A PROPAGANDA BLITZ
As the _Sea Hound_ returned to Fearing Island from its search for Bud's
jetmarine, Tom was beside himself with worry. Had his experiment cost
the lives of his best friend and the other crewmen aboard?
"I'll never forgive myself if anything's happened to them!" Tom muttered
bleakly.
Hank Sterling squeezed the young inventor's arm. "You know Bud's high
spirits, skipper," he said. "He may have taken off on some crazy lark."
"Sure! A whale hunt, maybe!" Arv Hanson wisecracked, trying to lighten
the gloom.
Tom forced a grin, but he remained heavy-hearted as they neared the
base. His only hope now was that a radio message from the jetmarine
might have been picked up while they were gone.
As soon as the seacopter was moored, Tom leaped ashore. The crewmen on
the docks had no news to report, so Tom piled into a jeep with Arv and
sped off to the Fearing communications center. Hank remained aboard the
_Sea Hound_ to secure all gear.
Churning along the graveled road, Tom and Arv passed the launching area.
Huge, needle-nosed cargo rockets and the mighty spaceship _Titan_ loomed
against the sky. Tom's moon-voyaging _Challenger_ and his more recent
space craft the _Cosmic Sailer_ were also based there.
"Going to alert the Navy for a search?" Arv inquired as they reached the
communications building.
Tom nodded and braked the jeep to a screeching halt. "Coast Guard too.
They can pass the word to commercial shipping to be on the lookout."
A telephone rang as he hurried into the office.
"For you," the clerk said, looking up at Tom. "Nice timing!"
Tom grabbed the phone. His face widened into a grin. "Bud! You seagoing
jet stream! What happened?"
Arv grinned, too, in relief.
"Your antidetection gear worked so well we vanished right out of the
ocean!" Bud replied with a chuckle. Turning serious, he reported how his
jetmarine had trailed the mysterious intruder and how he and Mel had
captured the two Brungarian frogmen and their shore contact.
"Nice going, pal!" Tom exclaimed.
"But here's the catch," Bud went on. "When we took off again in our
hydrolungs to go back aboard ship, the jetmarine was gone!"
"Maybe she's trailing the enemy sub," Tom conjectured.
"That's what I'm hoping," Bud said uneasily. "Trouble is, our subs
aren't armed, and who knows about that Brungarian job? The way they
sling missiles around, anything could happen if she spots the
jetmarine."
Tom frowned. "I'll organize a search right away. Where are you calling
from?"
"Police headquarters at Sandbank."
"Okay. Take it easy, and I'll send a whirlybird to pick you up," Tom
promised.
"And don't forget some clothes," Bud added with a chuckle. "Mel and I
are getting chilly."
"Right!" Tom hung up and gave Arv Hanson a quick briefing.
Then he phoned the base airfield to dispatch a helicopter. He also
contacted the nearest Coast Guard station and put through a
long-distance call to Navy Headquarters in Washington to request help in
searching for the jetmarine. Finally he and Arv headed back to the
submarine docks in the jeep.
A flurry of activity followed as Tom detailed ships for the search and
rounded up crews. He was interrupted by a phone call in the loading
shed. It was the control-tower operator.
"One of our drone planes has spotted a sub approaching, skipper," the
operator reported.
"What bearing?" Tom demanded excitedly.
"One-seven-six." Tom was about to hang up and grab a pair of binoculars
when the operator added hastily, "Wait! It's responding to our radio
challenge!... That's ours, all right!"
Tom dashed out of the shed and scanned the sea to the southward. Sure
enough, a jetmarine had surfaced and was speeding toward the sub docks.
Minutes later, Tom was shaking hands warmly with Zimby Cox and Mack
Avery.
"Is Bud okay?" was Zimby's first question.
"Right! I just heard from him," Tom replied. "He and Mel captured those
enemy frogmen and a copter's on the way to pick them up. What happened
to you fellows?"
Zimby confirmed Bud's guess that they had taken off in pursuit of the
enemy craft.
"We figured Bud and Mel could make out on their own," Zimby explained.
"And we thought the sub's course or actions might tip us off to its
nationality. Also, if it tried any sabotage or mine-planting, we could
radio the Navy."
Instead, Cox went on, the mysterious craft had proceeded to a point
about ten miles offshore where it rendezvoused with another submarine.
"And get this, skipper!" Mack Avery put in. "The other sub was
undetectable! We were close enough to get a peek at it, but we couldn't
ping it on the sonarscope."
"That figures," Tom said grimly. "Those frogmen were apparently
Brungarians."
Zimby Cox related that a man had transferred from the undetectable
submarine to the one they had been following. The first sub had then
headed out to sea, as if to cross the ocean back to its home base. The
other had departed on a course toward the South Atlantic.
"Probably back to the lost missile area. At least that's the way we
figured it," Zimby added.
"And neither sub spotted you?" Tom questioned.
Zimby grinned wryly. "We might not be here if they _had_ detected us.
But I'm pretty sure they didn't. Anyhow, they gave no sign."
Tom was doubly elated at the news. His antidetection gear had evidently
worked perfectly in a showdown test with the enemy, even at close range.
Moreover, if the second sub was returning to the South Atlantic, it
seemed likely that the enemy, too, had not yet located the precious
missile with its data from Jupiter.
