Tom Swift Jr #34, Chapter 12: Lost in the Darkness

The crew of the Challenger had watched the progress of the Extrasolar I from the moment it left the hangar. Tom’s father had connected a large display on the control deck to the ship’s megascope space prober, and used its automatic tracking ability to monitor the progress of the shuttlecraft. Worry began to mount when Bud lowered the ship out of the upper atmosphere and started losing control.

Chow was the first to voice the crew’s concerns. “Those fellers are in a world o’ hurt. Ain’t there somethin’ we can do for ’em?”

Tom Sr. shook his head. “I’m afraid they’re on their own, Chow. All we can do now is pray for their safe arrival.”

“Bud is the best pilot in the business,” James said. “If anyone can make it it’s him.”

“That is what worries me,” Tom Sr. replied, with genuine concern in his voice. “What if he can’t?”

All conversation in the room ceased when the Extrasolar I drew near the methane ocean. “C’mon, Bud,” one of the crewmembers whispered. They all watched as the wind violently tossed the shuttle around in the sky. The picture on the megascope was so sharp that they could see right through the ship’s transparent canopy. Everyone could see that Bud was trying desperately to regain control over the ship.

“They’re getting too – ” James stammered, and then it happened. A powerful gust of wind slammed the Extrasolar I into the sea with tremendous force. A few people involuntarily gasped as they watched the shuttle get torn apart by the sudden impact. Their view of the crash was briefly obscured by an enormous methane wave, and then the picture went black and was replaced with the message “HOMING BEACON NOT FOUND”.

Tom’s father was the first to react. “The megascope has lost its tracking signal,” he said tersely. “McGinnis, do you see the ship on radar?”

The Challenger’s radar officer shook her head. “I’m no longer picking up a signal,” she said quietly.

“What about their suits?” Tom Sr. demanded. “There are tracking beacons in both of their repela-suits. Does that register? We may be able to rescue them with the Transmittaton if – ”

James spoke up. “We’re no longer reading those either, sir.”

Tom Sr. said nothing. Dark fears clutched at his heart, and waves of anguish washed over him. He struggled to keep from breaking down. “It can’t be,” he whispered to himself. “I can’t have lost them. They’ve got to still be out there. They’ve just got to be.”

He struggled to regain control over his emotions, and failed. With an uncertain voice he said, “Are you seeing any signs of debris or wreckage? If their beacons were damaged by the impact they may no longer be transmitting, or the signal may be so weak underwater that it cannot break through the planet’s interference.”

Over the next few minutes there was complete silence as the crew used the megascope to scan for signs of the missing vessel. Tom’s father was the first to speak. “I think I’ve found something,” he said, with obvious anguish in his voice. He redirected the megascope to a new set of coordinates. There, drifting underwater, was the transparent tomasite dome of the Extrasolar I. The ship itself was gone.

“That’s amazing!” James said, astonished. “How did you ever find a transparent piece of plastic in a dark ocean?”

“Because I wasn’t looking for just a stupid piece of plastic,” Tom Sr. shouted. “I was looking signs that my son might still be alive.”

“Tom’s gone, isn’t he?” Chow said quietly.

Tom Sr. calmed down and shook his head. “They’ve got to be there somewhere, Chow. I refuse to believe that they died. The beacons on those suits were designed to withstand anything short of a direct hit with a nuclear weapon. They’ve got to still be operating. Maybe – ” his voice trailed off.

“What would you like us to do, sir?” James asked.

Tom Sr. did not respond for several minutes. He just sat quietly and watched the tomasite dome drift slowly toward the bottom of the methane ocean. “The beacons and the canopy were both made of tomasite,” he said at last. “If the canopy survived – and it was much more fragile than the beacons – then surely the beacons survived as well, even though we can’t detect their signal. I’m guessing that the impact was too rough for the ship to stand and so it was destroyed. But I refuse to believe that it took its passengers with it.”

“But how’d they escape?” Chow asked.

