Next day Tom prepared to conduct a lecture-demonstration in his private glass-walled laboratory. Bud Barclay watched as the young inventor set up his equipment.
“Going to show them your new electrostatic-field device?” Bud asked.
Tom grinned and nodded. “If I have to make like a prof, I guess I can do it better with one of my own inventions!”
The boys turned as a door burst open. Harlan Ames, Enterprises’ tall, dark-haired security chief, came striding in with a piece of paper in his hand. “Tom!”
he said. “Take a look at this!”
Tom glanced at the sheet. It bore a message, hand-printed in Oriental-style letters:
THIS IS A FRIENDLY WARNING. FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, BE ON
GUARD AGAINST THE STUDENT ENGINEERS FROM VISHNAPUR. ONE IS A DEADLY SPY AND TRAITOR!
CHAPTER II
ACCIDENTAL BLACKOUT
“DID this warning come through the mail, Har-lan?”
“Yes, Tom-postmarked New York City.”
“Have you checked with Vishnapur’s representative in Washington?” Tom asked.
The security chief nodded. “The official himself got a similar note. He was very much upset-seemed to think the warning may be authentic, since Vishnapur is in a state of political unrest.”
Tom recalled that this was one reason why the young engineers, headed by Prince Jahan, the ruler’s son, had been sent to America for training. It was hoped that they might modernize their tiny country and thus raise its living standards.
Bud asked, “Did anyone check out these boys before they enrolled at Enterprises?”
“As thoroughly as we could,” Ames said. 10
ACCIDENTAL BLACKOUT 11
“Vishnapur is located deep in the Himalayas. Hardly any Westerners are allowed to enter. Our State Department got a rundown on each of the students, but mostly had to take Vishnapur’s official word that they were okay.”
Tom looked thoughtful. “Harlan, we shouldn’t take any hasty action. If we ban the whole group as security risks-especially when one’s the son of the Rajah-it could wreck friendly relations between our countries. Let’s check into this first.”
“But what if one of them is a spy?”
“He can’t do much more harm if we wait a bit,” Tom pointed out. “They’ve already had the run of the plant for several weeks. As far as my lecture-demonstration goes, I won’t be giving away any great secrets.”
But Tom did agree that Ames should keep the student engineers under surveillance. “Any leads on that rocket ship?” he added.
“Not yet,” Ames said. “Every country with a space program denies the craft was theirs.”
Soon afterward, the trainees from Vishnapur filed into Tom’s lab. Prince Jahan came first, the others following respectfully. All wore Western-style slacks and sports coats and were bareheaded, except the prince. He always appeared in a white turban, which was studded with a large star sapphire to mark his royal rank.
“Namaste!” They smiled at Tom and Bud and made the usual gesture of greeting-bobbing
12 POLAR-RAY DYNASPHERE
their heads and pressing their palms together with the fingers pointed upward.
Of the eight students, most looked like typical, handsome East Indians, with olive complexions, jet-black hair, and flashing white teeth. But several were almond-eyed, and seemed more Oriental.
Tom took his place at a central workbench and explained that his father could not be present. “I thought you might like to see some experiments I’ve been working on lately.”
A device stood on the bench in front of Tom. It consisted of a round plastic base with slender brass rods sticking up to support two spheres of quartz crystal, one inside the other. Two coils were mounted, one above and one below the crystal globes. From the lower coil, wires were connected to various points on the outer sphere. A thick cable led from the base to a portable electronic console.
“Ah! It will be most rewarding to see the latest invention of the famous Tom Swift Jr.!” said a thick-haired student named Rakshi.
“This isn’t an invention yet,” Tom said. “I just rigged it up to carry out some experiments in the area of electromagnetic radiation.” He explained that he had constructed the device to control and change the shape of electrical fields.
“This is done by the anti-inverse-square-wave technique I developed in making my megascope
ACCIDENTAL BLACKOUT 13
space prober.” Tom said that the technique could focus waves into a beam of constant signal strength, instead of allowing them to radiate outward in all directions.
