“Eddie,” Teena said, “what are you going to do?”
Already Eddie had pulled off his shoes and T shirt. He slipped off his
blue jeans, and stood in his bathing trunks ready to dive overboard.
“I’m going down and get that thing,” he said.
“Why?”
“Something’s mighty crazy about all this,” Eddie said.
“Maybe so,” Teena agreed. “But Eddie, isn’t it dangerous? If that
thing’s radioactive—”
“No. It’s not that radioactive,” Eddie said. “Those two men handled it
all right. It’s some special kind of a tube. I’m going to take it to my
dad.”
“Why?”
“Why!” Eddie repeated impatiently. “Because it must have something to do
with that stolen radioisotope, that’s why.”
“Well, you don’t need to get sore at me,” Teena scolded.
“I’m not, Teena,” Eddie said, calming down. “But I’m not going to take
the chance of leaving the thing out here and maybe not being able to
find it again.”
“You sure it won’t hurt you?” Teena asked again.
“I’m real sure,” Eddie said. “I’ve seen that Geiger counter act up a lot
worse over a small sample of uranium ore. Don’t worry. If it was really
hot with radiation, those two men wouldn’t have been handling it either.
Dad said that whoever stole the isotope would be an expert on knowing
how to handle it safely. I’ll be right back.”
[Illustration: _The cylinder was simple to locate._]
Eddie slipped over the side and into the water. He took a breath, nosed
over, and kicked downward. It was a shallow dive compared to some he had
made while skin diving for lobster. He stroked easily down to the sand
bar. The bright metal cylinder was simple to locate even in the murky
water. He grabbed it with his left hand and swam back to the surface.
Teena took it from him and laid it in the bottom of the boat. Then she
helped him climb in over the stern.
“It doesn’t look like anything very special, does it?” she said.
“That’s why I thought it was for holding a jointed trout rod,” Eddie
said, “but watch this.” He switched on the Geiger counter and held the
probe near the metal tube. The earphones began to sputter with
continuous clicks. The indicator on the dial jumped far forward.
“It’s a cinch there’s some radioactive stuff inside,” Eddie assured.
“Let’s go. I’ve got to take this to my father.”
As they drew within a quarter of a mile of Anderson’s Landing, Teena
said, “Eddie, what if those two men should be around the boat dock and
see us with this tube?”
Eddie looked over his shoulder. He saw only one person on the landing.
That would probably be Mr. Anderson.
“I’m sure they’ve already turned in their boat and gone on home,” Eddie
said, “but just to be safe, we’ll do this.” He picked up his blue jeans
which he had left wadded up in the bottom of the boat, as he hadn’t
wanted to put them back on over his wet trunks. He pushed the metal tube
into one of the empty legs. Then he wrapped the excess material around
it. “There,” he said, satisfied, “no one can see it now.”
Mr. Anderson came out to meet them as they eased the rowboat gently up
to the dock.
“Well, how did it go?” he asked. “Find any atoms?”
Eddie smiled. “Everything is made of atoms, Mr. Anderson,” he explained.
“We were looking for uranium. That’s a special kind.”
“I guess it’s a special, all right,” the boat-owner agreed, “the way it
can blow things to smithereens.”
Eddie didn’t argue, but he wished people would stop thinking that all
radioactive materials were used to blow things up. He supposed, however,
that since the atomic bombs were what really started what came to be
called the Atomic Age, it would take some time to educate the public to
the fact that atomic power was a much greater builder than a destroyer.
Anyway, at the moment he didn’t want to get into a long discussion about
it.
“We didn’t find any uranium, Mr. Anderson,” he said.
“But we had a swell trip,” Teena put in. “Thanks for letting us use the
boat.”
“You earned it,” Mr. Anderson reminded them. “By the way, those two
fellows who have been fishing over the sand bar came in a while ago.
Didn’t catch a thing. Sure a stubborn pair, aren’t they?”