Tom Sr. shook his head. “I don’t know, Chow. It doesn’t seem possible. But there’s no way the impact should have destroyed the homing beacons on the suits, and the suits were designed to operate in that methane sea. I think they’re still out there, and that something on the planet is blocking us from receiving their homing signal.”

James spoke up. “What about the beacon on the ship itself? We’re not picking that up either.”

“I know, James, I know. But if Tom and Bud are still alive, they’ll head toward that device they came all this way to get. We need to go find them, and our best best is to investigate that undersea city.”

Timothy Stryker, the ship’s communications officer, spoke up. “Excuse me, sir. I hate to bother you, but we’re getting a call from George Dilling on Fearing Island. He wants a status update, sir. What should I tell him?”

Tom Sr. glanced at his watch. “I guess it is time to report in,” he said heavily. “I had lost all track of time. Tell him – ” and then he stopped.

“Should I tell him that we’ve lost our communications lock on Tom?” Tim asked.

Tom Sr. shook his head. “No, Tim, tell him everything. Don’t mince any words. My wife deserves to know what has happened to our son.”

Tim nodded and relayed the message. Chow then spoke up. “So what’re you gonna do, boss?”

“We’re going to go after them,” Tom Sr. replied.

“But how’re you gonna do that? You’re not gonna take the other shuttlecraft, are you?”

Tom Sr. shook his head. “No, Chow, we’re not going to do that again. This time we’re going to take the Challenger.”

Tom Jr. heard Bud’s voice through their suit’s communication system. “Woah! What was that?”

Tom’s eyes fluttered opened. He saw that he was still strapped into his seat in the Extrasolar I. Bud was sitting beside him and slowly coming around. “We must have hit the ocean pretty hard,” Tom replied groggily. “All I remember is – ” and then he stopped in amazement.

The ship’s tomasite canopy was gone, and the shuttle was resting quietly on a small grassy knoll beneath a clear blue sky. Tom suddenly realized that the ship had been parked on a mesa that towered above a large, fertile valley. Behind them a waterfall thundered over a rocky ledge and turned into a wide river that snaked through the valley below. Large, old-growth trees clustered thickly around the river. On the horizon they could see a city of some sort.

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Tom,” Bud remarked. “Do you think we’re dead?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t think you get to take your flying saucer with you when you die, Bud. But I have no idea where we’re at. This doesn’t look anything like Thanatos.”

“Could we be delusional?”

Tom shrugged. “I guess it’s a possibility, but it doesn’t seem likely. This seems pretty real to just be a hallucination. Besides, in my hallucinations you make better jokes.”

Bud shook his head in confusion as he pressed buttons on the ship’s dashboard. “So let me get this straight, Tom. We collided with the ocean so violently that we lost our protective canopy and were magically transported to another planet. You didn’t put a warp drive in this thing that you forgot to tell me about, did you?”

“Nope, Bud, I’m afraid not. It does seem really unlikely, but here we are!”

“Really unlikely is putting it mildly, Tom! Thanatos is a dead, uninhabited wreck, and there were no other ships in the area. Do you really expect me to believe that someone beamed us up at the last possible second, transported us to another planet, and then beamed us down again safe and sound?”

Tom shrugged. “Not really. But all of your logic isn’t making the valley disappear, fly boy. I’m sure there is a perfectly logical explanation, but right now I can’t think of it.”

Tom unbuckled the restraining harness and stepped out of the ship. He used his suit’s sensors to check the environment. “Hmmm. My suit is telling me that the atmosphere is breathable and devoid of any life-threatening toxins. I’ll take the chance.” He stretched, removed his helmet, and took a deep breath of the warm summer air. “Ahhhh. Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

As Bud worked to remove his own helmet Tom took a better look at the area around them. A cool breeze was blowing across the mesa, and a bright yellow star was shining in the sky. As he listened he could hear birds in the distance. He knelt down and ran his fingers through the fresh green grass. “Amazing,” he whispered. “This could be somewhere on Earth, Bud. It’s uncanny.”

Bud stepped outside the ship and joined Tom. “Hey, that’s weird,” he said.

