Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung

by II Victor Appleton

  CHAPTER XIV

  A PROPAGANDA BLITZ

  As the _Sea Hound_ returned to Fearing Island from its search for Bud'sjetmarine, Tom was beside himself with worry. Had his experiment costthe lives of his best friend and the other crewmen aboard?

  "I'll never forgive myself if anything's happened to them!" Tom mutteredbleakly.

  Hank Sterling squeezed the young inventor's arm. "You know Bud's highspirits, skipper," he said. "He may have taken off on some crazy lark."

  "Sure! A whale hunt, maybe!" Arv Hanson wisecracked, trying to lightenthe gloom.

  Tom forced a grin, but he remained heavy-hearted as they neared thebase. His only hope now was that a radio message from the jetmarinemight have been picked up while they were gone.

  As soon as the seacopter was moored, Tom leaped ashore. The crewmen onthe docks had no news to report, so Tom piled into a jeep with Arv andsped off to the Fearing communications center. Hank remained aboard the_Sea Hound_ to secure all gear.

  Churning along the graveled road, Tom and Arv passed the launching area.Huge, needle-nosed cargo rockets and the mighty spaceship _Titan_ loomedagainst the sky. Tom's moon-voyaging _Challenger_ and his more recentspace craft the _Cosmic Sailer_ were also based there.

  "Going to alert the Navy for a search?" Arv inquired as they reached thecommunications building.

  Tom nodded and braked the jeep to a screeching halt. "Coast Guard too.They can pass the word to commercial shipping to be on the lookout."

  A telephone rang as he hurried into the office.

  "For you," the clerk said, looking up at Tom. "Nice timing!"

  Tom grabbed the phone. His face widened into a grin. "Bud! You seagoingjet stream! What happened?"

  Arv grinned, too, in relief.

  "Your antidetection gear worked so well we vanished right out of theocean!" Bud replied with a chuckle. Turning serious, he reported how hisjetmarine had trailed the mysterious intruder and how he and Mel hadcaptured the two Brungarian frogmen and their shore contact.

  "Nice going, pal!" Tom exclaimed.

  "But here's the catch," Bud went on. "When we took off again in ourhydrolungs to go back aboard ship, the jetmarine was gone!"

  "Maybe she's trailing the enemy sub," Tom conjectured.

  "That's what I'm hoping," Bud said uneasily. "Trouble is, our subsaren't armed, and who knows about that Brungarian job? The way theysling missiles around, anything could happen if she spots thejetmarine."

  Tom frowned. "I'll organize a search right away. Where are you callingfrom?"

  "Police headquarters at Sandbank."

  "Okay. Take it easy, and I'll send a whirlybird to pick you up," Tompromised.

  "And don't forget some clothes," Bud added with a chuckle. "Mel and Iare getting chilly."

  "Right!" Tom hung up and gave Arv Hanson a quick briefing.

  Then he phoned the base airfield to dispatch a helicopter. He alsocontacted the nearest Coast Guard station and put through along-distance call to Navy Headquarters in Washington to request help insearching for the jetmarine. Finally he and Arv headed back to thesubmarine docks in the jeep.

  A flurry of activity followed as Tom detailed ships for the search androunded up crews. He was interrupted by a phone call in the loadingshed. It was the control-tower operator.

  "One of our drone planes has spotted a sub approaching, skipper," theoperator reported.

  "What bearing?" Tom demanded excitedly.

  "One-seven-six." Tom was about to hang up and grab a pair of binocularswhen the operator added hastily, "Wait! It's responding to our radiochallenge!... That's ours, all right!"

  Tom dashed out of the shed and scanned the sea to the southward. Sureenough, a jetmarine had surfaced and was speeding toward the sub docks.Minutes later, Tom was shaking hands warmly with Zimby Cox and MackAvery.

  "Is Bud okay?" was Zimby's first question.

  "Right! I just heard from him," Tom replied. "He and Mel captured thoseenemy frogmen and a copter's on the way to pick them up. What happenedto you fellows?"

  Zimby confirmed Bud's guess that they had taken off in pursuit of theenemy craft.

  "We figured Bud and Mel could make out on their own," Zimby explained."And we thought the sub's course or actions might tip us off to itsnationality. Also, if it tried any sabotage or mine-planting, we couldradio the Navy."

  Instead, Cox went on, the mysterious craft had proceeded to a pointabout ten miles offshore where it rendezvoused with another submarine.

  "And get this, skipper!" Mack Avery put in. "The other sub wasundetectable! We were close enough to get a peek at it, but we couldn'tping it on the sonarscope."

  "That figures," Tom said grimly. "Those frogmen were apparentlyBrungarians."

  Zimby Cox related that a man had transferred from the undetectablesubmarine to the one they had been following. The first sub had thenheaded out to sea, as if to cross the ocean back to its home base. Theother had departed on a course toward the South Atlantic.

  "Probably back to the lost missile area. At least that's the way wefigured it," Zimby added.

  "And neither sub spotted you?" Tom questioned.

  Zimby grinned wryly. "We might not be here if they _had_ detected us.But I'm pretty sure they didn't. Anyhow, they gave no sign."

  Tom was doubly elated at the news. His antidetection gear had evidentlyworked perfectly in a showdown test with the enemy, even at close range.Moreover, if the second sub was returning to the South Atlantic, itseemed likely that the enemy, too, had not yet located the preciousmissile with its data from Jupiter.