“Maybe they just don’t like to clean fish,” Eddie said. But he was glad
Mr. Anderson had mentioned the men. It added evidence to his belief that
they weren’t the least bit interested in fishing, anyway.
After cleaning up the boat, he and Teena started along the dock. Eddie
carried the metal tube rolled up in his blue jeans.
“Any time you want a boat,” Mr. Anderson said, as they stepped off the
dock and started across the beach toward home, “you’re always welcome to
earn it the same way.”
“Thanks,” Eddie called back. “We may need one again before long.”
It was a little past three o’clock when they reached Eddie’s house.
“You certainly made it in good time,” his mother said. “Any luck?”
“Not at Cedar Point,” Eddie said. “But, Mom, we found something else.
Where’s Dad?”
“He’s not home from school yet,” his mother said. “What’s that you have
wrapped up in your jeans?”
Eddie told her quickly, without going into all of the background.
“You think it has something to do with the stolen radioisotope?” his
mother asked in disbelief, when he had finished.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Eddie said. “But why would it be radioactive?”
“You haven’t opened it, have you?”
“No. It’s sealed tight,” Eddie said. “I—I thought Dad should do that.”
“You’re right. You run it over to school and find your father.”
Teena spoke up for the first time. “Eddie, if that tube really belongs
out there and we took it, we—we might get in trouble.”
“Belongs out there?” Eddie asked.
“Maybe the Coast Guard is using it for some kind of a test or
something,” Teena said.
That was a possibility which hadn’t occurred to Eddie, yet he quickly
dismissed it from his mind. The two men who had planted it out on the
sand bar certainly had nothing to do with the Coast Guard or anything
like that. Nor would it have been in the shack yesterday evening.
“Not a chance,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to take it over for Dad to
see.”
“I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way,” his mother said.
“You want to go along, Teena?” Eddie asked.
“What a question,” Teena said. “Sure, I want to go.”
“Eddie,” his mother reminded him, “you can’t go over to school in your
swim trunks. Go slip on some denims.”
Eddie hurried to his room and put on some freshly laundered denims.
Then, leaving the metal tube still wrapped in the blue jeans, he and
Teena started down the street toward the college campus.
Mr. Taylor was waiting for them in front of the nuclear-science
building. He seemed strangely excited. Eddie wondered what his mother
had said over the telephone.
“Let me take it, son,” Mr. Taylor said, reaching out for the blue jeans
in which the metal cylinder was wrapped. He turned to go inside.
“Can we come with you, Dad?” Eddie asked quickly.
“Of course, of course,” his father said over his shoulder. “Come along.
If this is anything like your mother said, there’ll be a lot of
questions to ask.”
Eddie’s father led them through his office and on into a dressing room
where they pulled on specially treated white coveralls, gloves, and
hoods which fitted over their heads. Each hood had a small glass window
for looking out.
“Just an extra precaution,” Eddie’s father said. “Really not necessary,
but we simply don’t take any chances with possible stray radiation.”
They went on into the large laboratory. Eddie had been there before. The
sight of the fantastically shaped apparatus used in various
atomic-research tests always excited him.
There were several men in the room. Each was dressed in white
coverall-type protective suits similar to those he and Teena and Mr.
Taylor wore.
In the center of the laboratory stood a square booth with thick walls
and a glass window in the front wall. Eddie knew the walls were
lead-lined, and the glass was a thick, specially treated type. All
experiments which were the least bit hazardous were conducted inside of
that six-by-six-foot booth. The radioactive materials were handled
remotely by a strange steel-fingered device operated by a man who stood
safely outside of the booth. Absolutely no chances were taken in the
handling of radioactive materials.
Eddie’s father inspected the tube closely, as he went toward one of the
many complex devices that filled the laboratory.
“It’s a careful job of machining on this tube,” he said. “Surely not the
work of amateurs. Seems to be a lead alloy of some kind. Probably worked
out in thickness and amount of lead in the alloy so as to allow just the
right amount of radioactive rays to leak through without being
dangerous.”
