Rakshi broke into loud ranting, but Prince Jahan silenced him curtly.
Tom went on, “Rakshi, if you’re innocent, you won’t mind being searched. No doubt you brought along a minature camera to snap whatever pictures you could at the base. When you sneaked in to look at the blueprints, you probably photographed those, too.”
Bud moved toward Rakshi. But the young Asian whipped out a thin, curved dagger. His eyes glittering, he hissed, “I shall kill anyone who gets in my way!”
Rakshi darted toward the door. Chow would have tried to block his escape, but Tom shouted, “Don’t, Chow! Let him go!”
The Texan fumed. “Boss, you’re not goin’ to let that sidewinder escape, are you?”
“I think he’ll find it pretty hard to escape.”
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Tom strode to the windows and pulled aside the curtains. The others joined him. By this time, Rakshi was dashing across the airfield. Two small craft stood on the field-a helicopter and a sleek little Swift plane called a Pigeon Special.
Rakshi headed for the copter, leaped aboard, and gunned the rotors.
Tom pulled out his pocket pencil radio and called the tower. Then he said to the others, “Come on outside and we’ll see what happens.”
As the group climbed down from the Queen’s boarding ladder and peered up at the sky, they could see Rakshi’s helicopter whirring aloft. Several small drone planes were circling in the blue. One darted from formation and dived at the helicopter with a whistling shriek.
“He’s nailed!” Bud cried a moment later.
The interceptor drone banked sharply and began gliding down toward the airfield. The helicopter followed helplessly.
“How was it done, Tom?” Jahan asked.
“By an invention of mine called a landing forcer,” Tom explained quietly. “The gadget’s controlled from the tower.”
Several security guards dashed out on the field as the helicopter touched down. Rakshi put up a violent struggle but was soon overpowered and handcuffed. Tom and Ames went to Base Security with Jahan to question the prisoner.
As Tom had suspected, Rakshi was found to be
THE KIDNAPPED SATELLITE 123
carrying a miniature camera. But no amount of grilling could shake his sneering silence.
Ames said in disgust, “Keep him under tight guard and turn him over to the proper authorities.”
As Jahan and Tom left the Security Office, the prince asked, “What will happen to Rakshi?”
“We have enough evidence to send him to prison for espionage. But in some cases, spies are deported. Perhaps the U. S. State Department will do that.”
“My father would certainly prefer that. Rakshi is one of our people. He has brought shame to us, and it is our responsibility to see that he pays for his crime.
Rest assured he will be punished severely in Vishnapur.”
“I think the State Department will understand and cooperate. After all, our governments are on friendly terms,” Tom assured him. “But remember the real brains behind this plot is probably still at large in your own country. Susak died without talking.”
“No doubt my uncle, Prince Gopal, will know how to make Rakshi talk.”
Soon afterward, Mr. and Mrs. Swift arrived on the island with Sandy and Phyl to watch the boys take off on their satellite recovery test.
“Sandy wants to christen the new spaceship, Tom,” said Mr. Swift. “She and Phyl have a name all picked out. Okay with you?”
124 POLAR-RAY DYNASPHERE
“Sure.” Tom chuckled. “It’s bound to be better than Flying Junkwagonl”
They drove to the launching area and Sandy unwrapped a bottle of ginger ale. The others accompanied her as she walked up to the craft. With a neat swing Sandy cracked the bottle across the fuselage, saying: “I christen thee Dynasphere Ranger-Dyna for short!”
“A swell name!” Tom said, grinning.
After warm farewells, the boys prepared for take-off and soon the Ranger zoomed aloft with a steady blast of its repulsion beam.
The astronauts shot upward mile after mile. Soon the atmosphere outside their craft thinned away. The sunlit morning sky darkened into the blue-black void of space. Stars glittered at various distances.
When they reached an altitude of five hundred miles, Tom guided the craft deftly into orbit. Then he locked the controls and turned to Bud.
“Okay, fly-boy. Let’s go satellite fishing.”
“Great! I can’t wait to see you cast this electrostatic net of yours!”
They climbed to the observation dome and Tom began setting a row of dials on the dynasphere’s control console. He explained to Bud that he was feeding their orbital position and that of the satellite into a sighting computer. “That will automatically aim the electrostatic field.”
