They sat in silent contemplation for five minutes before Bud noticed that Tom’s mind had slipped elsewhere. He rose and left the control deck and even the ship.
Ten minutes later he wandered past the doorway to Haz’s office and paused. The big man looked up, smiled and indicated the flyer should come in and take a seat.
“Tom finished with his data dump?”
“Yeah, and we found a pretty good sized void a couple hundred feet inside the moon. Maybe fifty feet tall and I think three times that wide in all directions.”
“Wouldn’t that lack of mass cause the moon to spin?”
Bud shrugged. “Do I look the sort to understand that level of physics, much less planetary physics?”
“Sorry, Bud. Sometimes I associate you and Tom so closely I think you are like twins who have never left each other’s side. I guess he’ll let us all know what he believes all in his own good time.”
Half an hour later Tom joined Bud and Haz in the commander’s office. His face was flush with excitement.
“I think I have found the reason for Phobos’ wanting to come down and play with Mars,” he announced as he took the other visitor’s seat. “Phobos has, and I’m guessing Bud already spilled these beans, a void of some size located about fifteen degrees below the current equator. It is maybe four acres in size, at what could be thought of as the floor, and has a mostly domed top. Something was there that turned to gas or water and that finally evaporated or escaped leaving the void. Probably a passing comet that really wasn’t interested in going any farther.”
“Neat!” Bud said but his grin turned serious as he saw the inventor had more to tell them.
“It isn’t so much the void because that can be explained. It is what I believe is down in there. As in sitting on the floor. Smack dab in the exact center.”
“What?” Bud and Haz chorused.
Tom grinned. “A gravity stone!”
* * * * *
Plans were made for a landing on Phobos to look for any way to get into the cavern under the surface.
“We’re taking the three saucers but not the Challenger?” Hank questioned Tom. “Why not the big girl?”
Tom smiled. “I’d like to set down lightly and in a triangle formation. If we then get out and walk a three-sided search pattern inward and then back outward we can cover about as much area as I’d like in just a few hours. While we’re out there, Professor Brandon is going to try to come up with a plan for digging into the cavern without damaging Phobos.”
When another member of the team questioned why not use an earth blaster, Tom explained the potential for damage to the moon. The man blushed but Tom told him it was a good question that everybody needed to understand.
The three spacecraft took off at ten second intervals before flying in formation to the point where Phobos would be in twenty more minutes. Five minutes prior to the intersection Tom ordered them to begin flying forward along the same orbital plane as the moon but about 10% slower. As the time approached for the moon to catch up to them he ordered them to rise about five miles and speed up slightly so little Phobos would pass below them. A minute later they all slowed to match the speed of the moon.
“You each have your set down points, so I see no reason for me to micromanage the landings. At your own readiness, go ahead and land. We’ll be in constant communication so call out if anything untoward happens,” Tom told the other two pilots.
Hank in saucer two and Bud in saucer three radioed their acknowledgement.
With a precision due more to excellent piloting than any automated systems, the three saucer-shaped craft touched down on Phobos within two seconds of each other.
“Please get everything into standby and team members suited up. We’ll report once we are outside and then get this little walk underway,” Tom radioed the others. His own team, three strong, were already in their suits with just the helmets left to seal up, and Tom assumed the other two ships would be in the same state of readiness.
Once outside, the teams began their walk in a clockwise rotation, team members about twenty feet apart. In each team one member carried a portable gravimeter which they paused and set down about every fifty feet. With the three devices connected electronically, they were building a fairly precise picture of the potential for the gravity stone Tom believed was below them.
Each team walked about five kilometers in total on the inward route before they headed back to Tom’s saucer for a rest and reports of any findings.
“If this were back home I’d say it was a very rough desert walk,” Bud stated. “Lots of dust and rocks of all sizes, but I’m sure you all ran into that same stuff. We did think we spotted a dip in the surface like something might have caved in below, so I’d love to get the Challenger out here to fly right over that with the Deep Peek.”
Duanne Dimmock, one of Hank’s team, asked, “Why?”
Tom thought he knew. “Well, Duanne, if that is a cave in or any sort of subsidence, that means a void was down there at some point. And, if there is one point like that it might indicate a path of escape for water or air at one time and that might still be viable for digging out and getting us into that cavern. Good job, Bud, and your team!”
Tom made the radio call and was promised that the large ship would be there the next time the moon passed over the colony.
“We need to go mark that spot,” Tom began but saw Bud’s smirking face and continued, “but our Bud will have already taken care of that. Am I right?”
The flyer nodded and smiled. “Dropped a marker beacon. When the ship gets here I’ll send them the channel to home in on.”
As it would take another three hours for their position to be easiest for the rendezvous Tom suggested they take a shot at the search routes farther out from their positions.
“I think we’ll limit it to one path clockwise and one counter to that a little farther out before we come back and get ready for Challenger to get here.”
