He talked with Ames and Billing for several minutes about added security measures. It was decided that every plane used by the islanders would carry a ray distorter, an invention of Tom’s which had beaten a gang of mysterious pirates. The ray distorter was highly effective against paralyzing supersonic ray guns. The inventor also ordered enough distorters to be set up on the island to shield it completely from aerial attack of this sort.
“I’m going up now in the Sky Queen to test the new dual-duty cosmic-ray altimeter and stellar
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sextant,” Tom told his friends. “I’ll have a distorter rigged on top of the Flying Lab before it takes off.”
Calling the hangar, he told Bud to wait until this was done. An hour later the installation had been made and the giant plane was ready for flight. Tom, Bud, Hanson, and Sterling went aboard. Tom cut in the jet lifters.
The ground vibrated as the enormous craft ascended vertically from the runway. Surging upward with incredible speed, it pierced the early afternoon haze and disappeared from the sight of those on the island.
When the altimeter needle read ten thousand feet, Tom switched to the forward thrust jets and the Queen arrowed into a graceful arcing climb.
Putting the plane on gyro pilot, Tom invited the others aft to the laboratory to inspect the instrument he had invented. As they entered, he said: “This navigational equipment is designed only for the rather short distances that we expect to travel at first. When we really get out into space we’ll depend more on the radius indicator.”