Tom Swift and His Flying Lab Read Free Page B

trail-drive to push an’ pull all those buttons an’ levers."
    Tom smiled. "Chow, this is so simply arranged and computer-assisted that the Sky Queen could almost fly itself."
    The cook, utterly amazed, shook his head.
    "Since this here’s a flyin’ lab, where’s the lab part?"
    "Mid-fuselage. It’s partitioned off from the rest of the ship and is a soundproof, air-conditioned room, or series of rooms. One’s my physics lab, another’s for chemistry. Then there’s a place for experiments with animals—"
    "Hold on!" Chow begged. "We goin’ to carry a zoo along?"
    Tom and Bud laughed. "Just wait!" said Bud.
    Tom slid back the door and switched on a light. The large room, still under construction, was partitioned off into cubicles with walls shoulder high. Chow gazed in awe at the physics division with its six-foot electron microscope and x-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared absorption apparatus.
    He shook his head. "Mighty fine," he said, "but it’s beyond me. I’ll stick to my galley. Where is it?"
    Tom chuckled at the cook’s impatience as he led the way up to the third deck. Forward was a comfortable windowed lounge, complete with easy chairs, sofas, and a small library of scientific books and magazines. Back of this were the sleeping quarters, and in the rear was the galley. Chow surveyed the layout of modern equipment in pleased astonishment.
    "Wa-aal, brand my skillet!" he said. "Will I cook up some fancy dishes up there in the stratter-sphere!"
    He was about to inspect his new domain when the ship intercom crackled on an override-link to the exterior. "Tom! Tom! Come to the hangar security office! Quick!" The anxious voice belonged to Tom’s father!
     
CHAPTER 3
SYMBOLS FROM SPACE
    TOM RACED down the stairways and ladder and across the concrete floor to the hangar office where his father stood with his hand on the monitor console for the secondary radar-scope.
    "What’s up, Dad?" Tom cried as Bud came clattering up behind him.
    "Our security radar equipment—it’s been disabled!" Mr. Swift exclaimed. "And look at the backup printout. An intruder was registered at 4:19 this morning!"
    Bud whistled. "Hours ago!"
    "Someone without an amulet broke in here?" Tom cried incredulously.
    Mr. Swift’s face was stern. "Yes. And according to the time imprint, someone who was looking around for five minutes before he cut the radar apparatus. We didn’t know the system was out until just now, when I double-checked it to see if I could discover why the projectile hadn’t been detected. No telling how long he was here after that, nor what it was he wanted."
    "He’s not hiding aboard the Flying Lab," Tom remarked. "We’ve just been through the parts an outsider could get into. Say, it’s funny no one reported a dot on the other radarscope, the main one. Maybe the intruder’s still around!"
    Mr. Swift immediately contacted Harlan Ames on his televoc to initiate a plantwide search and have the security alert announced to all the employees.
    "I think he’ll have a harder time getting out than he did getting in," remarked Mr. Swift after breaking contact with Ames.
    Bud Barclay suddenly let out a cry. "Tom, we left the Skeeter on the test helipad beyond the runways!"
    Tom groaned. "The ground crew wouldn’t have hangared it yet." Tom and Bud had taken the craft on a short test flight just before noon, prior to the lecture in town. "If that guy can fly, he may try to get away in it! I’ve got to—"
    But before Tom could raise his foot, Bud had already bolted out the hangar door and was sprinting toward the trees beyond the main airfield. An excellent football and track man in high school, he covered the distance in record time, leaping over the ridewalks as if they were competition hurdles. As Bud entered the untended, wooded field that bordered the runways, an engine throbbed to life some distance ahead of him. Between the scraggly trees he could see the Skeeter. Her rotor blades were beginning to turn!
    "That’s