Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung | Page 4

Give my love to Mother and Sandy."
"Right, Dad. So long!" Tom hung up and reported the news to Bud.
"What kind of underwater gear will we use?" Bud inquired.
"I'm not sure myself," Tom admitted. "Guess we'll have to take along a
variety of equipment and play it by ear."
Before proceeding with his search plans, Tom phoned home to inform
his mother of his arrival. Mrs. Swift was sympathetic when she heard
of the failure to recover the probe missile.
"I'm sure you'll locate it," she said encouragingly.
"Some of your cooking will sure help brighten the picture," Tom
replied with a grin. As he put down the receiver a moment later, he told
Bud, "You're having dinner with us tonight, pal. Fried chicken and
biscuits."
Bud licked his lips. "Lead me to it!"
Chuckling, Tom began drawing up a list of supplies for the expedition.
Bud helped with the details, after which Tom phoned the underground
hangar and the Swifts' rocket base at Fearing Island to give the orders
for the next day. Crewmen were also detailed for the trip.

It was six o'clock when the two boys finally piled into Tom's low-slung
sports car and drove to the Swifts' big, pleasant house on the outskirts
of Shopton. Sandra, Tom's blond, vivacious sister, greeted them at the
door.
"About time!" she teased. "We were beginning to think you two had
taken off somewhere."
"Think I'd leave town while you and that fried chicken are in Shopton?"
Bud grinned.
"What a line!" Sandy's blue eyes twinkled. "I know it's the fried
chicken you're really interested in."
"Where's the rest of that 'we' you were referring to?" Tom inquired.
"I'm sorry, Tom," Sandy said in a mournful voice. "Phyl couldn't make
it."
As Tom's face fell, she burst out giggling and a second later Phyllis
Newton emerged from the kitchen. Brown-eyed, with long dark hair,
Phyl was the daughter of Tom Sr.'s old comrade-in-arms and lifelong
chum "Uncle Ned" Newton. Like Sandy, she was seventeen.
"You didn't think I'd miss this rare evening, did you, Tom?" she said,
laughing. "After all, it isn't often we see you two."
Sandy and Phyl liked to needle the boys about their infrequent dates,
due to Tom's and Bud's busy schedules.
Mrs. Swift, slender and sweet-faced, gave Tom a hug and greeted Bud
warmly. Over the delicious dinner, the conversation turned to the
mysterious thief missile.
"Who on earth could have fired it?" Sandy asked.
Tom shrugged. "No telling--yet. There's more than one unfriendly
country which would give a lot for the data picked up on our Jupiter
shot."

"You aren't expecting more trouble, are you?" Phyl put in uneasily.
Tom passed the question off lightly in order not to alarm his mother
and the two girls. But inwardly he was none too sure of what his survey
expedition might encounter in trying to locate the lost probe missile.
Ever since his first adventure in his Flying Lab, the youthful inventor
had been involved in many daring exploits and thrilling situations.
Time and again, Tom had had to combat enemy spies and vicious
plotters bent on stealing the Swifts' scientific secrets.
His research projects had taken him far into outer space and into the
depths of the ocean. With his atomic earth blaster, Tom had probed
under the earth's crust at the South Pole, and in other adventures he had
faced danger in the jungles of Africa, New Guinea, and Yucatan. His
latest achievement, receiving the visitor from Planet X, had been to
construct a robot body for this mysterious brain energy from another
world. Now, Tom realized, he was on the brink of another adventure
which might hold unexpected dangers.
Early the next morning the majestic Sky Queen was hoisted from its
underground hangar berth and hauled by tractor to its special runway.
This mammoth, atomic-powered airplane had been Tom's first major
invention. A three-deck craft, it was equipped with complete laboratory
facilities for research in any corner of the globe. Jet lifters in the belly
of the fuselage enabled the craft to take off vertically and also to hover.
As Tom supervised the loading of the equipment, a foghorn voice
boomed, "'Mornin', buckaroos!"
The chunky figure of Chow Winkler came into view. Formerly a
chuck-wagon cook in Texas, Chow was now head chef on Tom's
expeditions. As usual, a ten-gallon hat was perched on his balding head
and he was stomping along in high-heeled boots.
"Wow! A shirt to end all shirts!" Tom chuckled.
"Real high style, eh?" Chow twirled about to display his latest Western

creation. The shirt seemed to be made of silvery fishlike scales, which
glistened like a rainbow.
"I figured as how this was just the thing fer an ocean jaunt," Chow
added with a grin. "How soon do we