Tom groaned and looked at his own results. “Now I know something’s wrong!”
“Why? How do you make it out?”
“According to my version, they communicate with each other by mental telepathy, and each one has two heads!”
Once again, father and son stared at each other in silent bafflement. Then both roared with laughter!
“Well, you’re right about one thing, son,” said Mr. Swift when his laughter had subsided to a chuckle. “There certainly must be something wrong with our translations!”
“What I don’t understand is how the dickens we came out so differently?”
“I’m afraid it’s these new symbols-the ones we haven’t received before. They must drastically alter the meaning of the other symbols. But how? That’s a problem that will take plenty of brainwork.”
“Guess it’ll have to wait till this South Pole expedition is over,” said Tom. With a rueful smile, he crumpled up the papers he had been writing on and tossed them into the wastebasket.
A week later the three government scientists who had been assigned to accompany the expedition arrived at Swift Enterprises. They had been invited 94 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ATOMIC BLASTER
to observe the atomic earth blaster on its first real test-the digging of the Pine Hill tunnel.
In the absence of Mr. Swift, who was away on business at the Citadel, the Swifts’ atomic energy plant, Tom and Bud acted as a greeting committee for the three visitors.
The oldest member of the trio was Dr. Anton Faber, a world-famous zoologist. He was a tall, slender, gray-haired man, with keen, steel-gray eyes peering out through thick-lensed glasses.