BRUNGARIAN COUP
Tom, Sandy, and Bud listened as the radio announcer continued:
"Reports just in say that Brungaria has been taken over by a rebel
group. Military aid to support the rebel coup is pouring in from
Maurevia, Brungaria's powerful province in the north. The Brungarian
prime minister, his cabinet, and all loyal administrative personnel have
fled or been arrested.
"Worried United States State Department officials admit that the
surprise coup poses a new and dangerous threat to free-world security.
Further news reports will be broadcast as soon as they reach this
station," the announcer ended.
For a moment Tom and Bud were too stunned to speak. Sandy was wide-eyed
with the realization that the news spelled trouble for Swift Enterprises
and all America.
"Looks as though that CIA man who briefed us wasn't kidding, eh,
skipper?" Bud muttered at last.
"It came sooner than he expected!" Tom said.
Jumping up from the table, Tom switched off the radio and hurried to the
hall telephone. In a few moments he managed to get a long-distance call
through to Wes Norris of the FBI.
"Is the news on this Brungarian coup as bad as it sounds, Wes?" Tom
inquired.
"Worse! That rebel bunch really has it in for us, as you know, Tom,"
Norris replied. "They envy America and they'll move heaven and earth to
steal our scientific secrets. This could touch off a whole epidemic of
sabotage and other spy activity!"
Tom's jaw clenched grimly. He then asked the FBI man his opinion about
the discovery of the secret arms cache in Pete Latty's basement.
Norris admitted he was puzzled. "It doesn't add up, Tom," the FBI agent
said thoughtfully. "If our enemies were planning to destroy Shopton by a
quake, why would anyone be needing a gun?"
"I can't figure it myself, Wes--unless they were planning to raid and
loot Enterprises after the place was thrown into disorder," Tom deduced.
"What about Narko himself? Has he talked yet?"
Norris replied that although he had not interviewed Narko himself, FBI
agents who had grilled the spy had failed to elicit any information.
"Here's something else, though, which might interest you," Norris went
on. "We now have reports that at the time of the Harkness and Medfield
disasters, seismographs recorded simultaneous quakes off the coast of
Alaska near the Aleutian chain. Tremors were also felt off the southwest
coast of South America."
A new factor to consider! Tom frowned in puzzlement as he hung up the
telephone after completing his talk with the FBI man.
After Tom had repeated the conversation to his companions, Bud said,
"You mean the H-bomb idea goes out the window?"
Tom shrugged. "Wes says they've found no evidence to support the theory
of man-produced underground blasts. It just doesn't jibe with those
other remote tremors. They'd be too much of a coincidence, happening at
the same time!"
"Then the quakes at Harkness and Medfield were real earthquakes!" Sandy
put in.
"Looks that way," Tom admitted. "Those other tremors Wes mentioned
follow a natural circum-Pacific belt which is well known to
seismologists. I'm no expert, but perhaps they could have set off chain
reactions below the earth's crust which triggered the two quakes in this
part of the country."
In that case, the young inventor reflected, it was only a freak of
nature that the Faber and nose-cone factories had been wrecked by the
shock. But in spite of the seismographic clues, Tom was not entirely
convinced. A nagging doubt still buzzed in the back of his mind.
The next morning Tom hurried off to his private glass-walled laboratory
at Enterprises, eager to continue work on his container, or robot body,
for the brain from space.
Tom frowned as he studied the rough sketch he had drawn in his office
the afternoon before. "This setup's full of bugs!" he muttered.
Nevertheless, Tom decided, the basic idea was sound. Grabbing pencil and
slide rule, he began to dash off page after page of diagrams and
equations.
"Chow down!" boomed a foghorn voice. Chow Winkler, wearing a white
chef's hat, wheeled a lunch cart into the lab.
"Oh... thanks." Tom scarcely looked up from his work as the cook set
out an appetizing meal of Texas hash, milk, and deep-dish apple pie on
the bench beside the young inventor's papers. Grumbling under his
breath, Chow sauntered out.
Tom went on working intently between mouthfuls. In another hour he
finished a set of pilot drawings. Then he called Hank Sterling and Arvid
Hanson and asked them to come to the laboratory.
They listened with keen interest as Tom explained his latest creation.
"No telling if it will work when the energy arrives from space," Tom
said, "but I think everything tracks okay. Hank, get these plans
blueprinted and assign an electronics group to the project. You'd better
handle the hardware yourself."
"Right." Hank rolled up the sketches.
"And, Arv," Tom went on, "I'd like a scale model made to guide them on
assembly. How soon can you have it?"
Hanson promised the model for some time the next day, and the two men
hurried off.
As usual, Arv proved slightly better than his word. The expert
modelmaker was devoted to his craft and as apt to forget the clock as
Tom himself, when absorbed in a new project. By working on in his shop
long after closing hours, Hanson had a desk-size model of the
space-brain robot ready for Tom's inspection when the young inventor
arrived at the plant early the following morning.
