Tom Swift Jr #34, Chapter 14: The Home of the Exmen

After Tom Sr. had confirmed that the Challenger‘s repelatrons were not buckling under the crushing weight of the methane ocean he walked over to James and began discussing the landing party. “Before we go any further I want to lead seven men outside to explore the area. Once we know what we’re dealing with we can plan accordingly. The energy signature we’ve been tracking is coming from beneath the capitol building, so our first priority will be to find a way inside. That is where Tom would have gone, and that is where we are most likely to find them.”

“Very good, sir,” James replied. “I will remain with the ship but will select seven of my men to accompany you. Given the conditions outside I suggest you wear repela-suits. The temperature out there is hundreds of degrees below zero.”

Tom Sr. nodded. “That was my plan.”

Andy spoke up. “What will you do if the path to the device has been lost?”

“When my son was planning this trip he realized it might have become buried,” Tom Sr. replied. “He wanted to bring along a subocean geotron, but it was far too large to get on board so instead he brought an atomic earth blaster. It should be able to drill to whatever depth we need.”

The robot nodded, but said nothing.

Tom Sr. instructed Kelly McGinnis, the ship’s radar officer, to continue searching for Tom and Bud. “Are you picking up any signs of interference?” he asked.

Kelly shook her head. “No, sir, I am not. The methane does not appear to be impairing our scanning equipment.”

Tom Sr. sighed. “The boys’ signal disappeared the instant they hit the ocean. Maybe the beacons really were destroyed. Or maybe they were transported to a location where their signal is being blocked. I don’t know. Just – don’t stop looking for them. Something happened to those two young men, and I am going to get to the bottom of it.”

James spoke up. “I have instructed my communications officer to stay in touch with Fearing Island. They have been told that we landed safely and will be kept informed of our progress.”

Tom Sr. looked surprised. “You mean to tell me you can contact George Dilling from the bottom of this ocean?” he asked incredulously.

“Not exactly, sir. But we can contact the satellites that we placed in orbit after we arrived, and they can relay the signal to Fearing.”

“Excellent! Good work, James.”

After the landing party had gathered their equipment Tom Sr. led them to the ship’s elevator, which they rode to the ground. The party consisted of eight men and the four remaining robots. Tom Sr. had given the robots no particular orders, and they chose to accompany him on his search of the city.

When they stepped out of the elevator they were almost overwhelmed by the gloom of their surroundings. Directly above them looked the Challenger, which lit the surrounding area as best it could. Its repelatrons had formed a sphere of force a half-mile in diameter and was keeping the methane ocean at bay. Within the sphere the ship’s lights illuminated the ruins, but beyond the wall of force was the utter blackness of the bottom of the sea. All around the landing party were ruined buildings, twisted pieces of metal, and shattered stones. No structure had survived intact, and many homes had been completely destroyed. The streets were filled with rubble. It was obvious to everyone that the city had been destroyed in a violent war.

As soon as they got outside Tom Sr. activated the repelatrons on his suit and flew up into the air, to get a good look at the surrounding area. The remainder of the party followed him, but the robots stayed on the ground.

Andy spoke up over their suit radios. “We do not share your ability to fly, Mr. Swift. We will search for an opening from the ground.”

The remark grabbed Tom Sr.’s attention. “So they claim to be from the future,” he thought, “and built by my son, but yet they lack simple repelatron technology.” Aloud he said “Very good, Andy. Let us know if you find anything.”

While the robots scattered around the ruined capitol building the rest of the search party flew around its exterior, looking for a way in. After a half-hour one of the crewmembers made a discovery. “I’ve found something!” he cried. About thirty feet off the ground a large hole had been torn in the side of the capitol building. Tom Sr. flew over to join the crewmember and pointed his suit light inside the crevice, where he saw a large room with a hallway beyond it.

“It looks safe enough,” Tom Sr. said at last. “David, Mark, Joe – come with me. The rest of you stay outside and see if you can find another way in. I want to know if you see any signs of instability.”

Tom Sr. flew inside the hole and cautiously dropped onto the room’s stone floor. The remaining three men followed behind him. As they shined their lights around the room they saw that it was in ruins. At one point it had been a large office of some kind, but a fiery blast had blown it apart and left burn marks on the floor and walls. All that remains of the room’s original furniture were a few fragments of twisted metal.

The party left the room and walked down the hallway, where they found a stone staircase. Large portions of the building had caved in, but they were able to slowly make their way downstairs.

“This building doesn’t look so bad from the inside,” Joe Taylor remarked. “I thought it was going to be a complete loss.”

Tom Sr. nodded. “It could have been a lot worse. We could see from the Challenger that most of the structure had collapsed, but I’d hoped that the central portion was still intact. All we really needed was a way to reach the machine below us. The rest of the building isn’t important to us right now.”

After walking down three flights of stairs they reached the ground level. Tom Sr. was delighted to find that the stairs continued to lead underground. He leaned over the railing to get a better look. “It looks like this building has a couple basements – four, by the look of it. We may be in luck!”

David Foster contacted the rest of the expedition over his suit radio. “Have you found another way inside?” he asked.