  "You guys rate Navy medals," Tom told Zimby and Mack jubilantly. "Comeon back to Shopton with me and I'll buy you the juiciest steaks intown!"

  Before leaving the base, Tom called the Coast Guard and the Navy tocancel his search request. He also telephoned a full report on the enemysubmarines to Admiral Walter.

  After hanging up, Tom decided on another move. "Our antidetection gearseems to have panned out pretty well," he told Hank. "I think we shouldmake use of it right away. By sending that jetmarine to the SouthAtlantic, we might get a line on enemy activities down there."

  Hank was in favor of the idea. He volunteered to prepare the jetmarinefor a cruise and take off from Fearing that very night.

  "Thanks," Tom said with a parting handshake. "Keep us posted if youlearn anything."

  Meanwhile, Bud and Mel Flagler had arrived at the base by helicopter.They and their two shipmates flew back to the mainland with Tom and Arvfor a celebration dinner in town.

  The next morning found the young inventor hard at work in his privatelaboratory. He was tapping his head with his slide rule and frowning ata blackboard scrawled with equations when Bud dropped in for a visit.

  "What now, inventor boy?" his copilot asked. "Don't you ever give thatbrain of yours a rest?"

  "Oh, hi, Bud!" Tom looked around absent-mindedly. "I'm just trying tofigure out a way to crack the Brungarians' antisonar system."

  "Good night!" Bud sank down on a lab stool. "You've come up with a wayto make our own subs undetectable. Isn't that enough?"

  Tom shook his head. "Not if we want to keep track of those sneaks. And Ithink I see a way to do it."

  "How?"

  "So far, I have been thinking about refining our own search sonar." Tomexplained that the new system he had in mind would send out a _complex_pulse--that is, an underwater sound wave with many harmonics instead ofa single tone, sharp-peaked sound impulse.

  "This will make it less likely that their antidetection gear will absorball of it," Tom went on. "What's not absorbed will return as an echo.I'm also going to modify our receivers. But I've still not worked thatout."

  Bud nodded, his forehead puckered in a look of concentration. "So--?"

  "So our sonar picks up all that hash, and by means of a computer setupfilters out the sub's real echo from the shadow reflections."

  "Hey! Sounds pretty cute," Bud said.

  Tom broke into a dry chuckle. "Right--_if_ I can
do it." After that job,Tom added, he hoped to adapt his own antidetection methods to makehydrolung wearers safe from underwater detection. "And if the Jupiterprober hasn't been found by that time, Bud, I'm going to request theNavy to let us take over the search alone."

  Bud gave a whistle of excitement at the possibility of new underseaadventures ahead. "Count me in, pal!"

  The two boys broke off their conversation a short time later and wentback to the Administration Building for lunch with Tom's father.

  Mr. Swift greeted them with a smile as they entered the big doubleoffice. "Glad you could join me, boys! Chow's laid out quite a feast forus today."

  Three places had been set at the conference table, and an appetizingrepast of sizzling ham and sweet potatoes waited in covered dishes on alunch cart nearby.

  "Mmm!" Bud inhaled the aroma. "Good chow from good old Chow!"

  Tom switched on the videophone screen to a private channel to catch thenoon news while they ate. The newscaster wore a look of excitement as hespoke without pausing for the usual commercial.

  "The Brungarian government has just scored a propaganda bombshell!" hereported. "In a news announcement released less than half an hour ago,they stated that their Navy has perfected an _undetectable submarine_!"

  The Swifts and Bud froze, openmouthed, at the newscaster's words.

  "No need to tell you what this could mean to American security," he wenton. "If enemy subs slipped through our continental defenses, theirmissiles could devastate the United States with scarcely an instant'swarning! The whole country's been rocked by the announcement. Anofficial comment by our Defense Department is expected at any moment."

  "Sufferin' satellites!" Bud gulped.

  Mr. Swift nodded. "It's a great propaganda stroke. But I wonder whythey've chosen to reveal their secret at this time."

  Tom said thoughtfully, "Dad, do you suppose they've realized the factthat we _know_ about their antisonar gear?"

  "Could be, son. They may figure that since the secret is out already,they may as well play it up for all it's worth." The elder scientistpaused and frowned. "Or it might be intended to force our hand."

  "You mean in hopes of getting us to reveal whether or not we have anantidetection system ourselves?" As his father nodded, Tom scowled. "Ifso, that sub yesterday may have been observing our tests."

  The telephone rang and Tom leaped to answer it. The caller was DanPerkins of the _Shopton Evening Bulletin_.

  "You can guess why I'm calling, Tom," the editor said. "How about astatement from you Swifts on this Brungarian sub story?"

  "We found it very interesting," Tom said politely but noncommittally.Parrying further questions, he hung up as soon as possible.

  Mr. Swift approved Tom's policy of silence. Almost immediately the phonebegan ringing again with a succession of calls from other newspapers andwire services. Tom dashed off a brief, general statement and instructedMiss Trent to give it to all further callers.

  "Maybe this is a good time to make a private announcement to youfellows," Mr. Swift said to the two boys, his eyes twinkling. "Do yourecall my telling you that Doc Simpson had isolated an unknown vitaminfrom the space plants? Well, we've now discovered that this vitamin cancondition the human body to stay under water indefinitely. Doc isputting some up in capsule form."

  Both Tom and Bud gave whoops of glee at this news.

  "Dad, you've helped overcome one of the big problems in our search forthe lost missile!" Tom exclaimed.