“What?” Tom asked.

“Take a look at the ship and tell me if you see anything strange.”

Tom turned around and studied the ship closely for a minute. “I don’t see anything offhand, Bud. Oh, wait, I get it. Where’s the hull damage?”

“Exactly! The ship is absolutely pristine, even though we hit the ocean so hard we both blacked out. How is it possible we didn’t even scratch the paint?”

“I have no idea,” Tom said. “Say, how long were we out?”

Bud looked at his watch. “Let me think. We left the ship around 8am, and it took us about an hour to get to the lake. My watch tells me it’s now three in the afternoon, so we’ve been out for a while. That’s assuming it’s still the same day. We could have been out for weeks for all I know.”

“That’s interesting. What I want to know is, why aren’t we floating somewhere in the methane ocean?”

“Beats me, skipper. So now what do we do?”

Tom got back in the ship and strapped himself in. Bud followed him a moment later. “Can you raise the Challenger?” Tom asked.

“Nope,” Bud replied. “I already tried that. I’m not picking up any vessels in orbit, either. We appear to be the only ship out there.”

“Very strange. Well, unless you have a better idea, I suggest we fly over to that city over there. Maybe its inhabitants can explain where we are and how we got here.”

“Sounds good to me!” Bud said. He lifted the shuttlecraft off of the mesa and flew it across the sky.

Hours later, Tom Sr. was still on the control deck of the Challenger. This time he was having a long talk with Ned Newton, who was located in California. George Dilling had relayed the call through Fearing Island

Ned was talking. “That sounds like a long shot, Tom.”

“I know,” Tom Sr. replied. “But if there’s even a chance that they’re still alive then I’m going to act on it. I’ve got to try.”

“Are you sure that’s wise? I didn’t think your ship was really built to handle that kind of weather. What’s going to keep you from suffering the same fate?”

Tom Sr. sighed. “I think Tom and I were both wrong, Ned. Tom felt that a smaller, sleeker craft would be more suited to flying in extreme weather conditions, and I agreed with him. What we failed to take into account is that his ship just didn’t have enough power to stand up against the wind. Once it hit violent turbulence Bud lost all control and they fell out of the sky. What you really want is a very, very large ship – one so large and heavy that the wind can’t buffet it about.”

“I think I understand. A stream can easily carry a pebble along, but it takes a raging flood to move a car. But what does that have to do with the Challenger?”

Tom Sr. grabbed a stack of papers from the desk in front of him and began combing through them. “I’ve been crunching some numbers, Ned, and I think we can beat the wind. Ah, here we go. My plan is to use the ship’s repelatrons to create a bubble of force around the ship. We’ll tune them to the makeup of the wind and keep it at bay.”

“Kind of like the way your deep-sea hydrodomes create enormous bubbles of air at the bottom of the sea,” Ned replied.

“Exactly. The repelatrons on this ship are pretty powerful. I think we can create a sphere that’s roughly a mile and a half in diameter, and depending on how we aim the other repelatrons we can make the ship appear to be much heavier than it is.”

“We’re still talking about 500mph winds,” Ned pointed out.

“But the wall of force should keep the winds from striking and damaging the fragile surface of the ship, and make it much harder to bounce us around. The repelatrons are designed to get this ship up to a speed of hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. Surely it can keep a 500mph wind at bay.”

Ned was silent for a moment. “I wish I could be there with you,” he said at last. “We usually do things like this together.”

“I know you do. I’ll be careful, and will stay in touch.”

“Please do. If I don’t hear anything from you within 72 hours I’m going to fix up the Cosmotron Express and come out there myself.”

Tom Sr. was taken aback. “Surely you’re not serious! Do you have any idea how expensive that would be?”

“I think so,” Ned replied. Tom Sr. could hear him rustling papers on the other side of the line. “I’ve been running the numbers on it since I heard the news. If you include the cost of the fusion drive, plus the kronolator, plus wiring and installation, it comes to around $2 billion – which is a lot, even for Swift Enterprises. We could probably get it done in a month, if we really pushed it. Which we would.”