“Negative,” Donny McGinnis replied. “The building’s in awful shape.”

“Well, keep looking,” David replied. “If one part of the building is intact then other parts might be as well. We’re going to descend into the basement.”

Tom Sr. led the way underground. He passed the first basement and continued down.

“Aren’t we going to explore each level?” Mark Seaton asked.

“Eventually,” Tom Sr. said. “According to my suit the energy signature we’re looking for is originating from deep beneath the building. I’d like to reach it before we do anything else.”

When they reached the lowest basement Tom Sr. opened the door walked in. The group followed close behind. Inside they could see rows and rows of shelves, each stocked with books.

“This room looks intact!” Tom Sr. said, surprised. “I guess it was so far underground that it survived unscathed. Look at all those books! This must be a library of some kind.”

The four men separated and began exploring the room. David walked over to the nearest shelf and scanned the titles. “These characters look a lot like space symbols,” he said.

“That’s exactly what they are,” Tom Sr. replied. “Some of them I can read, but a lot of them are new to me. Apparently our space friends have had some contact with this planet.”

Andy spoke up over the suit radio. “This is their homeworld, Mr. Swift. If you could read those books they would tell you their history.”

Tom Sr. removed one from the shelf. “It’s frozen solid,” he remarked.

“Being at the bottom of a methane ocean probably didn’t do it much good,” Joe replied.

“You’re probably right. Here – let’s take a few of them with us. Maybe we can find some way to extract their contents without destroying the book. There might be a lot they can tell us.”

“I’ve found something!” David said. He gestured toward the far wall, where they saw a large, metal door. Beside the door were signs covered in space symbols.

“What do the signs say?” Mark asked.

Tom Sr. walked up to them and examined them closely. “I’m not exactly sure, Mark. It says that this elevator leads to a fallout shelter of some kind. That’s about all I can read.”

David tried to open the door, but it refused to budge. “I’ll handle it,” Tom Sr. said. After using his repelatrons to firmly anchor his position, he aimed a single repelatron at the door and fired. The force of the blast shattered the door and blew its pieces into the elevator shaft, where they fell into the darkness. Tom Sr. then stepped over and calmly looked down into the deep, bottomless hole.

“That’s what we’re looking for, gentlemen,” he said crisply. He then activated his repelatrons, flew into the shaft, and led the party down into the darkness.

Tom and Bud were standing in front of a large, brick building. It was late at night, and a beautiful array of stars filled the night sky. Two small moons were overhead, emitting a gentle glow that lit the empty city. The area was quiet, except for the sound of a breeze that blew down the wide streets.

“How did you ever find this place?” Tom asked. “This building looks just like all the others!”

“Remember how I was gone for hours?” Bud asked. “I checked building, after building, after building…”

“I get it,” Tom replied. “Now that’s what I call persistence.”

“I would call it wanting to get out of here. I don’t know about you, Tom, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in the Twilight Zone.”

Tom laughed and led the way into the building. As soon as he stepped in the door he realized that Bud had struck gold. The room was enormous, covering thousands of square feet and housing dozens of pieces of electronic equipment. Every empty space on the walls was covered with a giant glass monitor. The ceiling consisted of large, white squares that emitted a soft yellow light. Comfortable leather chairs dotted the room.

“Woah,” Tom said. “They’ve got more stuff here then I have in my lab back home!”

Bud nodded. “Now you see why I didn’t want to touch anything! There’s no telling what this stuff does.”

“There’s one way to find out,” Tom replied. He sat down in a leather chair and rolled it over to a large keyboard that was covered in symbols. He examined it for a moment and the pressed a button. The entire room suddenly came to life. Pictures appeared on every display, and mathematical figures began scrolling by. Tom pressed another button, and the pictures shifted.

Bud shook his head in wonder. “Why do I get the feeling I would have picked the one button that blew everything up?”

Tom smiled as he continued working at the keyboard. “It’s not that bad, Bud. Remember, I’ve spent the entire day reading up on these people. I think I know exactly what is going on. The information on these screens is confirming my suspicions.”

Bud sat down in another chair and rolled over to Tom. “Please, do tell! You were about to explain how we can leave the land of Oz and get back to Kansas. I’m homesick, Tom. I want to see Auntie Em again.”

Tom laughed. “You’d better not let Sandy know you called her that! She’s been on your mind ever since we left Shopton, hasn’t she?”

Bud blushed. “She did ask me to send her a postcard, remember? I don’t want to let the poor kid down.”

Tom shook his head with mock seriousness. “If you don’t watch out she’s going to capture you and you’re going to end up an old, married man like Dad. Ah, here we go!” Tom pressed a button and then shouted in triumph. “I knew it! There you have it, Bud. Success!”

Bud looked at the blankly screen. “I see lines of meaningless data, Tom. You’re going to have to explain it to me in simple terms. What’s going on?”

“Hmmm,” Tom said thoughtfully. “I guess I’d better start at the beginning. Do you remember Exman?”

“Are you kidding? How could I forget? I mean, how often do we get alien visitors from outer space?”

Tom thought a moment. “Actually, that happens quite a lot. Don’t you remember the Green Orb?”

