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46 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT ROBOT
“Tom!” he exclaimed. “Thank goodness! I thought you-”
The muffled sounds reached Tom, who rushed to Bud’s side. “I’m okay, Bud.
The explosion was in the hangar. It wrecked the sprinkler system. The fire’s getting out of control!”
“How about using the bags of sand? We can toss ‘em in,” Bud suggested.
“No, the fumes are too strong. They’d soon deactivate our mask purifiers.”
“What’ll we do?” Bud asked, knowing moments of delay were costly. The whole ship might go!
“Get the robot and the control board,” Tom replied. “Bring them here. I’m going to the lab for some powerful fire-fighting chemical.”
The boys dashed off. Each worked like a demon to accomplish his task. Bud was waiting in the smoky corridor when Tom returned with two fifty-pound cylinders of methyl bromide and a few yards of plastic pressure tubing with a nozzle attached to one end.
“Can you control Walter from behind a closed door?” Bud asked.
“Yes,” Tom answered, uncoiling the hose and attaching it to the valve on one of the methyl bromide cylinders. As he began to twist open the cylinder’s needle valve, Tom asked Bud to raise one of the robot’s arms and tie the nozzle of the hose to it. When everything was ready, Tom jumped to the control panel, saying: “Open the door, Bud.”
NARROW ESCAPE 47
Simultaneously one boy pushed a button that controlled the hangar door while the other set the robot in motion. As Walter clumped forward into the hangar, tongues of flame spit from the opening and fierce heat waves rolled into the corridor. Bud closed the door, leaving a crack just wide enough for the hose.