"Wonderful, Arv!" Tom approved. "Every time I see one of your models of
a new invention, I'm _sure_ it'll work!" Hanson grinned, pleased at the
compliment.
Tom hopped into a jeep and sped across the plant grounds to deliver the
model to Hank Sterling and his project crew. Work was already well along
on the electronic subassemblies and the strange-looking "body" was
taking shape.
That afternoon Ames and Dilling returned from Washington. The report
they gave to Tom bore out his hunch that the rebel Brungarian scientists
might well be able to divert the space energy.
The next day was Friday. Tom was hoping, although none too
optimistically, that the container might be completed before the week
end. To his delight, an Enterprises pickup truck pulled up outside the
laboratory later that afternoon and Hank rolled the queer-looking device
inside.
"Hi, buster!" Tom greeted it. "Is this your daddy?"
Hank chuckled. "Don't look at me. It claims _you're_ its daddy. But
hanged if I can see much resemblance!"
"Think it'll live?"
"If not," Hank replied, only half jokingly, "the boys who worked on it
will sure be disappointed. No kidding, skipper, that's quite a gadget
you dreamed up!"
The device stood about shoulder-high, with a star-shaped head, one point
of which could be opened. The head would contain the actual brain
energy. Its upper body, cylindrical in shape and of gleaming chrome,
housed the output units through which the brain would react, and also
the controls. Antennas projecting out on either side gave the look of
arms.
Its "waist" was girdled with a ring of repelatron radiators for exerting
a repulsion force when it wanted to move, by repelling itself away from
nearby objects.
Below the repelatrons was an hourglass-shaped power unit, housing a
solar-charged battery.
The power unit, in turn, was mounted on a pancake-shaped transportation
unit. This unit was equipped with both casters and a sort of
caterpillar-crawler arrangement for the contrivance to get about over
obstacles. Inside was a gyro-stabilizer to keep the whole device
upright.
Tom felt a glow of pride--and eager impatience--as he inspected the
device. If it worked as he hoped, this odd creature might one day
provide earth scientists with a priceless store of information about
intelligent life on Planet X!
Bud and Chow, entering the laboratory soon after Hank Sterling had left,
found Tom still engrossed in his thoughts.
"Wow! Is this your spaceman?" Bud inquired.
Tom nodded, then grinned at his callers' gaping expressions. Each was
trying to imagine how the "thing" would look in action.
"Sure is a queer-lookin' buckaroo!" Chow commented, when Tom finished
explaining how it was supposed to work.
On a sudden impulse, the old cowpoke took off his ten-gallon hat and
plumped it on the creature. Then he removed his polka-dotted red
bandanna and knotted it like a neckerchief just below the star head.
Tom laughed heartily as Bud howled, "Ride 'em, spaceman!"
Tom was eager to notify his mysterious space friends that the container
was now ready to receive the brain energy. Bud went with him by jeep to
the space-communications laboratory. Chow, however, stayed behind and
stared in fascination at the odd-looking robot creature.
The stout cook walked back and forth, eying the thing suspiciously from
every angle. "Wonder what the critter eats?" he muttered.
Feeling in his shirt pocket, Chow brought out a wad of his favorite
bubble gum. Should he or shouldn't he? "Shucks, won't hurt to try," the
old Texan decided.
Chow unlocked the hinged point of the star head and popped the gum
inside. He was somewhat disappointed when nothing happened. Feeling a
trifle foolish, Chow finally removed his hat and bandanna from the
creature and stumped off.
Meanwhile, in the space-communications laboratory, Tom was pounding out
a message on the keyboard of the electronic brain. Tom had invented this
device for automatically coding and decoding messages between the Swifts
and their space friends. It was connected to a powerful
transmitting-and-receiving apparatus, served by a huge radio-telescope
antenna mounted atop the communications building.
Bud looked on as Tom signaled:
TOM SWIFT TO SPACE FRIENDS. CONTAINER FOR ENERGY IS NOW READY.
SHOULD IT BE PLACED OUTDOORS?
Stirred by a worrisome afterthought, Tom added:
MESSAGES MAY BE INTERCEPTED BY ENEMY WHO WISHES TO STEAL ENERGY.
SUGGEST YOU USE FLIGHT PATH TO LAND EXACTLY TWO MILES WEST OF
FIRST CONTACT WITH US.
"By 'first contact,' you mean when that black missile landed at
Enterprises?" Bud asked.
Tom nodded. At that time, he reminded Bud, the Brungarians and their
conquerors had not yet learned of the Swifts' communication from another
planet. Hence they would have no idea of the site referred to--which
would hamper any plans to kidnap the brain energy.
"I get it," Bud said. "Smart idea, pal!"
Tensely the two boys waited for a reply from outer space.