Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung | Page 6

grasped the situation. Strong arms reached out and hauled the two boys aboard.
Both of them were shivering and writhing in pain, only half conscious.
"They have the bends!" Arv Hanson cried in alarm. "Signal the Sky Queen to drop a sling!"
The boys' masks were ripped off. Within moments, Bud had been tightly secured to the sling, which was reeled back up into the plane. Tom followed in a few minutes. Doc Simpson took charge of the patients immediately. After a quick examination, he had the boys placed in a small decompression chamber in the Sky Queen's sick bay.
"How are they?" Hank asked anxiously as he peered through the window of the chamber. The medic had given Bud a sedative and he was already fast asleep. Tom remained awake.
"Aside from the pain, not in too bad shape," Doc Simpson replied.
It turned out that Tom's case was not so serious, but Bud had to stay in bed. With Tom, it was only a matter of decompression and he soon was up and about.
Chow, in a chef's cap, with an apron around his paunchy stomach, had come stomping in hastily from the galley. "Pore lil ole boys," he fussed. "Brand my snorkel, I never should've let you young'uns go pokin' around down below there without me around to keep an eye on things!"
Tom slapped the loyal old Texan on the back. "If you want a dive, come along."
"You're goin' back down?" Chow asked.
"In the seacopter," Tom replied. "To find out, if possible, who fired that projectile at us."
"Then count me in!" Chow declared, stripping off his apron. "I just hope I get my hands on them sneakin' polecats!"
Slim Davis would pilot the Sky Queen back to Shopton at once, because of Bud. Tom and Chow, meanwhile, would join Hank and his crew aboard the Sea Hound.
Ten minutes later the sleek seacopter, its searchlight off to avoid detection, was plummeting downward through water that changed before their eyes from greenish blue to a deep-gray gloom. Iridescent fish darted past the cabin window.
"Think the enemy sub was searching for our Jupiter prober?" Hank asked.
"It must have been," Tom reasoned.
Hank frowned. "Which means they must have figured out the missile's position as fast as our side did."
"And they'll play rough to stop us from finding it," Arv added forebodingly.
Within moments, the group clustered in the pilot's cabin felt a gentle bump as the Sea Hound settled on the submerged plateau. Tom relaxed at the controls but kept the rotors going so the craft would remain submerged. Meanwhile, the sonarman was probing the surrounding waters.
"Any pings?" Tom asked.
The man shook his head without taking his eyes from the sonarscope. "Nothing yet."
Hank Sterling donned a hydrophone headset and listened intently. The silence deepened in the Sea Hound's cabin. Suddenly Hank stiffened and the sonarman cried out:
"A blip, skipper! At two o'clock!"
It was moving rapidly on the scope--something streaking toward their starboard beam!
"Good night! It's another missile!" Tom gasped.
He darted back to the controls and gunned the reverse jets just in time! The missile flashed across their bow.
"Great bellowin' longhorns!" Chow gasped weakly. His leathery face had gone pale under its tan. "The yellow-livered drygulchers!"
"I don't get it," Arv Hanson spoke up. "If they're in firing range, we should have detected them, shouldn't we?"
Tom nodded grimly. "Whoever our enemies are, they must have perfected a way to make themselves invisible to underwater detection.
"And we'll have to do the same!" he vowed inwardly. Aloud, Tom said, "I hate to run from those sneaks, but if we stick around, we'll be asking for trouble."
Slowing the rotors to permit the craft to rise, Tom guided the Sea Hound back to the surface. Then he reversed blade pitch for air flight and gunned the atomic turbines. The seacopter rose steeply above the billowing South Atlantic.
Tom radioed a terse report of their experience to the task-force commander and in turn was told that none of the naval craft had either sighted or picked up any sign of a strange sub.
As they streaked homeward, Chow was still fuming. "Why don't we post a dummy sub there to scare off the varmints?"
"I'll pass the idea along to the Navy," Tom said with a grin.
Night had fallen when the searchers arrived back at Fearing Island. Tom cleared with the tower and landed, then went by jeep to base headquarters. He called Enterprises and learned that Bud's condition was improved, and that Mr. Swift had returned that afternoon. He spoke to him about the mystery sub.
"This is bad news indeed, son," Mr. Swift said, after hearing how the attacker had defied detection. "You'd better inform Admiral Walter. He had to fly back to Washington."
"I'll call him right away," Tom promised.
The admiral was equally disturbed when Tom succeeded in reaching him. "We must find that missile as soon as possible--at