“Blake and I have our equipment all boxed and ready,” Dr. Faber announced quietly. “Here is a list of everything we’re taking. I trust there will still be room for your atomic earth blaster.”
His gray eyes twinkled behind their thick-lensed spectacles. Tom grinned as he realized that this distinguished scientist considered Voorhees something of a stuffed shirt-just as he and Bud did!
“By the way, Doctor,” said the young inventor, “perhaps you and your friends would like to see the layout of our Flying Lab-the Sky Queen.”
“Delighted!” Faber murmured.
A FLIGHT TO ALASKA 111
Leading his guests to the underground hangar, Tom beamed open the sliding steel door with his electronic key. They followed him down a flight of steps. On the hangar floor below stood a great silver airplane with rakish, swept-back wings.
The Sky Queen had already carried Tom and his friends on a number of amazing adventures.
Atomic-powered, the huge ship was a flying laboratory, equipped with all the latest scientific instruments. Normally it carried a small jet plane called the Kangaroo Kub, as well as the Skeeter, a jet-lifted helicopter.
The laboratory area was located amidships on the second deck of the plane.
Both soundproof and air-conditioned, it was divided into a number of cubicles.
Each compartment was equipped for some special field of scientific study.
“How do you like it?” Tom asked Daryl Blake, as he showed him the botany compartment.
The red-haired, freckle-faced scientist stared in amazement at the microscopes, the plant-growing tanks, the well-stocked shelves of chemical nutrients for hydroponic experiments, and all the other numerous items of equipment.