Tom Swift Jr #34, Chapter 15: The Living Dead

It took Tom Swift Sr. less than a minute to reach the bottom of the large elevator shaft that led deep below the surface of Thanatos. Once there, he knocked the elevator doors open with his suit’s repelatrons and stepped through them into a small room. David, Mark, and Joe followed a few moments later.

“This looks like a large airlock,” Tom Sr. said, as they directed their lights around the room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were made of bare concrete, and the room was completely devoid of furniture. Directly opposite the elevator shaft was a massive iron door. It showed no signs of corrosion or wear. Beside it was a control panel that emitted a faint green light.

David spoke up. “My suit indicates that we’re about 640 feet below the ocean floor.”

Tom Sr. nodded. “The energy signature appears to be coming from directly behind that door. I think we’ve found it.”

“Do you think Tom and Bud are behind that door?” Joe asked.

Tom Sr. paused before answering. His voice trembled slightly as spoke. “If Tom were down here, he would have had to blast the elevator doors open just like we did, but the doors were intact. My son never made it here.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Mark spoke up. “Should we force this door open as well?”

Tom Sr. shook his head. “That might damage the equipment inside, and we don’t want to risk that. Let me try to open it using that control panel. We’ll only force our way in if there’s no other way.”

For a few moments Tom Sr. worked silently at the control panel. “I wish I’d brought my space dictionary,” he muttered. Then, suddenly, the door made a deep grinding noise and slowly slid open. Through the door they could see another small room, with yet another massive door barring the way.

The four men stepped through the opening into the room beyond, and Tom Sr. made his way to the second airlock door. After pressing a few buttons on its control panel the first door shut itself behind them, and they heard the sound of the room becoming pressurized. Tom Sr. checked the atmosphere readouts on his helmet display and was surprised to see that the room now contained a breathable air supply.

“Should we remove our helmets?” Joe asked.

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Tom Sr. replied. “We don’t know how long this atmosphere will last. I imagine it’s been a very long time since anyone has serviced this machinery.”

Once the air pressure stabilized the second massive door slid open, revealing a giant room that seemed to stretch forever into the distance. At first it was pitch dark, but as the group stood there and watched the room’s lights slowly turned themselves on, illuminating what appeared to be a giant morgue.

The party stepped out of the airlock and found themselves on a small iron walkway that was at least thirty feet off the ground. A ladder off to their left stretched down to the floor. In front of them were rows and rows of shelves, each of which contained a metal coffin. The shelves stretched more than a hundred feet into the air and ran the length of the room.

“This place is massive!” Mark exclaimed. “I can’t even see the end of the room. It goes on forever!”

“Doesn’t it remind you of Imlah Taltahni?” David asked.

“Kind of, only we’re not on Mars,” Joe replied.

“What are you talking about?” Tom Sr. asked, as he scanned the room for the energy signature.

“It’s a long story,” Mark said. “But say, is this room really what I think it is? You don’t suppose there are bodies in all of those, do you?”

“There’s one way to find out!” Joe replied cheerfully.

“Yeah. Let’s not find out that way,” David replied.

Tom Sr. suddenly spoke up. “There it is! At last. Look down there on the floor, gentlemen.” He pointed to a small control station located directly below them, where a large, black cube was resting. The cube measured five feet in every direction, and had space symbols engraved on its side. Flashes of blue light would occasionally streak over the surface of the device.

“That’s it, gentlemen,” Tom Sr. announced. “That device is definitely emitting the radiation we’ve been tracking.”

“It doesn’t look too large,” Mark said thoughtfully. “It should be easy to load it onto the Challenger.”

Tom Sr. nodded, then activated his suit’s repelatrons and flew to the floor. When he reached the cube he looked it over carefully. “Interesting,” he said, as he read the space symbols. “I can’t read all of them, but they claim this machine provides an environment of some sort.”

“So it’s providing the air in this room?” David asked.

“I don’t think so. The symbols seem to indicate that there is an environment inside the cube. I’m not sure what that means.”

As he studied the symbols, Mark walked over to the control station beside the cube and activated the display. “It looks like this thing still works,” he said.

Tom Sr. walked over and looked at it. “Hmmm. It looks like you were right, gentlemen. This place is indeed a morgue. The terminal displays what bodies reside in which receptacles. I can’t read all of this, but it looks like the room is empty. No, wait – I see two entries. They’re located four aisles to our right, then down the row a couple hundred feet. That’s odd. Why build such a large room and only house two bodies?”

David spoke up. “Maybe both cubes have rooms like this, but they used the other one first, and this was just used as overflow.”

Tom Sr. nodded. “Could be. Let’s go check out those two coffins. Maybe we can learn something there. I’d really like to know what that device does before I take it on board the ship.”

