II06-1955-TOM SWIFT and His Outpost in Space by Victor Appleton II

Author:Victor Appleton II [pseud.] [Appleton, Victor II]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Published: 1955-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

13. A CLOSE VOTE

AT THE SWIFT HOME, worry mounted with every passing hour as Tom failed to appear.

Sandy and her parents waited tensely in the living room. Again and again they telephoned various places, hoping to locate the missing youth. But every call drew a blank.

“Try the plant once again, dear,” Mrs. Swift suggested to her husband as it neared ten o’clock.

The elder inventor went into the phone alcove and dialed. When he returned, his face was graver than ever.

“No luck,” he announced. “But I did find out one thing. Tom was seen leaving the main gate with Bud Barclay around seven in Bud’s car. They were going to a garage.”

Mrs. Swift sobbed softly and Sandy put an arm around her mother’s shoulder to comfort her. “What are you going to do?” she called after her father as he turned to leave the room.

“What I should have done long ago—get hold of Harlan Ames!”

When reached by telephone, the security chief promised to start a search at once. He would pick up Mr. Swift and Phil Radnor. A short time later the three men drove to the experimental station.

“We’ll try to pick up their trail at the main gate,” Ames said.

The job of tracking the boys’ movements proved slow and tedious. The searchers questioned attendants at garage after garage before they found the right one. But at Ace the nightman could not say where the missing boys had gone.

Suddenly Mr. Swift snapped his fingers. “I just remembered a short cut Tom sometimes takes on his way home from downtown Shopton,” he said. “Let’s try South Bay Street.”

Ames cruised slowly along the dimly lighted street while Radnor and Mr. Swift each played a searchlight along the sidewalks.

Suddenly Phil Radnor cried out, “There they are!”

Ames swerved the car sharply to the curb and the others leaped out. Tom and Bud were sprawled face downward, inside an alleyway. Their heads sagged as Mr. Swift and Radnor lifted them by the shoulders.

“No use trying to bring them to here. They need a doctor,” Ames said, running up.

The men’s faces were grim and tight-lipped as they lifted the unconscious victims into the car. Ames raced to the Swift home, where Tom and Bud were put to bed and a doctor summoned immediately. Before he arrived, however, the boys began to regain consciousness.

Both were groggy but managed to answer questions about the attack. “Whoever hit Bud and me took us by surprise,” Tom mumbled. “We didn’t see them.”

When Dr. Emerson reached the house, he examined the boys carefully and treated their head injuries. “Slight concussions,” he announced as he replaced his instruments in his black medical bag. “They’ll have to remain quiet for several days.”

Radnor and Ames, meanwhile, had gone back to South Bay Street. With flashlights they examined the alley carefully for clues. It was apparent that the boys had been dragged into it after a car had pulled out.

“A man got out on each side of the car,” Ames muttered. “You can see their footprints leaving and coming back.

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