He flicked several switches and turned various knobs on the instrument
under which he had placed the tube. Eddie watched dial needles quiver
and lights flash, wishing he knew what they meant.
“All right,” his father said, turning off the machine, “you’re exactly
right. There’s radioactivity inside that tube. Plenty of it, I imagine.
Yet, only enough of it is allowed to leak out to furnish a tracer. It
was a regular beacon leading you right to it with your Geiger counter.”
“Dad, you mean—”
“Let’s hold the questions a while, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor interrupted.
“We’ve got a few tests to run on this first. There are some things we
need to find out for sure.” He called to one of the young men working at
the far side of the room. They talked for a few moments while the
laboratory worker inspected the cylinder closely.
Then he took it inside the shielded booth and laid it on the table
beneath the strange contraption with the protruding metal arms and
pincers. Several other pieces of testing apparatus were placed on the
table. Then he came back outside, closing the door carefully behind him.
“All right, Mr. Taylor,” the young technician said, “we’ll see what we
can do with it.” He slipped his hands into the grips which operated the
metal fingers on the far side of the thick, protective glass through
which they watched.
Eddie and Teena looked on fascinated as, controlled from outside, the
mechanical clamps on the metal arms inside picked up the tube. Then
wrenchlike metal fingers wrapped around one sealed end. After much
twisting and prying, the tight fitted cap came off.
“So far, so good,” the young scientist said. “Now let’s see what’s
inside.” He moved his own hands and the mechanical fingers inside tipped
the tube on its end. A small black capsule slid out onto the table. It
was about the size of a dime-store beanshooter.
The metal fingers kept working until the cap sealing the small black
capsule was removed. When it was tipped on end a yellowish powder
trickled out into a small bowl which had been placed on the table
inside.
The metal fingers continued working. They placed the small bowl with the
yellow contents under one instrument after another. Knobs were turned
and readings were jotted down. After the final test was made, Eddie’s
father studied the results carefully. He compared them with the formulas
on a piece of paper he had brought from his office.
While waiting silently, Eddie’s gaze went back to the large uncapped
silver-gray cylinder still lying inside on the table. What appeared to
be a corner of a sheet of paper jutted slightly out of the open end.
“Looks like there’s something else inside of that tube,” he said to the
young technician beside him. Talking beneath his hood muffled his words,
yet the scientist seemed to have no trouble understanding.
“By George, you’re right,” he said. He reached once more for the proper
grip rings and levers to operate the robot fingers inside. “Let’s see
what it is.”
He tipped the tube so the open end was down, then shook it. A large
piece of rolled-up paper dropped out. As it fell to the table, it
unrolled part way—enough, at least, for Eddie to see the blue color of
its inside surface. He also saw the white markings.
“Blueprints!” he cried.
At the word, his father looked up from his own busy figuring. “You’re
right,” he said. “They sure are blueprints. You kids certainly hit upon
something big. Mighty big.”
“What do you mean, Dad?” Eddie wondered.
“There’s no doubt about it,” his father said firmly. “The material that
came out of the small black capsule inside of that tube is a part of the
stolen radioisotope. It’s mixed in with some other material to weaken
its power. But I’m certain the radioactivity comes from small amounts of
our isotope.”
“Then we’ve found the stolen isotope!” Eddie exclaimed. Although the
idea had occurred to him before, hearing the proof of it was no less
startling.
“Only part of it,” his father reminded him. Then he turned toward Teena.
“Unless I miss my guess, those blueprints are some of the ones missing
from Acme Aircraft Company.”
This seemed sheer fantasy, like something that might happen in a
restless dream after eating too much ice cream and lobster salad.
“Come on, kids,” Mr. Taylor prompted, leading them back toward his
office. “There’s a lot to be done. And unless I miss my guess, it must
be done quickly—or we might be too late.”