“Should we let the rest of the landing party know that we found the device?” Mark asked.

“I’m sure they’ve been monitoring our communications,” Tom Sr. replied. “Shouldn’t they already know?”

“I haven’t heard from anyone recently,” Joe said. “Hello? Is anyone else out there?” There was no response.

“That’s strange,” Mark commented. “The room must be blocking our signal.”

“The room was probably shielded to protect the device,” Tom Sr. said. “The planet’s atmosphere emits a lot of dangerous radiation that could be fatal to electronic equipment. We’ll go back to the elevator shaft in a minute and let the crew know we’re safe.”

As they turned the corner to go down the aisle they saw something that caught their attention. There, right beside the coffins they were about to investigate, was the wreckage of the Extrasolar I. The ship was battered almost beyond recognition.

Tom Sr. rushed over to look at it. A quick examination revealed that it did not contain any bodies.

“How did that get here?” Mark asked.

Tom Sr. shook his head. “I don’t know – it never would have fit through the elevator shaft.” He paused a moment as he fought to control his emotions. “Do you see any signs of Tom or Bud?”

All four of them looked at the two coffins beside the ship. Unlike all the other coffins in the room, each of these had a small display affixed to its side. The display was covered in space symbols and gave off a faint green light.

“It says the temporal seal is engaged,” Tom Sr. said curtly. He roughly pressed a button on each of the displays. After a moment there was a hissing noise, and the lid slowly opened. A cold, gaseous cloud rose out of the coffins and spilled over into the floor. Inside they could see the bodies of Tom Swift Jr. and Bud Barclay. One look at their condition confirmed their worst suspicions.

The blood drained from Tom Sr.’s face. “They’re dead,” he said weakly. “My son is dead.”

Bud stood up and stretched. “So what now, Tom?”

Tom Jr. started intently at the display in front of him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, fly boy! Our first order of business is letting Dad know that we’re still alive. He’s probably worried sick. Oh, and we also need to find a way to get out of here.”

“What can I do to help? It’s nothing personal, Tom, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life inside one of your Exman suits. They’re nice and all, but I just don’t think Sandy would go for it.”

Tom smiled. “Now are you sure, Bud? I mean, I can always redesign my brain energy container. You could go around looking like a spherical, basketball-sized orb, or something. I mean, the possibilities are truly endless!”

Bud glared at Tom. “I am not going to be turned into a robotic, wisecracking sidekick, buddy. I don’t care if there are other Swifts out there that like to hang out with machines, but you are not going to join them.”

Tom laughed. “I would never dream of doing that, Bud. Don’t worry – we’ll get out of here one way or another. Come to think of it, there actually is a way you can help. You can read space symbols now, so why don’t you see if you can find any records of the war that destroyed this planet? We still need to discover the truth about those metal robots. Maybe if we can learn the real history of the war we’ll have our answer.”

“Sure thing, Tom. Oh, that’s another thing. Why can I understand space symbols?”

“It’s a side-effect of being inside the translator,” Tom replied. “You see, the information on these displays is really just a mathematical construct that your electric brain is converting into a visual display. The translator is feeding your brain with all the information it needs to translate the symbols into something that is meaningful to you.”

Bud shook his head. “I didn’t follow any of that, Tom, but I’ll take your word for it.” He grabbed a chair again and sat down at a keyboard. “You say that this console is safe? I’m not going to blow anything up?”

Tom laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Bud. If you just stick to logs and history reports you probably won’t get near anything dangerous. Let me know if you find any footage of the war itself. Or if you find a way to communicate with the other translator on this planet.”

Tom and Bud worked silently for several hours. Tom was the first one to speak. “I think I have something,” he said at last.

“That’s great, because I’ve got pretty much nothing. I’m just not a computer guy, Tom. I’m Bud Barclay, not Ben Walking Eagle. Alien computers are especially beyond my limited understanding.”

“Ben who?” Tom asked.

“Never mind,” Bud said. “Different time, different universe. What did you discover?”

Tom gestured toward the screen he had been working with. “It turns out the translator does have a way to communicate with the outside world. It’s not very sophisticated, but we can transmit information, including visible light.”

“So you can beam out a message?” Bud asked.

“I think I can do more than that. The translator contains a complete scan of every cell in our bodies – that is, the bodies we used to have. I think I can use that information to construct a holographic image that we can beam outside.”

“Can you even see outside?” Bud asked. “I didn’t realize we had a window.”

Tom smiled and pressed some buttons on the console. “I haven’t tried it, but I think we can get a video feed from the real world. Let’s try this and see what happens.” The picture on the display was suddenly changed to show the planet Thanatos, as it appeared from space.