“Now, I’ll demonstrate it,” said Tom.
A number of electroscopes were placed about the room. These were glass jars, each with a metal rod passing through its sulphur stopper. Every rod had a metal ball on top and two thin gold leaves hanging at the bottom inside the jar.
Tom took a plastic wand with a metal ball on one end and put an electric charge on the ball by touching it to a high-voltage terminal.
“Of course you all know what will happen when I bring this near the electroscopes,” he said.
Tom held the wand near the ball of each electroscope in turn. In every one, the gold leaves swung apart as they became similarly charged and repelled each other.
“As you see, the ball has to be very close to the electroscopes because its field is so weak. But now watch what happens when I place the ball inside my field distorter.”
Tom separated the crystal globes and inserted the metal ball. Then he twirled several tuning knobs on the console. As he aimed the globes at each electroscope, its leaves swung open!
“Amazing!” Prince Jahan murmured. “Your device has focused and beamed the ball’s electrostatic field as far as ten yards.”
14 POLAR-RAY DYNASPHERE
“Yes, and with a more powerful machine, the range can be almost unlimited,”
Tom said. He now showed the model he had taken to the space outpost. Its inner sphere contained a mixture of helium, neon, and argon gases and was plated with silvery metal strips. As Tom switched it on, the gas glowed with a bluish-red radiance.
“This model produces its own field, so there’s no need to insert a charged object. The inner sphere can be rotated on any axis, making it unnecessary for me to aim the device by hand.”
Tom explained that by shaping the electric field into paraboloidal form, he could make use of its ability to reflect electromagnetic radiation and have it serve as an antenna.
The young inventor demonstrated this by turning on a portable TV set. He tuned his device to the proper frequency and the screen promptly went black.
When Tom turned off his device, the picture appeared again as clearly as ever.
A student spoke up. “The electric field drew in the whole picture signal so that none was picked up by the TV antenna-is that it?”
“Right,” Tom said. “And now for an even more interesting experiment. As you know, white light is made up of a whole spectrum of colors-red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. I’ll tune the field to trap light waves of the frequency of green-and watch what happens to the overhead lights.”
Everyone stared upward. The lights began to
ACCIDENTAL BLACKOUT 15
darken and take on a reddish-purple hue. Suddenly they went out completely! Even the daylight flooding in through the windows faded. In a moment the room was plunged into pitch-blackness except for the glow from the sphere!
“Hey!” Bud cried. “What’s happening?”
An alarm siren shrilled across the plant grounds.
Tom worked frantically to correct the trouble as the room filled with a smell of burning insulation. Full light was finally restored.
“I’m afraid my experiment misfired. Instead of trapping light of one wave length, the field pulled in a wide band of frequencies-the whole visible spectrum.”
“And in doing so blacked out the whole plant?” Rakshi asked with a supercilious smile.
“Yes, my device absorbed so much energy it burned out the control circuits,”
Tom admitted. Then he excused himself to answer the ringing phone.
Ames was calling from Enterprises’ Security to inquire what had happened.
As Tom explained, Ames chuckled.
“Maybe the Defense Department could use that gadget for air-raid blackouts, skipper.”
“Very funny. You’d better make an announcement over the PA that everything’s okay, Har-lan.”
The young inventor checked his electrostatic—
16 POLAR-RAY DYNASPHERE
field device and discovered the trouble had been caused in the laser-driven oscillator circuit.
“I’ll have to make the tuning more selective,” he explained. “Meantime, class dismissed!”
Prince Jahan said politely, “We thank you, Tom, for this chance to see a great young scientist at work. Please do not feel that your demonstration was a failure.”
“Even the-er-accident was most interesting,” added a student named Gyong.
As the Vishnapurians filed out, Bud clapped his chum on the back. “If I know Tom Swift, he’ll wind up with something twice as good.”
Bud watched as the young inventor set to work disassembling his field device. Some time later there was a knock on the door and two pretty girls stepped into the laboratory.
“Well! Sandy and Phyl!” Bud exclaimed.