As the last of them trudged back to the lead saucer Tom received a call from Challenger.
“Be there in twenty minutes, skipper. Do you have the location we’re to scan marked?”
“It is, but hang on while I get Bud in on this, He dropped a beacon and knows the exact frequency.”
Bud was brought in moments later.
“Look for one-zero-seven-nine-point-five,” he called out. “I tossed it right into the center of the depression. If you get visual you will see it is only about three feet deep and maybe six feet wide, but very noticeable, at least from ground level.”
Everyone on the surface crowded around the large monitor at the “front” of the saucer’s one and only circular room to watch the results of the Deep Peek scan.
Ten minutes later the results were in.
“Sorry to tell you, skipper, but we’re seeing a pretty solid plug below that. Not exactly like the surrounding rocks, but darned dense. I suppose we can ask the geologists at the colony to review this data to tell us if digging through that would be safe. Can we do anything more for you?”
“No, and thanks, Red. Take her back and get the colony experts and Doctor Brandon reviewing things. We’ll finish our surface search in another three or four hours and head down.”
“Will do. Take care down there. Oh, and your father called Haz a few hours ago asking that you come back as soon as you can. Not an emergency, but he needs you to take over the big office while he heads down to finish his New Zealand project. See you on the ground!”
Tom remained behind in his saucer while the others finished the two farthest search lines.
He needed to think things over.
If there was a gravity stone down there, it was either being used by someone to turn the moon into a sort of weapon, or it was malfunctioning and was the likely cause of the moon coming closer to the surface at one point and then seeming to be perfectly happy to remain it its standard orbit within a short period.
“I’ve really got to get the Space Friends to answer me,
” he said out loud to nobody other than himself. If, that is, they are still anywhere around here, he added inside his own head.
He walked back to the small kitchenette hidden behind a panel at the rear of the saucer and dispensed a coffee packet. Even with the artificial gravity pressing down on his inner body suit making him and the others feel as if they were under three-quarters Earth gravity, liquids and other things were only subject to the minuscule gravity of Phobos, hence needing to contain the hot beverage in a squeezy pack.
He sat down at the central control station and brought down the communications instrumentation of the wraparound glass panel. The selector was quickly set to the frequency over which he and his father sent and received messages with the strange space beings.
It also included a keyboard which he ran his gently fingers over as he decided what to write.
Once, he would have needed to develop a message of nothing more than mathematical symbols and equations, but a breakthrough a few years earlier meant he could type the message in English, although in a stilted sort of English.
He thought for nearly five minutes before he began typing.
After creating the message he sat back sucking the last of his now tepid coffee before leaning forward and making several changes.
Finally, he was satisfied.
I only wish I could take the time to pass this by dad, he thought. But, he felt that time was an important factor and so he gave the message on final scan. He chuckled as he spotted a typo that might have confused the space beings—assuming they read the message—and made the necessary correction before pressing SEND.
To Space Friends from Later Swift.
I understand your hesitance to
communicate, but have found a
gravity stone inside the smaller Mars
moon, Phobos. It is fluctuating between
a very weak or no output up to a very
powerful level and is causing moon
to fall from orbit.
It appears to be in a large cavern which
we cannot safely explore because
stability of the moon might become
compromised.
If you have anything you can tell me
or do to change this unnatural gravity
or anything about gaining access, please
contact me as soon as possible.
If I cannot find a solution to this
unnatural gravity, the entire moon
will need to be removed from its
orbit and destroyed.
Tom knew that only time and a change in the Space Friends’ situation—if they were still anywhere in the vicinity of Mars, that was—would tell if they had an insight into why one of the gravity stones, like the ones on Nestria and the smaller one he had parked on the Moon from their one and only successful visit to the Earth, had been installed inside Phobos.
Only then might he understand the real story.
CHAPTER 12 /
EARTHBOUND… FOR A BIT
TOM AND BUD took off from the colony in one of the saucers and met up with the orbiting TranSpace Dart for the fast trip back to Earth. Just about everything was ready for them; Tom decided to spend a little time ensuring all their data and other evidence was on board and backed up. An hour later they left orbit turning the ship and its driving black hole toward the point of rendezvous where they would meet their home planet two days later.
“I kind of wish you could develop some sort of artificial black hole so we could always travel this fast and smooth,” Bud said as they neared the orbit of Earth’s Moon. “You have to admit that once you found that balance point between distance and the attraction of the hole, and how that cancels out the forces of acceleration, it sure made fast travel comfortable.”
“Maybe someday, flyboy. For now we have to be satisfied with our one little natural black hole and this ship. I don’t have any solid idea how to come up with something like that, but,” Tom said with a thoughtful look on his face, “nothing is beyond possibility.”
