Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 03 – And His Rocket Ship

Out across the Atlantic the clouds, in reality drifting at eight thousand feet, appeared to hover just above the waves like a mist. The horizon was already sloping off, giving the earth a mound shape.

“Check time!” Billing radioed.

“Sixteen seconds and we’ve i cached the ionosphere!”

Suddenly the rocket was jarred by a violent movement. The abrupt motion nearly wrenched the boys from their racks.

168

GHOST WINDS 169

“Hey!” Bud cried. “We must have collided with something!”

“Whatever it is, hang on!” Tom exclaimed, as the rocket ship gave a sharp twist.

The boys had just managed to grip the sides of their acceleration couches when the rocket, already traveling straight up at 4500 miles an hour, gave an even more violent lurch.

“Tom!” gasped Bud. “What’s happened to us?”

As the huge rocket shuddered under this latest impact, Tom and Bud clung tenaciously to their racks.

“We-we must be-caught in one of-those jet streams!” Tom managed to say between the violent motions.

“You mean-what they call ‘ghost winds’?” Bud asked breathlessly.

Tom nodded. “I only hope we can ride ‘er out-no telling how long it’ll last.”

Tom knew that these windstorms in the ionosphere travel as fast as a thousand miles an hour. Unlike the ones that occur nearer the earth, the aerial tides flow for a certain time in one direction and then without warning reverse themselves.

This reversal was exactly what Tom wished might happen. The shift in current would free the rocket from the raging flow of air and permit the ship to continue on its original course. Before he had a chance to express this hope aloud, the Star Spear suddenly stopped its erratic behavior, and then swooped upward under enormous acceleration.