tunnel and into the plant.

His flashlight was buried in the debris and he stumbled along the black passageway, feeling his way inch by inch to avoid any pitfalls.

A hundred thoughts filled his mind at once. What had caused the blast? All detonating had been completed months earlier when foundations for the plant were being dug. Surely no workman could have been carrying dynamite at this late date. But then, what?

A dim light ahead indicated that he was approaching the basement floor of the building that housed the pile. He broke into a run and presently found himself in the vast underground room. It was well lighted. At its center concrete pillars, twelve feet square and looking even larger because of the low ceiling, supported the framework of the pile on the floor above.

Tom looked around for an exit, found a door, and hastened upstairs. He was between the double walls in the section known as the "hot" corridor because of its nearness to the pile. He started running again, first to the left and then, remembering that the exit was in the other direction, to the right. At last he came to the familiar sight of the relay board and the exit.

Outside, the scene that greeted his eyes was one of disorder. Planks and bricks from piles of construction material had been scattered all over. Nurses and doctors were administering to the injured. Two ambulances were parked near the tunnel entrance. Tom hurried toward the scene of confusion.

"Dad!" he cried. Mr. Swift was seated on an ambulance cot, holding a gauze compress to his head. He called excitedly to his son:

"Tom, Tom! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Dad. What happened? Where are Hank and Arv?"

"Hanson got a bump on his head from a flying stone. Sterling's gone to the plant hospital to have a leg cut treated."

"Anybody badly hurt?" Tom asked.

"Fortunately no. And not a soul saw what caused the blast."

At this moment a security guard came racing up. In his hands were several metal fragments.

"We found these in the blast area, Mr. Swift," he panted. "They're sections of casing from a large bomb."

"Have these pieces been analyzed?" Mr. Swift asked.

"The labs are going over some of the fragments now," the guard replied. "We think the bomb must have been dropped by a plane that was out of the range of our radarscope."

Tom and his father exchanged glances. "The Briggin boys?" they were asking themselves.

"Or some crank who is opposed to atomic progress and wants us all back in the Stone Age," Tom thought ruefully. Aloud he said, "Dad, this plant needs drone protection badly. I'm sorry we were able to bring only one with us.

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