Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 04 – And His Giant Robot

Tom remained at the control panel while Bud went with Radnor in the Sky Queen to find Mr. Swift and the caravan. Within three hours the Citadel was restored to full activity.

During the two days preceding the start of formal operations, Robert Turnbull briefed the Swifts on his brother’s activities since his escape from Blackstone.

He confirmed Tom’s theory that Raymond had used the stolen relotrol to distort Tom’s control of Stan Lee, and that he had taken over the giant Ator. In his haste to move the crows’ mobile control

210 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT ROBOT

unit, Raymond had been forced to leave the timing gear of the bank-vault door in the shack near Swift Enterprises.

With Robert’s clues, police rounded up all the hirelings that had worked under the Briggin gang, including the fake magician who had wanted to rent Herbert. One of the henchmen confessed that he had dropped the small bomb on the Citadel from a highflying jet. Another admitted that he was the stowaway who had overpowered Jones and his crew on their flight west with the cybernetic arms.

Raymond was recommitted to the institution, but specialists at Blackstone were optimistic about his complete recovery.

The day of the Citadel’s opening ceremonies arrived. Tom had arranged for Phyl, Sandy, Chow, and his mother to fly out with a planeload of officials from Swift Enterprises. High government dignitaries and representatives of the Army and Navy were present as observers.

When the audience was seated before a large television screen, Tom and his father entered the control house. Mr. Swift set the cybernetic arms in operation, turning over their controls to a technician, while his son fed signal tapes to Ator’s panel. Through the camera eyes of Tom’s great invention, the viewers saw the nuclear quenching rods slide into place, smoothly regulating the rate of chain-reaction conversion.