He knew it was probably a physical impossibility as the black hole had been created when a very small star—or more likely a small piece of an exploding star—had burned out and collapsed in on itself becoming impossibly small and dense. It had meandered through the galaxy finally finding itself captured between two large pieces of asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Nothing on Earth could recreate those conditions, so light speed flight would need to rely on something else.
For a split second Tom wondered whether the gravity stone he now believed was a probability down under the surface of Phobos might be utilized like a black hole. Probably not, he thought briefly.
After transferring to another saucer at the Space Queen, they landed right at Enterprises. This particular saucer was scheduled for some additional equipment that was best installed at Enterprises so Tom was able to bypass Fearing Island.
“It’s coming on lunch time,” Bud said rubbing his stomach. “Care to join me in the cafeteria? I know we could ask Chow to run and fix something for us, but he’s looking a little tired after the trip, and I wanted to give him a break.”
“Hold on right there, hombre!” Chow’s booming baritone sounded behind them as he exited the saucer. “The day hasn’t come when old Chow cain’t rustle up grub fer you two. Gimme fifteen minutes and I’ll whip up something.”
Tom shook his head. “No. While we both appreciate the offer, you do look tired and I promised Wanda to let you come home the minute we touched down. So, we appreciate your offer and love your cooking, but you go see your wife and get a good night’s sleep and Bud and I will go choke down something from the regular food lines.”
Looking thankful but too prideful to say he actually was feeling exhausted, Chow nodded, clasped both young men on their shoulders and headed for his car.
“Gotta give the man his dues,” Bud stated. “He’s bone tired and yet willing to cook for you.”
“And, you as well, Bud.”
“Yeah. Glad you sent him home. So, cheeseburgers before we do the same to see our ladies?”
Tom shook his head. “No. The more I think about it, the more I realize it needs to be wives before burgers, Bud. Always and forever!”
When he got home Bashalli threw herself into his arms giving him kisses all over his face and neck.
Finally, she eased herself to the floor and hugged him with her face against his chest.
“I am so glad you are home, and when Bart and Mary get up from their naps they will also be thrilled.” She backed up and looked into his face. “Did you solve the little moon problem up there?” She glanced toward the ceiling.
“Not really. We discovered several new things and a few more mysteries that make it vital, in my mind, that we get it to stay put back in the proper orbit rather than to drag it into space and push it toward the sun.”
He told her about what they had found regarding the gravity stone.
“Can’t your Space Friends take care of it?”
He reminded her that they had been out of communication for the most part for over two years. She responded that it wasn’t fair, and that made him laugh.
“Fair or not, if their Masters won’t let them call us, or worse yet if they have been recalled to their home planet, there is not a lot we can do about it.”
“Don’t you have those super fast radios they gave you? Can’t you call them on those?”
Tom explained that he and his father did use the faster-than-light transmitter/receivers, but even those elicited no answers.
They continued discussing possibilities for Phobos while the children were awakened, cleaned up and brought to the living room to play.
Several times Bart asked questions, mostly astute and well thought out which Tom tried to answer as best he could. Finally, getting a little frustrated at the lack of complete answers, the boy crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.
“Daddy? Why don’t you want to answer me?” he asked soun
ding a little peeved.
Tom laughed. “Bart. It isn’t that I don’t want to answer your very clever questions, it is that I just don’t have the answers. At least, not right now. But, I promise that after Grampa Damon you will be the next person to know once I do have answers. Okay?”
Bart brightened and ran over to hug his father around the neck. “Okay, daddy. I won’t ask any more until you tell me it is okay.”
Bashalli left Tom with the two children and went to start their dinner. As she walked into the kitchen, she called back, “I hope roast pork loin with that sour cherry sauce you like is okay.”
Before Tom could utter a sound, Bart piped up. “Okay, momma!”
“Ditto what my son just said,” his father added.
After dinner Tom called his parents’ house and spoke with his father.
“I’m sorry to take some of your mind share away from the Mars issue, but I’m going back down to New Zealand for up to three weeks, and as much as I know that this company runs smoothly because of Munford Trent, I really want one of us here to make the important decisions.”
Tom understood and said so before asking if there was anything in particular needing his attention.
“Yes, and one of them is that design sabotage you spotted in your Deep Peek. Go talk to Harlan tomorrow. He believes he knows what has happened.”
It was enough of a tease that Tom found it difficult to sleep soundly that night so he rose at five and headed in to work. He walked past the alcove where their secretary normally sat. Even Trent didn’t come in this early so Tom continued down the hall to the large lab and apartment next door where he took a shower and shaved.
By the time he got back to the office, Trent was sitting at his desk, something almost like a smirk on his face as he handed Tom a cup of coffee.
“I shouldn’t ask, should I?” the inventor stated.
“With your father leaving this morning and you taking over I have so many things to attend to that I just came in. Imagine my surprise that you are here this early, Tom.”
Tom Swift and the Martian Moon Re-Placement Page 13