“Nice!” Bud asked. “Can you find the Challenger?”

Tom worked at the console for a few minutes. “You know, I just don’t see it in orbit anywhere. I’ve found our satellites, but not the ship.”

“You don’t suppose they landed on Thanatos, do you?”

“I hope not! There’s no way they could have survived.”

Bud thought for a moment. “Can’t you track it somehow, Tom? Its repelatrons emit energy, right? Can’t you pinpoint it that way?”

Tom nodded thoughtfully. “That just might work. Give me a minute to work out the details.” A few minutes later Tom smiled in triumph. “Got it! This machine is amazing. It looks like it is located…” he referenced a map, and then grew pale. “Bud, it’s at the bottom of the ocean!”

Tom quickly redirected the viewer to the coordinates of the Challenger. There, at the bottom of the sea, was his ship. It was resting quietly, its repelatrons creating a sphere around it a half-mile in diameter. The ship was parked in the midst of the ruined city.

“Hey, that looks like Townsend!” Bud said. “I think the ship is parked right in front of the capitol.”

Tom nodded. “The city’s in bad shape, but that’s exactly what it is. I just can’t figure out how Dad got the ship to the ocean floor. Wow. What an accomplishment!”

“Hey Tom,” Bud said nervously, “I hate to bug you, but what are those little guys walking around the capitol building?”

Tom zoomed the viewer closer and gasped. There, beside the capitol building, were four of the black skeletal robots. They appeared to be talking with several people who were wearing repela-suits. From their gestures it looked like they were discussing an opening in the wall that was thirty feet above them. Tom’s nervousness subsided when it became apparent that the robots were not threatening the humans. “I don’t get it, Bud. Where did they come from? Why are they working with the crew?”

Bud shrugged. “I guess it’s not too big of a surprise. You figured they were on board when your holographic penetrator was stolen. I guess this confirms it. It looks like a lot has happened since we left.”

“I bet Dad went straight to the translator,” Tom said thoughtfully. “Let me see if I can find it.” Tom worked at the console and was soon able to locate the translator’s energy signature. “Hey, Bud, that’s weird. The translator is buried under the capitol building! It looks like there’s an elevator shaft that leads right to it from the basement library.”

“That is weird,” Bud said. “I don’t remember seeing anything like that in this reality. I think we would have noticed an elevator.”

Tom nodded, then snapped his fingers. “I bet it’s because this world doesn’t have a translator! All it’s got is this building, which is used to interface with the outside world. Since there is no actual translator the builders didn’t see a need to include it in this environment.”

“Whatever you say, Tom.” Bud said. “All I know is, I want our old reality to become our only reality. This energy aquarium we’re in just isn’t my thing.”

“It wasn’t a bad solution for our space friends, though,” Tom commented. “They can exist indefinitely inside the translator, and since the environment is made from energy they can manipulate it at will. It’s got its advantages, but I’m with you, Bud. I’ll take good-old-fashioned terra firma any day.”

Tom entered the coordinates of the translator into the viewer, and a picture of a giant room appeared on the screen. The room was lined with rows and rows of shelves, each of which contained countless coffins. At the front of the room was a control station with a giant black cube, which Tom confirmed was the actual translator.

“So you mean to tell me we’re inside that little thing?” Bud asked, incredulous.

“I’m afraid so,” Tom replied.

“I would have expected it to be a lot bigger. How can that possibly hold millions of energy beings?”

“That’s a good question,” Tom said. “It may be that the energy is stored in a very compact form. It’s also possible that the inside of the cube is larger than the outside. It may contain a lot more than five cubic feet of space.”

“Do what?” Bud asked. “How would that work?”

“Oh, you’d just distort space. Kind of like the way the kronolator distorts time. I haven’t tried it, but it’s theoretically possible.”

“Hey – is that your Dad?” Bud pointed to a small group of four figures that were standing beside a stack of torn metal. They appeared to be studying the contents of two coffins.

Tom redirected the viewer to get a closer look. “That metal debris does look like the remains of our ship, but I don’t know about the figures. I mean, come on, Bud. The suit helmets have a reflective gold coating! You can’t see inside them. How could you possibly tell which one is Dad?”

Bud shrugged. “He seems to be the one giving the orders, and I figured your Dad would personally lead the landing party. It’s just a guess. By the way, what are they looking at?”

Tom moved the viewer so they could get a closer look at the two coffins that were the object of attention. Bud paled when he saw the figures inside. “Hey, Tom. Don’t those two bodies look an awful lot like us?”

Tom nodded. “And they’re in bad shape too. Judging by the look of them I think we can safely say that we’re dead. Physically, at least.”

