Tom Swift and His Deep Sea Hydrodome Read Free

later he broke through the surface with a mighty bound.
    "Oh boy, that old sunshine looks good!" Tom exulted.
    Peering around, he gave a cry of joy. Less than a hundred yards away, the Sea Hound was wallowing in the waves. The float balloon, marking the location of the gas fissure and bearing a small fluttering pennant, was also in sight.
    But where was his father?
    He was startled as his speaker erupted with, "Tom, is that you? Are you all right?"
    "I’m okay, Slim."
    "Wish I could say the same," was the reply. "I was thrown against the control board and knocked for a loop. What about your Dad?"
    "I—I don’t know," Tom faltered. Suddenly he was struck by a hopeful thought. "But wait—I only came to the surface because I blew my ballast tank. If Dad were knocked out—"
    "Right!" exclaimed Slim. "He could be safe in his suit but unconscious, down on the bottom somewhere! Come aboard and I’ll submerge again."
    Just then Tom jumped in alarm at a strange metallic sound coming from the wall next to his elbow. Turning around, he saw a small metal cylinder floating close by, the waves knocking it against the Fat Man. The gas sample! Made buoyant by the gas it contained, the flask had drifted up to the surface.
    After retrieving the container, Tom steered the Fat Man toward the seacopter, keeping his eyes on the sea around him for any sign that his father had surfaced, perhaps some distance away. A chill of foreboding came over him when he failed to glimpse any trace of the bulbous sub-suit.
    Tom rapped on the seacopter’s side-hatch, and it popped open under Slim’s control. In minutes the Sea Hound was again plunging down beneath the waves into the darkness below.
    The seacopter followed the sharp outline of the undersea mountain to its base, where Tom and Slim could again see the column of rushing bubbles, now broader. The seaquake appeared to have opened the fissure wider.
    Slim swept the aqualamp right and left across the sea floor, and brought the craft’s second lamp into play as well. "I don’t see anything, Tom," Slim reported solemnly.
    "Dad’s suit might have been buried in the muck," Tom declared. "If so, the SRL should show his location." The sono-resonance locator was an invention of Tom’s which pinpointed solid, hollow underwater objects by inducing and detecting a characteristic "signature" through sonar-type waves.
    Tom adjusted the instrument. "This’ll only work if he isn’t buried too deeply," he commented grimly. "Cross your fingers, Slim."
    Almost immediately, the device gave forth a hopeful buzzing sound. "Got him!" Slim exclaimed. Following the indication on the dial, the Sea Hound approached the base of the mountain, about one hundred yards beyond the gas geyser. A mechanical metal hand protruded limply from the sea-bottom mud!
    Determinedly taking command of the situation, Tom used the seacopter’s steam jets to stir up the loose mud and blast it aside. Mr. Swift’s Fat Man suit was soon revealed to view in the murky cloud of particles. Tom donned his suit again, and in minutes he had dragged his father’s suit aboard and pulled the unconscious occupant out into the air. Damon Swift was unconscious, the side of his head badly bruised in two places.
    Smelling salts brought about a flutter of eyelids and a weak, choking gasp from Mr. Swift’s lips. "Don’t try to talk, Dad," urged Tom, his face white. "We’ll get you to a hospital in nothing flat."
    Surfacing and reversing the pitch of its prop-blades, the Sea Hound raced for the nearest port at jet speed, riding its cushion of air a few feet above the rolling waves. Within the hour, Mr. Swift was stable, alert, and sitting upright in a hospital bed in the city of Hamilton, capital of the island of Bermuda.
    "His injuries are not too serious, young fellow," said the doctor, standing next to the bed. "A very mild concussion, with no significant subdural hemorrhaging. But you were wise to bring him to us so promptly."
    Tom thanked the