Tom Sr. gasped. “I had no idea this setup was so expensive.”

Ned laughed. “You never were one to keep an eye on the budget, were you, Tom? But I am dead serious here. If you don’t come back I will come looking for you. The world is not going to lose its collection of Swifts.”

“Thanks, Ned,” Tom Sr. said warmly. “That means a lot.”

After signing off he began giving orders to prepare for landing on Thanatos. He picked up a stack of printouts and went over them with James. “I’ve got some figures here that should do the trick,” he said. “If we set up the repelatrons along these lines it should – ”

Tom Sr. heard a sudden scream behind him. He whirled around and gasped. Standing calmly in the middle of the control room was a black metal robot with a skeletal frame. It looked exactly like that one that had confronted Tom Jr. in the observatory. Its piercing red eyes were locked on Tom Sr.

“I apologize for startling you,” it said in a polite, even voice. “I mean you no harm.”

“Nobody move,” Tom Sr. said sharply.

“There is really no cause for alarm,” the robot continued.

“What do you want?” Tom Sr. demanded.

“I am here to lend you a hand, Mr. Swift. We would like to help you rescue your son.”

“We?” Tom Sr. asked.

The robot nodded ever so slightly in the direction of the stairwell. Four other robots suddenly materialized. Tom Sr. realized that they had been using their holographic projectors to blend in to the room. “I apologize for this deception. We felt that if you knew of our presence you would not allow us to join you on your quest.”

“You guessed rightly,” Tom Sr. replied. “What do you want from us?”

“As I said, we are here to help you. Your plan for descending onto the planet is a wise one, but it will not work as it is currently formulated. It is impossible for a human to react quickly enough to keep the ship steady. Your repelatrons must be computer controlled for this venture to succeed.”

Tom Sr. was taken aback by this. “I suppose that would help, but we don’t have the time or the resources to design a system like that. It would take weeks under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances.”

“But we could do it in a few hours. Writing software is trivial to us, Mr. Swift, and we have all the necessary hardware. If you allow us to help you we can greatly increase your chance of success.”

“And if we don’t?”

The robot nodded toward another robot in the crowd, and it stepped forward. Tom Sr. saw that it was carrying the holographic penetrator that had been stolen from his son’s lab. The robot walked up to Tom Sr., handed it to him, and then walked back to its leader.

“I apologize for stealing that marvelous invention,” the robot said. “I was afraid that you would use it to locate us, and up to this point we wished to remain unnoticed. But that time has passed, and so I return it. I trust you have an EMP emitter nearby?”

Tom Sr. looked around. “I’ve still got mine with me, sir,” James said. He reached down under the desk, picked it up, and handed it to Tom. “I was afraid we might need it,” he explained.

“Your choice is simple,” the robot continued. “We would like to help you rescue your son. If you will allow us to do that then we will lend a hand. However, if you do not trust us then you can use that emitter to destroy us. It is your choice.”

Tom Sr. was astonished. “You can’t be serious!”

“It was never our desire to see your son and his friend perish, Mr. Swift. We came from the future to save him, not to watch him die, and if we can save him now then we will. We are here for the good of all mankind. There are many things we could have done to this ship had we wished to harm you or prevent you from coming here, but we left you in peace.”

On an impulse Tom Sr. aimed the EMP emitter at one of the machines and fired. As the electromagnetic energy struck the robot it staggered backwards, and bright yellow sparks flew out of it. Tom pulled the trigger again, and the robot collapsed onto the floor. Its red eyes went dark. The four robots around it made no attempt to move or get out the way.

“You’re serious,” Tom Sr. said at last.

The lead robot nodded. “Yes.”

Tom Sr. put the EMP emitter down. “Then come lend us a hand. I appreciate your offer for help.”

“At this point I do not ask you to trust us, Mr. Swift. I only ask that you allow us to lend you a hand. How you decide to end this mission is entirely up to you.”

“So you say,” Tom Sr. said cryptically.