"You guys rate Navy medals," Tom told Zimby and Mack jubilantly. "Come
on back to Shopton with me and I'll buy you the juiciest steaks in
town!"
Before leaving the base, Tom called the Coast Guard and the Navy to
cancel his search request. He also telephoned a full report on the enemy
submarines to Admiral Walter.
After hanging up, Tom decided on another move. "Our antidetection gear
seems to have panned out pretty well," he told Hank. "I think we should
make use of it right away. By sending that jetmarine to the South
Atlantic, we might get a line on enemy activities down there."
Hank was in favor of the idea. He volunteered to prepare the jetmarine
for a cruise and take off from Fearing that very night.
"Thanks," Tom said with a parting handshake. "Keep us posted if you
learn anything."
Meanwhile, Bud and Mel Flagler had arrived at the base by helicopter.
They and their two shipmates flew back to the mainland with Tom and Arv
for a celebration dinner in town.
The next morning found the young inventor hard at work in his private
laboratory. He was tapping his head with his slide rule and frowning at
a blackboard scrawled with equations when Bud dropped in for a visit.
"What now, inventor boy?" his copilot asked. "Don't you ever give that
brain of yours a rest?"
"Oh, hi, Bud!" Tom looked around absent-mindedly. "I'm just trying to
figure out a way to crack the Brungarians' antisonar system."
"Good night!" Bud sank down on a lab stool. "You've come up with a way
to make our own subs undetectable. Isn't that enough?"
Tom shook his head. "Not if we want to keep track of those sneaks. And I
think I see a way to do it."
"How?"
"So far, I have been thinking about refining our own search sonar." Tom
explained that the new system he had in mind would send out a _complex_
pulse--that is, an underwater sound wave with many harmonics instead of
a single tone, sharp-peaked sound impulse.
"This will make it less likely that their antidetection gear will absorb
all of it," Tom went on. "What's not absorbed will return as an echo.
I'm also going to modify our receivers. But I've still not worked that
out."
Bud nodded, his forehead puckered in a look of concentration. "So--?"
"So our sonar picks up all that hash, and by means of a computer setup
filters out the sub's real echo from the shadow reflections."
"Hey! Sounds pretty cute," Bud said.
Tom broke into a dry chuckle. "Right--_if_ I can do it." After that job,
Tom added, he hoped to adapt his own antidetection methods to make
hydrolung wearers safe from underwater detection. "And if the Jupiter
prober hasn't been found by that time, Bud, I'm going to request the
Navy to let us take over the search alone."
Bud gave a whistle of excitement at the possibility of new undersea
adventures ahead. "Count me in, pal!"
The two boys broke off their conversation a short time later and went
back to the Administration Building for lunch with Tom's father.
Mr. Swift greeted them with a smile as they entered the big double
office. "Glad you could join me, boys! Chow's laid out quite a feast for
us today."
Three places had been set at the conference table, and an appetizing
repast of sizzling ham and sweet potatoes waited in covered dishes on a
lunch cart nearby.
"Mmm!" Bud inhaled the aroma. "Good chow from good old Chow!"
Tom switched on the videophone screen to a private channel to catch the
noon news while they ate. The newscaster wore a look of excitement as he
spoke without pausing for the usual commercial.
"The Brungarian government has just scored a propaganda bombshell!" he
reported. "In a news announcement released less than half an hour ago,
they stated that their Navy has perfected an _undetectable submarine_!"
The Swifts and Bud froze, openmouthed, at the newscaster's words.
"No need to tell you what this could mean to American security," he went
on. "If enemy subs slipped through our continental defenses, their
missiles could devastate the United States with scarcely an instant's
warning! The whole country's been rocked by the announcement. An
official comment by our Defense Department is expected at any moment."
"Sufferin' satellites!" Bud gulped.
Mr. Swift nodded. "It's a great propaganda stroke. But I wonder why
they've chosen to reveal their secret at this time."
Tom said thoughtfully, "Dad, do you suppose they've realized the fact
that we _know_ about their antisonar gear?"
"Could be, son. They may figure that since the secret is out already,
they may as well play it up for all it's worth." The elder scientist
paused and frowned. "Or it might be intended to force our hand."
"You mean in hopes of getting us to reveal whether or not we have an
antidetection system ourselves?" As his father nodded, Tom scowled. "If
so, that sub yesterday may have been observing our tests."
The telephone rang and Tom leaped to answer it. The caller was Dan
Perkins of the _Shopton Evening Bulletin_.
"You can guess why I'm calling, Tom," the editor said. "How about a
statement from you Swifts on this Brungarian sub story?"
"We found it very interesting," Tom said politely but noncommittally.
Parrying further questions, he hung up as soon as possible.
Mr. Swift approved Tom's policy of silence. Almost immediately the phone
began ringing again with a succession of calls from other newspapers and
wire services. Tom dashed off a brief, general statement and instructed
Miss Trent to give it to all further callers.
"Maybe this is a good time to make a private announcement to you
fellows," Mr. Swift said to the two boys, his eyes twinkling. "Do you
recall my telling you that Doc Simpson had isolated an unknown vitamin
from the space plants? Well, we've now discovered that this vitamin can
condition the human body to stay under water indefinitely. Doc is
putting some up in capsule form."
Both Tom and Bud gave whoops of glee at this news.
"Dad, you've helped overcome one of the big problems in our search for
the lost missile!" Tom exclaimed.