Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter Read Free

news account of your announcement. What an incredible moment in human history! Please sit down. What has brought the two of you here?"
    As Tom politely explained about the deleted space dictionary, Wickliffe seemed to freeze. He glared at the young inventor coldly. "And you are bringing this matter to my attention because—?"
    "Well, sir," said Tom cautiously, "we’re a little stumped at Enterprises over the technical end of the—the incident. With your scientific expertise, I—"
    "No," interrupted Wickliffe. "Don’t patronize me with foolishness, Tom. Are you by any chance implying that I might have something to do with destroying your code files?"
    "Not at all," said Tom with a frown. "I haven’t said anything of the kind!"
    Wickliffe gave a cool smile. "No. Of course you haven’t. Well, I don’t believe I can be of any use to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some important work of my own to take care of."
    Tom flushed. "I’m sorry to have bothered you," he said, rising. "Dad and I feel this is a very important matter."
    Flying Tom back to Shopton, Bud was steaming. "He just about admitted doing it, Tom! He was toying with you the whole time."
    "I can’t waste any more time on it, flyboy. Whatever happened, we’ll have to put it aside for now and work on reassembling the space dictionary before the critical time comes."
    "Right—the rocket!" Bud nodded. "Do you have any idea when it’ll get to Earth?"
    "Very soon. But whether that means days or weeks, we don’t yet know."
    When Tom returned to Shopton, he gave his father a quick report on the unsatisfactory interview while Bud stopped off at Ames’ office.
    "Too bad Wickliffe took the wrong attitude," the elder inventor said. "Leaves us as much in the dark as ever."
    "Have you started working on another dictionary, Dad?" Tom inquired.
    "Yes, I’m scanning-in all the symbols and meanings that I can recall or find in my notes. Of course, we still have the meteor-missile with its inscribed symbols. That will help us, though it won’t be complete. Suppose you gather all you can think of. We certainly were foolish not to make additional copies of our compiled translations."
    As Damon Swift exited the office, Bud walked in to report to Tom that the security police were launching a full-scale investigation of the vandalism and apparent theft. Then, trying to cut through the gloom, he asked: "But anyway, genius boy, any new inventions up your sleeve? Remember, I’ve been out of town since we got back from the space outpost with our hides more-or-less intact."
    Instantly Tom’s eyes twinkled. "Well, it’s a little too big to go up my sleeve, but I am working on something over in Hangar Four. You ought to like it, Bud—it can fly or swim."
    "You mean a sort of flying aerosub?"
    "No. A diving seacopter."
    "Cut the kidding," Bud retorted.
    "It’s the truth," Tom continued. "It’ll even crawl around if necessary on tractor treads."
    "No fooling!" Bud stared in amazement. "So it’s a ground-crawling helicopter that can travel underwater?"
    "Right. In the air the rotor blades drive the air downward, allowing it to hover over the surface of the ground or water on an air-cushion, at a height of about two yards. In water the pitch of the blades is reversed for submerging—like a helicopter pushing down instead of up."
    Bud wrinkled his brow humorously. "Okay, that much is clear. But why do it that way? Let me break this to you gently—in boat-building the goal is to keep the ship from sinking, not make it sink faster!"
    Tom laughed heartily. "The big advantage of this kind of submersion," he continued, "is that these blades give the ship tremendous agility and maneuverability under water."
    Bud perched on a stool. "Your jetmarine was plenty agile, Tom."
    "I’m not aiming at raw speed this time, flyboy. You see, this approach eliminates the need for ballast tanks. With the rotors, the seacopter can easily stay at any level beneath the surface the navigator