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

Hank Sterling walked off, not entirely satisfied with the explanation. The man would bear watching! He personally took it upon himself to trail Eskot all day, but the engineer went about his work and talked in a manner that showed nothing but intense loyalty to Tom and the whole Fearing Island project.

“Guess I was wrong,” the patternmaker told himself, putting the incident out of his mind.

The next morning Tom awakened at dawn. Thoughts of the exciting launching program ahead of him kept running through his mind and he could not fall asleep again. The young inventor dressed quietly and stole out of the house.

He went at once to the giant dummy rocket ship and greeted the two guards on duty. They reported that a dozen engineers had worked all night putting the finishing touches on the project.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked quickly. “Everything was set when I went to bed.”

The guards merely shrugged. They knew nothing about the intricacies of the rocket or its preparation for flight.

SABOTAGE 47

Tom was worried. He had left no instructions for further work. Even the elevator had been removed.

Panic seized him. Turning on the lights inside the ship, he glanced from left to right. Everything seemed to be in order in the first stage.

Quickly Tom climbed the small wall ladder to the next stage. He went on to the third, but found no evidence that any of the machinery had been tampered with.

Finally he came to the most vital part of the rocket-the fourth stage which was to return from its space flight and bring records of all kinds so that Tom would know how to proceed with his passenger rocket.