Bud shook his head. “So how are we going to get out of this machine?”

“Well, the good news is that I think it’s possible. The machine works both ways – it can take a person and convert them to brain energy, and it can put the brain energy back in the person. The problem is that it’s got to have a body to put them into. Putting ourselves back in those corpses isn’t going to help us any.”

“Should I be worried?” Bud asked. “I mean, we’ve been in some tight spots before, but being dead is new even for us.”

Tom smiled. “I’ll let you know when to worry, Bud. Right now let’s try to contact the landing party. I’m guessing that they are communicating by radio, so I’ll need to emit a visual hologram that speaks over our Swift radio frequency. Hmmm.”

Tom Swift Sr. was standing over the bodies of Tom and Bud. He had been in the underground vault for hours, unable to tear himself away. His first emotion had been anguish, followed by anger and despair. Now he felt completely spent. All that he had left was a feeling of emptiness.

Mark touched him on his shoulder. “The atomic earth blaster is working its way toward the second machine, sir. It should reach it in a couple hours. The crew is going to stop it right in front of the vault and then dig the rest of the way. We should be able to go back home tomorrow.”

Tom Sr. nodded, but said nothing. At last he stood up. “I just can’t believe they are actually gone, Mark. How could this have happened?”

Suddenly a brilliant flash of white light filled the room. Tom Sr. turned around, startled. There, standing a few feet away from them, were Tom and Bud.

Tom Sr. whirled around, looked at the bodies in the coffins, and then looked back at the figures in the aisle. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Hi, Dad,” Tom Jr.’s voice sounded over their suit radios. “I am so sorry it has taken us this long to get in touch with you. I would have called sooner but we ran into a few technical difficulties.”

“You’re not kidding,” the voice of Bud Barclay said. “But old genius boy found a way.”

Tom Sr. took a step toward the glowing figures. “Tom and Bud are dead,” he said firmly. “Their bodies are right there. You are nothing but impostors.”

“Yes and no, Dad. Those are our bodies, but we are actually quite alive. I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again.”

Tom and Bud spent the next hour talking to Tom Sr. and explaining what had happened to them. It took some convincing, but Tom Sr. at last understood what was going on.

“I can’t believe you’re still alive,” Tom Sr. said, with tears running down his face. “I had given up all hope, Son. Please don’t ever scare me like that again. You have no idea what it’s like to lose your only son.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Tom Jr. said. “I wish we could have reached you before you got to the vault. It just took us a long time to figure out what was happening.”

“It’s ok, Tom,” Tom Sr. said.

“I hate to change the subject,” Bud said, “but why are there evil killer robots outside?”

“I guess it’s my turn to do some explaining,” Tom Sr. said. He then told Tom what had happened on board the Challenger.

“I just don’t understand,” Tom Jr. said at last. “Maybe they really are from the future. Can they overhear our conversation?”

“No, Son, they can’t. This room is shielded, which is why we couldn’t locate your homing beacons. The translator must have moved you here right after the crash. In order to talk to the ship Mark is having to step outside into the elevator shaft. He actually just left a few moments ago to let the crew know that you’ve been found. They’re going to be overjoyed.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say we’re home free just yet,” Tom Jr. warned. “Right now I’d say we were, um – ”

“Undead,” Bud quipped.

“I think we can remedy that problem,” Tom Sr. said. “Didn’t you tell me that you created the hologram by accessing the scan the translator made just before you died?”

Tom Jr. nodded. “It’s extremely complete.”

“And right now you’re transmitting information from within the translator to me, so you can obviously relay data.”

“That’s right, Dad. But that won’t help us until we have a body that the translator can move us back into.”

Tom Sr. smiled. “Then the answer is obvious. You already have a machine that can convert energy into matter. Don’t you remember?”

Tom Jr. gasped. “The Transmittaton! We can just send it the information it needs to recreate us – ”

“And then use the translator to place you brain energy back inside your bodies,” Tom Sr. finished. “I’ll need to adjust your invention to receive a high-bandwidth signal, but I can handle that. I’ll return to the ship and begin work immediately. It shouldn’t take more than a couple hours. By then the atomic earth blaster should have reached the other translator, and we can take them both and get out of here.”

Tom Jr. nodded. “Meanwhile, Bud and I will do a little more research. We still don’t know how to contact the other translator or whether the robots are actually telling the truth. I’d give a lot to know what those robots are actually up to, and what is really happening on Mars.”

“Sounds good, Son. Is there a way I can contact you?”

Tom Jr. shook his head. “Not that I’ve found so far. We’ll check back in later.”

“Ok, Son. Take care of yourself. I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

With that, Tom closed the connection, and the holographic image disappeared.