THE KIDNAPPED SATELLITE 125
As he clicked a switch and twirled several knobs, the huge crystal sphere on the Dynasphere Ranger’s tail glowed with a bluish-red radiance.
“What a sight!” Bud gasped in awe. Then he chuckled. “Looks as if we’ve hitched our Flying Junkwagon to a star! … What now?”
“Watch it bring home the bacon-I hope.”
Minutes went by while the boys waited tensely.
“Skipper, I’m still wondering why you let Rak-shi get off the Sky Queen,” Bud remarked some time later. “Something tells me you had a reason.”
Tom nodded. “I was curious to see if he’d go for the Pigeon Special or the helicopter.”
Before Tom could go on, Bud leaped to his feet and pointed excitedly to a glittering object in the distance. “Here she comes, pal!”
The boys grabbed binoculars. To Bud’s amazement, instead of looking pleased at the success of his device, Tom was staring aghast at the fast-approaching satellite.
“Is anything wrong?” Bud asked.
“You bet! This isn’t our satellite, Bud!”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Positive. The baby we’re after looks like an ocean buoy, with four winglike solar panels. This job has an octagonal instrument package with two blades sticking straight out and a dish antenna projecting below.” Tom groaned. “I think we’ve snared a Brungarian satellite!”
“Brungarian? Wow!” Bud knew that this for—
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eign power was an old space rival of America and the Swifts. Its cosmonauts had tried to seize the phantom satellite and had raced Tom to the moon. “How did it happen, skipper?”
Tom was already checking. “Just plain bad luck. Its orbital path must have crossed our field and we pulled in the satellite.”
By now, the object was near enough to be seen clearly with the naked eye. It was hurtling closer to the Ranger second by second. Tom switched off power. He slowed the object with the repelatron catchers and with magnetic grapples hugged it neatly into place in the curve of the fuselage. Its aluminum struts and gold panels reflected the sun’s rays with dazzling brilliance.
Tom studied the satellite from the observation dome. “Brungarian, all right.
Must be the orbiting space lab they launched recently. Our trackers found out it failed to achieve proper orbit.”
“What a mess!” Bud muttered. “The Brungarians may even blame their own failure on us!”
Tom’s brain was working fast. Unless he could figure a way out of their dilemma, an international incident was likely to result! He hurried below and radioed George Billing.
“Get me the full orbital data on this Brungarian baby-fast,” he ordered, “especially what its intended orbit was to be. They published all the information before they realized the shot was a flop.”
THE KIDNAPPED SATELLITE 127
Within minutes, Dillon had received it from Enterprises’ Data Storage Center and transmitted it to the Dyna Ranger.
“Thanks, George,” Tom responded. “One more thing-ship a three-D telejector over to Fearing pronto, and have the boys in our video-film lab tape a big three-dimensional sign for me-in Brungarian. Get a pencil and I’ll dictate the wording in English.”
Bud grinned as he listened.
After signing off, Tom gunned Dyna into action and sped upward toward the correct orbital path of the Brungarian satellite. Reaching the proper altitude, he released the magnetic grapples and maneuvered the satellite precisely into position, using the repelatron catchers.
“Nice shooting, skipper!” Bud said.
In a moment the Dynasphere Ranger was plunging back toward earth. As they landed on Fearing, a truck driven by Arv Hanson sped up, bringing the telejector equipment.
“The news is already out, skipper!” Arv reported breathlessly. “The Brungarians were tracking you and their satellite, and they figured out right off what happened. You should hear their propaganda broadcast about Tom Swift pirating their super-duper space lab!”
Tom grinned calmly. “In that case, we’d better not keep them waiting.”
With the equipment aboard, Dyna took off
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again. This time Tom headed for an orbital position directly over the capital city of Brungaria. From here, he switched on his telejector and trained its beam earthward.
In the Brungarian capital, traffic halted and crowds gathered, craning their necks at the sky. A huge sign in glowing red, white, and blue letters had appeared, visible for hundreds of miles:
TOM SWIFT APOLOGIZES FOR ACCIDENTALLY CAPTURING YOUR
SATELLITE. YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS NOT YET INFORMED YOU THAT