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

A repetition of the message from Rotzog decided Tom. “Let’s risk it,” he said to Bud, and began to tap out an answer.

A RECORD VICTORY 203

“This is Tom Swift. What happened? Where are you?” Tom repeated the message.

After a short pause came an answer. “Rotzog speaking. Johnson is with me.

We’re drifting into space. Our air conditioner’s going bad. We’ll roast to death!

You must help us!”

“You must help them!” Bud exclaimed heatedly. “Five minutes ago they were shooting at us! Now, Rotzog has the nerve to ask you to save them!”

Tom was already sending out a message requesting more information about their fuel.

“We’re using oxygen-alcohol mixture. Johnson gave me a description of your secret apparatus and I built an ozone converter like yours. On our last pass at you, it failed. Have only two thousand gallons of fuel left.”

“What’s your position?” Tom asked. “And the composition of your fuel?”

Bud gazed at Tom incredulously. “You aren’t really planning to help those guys, are you?” he asked in disbelief.

“I don’t really know whether we can yet,” Tom answered, “but I’m beginning to get some ideas. Let’s feed his radio signals into the Spacelane Brain and find out what his position and course are. We can learn whether that much of his story is true, anyway.”

Tom listened intently as Rotzog answered, then said to Bud, “He’s using one of the first mixtures I tried. It became inactive at fast rates of flow. It can be reactivated.”

204 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ROCKET SHIP

The Spacelane Brain confirmed Rotzog’s position and verified that he was not far behind Tom in the same orbital track.