Bud shuddered. “Now there’s an adventure I’ve tried to forget. Talk about weird! But, ok. Most people rarely get visited by aliens. I’ll admit that you’re not ‘most people’. Even by our standards, though, Exman was a bit unusual.”

Tom nodded. “And why was Exman so strange?”

“Because he wasn’t a physical being! He was made out of some strange brain energy. You had to build a metal case for him just so that he could walk around and interact with the physical world.”

“Exactly!” Tom said. “Here’s what happened. As I told you a few minutes ago, our space friends learned that their DNA was rapidly mutating itself into oblivion. When they found this out it was too late to reverse the damage, so they started looking for other ways to survive. What they decided to do was build a machine that could turn them into energy-based beings – a translator, so to speak. They became a race of Exmen.”

Bud was taken aback. “Now, wait just a minute, Tom. I thought these people were pathetic at biology! Don’t you remember our moon expedition? They were so panicked about an illness that had struck their livestock that they sent some of their diseased animals to our moon so that we could find a cure. I don’t know about you, Tom, but to me, sending your cows to a primitive alien race in hopes that they can find a cure has to be one of the most clear-cut cases of desperation I’ve ever seen.”

“Cows?” Tom said, puzzled. “I don’t remember there being cows on that ship. But regardless, you’re right. They could not have built the translator on their own, but they didn’t have to. According to the history book I read, when our space friends realized they had a problem they started searching the galaxy for a race of biologists. I think the translator was a joint venture. The biologists provided the expertise necessary to do the conversion, and the space friends provided the mathematical know-how.”

“They provided what?” Bud asked. “What does math have to do with this?”

“Don’t you remember Exman? He was helpless in the physical world! The translator doesn’t just convert people to energy, Bud. It also provides them with an environment to live in.”

“You mean our space friends now live in a giant electronic brain?” Bud asked doubtfully.

Tom shook his head. “Not exactly. Our computers back home are good at executing instructions, but our space friends weren’t looking to build a giant simulator. They wanted to build an environment in which energy beings could live and interact. Think of Sandy’s aquarium back at home. Her fish can’t live outside it, but inside they are free to swim around and enjoy their surroundings. The translator acts like an aquarium for the Exmen. It provides them with a rich environment – one that is expressed in terms of higher mathematics. Our space friends found a way to translate those equations into something that the Exmen could perceive as a real place.”

Bud frowned. “So you’re telling me that millions of Exmen live in the translator that’s right here in this room?”

“Well, yes and no. First, remember that there are two translators on Thanatos, neither of which are located in this room. The machinery you see here just offers us a way to interact with the translator that resides at the bottom of the methane sea. From what I can tell based on these logs, the space beings that still live on this planet reside in the translator that’s north of here. They probably thought that living in the one under the sea was too great a risk, and I can’t say that I blame them. No, the one that rests beneath the sea is currently home to only two people.”

Bud’s eyes suddenly grew wide. “You’re not serious, Tom. You can’t be serious! Please tell me that those two people are not the two of us.”

Tom nodded. “You got it, Bud. This world that we see around us is being generated by the translator. It was modeled after the way Thanatos looked before the war happened and the planet was destroyed.”

“Now, woah there, Tom. Wait just a minute! Are you telling me that you and I have been turned into brain energy?”

Tom nodded. “It makes sense a lot of sense if you think about it. I knew all of this fit together somehow, but until I entered this room I couldn’t consciously put the pieces together. The reason that Townsend looks brand-new is because it actually is – the translator created it for us just a few hours ago. No one has ever lived here before. We don’t get tired or hungry because we’re now made of energy. Exman didn’t have to be fed, Bud, and neither do we.”

“But that’s crazy! How did we even get here? I don’t remember asking anyone to do this!”

“That’s what I was trying to figure out. Do you see this data on the screen?” Tom asked. Bud nodded. “You see, after our space friends built the translator they decided to put off becoming energy-based beings as long as possible. To accomplish this the translator was set up to monitor all life forms on the planet. In the event that one of them began to die the machine would scan them and convert them into brain energy. When we hit the ocean our ship broke up and we were moments away from death. So, the machine did what it was designed to do: it grabbed us and placed us here. It probably saved our lives, Bud.”

“I still don’t get it,” Bud replied. “These people were aliens, right? We’re not talking about humans here. Why did the process even work on us? How could we be that similar to them?”

Tom shrugged. “I admit this would be the first alien race we’ve seen that had any biological similarities to us at all. But that could be exactly why the space friends made settlements on Earth in the first place. It’s possible that of all the planets they’d found we were the only world that resembled them, so they made contact. After all, if you’re going to make colonies it makes sense to plant them on worlds that are like your own. I don’t have any proof of that, but it is a theory.”

“Where does the war fit in?” Bud asked. “And what about our space friends on Mars? After all, energy beings don’t need to keep herds of livestock around – they can just electrons for breakfast, or whatever it is they do.”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t know. I think I can find out, though, given a little time. The memory of these computers is pretty extensive.”

“And here’s another question for you, genius boy. How do we get out of here?”

Tom sighed. “I don’t know, Bud. I just don’t know. It may not be possible. Outside of this machine I think we may be dead.”