“Well, what is it you want?” snarled the Kranjovian spy in his thick accent.
“I want to keep you out of trouble if I can,” Tom said.
“Trouble? Ha! It is you who are in trouble, my friend, not I,” Bronich said, laughing.
Tom ignored the gibe. “I don’t believe you have any right to be operating here,” Tom said, but added quickly, “However, if you do have, why can’t we go about our experiments peacefully?”
The young inventor was mentally sparring for time. The longer he could delay Bronich from using the usurped earth blaster, the better were the chances of having the subversives captured.
“You ask for peace?” Bronich stormed. “You who have stolen the earth blaster from Kranjovia?”
PRISONER OF WAR 183
Anger surged through Tom. “Who stole what?”
“You stole our idea,” Bronich said. “Kranjovian engineers developed this ten years ago!”
“Why didn’t you make use of it?”
“We were improving on it for our glorious country,” Bronich replied.
“Your facts are slightly inaccurate,” Tom said, trying hard to control his temper. “You stole the blueprints from me.”
At this Bronich turned to view his cohorts, an ugly sneer on his face. Pointing to Tom, he shouted:
“Liar!”
Impulsively Tom lashed out and hit the spy hard on the mouth, cutting his lower lip. But before he could land another blow, the Kranjovians had overpowered him.
“You will live to regret this!” Bronich hissed.
In the cabin of the Sky Queen, Bud had seen everything that happened and he realized that by himself it was hopeless to try to free Tom from the enemy.
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